Georgie never played well with others, but she was not the “I prefer animals to people” type. She did, but she preferred individuals to animals, which had to count for something. She was young and small for her age, small enough to seem even younger, and that showed her the truth in people. So she knew that many were jerks but far more were good, decent people.

She still felt closer to the tiny black kitten than she had to any human being in a long time. It was tiny. It had tiny ears and tiny claws, tiny eyes and a tiny black nose, even a tiny mewl, like it couldn’t work up a full one. The kitten crawled over her hands and snuggled against her belly, each strand of tiny black fur sticking out like it did not have enough body to hold onto.

Georgie loved that kitten. Superstition aside, she liked to believe it had loads of brothers and sisters and a mamma somewhere, that she might wake up swarmed with black cats. It didn’t exactly happen that way, but she did wake up with something. There is an expression about what one wakes up with when lying down with dogs. It turned out to be more than a metaphor and true about cats, too.