Butterflies

Chapter 7
Aunt Ann disappeared

Lika understood that she had to be more persuasive in her argument to make Rita change her mind about the baby. In fact, she did not know much about having children, being pregnant, and all the sort of things. So she decided to study the topic thoroughly. She turned on the computer, waited until the antivirus loaded and opened the Google Chrome browser. In the address bar she typed the word “pregnancy” and clicked the first link in the list, but the site appeared to be difficult to navigate. It was much easier with the second. There she found an automatic pregnancy calendar, which gave out the expected date of delivery. It was then that she learnt that pregnancy term was counted in weeks. So Rita was supposedly in her sixth week. Then Lika read about baby’s week by week development, which was accompanied by pictures.

“He’s so tiny, just like a pea, but his brain is being already formed. He’s able to respond to external stimuli, and you can hear his heart beating,” Lika summarized after she had finished reading the article. “He certainly doesn’t look like a human yet… he’s something resembling a lizard,” she examined the pictured on the screen. “Yes, he is,” she concluded.

“Anyway, he’s got his soul, his conscious and his feelings. He can feel his mother’s emotions as well,” Lika heard Coco’s voice inside her head.

“There’s nothing about it here,” objected Lika.

“Take my word. I know it for sure.”

“I guess you’re right.”

Lika surfed the Internet until she came across a YouTube video which showed the detailed process of a fetus formation and its further development. She watched it in a burst of inspiration. “It’s incredible!” she admired in the beginning – “Amazing! Just wonderful how it all works! It looks like space… kinda birth of a new star”. “How cute and funny he is,” she melted at the end. “Rita must see this!” She finally said to herself and dialed Rita’s number. On hearing Rita’s “hello’, she began to tell the friend about the video, but Rita refused to listen because she was about to go to bed.

“Going to bed?” Lika got surprised. “So early?”

“Lika, have all the clocks in you flat got broken? Then let me tell you, it’s twenty seven past eleven.”

“You’re joking and it’s nice,” Lika replied and turned round to the window to check the sun. It was dark outside. And it was really twenty seven past eleven on the clock.

“Holy moly! I’ve lost the track of time. I’m sorry, dear. May I see you in the morning?”

“Year, okay,” Rita said wearily.

Then they wished good night to each other, and Lika sat on her bed thinking over the thing. “How could it come I’ve surfed the Internet for so long and haven’t noticed how much time went by? And where’s Aunt Ann? She hasn’t looked into my room not even once. She hasn’t called me to have dinner. Has something happened to her?”

The girl jumped to her feet and ran to her aunt’s room. The room was empty. There was no one in the bathroom and the kitchen but the cats sleeping each in its place – Coco in the basket, Dasha and Masha in their boxes. Lika was nonplussed; scary thoughts about her aunt’s disappearance burst into her head. “She might have gone to the shop, and on the way she might have fallen over and broken her leg, and at the moment she might be lying there unable to get help, or she might have been attacked by robbers…”

“Neither one thing, nor another,” appeared in her head, and the girl immediately recognized Coco. It had got out of the basket stretching itself. “She must’ve been kidnapped by aliens and might be experimented on at the moment.”

Lika did not understand whether the cat had said a joke or had told the truth. “Kidding?” she asked.

“No, I’m not. Just giving you another possible variant because your versions are… a bit dull and boring. She’s broken her leg…” Coco muttered. “Why? Why don’t you think that she’s fallen in love with a biker, and now they both are speeding through the night?

Lika imagined her aunt on a bike holding the waist of a big bearded biker and smiled.

“Or she might have found a case full of dollars and may have taken it to the bank. And she might be late because the case is too big and won’t get into a bank box,” Coco went on.

“Banks close at five,” the girl objected with laughter.

“How sound of you!” the cat pretended to be indignant “You’ve got regulations everywhere. You’ve just ruined such a perfect version! I’ve already prepared myself for all the yummy sausages Aunt Ann could spend the money on!”

Coco was so funny at the moment because it opened its mouth and pretended to swallow a sausage, and then it began to lick itself. Lika got amused by the scene, she could not help laughing.

“You’re a fun,” she said to Coco through laughter.

“Me? In my eyes, it’s you who’s being funny – just a minute ago you were almost crying because you worried about Aunt Ann, and now you’re shouting with laughter and don’t care for your dear aunt who’s probably broken her leg and may be lying helpless somewhere under a bush, poor thing.”

“Oh, stop it, Coco! I won’t think in….” Lika hesitated trying to find proper words to finish her thought.

“In a tragic way?” the cat helped her.

“That’s it!” agreed the girl. “I’ll just call her and find it out.”

“Then she’ll think you’re crazy.”

“Why?” Lika wondered.

“Because she had told you before she left that she’d go to Olga Petrovna’s summer cottage to help her pick currents.”

“Really?” Lika could not stop wondering.

“Really. You asked her when she was going to be back and she told you not to expect her return till tomorrow evening.”

Only now she managed to recall vaguely the conversation. She remembered her aunt’s face when she was telling her something about Olga Petrovna, but at that moment Lika was probably thinking about how it turned out that Emily had learned about Rita’s pregnancy or about why Rita had begun to drink tea with mint. No, she was likely to be thinking about the tea with mint at the moment Aunt Ann told her something about patties.

“Mint patties?” Lika got surprised then.

“What mint?” Aunt Ann did not understand.

“Melissa,” Lika replied seriously.

“Lika!” Aunt Ann exclaimed, indignant at the niece’s inattention. “You’re always in the clouds, and you never listen to me! I was speaking about apple patties!”

Lika tried to explain herself giving the distraction for a joke, but Aunt Ann shook her head saying “Okay, I’m off. I’ll lock the door myself. Call me if you need me!”

“So does this mean there must be apple patties somewhere in the kitchen?” Lika asked Coco.

“Hey!” The cat cheered. “At least you remember this.”

“Let’s have a bite then,” the girl suggested after she had proceeded into the kitchen and took a bowl with patties from the cupboard.

“Do cats eat apples?”

“Are they tasty?” Coco asked.

“Yes, they are… mostly.”

“Give me a bit and we’ll see.”

Chapter 8
Lika would not give up

When the next morning Lika came to her friend, she was having breakfast. Pale and thin, she was sipping hot tea ignoring the sandwich.

“Rita, why aren’t you eating? Look at yourself; you’ve lost so much weight,” Lika detected.

“I can’t,” the girl answered glancing at a slice of bread and cheese with disgust, “I’m constantly sick. Everything I eat goes out. Tea with mint and lemon somehow helps.”

“Oh, poor thing!” Lika took pity on her, but when she saw that her friend was about to cry, she strictly added, “You must do something about it. There must be some kind of medicine for it. I think you should go to the doctor’s and ask.”

Rita remained silent.

“Doesn’t your mom take a notice of how different you’ve become… how thin and… unhappy?” Lika wondered.

“I try not to betray myself when she’s at home. Anyway, it didn’t escape her notice that something’s happened. But I didn’t even have to invent anything. She herself suggested that I’ve been sad because of the departure, that I’m going to miss my friends, you, and Vlad…”

“Has she noticed you’ve lost weight?”

“Yeah. She said after they return from Turkey, they will send me for a week to my grandmother. This will be good. I will need to be alone to think.”

“By the way, saying of thinking… I want to show you something… a video.” Lika began, not knowing how to describe it so that Rita agreed to watch it, “It’s just amazing! I think you should see it!”

“Is it a film?”

“You can say so. But it’s short. Documentary. Is your laptop on?” she asked heading for Rita’s room.

“No, I haven’t turned it on yet,” the answer flew from the kitchen.

“Finish your tea, I’ll turn it on.”

Lika hastily pressed the power button. She wanted to open the site she needed as quickly as possible, so that Rita immediately began to watch the film without having time to read its title. Lika was afraid that if the friend saw the name, she would refuse to watch it. But it did not work. Rita did not immediately understand what the film was about, but realizing it, she stood up with the words that she would not watch it.

“Rita, please! Do it for me, please!” pleaded Lika.

“I can’t!” she almost shouted in response. “It’s already been hard for me! And you press me instead of helping!”

“No, I didn’t mean to press,” Lika was embarrassed. She did not expect such a reaction. “It’s just… just…” she suddenly forgot all the reasons she wanted to give in favor of watching the film.

“Just what?” continued Rita, “just want me to leave him? Well, yes, it’s not you who’s sick all the time! It’s not you who’s been abandoned while being pregnant! It’s not you who’s going to grow a belly! It’s not you who’s going to have neighbours gossiping behind your back!

“Rita, you only see the minuses of this situation, and I want to show you the pluses,” speech finally returned to her, “I don’t want you to make a…” she did not want to say the word “mistake’, “an ill-considered act. And in order to make a deliberate choice, you need to look at the situation from different points of view, don’t you?”

“I’m very well aware of both, but minuses prevail here,” Rita sighed.

“Well, what are the pluses then?” Lika was not going to give up. She felt that it was only necessary to adjust the friend to a positive wave, and that would make her be able to make the right decision.

“Don wanna talk about it,” the girl said wearily and sat on the sofa turning her back to Lika. She looked at the window, and tears streamed down her face, but Lika did not see them.

“Oh well. Then let’s continue about the minuses, for example, about the consequences. Do you know what abortions can lead to?”

“An abortion, not abortions,” Rita snarled.

Lika heaved a deep sigh. Though she really wanted to say something biting like “where there’s the first, there’s going to be the second” or “everyone starts with the first one, and then they perceive it as something normal” in response, she did not. Her goal was not to quarrel with her friend but to help her.

“Rita, it doesn’t matter. Can’t you see, I’m worried about you,” she said quietly, “because something can go wrong… What if it makes you sterile? Can you imagine that? You’ll finish school and get married. Your husband will really want a child, but you won’t manage to have them… and you’ll suffer greatly from this, much more than you’re suffering now because it will last for years. It will be much more painful when all these neighbors in the yard, all of your friends and relatives, when meeting you, will ask “Well, when are you planning kids?”, “Do you have children?” Or “Don’t hold plans on kids off, time flies.” And what anguish it’ll be to see pregnant women or mothers pushing their baby carriages along the streets. And then your beloved husband will leave for a woman who’ll be able to give him children, and you’ll stay alone. However, he might stay, but you’ll always read the pain and frustration in his eyes.

“No,” Rita shook her head, “it’ll never happen. There are lots of women who have some abortions, and they’re able to have children afterwards, and everything’s all right with them.”

“There’re lots of women who have only one, and they have loads of problems afterwards.”

“No,” persisted Rita. “It won’t happen to me. I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t you feel a bit of sorry for him?” Lika asked.

Rita bowed without a word.

“He is alive! He’s got the heart and it beats! He feels everything you feel. He feels your pain as well, and it hurts him not to be wanted. Probably, he can hear your thoughts about what you’re going to do with him. And if he loves you… and I’m sure he does… will you betray his love and murder him?” she finished in whisper.

“Do you mean I’m a murderer?” Rita could not help crying. She burst into tears with her head in her hands.

Lika got frightened of her friend’s reaction. “I shouldn’t have said all that,” she thought but was not going to change her mind about it. She wanted to give her a hug and comfort her but the friend pushed her away and said that murderers are not worth of embracing them. Lika sat opposite Rita and waited patiently till she would calm down. Rita was blubbering so hard that made Lika’s heart tear with empathy and inability to help; tears flowed from her eyes.

“Poor Rita! She seems to have a nervous breakdown. I shouldn’t have said that…. Even without that, she’s at the verge of panic and exhaustion. Why did I say that? Why? I really made it worse instead of helping. Oh, Goodness, stupid me! What if she does something to herself?” Lika got really frightened and embarrassed because she did not know how to behave in such a situation.

“Rita, forgive me, please. I’m being such a fool! I should’ve thought before I said that. I shouldn’t have said anything except the words of support… But I really want to help… I don’t know how to do this… May be, you’d better talk to a professional? A psychologist?” suddenly suggested Lika, “You’d feel better, psychologically better.”

Rita kept weeping but her sobbing became quieter. Lika sat near for some time wrapped in doubts of whether she could leave Rita alone. It was the telephone call from Aunt Ann that solved the problem. Aunt Ann phoned her to find out how the things were. She did not want her to feel lonely. At the end, she asked Lika to buy some bread for dinner. Lika said goodbye to her friend. Rita did not say anything in response but continued to sob and swallow her tears, so Lika left her alone.

“I hope she won’t do anything to herself! Oh, my Goodness, I hope she’ll be all right!” Lika prayed on her way back home, “I guess there’s not much I can do to help her. She’s most likely to do what she’s planned. Coco’s been right. Might it be the best thing to happen?”

Heavy thoughts did not leave Lika, and she even walked past the shop and only at the porch she remembered her aunt’s request. Sighing, she turned and walked back. Continuing to ponder over the situation, the girl got to the shop, bought a loaf of bread and went home again. Thoughts in her head were confused, they ran across one another, exhausted her, but there was no solution. She was on the verge of despair.

Chapter 9
Did Coco come from future?

At home Lika ate pies and, without even having cleaned the table, she went to her room and lay down on the bed. She was going to get some sleep, because the thoughts about Rita, how to help her, had completely exhausted her. “I must call her,” the girl thought and dialed Rita’s number. Rita did not answer. Lika listened to the beeps until the line got disconnected automatically. “Why isn’t she answering?” She began to worry, “She doesn’t want to? But what if she’s done something to herself? Oh, why did I leave her? I should’ve stayed until she didn’t calm down! What’s now? Should I go to her again?”

“I’m sure she’s all right,” opening the door with her paw and squeezing her fluffy head through the crack, said Coco.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

“She merely doesn’t want to talk to you after all that you’ve told her. It’s easy to check – send her a message and she’ll answer.”

Lika hastily began to press the buttons of her cheap Nokia. A reply did not keep her waiting.

“She says she’s all right. She just wants to be left alone and asks not to disturb her.”

“That’s just what I told you!” Coco solemnly uttered aloud.

“Look, Coco,” Lika got inspired, “How come you know everything? How come you can talk? Why haven’t you talked to me before – you’ve been here for ages?

“So many questions at once,” Coco sat opposite the bed, stretched forward its hinder paw and began to lick it.

“I sometimes wonder how one can be so smart and so ill-mannered at the same time,” Lika sighed. “I’m talking to you, and you’re washing your paw – it’s not polite.”

“Common,” replied the cat going on with her occupation. “We’ve known each other for ages! What are these conventionalities for? We’re almost blood. After all, it didn’t use to confuse you to walk naked in my presence.”

Lika blushed; it was true. She tried to comfort herself by the idea that she had not known that Coco could talk.

“Oh, right!” the cat drawled with simulated offence. “Why should you keep up appearances with dumb things?”

Lika blushed even more not knowing how else she could explain herself.

“Oh, come on, I’m just kidding,” the cat said cheerfully and even stopped licking its paw.

“I’m so sorry,” the girl still said.

As for Coco, it stretched forward the other hinder paw and began licking it.

“Will you tell me?” Lika asked gingerly.

“A tale? I don’t think I will. Not now at least. Let’s make it last thing at night. I know a large variety of wonderful tales. Which ones do you like, ancient or modern, Russian, oriental, European? I’ve got some Brazilian.” The cat pattered.

“Well, no, Coco,” Lika smiled. The more Coco tried to get off the subject, the more Lika wanted to get the answers to her questions.

“Well then… not Brazilian… may be Japanese?” Coco suggested.

“I don’t want a tale. I want your story. Where did you come from?”

“Lika, you’re old enough to know where cats come from. Should I tell you about the birds and the bees?”

Instead of the answer, Lika threw the small pillow, which she usually slept on, at Coco. The cat jumped aside and seemed to sneeze.

“It’s so ill-mannered to throw pillows at someone you’re talking to,” The cat said having copied Lika’s recent intonation and headed for the door.

“Coco, please!” the girl exclaimed. By the moment, she had jumped from the bed and having reached the door in two leaps shut it.

“You leave me no choice,” Coco sighed, “So make yourself comfortable and get ready to listen. A long time ago,” The cat began telling in a low voice, “In the year of three thousand eight hundred and five a pretty kitten was born…”

“Wait,” Lika cut across it; “In the year of three thousand eight hundred and five?” she thought the cat started telling her a tale. “Coco, you’ve promised to tell me a true story, not a tale!”

“But this is a true story!” Coco declared in its usual tone. I was truly born in the year of three thousand eight hundred and five!”

“I can admit you’re not an ordinary cat, but this fishy story’s too much!” Lika resented. “You can’t be born in the year that hasn’t come yet.” She looked over different variants of how it could possibly be done. “Do you live your life from the end? No, you can’t. It’s too far in the future… Oh, I get it!” she exclaimed cheerfully. “You mean your cat’s chronology! I should have guessed it at once!”

“Rubbish,” said the cat. The ideas apparently amused it. It watched Lika closely as the girl tried to find a rational explanation to its date of birth. “I can explain if you allow me, of course.”

“So,” the cat started again, “I was born in the year of three thousand eight hundred and five. I used thought-transference with my master as all the cats and dogs of my time did or… is it better to say ‘will do’?”

Lika was attentively listening but could not decide whether to believe the cat. She waited for any detail that could possibly prove the veracity of Coco’s story or refute it.

“So do you mean that in three thousand eight hundred and five all the cats and dogs will be able to communicate with people using telepathy? How can you explain this fact? How can you explain the emergence of this ability?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Evolution! Every living being evolves in this world, even a human.”

“Even a human?” Lika asked.

“Yes! People will acquire telepathy in the third millennium, but first they’ll be able to read only human thoughts. As for understanding animals and plants, they will come to it later.

“And cats? When will cats learn to read human minds?”

“There’s no need! Cats have always been able to do that!” Coco said with pride.

“They can’t do it now, can they?” Lika was not going to believe it so easily.

“Surely, they can! All the cats are telepathists. We can read your minds; we are sensitive to your mood and intents. We are sensitive to ghosts as well”.

“Why are some cats so stupid then? They won’t do what they’re told.”

“Don’t you ever call cats stupid! Cats aren’t stupid. We’re independent and freedom-loving! If we don’t wanna do something, nothing can make us.” Coco was full of determination to defend her “brothers and sisters’.

“Okay-okay, I won’t say a word,” Lika assured her. “All right, let it be so. You were born in three thousand five hundred and five….”

“Not five hundred but eight hundred!” The cat corrected the girl.

“Okay, let it be eight hundred… How come you’re here? Did you come by a time machine?” asked the girl. Mockery shadowed her voice.

“In my opinion, that’s the most appropriate version. I’m glad it’s been you who’s suggested it.” Lika’s tone did not offend her in the least. “Yes, believe I’ve come here in a time machine.”

“Oh, cats of future will evolve great enough to operate time-machines!” Lika taunted, “No, hang on! It must be a cat who will invent a time-machine! Am I right?”

“It seems to be my turn to hit you with a pillow,” Coco said calmly, “It’s much easier, deary. It wasn’t I but a human who operated the machine, of course. Precisely saying, it was a teenager, the son of my master, who used it without his father’s permission. I have no idea why he chose the end of the twentieth century for his first travelling, probably, it was just fortuity. As a result, I’m here and he’s gone away without me.

Coco sighed with a bit of sadness. Lika was at a loss. She did not know whether to believe the story or not. She suggested that she had to believe Coco if she wanted to remain friends with the cat.

“Does that mean that I have an ability of thought-transfer?” Lika suddenly asked. “If I can talk to you, I can talk to other cats as well… Can I?”

Coco was silent. She might have not expected the question.

“Oh, I knew you were telling lies,” the girl got upset.

“I’m telling the truth,” Coco began to justify herself, “It’s easy for you to talk to me because I first started speaking aloud, and you could make sure it was me who’d said the words you’d heard in an empty room. Other cats can’t do it. They can’t talk.”

“And what about people?”

“Oh, it isn’t that easy with people.”

“Why not? People can talk.”

“Yes, they can. They can also tell lies, they can hide their true intentions and feelings even from themselves. During the centuries they’ve made a go of it. What’s the use of reading minds if there’s no certainty? You’ll never prove a thought, especially an indecent one, to be someone else’s and not yours.

“Not all of them are indecent,” Lika objected.

“Anyway, I’m sure you’ve come across such coincidences when they say “great minds think alike’, “the same thought has just crossed my mind’.

“Year, it happens quite often…” the girl said thoughtfully. “So it means telepathy is real,” she came to the conclusion. “Why haven’ t you spoken to me before?”

“May be, it’s not me who hadn’t spoken, but you who hadn’t heard me…” the cat muttered.

It seemed that the answer was good enough for Lika because she asked the next question, and it was about what life would be like in three thousand eight hundred and five, but at the moment Coco was about to say something, the doorbell rang. It was Aunt Ann who returned from the summer cottage. She came earlier because the weather had got worse and she did not want to get into the storm.