Strange Life of a Cat

Jiao Yuan and his friends were warming up when Zheng Tan led Fu Lei and his father over. People were used to seeing them here by now and would come to say hello and share childhood stories.

Zheng Tan jumped onto the bleachers and sat next to Youzi to watch them train.

Today, they were practicing the 400-meter relay. They need to figure out the order in which they would be running.

Xiong Xiong was discussing running with Fu Lei, whilst Fu Lei’s father stood beside them and watched. He sat on the lowest level of the bleachers and was deep in thought.

The group ran two laps together. Fu Lei kept running while the rest of them stopped to rest. By the look of things, Fu Lei could do at least a few more laps.

Fu Lei’s father was smiling. He was proud, at least his son still had merits.

Fu Lei finished an entire four laps before stopping. Zheng Tan could tell he could keep going but this was his first run of the day and it made sense for him to reserve some energy.

They trained again for the last time on Thursday and focused on practicing the relay. Another kid who lived in the area was there too. Together with Jiao Yuan, Lan Tianzhu, and Fu Lei, the four formed the team for the 400-meter relay. Fu Lei was the fastest of the group, so he was assigned to run last. Xiong Xiong knew himself well and resigned himself to just signing up for shot put.

On Friday, Youzi begrudgingly went to school after Mama Jiao and Jiao Yuan left. She was going to have to miss the 800-meter and 1500-meter races.

Zheng Tan walked her to school, then quickly jogged to Jiao Yuan’s school.

A house cat was licking its paw on the fence. It had probably just finished hunting and was in the process of cleaning. Suddenly, it felt movement behind it. When the cat turned, a black figure flew over its head. It saw the figure land behind it and run ahead. The cat stared for a few moments then went back to licking its paw.

Zheng Tan increased his speed as he got closer to Jiao Yuan’s school. A large cat was yawning ahead of him. He picked up some more speed and jumped over it.

The cat had gotten up to stretch but was startled by Zheng Tan and almost fell off the fence. It steadied itself, then scratched its ear as it watched Zheng Tan ran away. It shook its head and resumed people-watching

People were coming and going on the street. No one took the time to notice the running black cat. They were all too used to the cats on the fence. It made no difference if the cat was white or black.

Here people and cats all had their own lives and went about them uninterrupted.

When Zheng Tan reached Jiao Yuan’s school, the opening ceremony had already started. Students were standing in phalanxes in their uniforms.

Zheng Tan surveyed the ground, he didn’t find any high trees from where he could watch the tournament. His eyes fell on the wall behind the commander’s post. The wall was covered by a giant poster, but it was high.

Zheng Tan walked over and checked the wall from the side. It wasn’t thick but he could manage to sit on top of it steadily enough.

The principal was still droning on on the commander’s post. ‘I only have a few words to say’ had turned into a full-on twenty-minute speech. Most of the students were growing impatient and started to chat among themselves. When their classroom teacher glared at them, the chatting would pause for a few minutes before resuming. Zheng Tan could feel their resentment.

However, the students’ attention was drawn by the black cat heading over to the commander’s post. They started staring at the cat. The chatting even stopped. This was much more interesting than listening to the principal talk.

Jiao Yuan was chatting with Su An in their code language when Fu Lei, who was standing behind him, poked him in the back. He motioned ahead, “Look!”

Jiao Yuan was puzzled but he looked to where Fu Lei had indicated. His cat was on the bleachers and was heading over to the commander’s post.

Su An and the rest of the gang saw this as well. Though there were many black cats, they could all tell this was Jiao Yuan’s cat immediately. No other cat could walk over to the commander’s post so calmly in front of such a large group.

Jiao Yuan’s eyes twitched. He heard about what happened at military training from Jiao Wei. Charcoal was definitely looking for a spot to observe them. He just wished he wouldn’t cause a commotion.

Zheng Tan didn’t worry about what anyone was thinking and jumped onto the wall. The banner on top of the wall partially covered him, so only a black cat head was visible to the students.

The principal hadn’t realized what happened and kept talking. “Remember friendship first, winning comes second…”

Zheng Tan yawned. He didn’t buy into all this crap. If there wasn’t any friendship to begin with, then surely winning came first. How can there be friendship among people who don’t even know each other?

People say yawning is contagious. After seeing the cat yawn, the bored students, who didn’t rest well last night because of over-excitement, started feeling tired too.

Zheng Tan played with the banner and looked down at the principal’s bald head. Was that the result of stress?

Finally, the speech was over and the tournament officially began. Everyone sighed a sigh of relief. The principal was still sitting on the commander’s post and would serve as a judge for the first event.

The first event, however, was broadcast gymnastics. This was a seventh grade only event. The ten classes drew a lot to determine the order in which they performed. This was fairer. People couldn’t complain since it was all based on luck.

Jiao Yuan’s class was going fourth, which was not bad.

The juniors and seniors left the field. Some warmed up on the side, others looked on as the seventh graders did what they all had to do when they first entered middle school. Most of them believed doing broadcast gymnastics was completely stupid.

Zheng Tan watched on his wall.

Everyone was trying their hardest. It was a contest after all and the principal was watching. They wanted to do every move perfectly which resulted in stiffness. Add serious but naive smiles to the equation, the whole show made Zheng Tan laugh.

He wanted to see Jiao Yuan’s class. They were standing aside getting ready. Xiong Xiong was leading the pack.

The people standing in front would be the lead gymnasts. All the other classes chose a pretty girl, yet this class chose a beast.

When it was their turn, Zheng Tan felt Jiao Yuan and his friends were stiff even before they began.

Jiao Yuan on the other hand finally knew how Jiao Wei felt during his military training. It made him uncomfortable knowing his cat was watching. Somehow, it felt like the cat was waiting to laugh at him? Thankfully the other cats didn’t come.

The music started and Xiong Xiong, in his uniform and white gloves, started to move.

People mostly thought to have Xiong Xiong lead was a mistake on their classroom teacher’s part. However, she was wise. Most of the judges, who were officials in the school, knew Xiong Xiong’s mother and therefore knew Xiong Xiong.

The principal who was sitting in the middle was looking at him with a smile. The earlier lead gymnasts did not get a smile.

Unfortunately, Xiong Xiong was too focused to notice the principal. Zheng Tan wanted to laugh.

Each class had five minutes, the event was over in an hour. Jiao Yuan’s class won first place. Their teacher smiled. Zheng Tan felt there were deeper meanings behind that smile.

The rest of the more serious events began.

The first day was the hundred-meter and fifteen hundred meter races. Jiao Yuan wasn’t competing today.

Xiong Xiong had wanted to sigh Fu Lei up for the 100-meter race as well, but everyone was limited to two events. Thankfully the person running the race was pretty good. The teacher asked them to try to make it into the top eight. Only the top eight got scores. First place got 9 points, the eighth-place got 1. Points are doubled for the relay.

The hundred-meter race had preliminaries, while the 1500-meter race didn’t.

Fu Lei was warming up on the side. He was about to go on soon. Jiao Yuan and his group surrounded him. Everyone else was sitting in the class’s designated area, either watching the race or writing encouragement notes to be read in front of the school.

The school officials had all left and the school broadcaster took their place. Some students wanted to poke Zheng Tan but the wall was too high. They threw paper balls at him and Zheng Tan played slap the ball with a few girls out of boredom.

Mama Jiao found Jiao Yuan and pointed at the cat, “Why is Charcoal here?”

Jiao Yuan shrugged, “He never misses an opportunity for some fun.”