Summary of "My Life as a Cat"

My Life as a Cat - Characters and Dedications

The story is by Carlie Sorosiak.
The book is dedicated to Mom, who filled their home with love and cats.
A quote from Carl Sagan: "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us."
Main Characters: Olive and Leonard

Chapter 1: An Alien's Perspective on Earth

Humans have it all wrong about aliens, according to the narrator.
Olive dislikes alien television shows because they give the narrator bad dreams.
The narrator doesn't belong on Earth permanently and is traveling in a camper with Olive.
Olive asks the narrator to promise not to forget her.
The narrator will forget everything due to the rules of intergalactic travel, retaining only data about Olive.
The narrator half-heartedly purrs, and Olive says they get to go home.
The camper speeds up, and the narrator will miss feeling so small and earthly.
The narrator pictures clinging to the camper walls.
Olive sets the narrator on the counter and asks them to type on the laptop, but they refuse to make it harder on her.
The narrator wants to carry a part of Olive with them, imprinted, to remember how it felt to know a girl.
Olive sighs and tells the narrator to eat their trout-flavored crunchies, one of their last meals as a cat.
Olive says the narrator is a very, very good cat.
The narrator wants to type that Olive is a very, very good human.
The story is about cheese sandwiches, an aquarium, and a family, with laughter, sadness, and learning what it means to be human.
The narrator was supposed to be human on their journey to Earth; that is where they will begin.

Chapter 2: The Wish for Hands and the Allure of Humanity

The narrator had wished for hands for almost three hundred years, imagining holding objects like apples, books, and umbrellas.
The narrator romanticizes umbrellas and rain, things humans take for granted.
The trip to Earth was about discovery and glimpsing another way of life.
All members of the narrator's species have the opportunity to spend a month as an Earth creature on their three-hundredth birthdays to expand their minds, gather data, and observe the neighbours.
The narrator could have been a penguin, a wild beast, a Beluga whale, a wolf, or a goose, but chose the most magnificent creature: the common human.
The narrator defends their decision, noting penguins refuse to play the violin, wolves have no use for umbrellas, and even geese take little joy in the arts.
Humans write books, share thoughts over coffee, and make things for no reason; swimming pools, doorbells, elevators.
The narrator considered being a mail carrier, a television star, but decided on something humbler: a national park ranger.
The narrator imagined themselves as a Yellowstone ranger with a moustache, boots, and a dazzling twinkle in their left eye, flicking their wrists towards natural exhibits.
Humour is a valued trait among humans, so the narrator prepared jokes exclusively.
Example joke: How many park rangers does it take to change a light bulb? Twenty-two!
The narrator wasn’t entirely sure that they understood humour, as their species is pure energy and can’t exactly feel in their natural state.
Setting off from their home planet, the narrator imagined the feeling of laughter, how it might rattle their belly.
The narrator's species is a hive mind, meaning they think and exist as one, like drops in the ocean of Earth – and the narrator wasn’t prepared for the sensation of leaving them.
There was a quiet pop as they separated. Then the narrator was alone, for the first time in three hundred years.
All the narrator could summon was a single thought: For now, goodbye.
The beam of light hummed as the narrator latched on. To kill time on the journey, the narrator practised more jokes.
Example joke: Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he was genetically hard-wired as an Earth creature to do so.
Example joke: Knock-knock? Who’s there? No one. Doors are a human construction and do not exist on other planets.
It’s unclear when things started to go wrong. Perhaps it was when the narrator began to sprout a tail.
The narrator was seven thousand kilometres above Earth’s atmosphere, and there it was: crooked, with jet-black fur.
The narrator didn’t have the ability to gasp; otherwise, they would have done so. A tail? That was incorrect.
Awareness hit the narrator with slow, terrible force: this wasn’t the right route to Earth.
In the narrator’s eagerness to perfect the knock-knock joke, they’d strayed off course, interacting with the wrong elements along the way.
Those elements, mixed with Earth’s atmosphere, would turn the narrator into— A cat.

Chapter 3: Becoming a Cat and Meeting Olive

The narrator, as a cat, crashes into North America, landing paws first in a tree.
Their claws dug into the branch beneath them, and immediately the narrator coiled around, observing the zigzagged tail attached to their backside.
It twitched – almost on its own – as if speaking to the narrator. They could feel their paws tensing, the wind sifting through a large chip in their ear.
What a sensation: to feel. To feel, finally. To have a body, even if it wasn’t the one the narrator had expected.
The narrator's heart scrambled. Nothing in their studies had prepared them for this.
Apart from a few anecdotes, they knew exceptionally little about cats. How could the narrator live for a month as one?
On Earth, the narrator had been very much looking forward to speaking words.
They already knew what their favorite ones would be: Tangerine, Yellowstone, Soul.
Now the narrator tested them with their throat – with their prickly tongue, horrible fangs poking into their lips – and only gurgling emerged.
The whole thing was entirely the narrator's fault. They knew this. Never get distracted is the first rule of space travel.
That didn’t make it any less terrifying: to be alone in a tree, on a new planet, without knowing the language of cats.
Was it even possible to communicate with humans this way? Did cats “moo,” or was that birds?
There were all these new sensations, too – things the narrator didn’t expect to feel.
The desire to spring from tree branch to tree branch, testing their balance.
The way their ears were swivelling, already listening for cats in the area.
The realization that if the narrator saw an umbrella now (canopy flying open, springs springing), they might actually be afraid of it.
Suddenly, the tree began to shiver with bursts of wind, and the narrator arched their spine on instinct. I have a spine, the narrator thought.
A storm was coming. The narrator contemplated lurching from the tree, but the ground looked soggy.
As a ranger, they would’ve worn boots, so I vowed to find some later, in whatever size was suitable for cats. Preferably leather boots. With some nice, streaming ribbons, and—
Scents began arriving from all directions: bitter smells, sweet smells. Their nose sniffed the air, and the narrator started peering around.
The clouds were turning an alarming shade of plum.
In their field of vision, the narrator could see only sky, bushes, and a few tall grasses, swaying violently in the breeze.
Their tail puffed with fear. Which startled the narrator even more. They didn’t know that tails could puff.
It seemed to say, Where are we, exactly? And what happens now?
Within fifteen minutes, rain began and refused to stop. Flicking water off their ears did little good; the storm poured sideways, flattening their entire coat.
Could cats swim? It was a pressing question, one the narrator asked their tail. But their tail was ignoring them.
Something told the narrator they might not like the answer anyway. Around the base of the tree, dark water was rising.
The narrator saw it in the distance then: The speck of a rowboat bobbing towards me.
Through the thunderous rain, closer and closer she came: a tiny figure dressed in overalls, a yellow slicker, and boots three sizes too big.
Her boat careened wildly in the floodwaters as she yelled words in my direction. They sounded like: “I’VE COME TO SHAVE YOU!” Could this possibly be right?
The narrator wasn’t immediately fond of their fur, but would baldness improve their look? The idea alarmed the narrator.
More alarming was the wind, which was picking up speed.
Imagine you are on a new planet, experiencing gravity for the first time. Now imagine that hurricane-force winds are threatening to lift you into the sky. Balancing on that branch was almost impossible.
The narrator managed to steady themselves just in time. Only seconds later, the tip of the human’s boat slammed into the tree trunk.
Everything shook. Bark split with a menacing crack, and the girl snapped her head up, eyes wide.
Despite the circumstances, the narrator tried to savour this moment. It was their first time meeting a human; they didn’t want to get it wrong.
Hello there was the greeting the narrator’d memorised – simple yet elegant – and they attempted this with a string of long, eager meows. It couldn’t have gone worse.
The narrator sounded like a garbage disposal. But now the girl was ordering them to jump. “It’s OK!” she shouted into the tree, her voice cutting through the wind. “I’m a Girl Scout, and I’m here to save you!” So her name is Olive.

Chapter 4: Underwater and Saved by Olive

She shouted, "I'M A GIRL SCOUT, AND I'M HERE TO SAVE YOU!" Well, the narrator will admit that they were more than a little relieved. Save me, not shave me!
Nevertheless, the narrator squirmed. This small human was going to rescue them? She was maybe four and a half feet tall, and no more than eleven years old.
The narrator hesitated, skidding back and forth on the branch, torn between options. Stay in this tree, alone in a storm, or jump – with legs they barely trusted. Stay or jump, stay or jump.
A sharp gust of wind decided for the narrator, cracking the tree branch above their head.
Instinct took over as the narrator's body pitched forward, away from the terrible snap. They felt themselves falling. Then they felt themselves questioning if I should have remained in the tree.
Because they’d misjudged the jump. The water was already swallowing them whole.
Being underwater is a little like floating in space. Except for the dull roar in their ears, there was barely any sound. Everything was dark, glittering, and lonely.
That doesn’t mean the narrator wasn’t panicking. They were panicking very much. My legs flailed. My paws thrashed in front of me. Bubbles rose and popped in their throat.
You’re immortal, the narrator thought, trying to calm themselves. You cannot die, so this water won’t harm you.
In a way, the narrator was untouchable: their species has always existed in the universe and always will. But they’d never felt stress before – never understood the power of it. And embarrassment.
The narrator was ashamed to fail this spectacularly, after they’d longed for decades to be human.
Every traveller to Earth keeps a record: a series of images captured, then shared with the rest of the hive. Over the years, the narrator had filtered through pictures of family Christmases, of dinners on New Year’s Eve, of human birthday parties and picnics in parks filled with green.
The narrator wanted to try a cheese sandwich, too. The narrator wanted to go to the movies. They wanted to walk with someone by a river on a blistering summer day.
All of this required being above water.
Luckily, the girl was already grabbing the scruff of the narrator's neck, yanking them from the deep.
The air was a shock, maybe more so than the water, and the narrator shook vigorously as she plopped me down.
It was surprising, really. The narrator found that they liked shaking, the way their body moved everywhere all at once. The boat shimmied beneath their paws.
“Oh my goodness!” the girl said, still shouting over the wind. “Are you OK?” The narrator thought very seriously about this question. Obviously, they were not.
Cats and water don’t mix (the narrator couldn’t recall a great deal about cats, but they suspected this right away). The narrator liked that she asked, though, even if all they could answer was mrrr.
Here is something else: my chest crunched as the narrator looked at her.
Either way, glimpsing a human up close was something like a miracle. The narrator was bowled over, entranced by the girl’s tiny nose, her cheekbones so smooth under her beige skin.
Yes, skin! With pores and everything. The narrator tried to memorise her at once, in case someone on their home planet wanted to know. Smallish ears. Roundish chin. Dimples.
Gripping the oars with white knuckles, the girl pushed hard against the rippling water, and the narrator couldn’t help but feel slightly powerless, tail curling around them in the frigid boat.
The narrator's own skin pricked as objects floated by, trapped in the flood’s current: a plastic hula hoop, a deckchair, two inflatable lawn ornaments that looked suspiciously like gnomes.
It was all starting to hit the narrator now – really hit them. The distance they’d travelled, the predicament the narrator was in, the fact that they were breathing and couldn’t quite figure out how.
They inhaled harshly, too fast and too sharp; their lungs fluttered, causing them to wheeze, just as the boat careened dangerously to the left.
“I’m not really a Girl Scout!” the human said suddenly, like she was purging a hairball. “I never made it past Brownies.”
Many areas of human life were still a mystery to the narrator; then they gave her a wise nod, like those that they’d witnessed on captured images of I Love Lucy, a human TV series that the narrator especially enjoy.
The narrator tipped their head up and down. The girl seemed mildly puzzled by this, her eyelashes fluttering. But she rowed on.
Through the rain, the narrator was beginning to see the shadowy outline of a house – a human house on stilts, with a wrap-around porch. The lawn was fully submerged under a thick sheet of water.

Chapter 5: A Stormy Welcome and the Loss of Direction

As the boat shuddered, jerking the narrator from side to side, a white-haired woman came into vision. She stood rigidly on the porch, a beach towel draped around her shoulders.
Stocky and tough-looking, she was perhaps seventy in Earth years, and seemed – in a human word – furious. The narrator wondered if she could see them in the boat. Perhaps she was more of a dog lover.
A bandana was trembling around her neck, her light brown skin glistening in the moonlight, and she was shouting something.
The narrator worried about this, before their journey – how to follow human speech on Earth. Our species is so advanced, we have no use for words. We pass information telepathically.
So I’d studied whenever I could, revisiting scenes from I Love Lucy and picking up languages from previous travellers to Earth.
Now, the narrator was bombarded by sound, by feeling. It was both intensely wonderful and intensely distracting.
The narrator had to squint at the woman, trying to detect the subtle differences in her syllables. This was what they pieced together: a single word, over and over again. Olive, Olive, Olive.
Soon, the boat thumped against the house’s stairs, and the white- haired woman fled down the steps, her ankles steeped in water. She threw the towel off her shoulders; it was soggy in an instant, lugged away by the tide.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?” she yelled, grabbing the boat’s stern and tying it quickly to the railing. That knot! It was ranger-worthy.
“I’ve seen plenty of stupid antics in my day, but this one takes the cake.” It wasn’t the time to notice the elderly woman’s wardrobe, but she was wearing a checked shirt under a khaki vest – both with plenty of pockets. My whiskers twitched enviously.
As a human, the narrator would’ve liked to wear those clothes. “Listen here, sailor,” the woman continued, voice rumbly and slightly out of breath.
“You could’ve bitten the dust out there. Am I making myself clear? Your mother didn’t send you down here to disobey a direct order. So when I tell you not to go outside in a tropical storm, you have to listen to me.”
It happened then: the narrator felt themselves being scooped into Olive’s arms. She clutched the narrator close to her chest, her raincoat quivering. The narrator had no idea what to do.
Was now an appropriate time to “moo”? Was the Narrator supposed to kiss her on both cheeks, as some people do? I went for a failsafe option: going completely limp.
“I couldn’t leave him there,” Olive said, stepping awkwardly from the boat to the steps, her rubber boots squashing in water. “I’m sorry, Norma. I just couldn’t.”
Norma towered above us, arms crossed, eyebrows furrowed. The narrator was slightly overwhelmed by the power of her presence – but also wanted to grab her face with my paws and shout, “Do you know how lucky you are to have eyebrows? Do you?”
When Norma spoke again, her voice was raspier. “You’re not hurt anywhere, are ya?” Olive shook her head.
“Well … good,” Norma said, massaging a spot on her chest, as if her heart hurt. “Now let’s get inside, before this storm eats us up.”
Then we were climbing the rickety steps. Norma unlatched the front door. The narrator felt themselves shaking – this time, not from the cold.
They'd never heard of a mistake like this. No one in my entire species had ever ended up in the wrong body.
It was supposed to go so smoothly: arrive on Earth as a human, interview for the park ranger position, accept the job immediately, and their wilderness knowledge would astonish my colleagues.
“Don’t be afraid, kitty,” Olive said, slipping inside the house. She pushed off her raincoat hood, her hair wavy and dark, clamped down on both sides with daisy barrettes.
Olive caressed the narrator's muzzle with a gentle hand. Maybe it was too soon to trust her, but there it was. A kernel of faith, blooming in their chest.
Carefully, she placed the narrator on the ground, my paws touching floorboards for the first time. How many hours – how many years – had the narrator spent imagining this moment? A human house! And them, inside it.
Some things were exactly as they’d expected. There were books, magnificent books, stacked high against the living room walls. Wicker furniture dotted the space. And in the kitchen, they just knew there’d be a toaster. A toaster!
Other things about the house surprised the narrator. For one, it was very quiet. Here, there was nothing but the howling of wind, the squeak of Olive’s footsteps.
Norma trudged down a hallway and stamped back a moment later, a large stack of towels in her arms. She peered down at the narrator. “I thought I knew about every cat in this neighbourhood. Where’d you come from, huh?”
It was an excellent question. Unfortunately, I barely processed it. The narrator was spinning out of control. The Isle of Palms were not near Yellowstone! This reality makes the pick up by the hive at the end of the month unlikely.
According to the schedule, the hive would arrive at precisely 9:01 a.m. on the thirtieth of June. The narrator’s pick-up point was incredibly specific:
coordinates 44.4605 degrees north, 110.8281 degrees west – Yellowstone National Park. If they weren’t there by the end of the month, if they missed the take-off, they’d be stuck on Earth forever.
The narrator gave themselves a few moments to let the news sink in. Then the narrator began to destroy the curtains.

Chapter 6: Instinct, Connections, and Clichés

The narrator had no idea how to be a cat, and they asked not to be judged too harshly. Cats are easy to miss, slinking, dashing, burrowing, and even handsome ones are comical with pointy ears, string-like whiskers, and fur that sticks to your tongue.
Cats are considered aloof, preferring their own company, despising loud noises, and stuffing themselves in boxes.
Tuna fish gets a yes, and garlic a no. A group of them is called a clowder, not chowder.
The narrator destroyed the curtains because the fabric resisted.
Norma shook the curtains startling the narrator. Olive scratched the narrator behind the ears, slowing their heart rate.
The narrator wanted Olive to rub their belly.
Olive asked if the cat was lost or dumped. Norma considered this.
Olive thought the narrator was beautiful, she said, "He has us. You hear that, kitty cat? We’re here."
Olive's words wrapped around the narrator. They glimpsed what it must feel like to have a friend.
The narrator didn’t realize how much of a cliché they were -- cold, hungry, yet pampered after my rescue. Olive set up a space for them in her room, underneath a turtle night light with an eerie, green glow.
Olive said she didn’t know much about house cats and asks, “Am I missing anything?”
The narrator doesn't know. At the same time, the narrator wondered was it common for humans to speak to cats? Her language and my language were not the same.
The narrator thought Olive wouldn’t know they were following along, or that their vocal cords just weren’t up to snuff; language was beyond their reach.
She flicked off the lamp, the green turtle night light washing over us. I knew I was supposed to be drifting to sleep. Earth creatures sleep for a third of their lives. This is an enormous waste.
Olive speaks to them when the lamp is off; Norma is her grandmother, "the captain," because she ran a shrimping boat, Norma usually is only seen for Christmases.
Olive's Mom is traveling with Frank, a "life coach" that Olive implies, just didn’t want me around. Olive's Mom wants to move permanently with him to Sarasota. Olive would have to start a new school. She currently lives in Maine.
Olive wishes to that she could fly home when they wanted to and away when they needed to.
Olive's lip quivered, but she bit it down. "Anyway, what should I call you? Maybe you already have a name, but it feels wrong to just call you \'kitty\'. You deserve more than that."
They decide on the name “Leonard”, the name of Olive's great-grandpa.
It sounded distinguished and gentlemanly but also scarily permanent. It was stuck exactly where the narrator was: a cat.

Chapter 7: A Body and Soul

The narrator appreciated the human phrase, "body and soul." They love you body and soul, one person might say to another. Now they had both.
The narrator found himself wobbling into the kitchen at around two in the morning to read the mail. They were perusing envelopes with paws to discover a human family.
Opening them was a thankless, near impossible task involving mostly back muscles.
Letters included items like an electricity bill, a packet of coupons for jumbo shrimp and other “sea delights”, and a crisp, yellow stationery. The latter consisted of messages from Mom to Olive from California wishing her a fun summer in Turtle Beach.
The narrator missed the planet. Desperate for the comforts of home, the expansive peace now confined to this small Earthly body, unable to sense the hive.