The Cat Who Walked the Rooftops

• 3 minute read
• Ages 4-9
• Bedtime Stories

There was a grey cat who slept all day and worked all night, and her work was to walk the rooftops.

She had a route. It went from the wall behind the bakery, along the ridge of the tailor's shop, across the flat roof where the water tanks stood, over the gap by the mango tree and down the whole terrace of houses to the end of the street.

She had walked it so many times that she could have done it with her eyes shut, and on warm nights she very nearly did.

What she checked

She was not looking for anything in particular. She was checking that everything was where it had been.

The bakery chimney was warm, which it always was, because they started early. Correct.

The tailor's shutter was down. Correct.

The water tanks made their small ticking sound as the metal cooled. Correct.

There was a pigeon asleep on the ledge of the yellow house who should not have been there, but who had been there every night for two years, so by now it was also correct.

The window

Halfway along the terrace there was a window that was always open a little.

Inside it a child slept, and the cat had never once gone in, and did not intend to.

But she stopped there every night for a while.

She sat on the sill with her tail hanging down and watched the room breathing, and listened, and when everything in there sounded the way it usually sounded, she got up and went on.

The rest of the round

Down to the end of the street. Along the low wall. Past the shop that smelled of cardamom even when it was shut. Round the corner and back up the other side.

By then the sky over the rooftops would be going the colour it goes just before it goes any other colour, and the bakery would be properly awake, and a light would come on somewhere.

The cat would climb back to the highest tank, turn round twice, and put her nose under her tail.

And the street would wake up and go about its whole day, and never know that it had been checked.