looks like it's filled with a mob. Maybe it's
only half a dozen guys, but the photographers are pushing around trying to
get shots and the reporters are jabbering.

Orange kitten sticks his head out of the box. Then out he comes, into the
sea of feet. I drop him back in and try to get across to Kate. She's
pretty well backed into a corner and looking ready to jump out the window.
She has her arms folded in front of her, each hand clenching the other
elbow, as if to hold herself together. A reporter with a bunch of scratch
paper in his hand is crowding her.

"Miss Carmichael"--funny, I never even knew her last name before--"I just
want to ask one or two questions. Could you tell us when you last saw your
brother?"

"No, I couldn't," she snaps, drawing her head down between her shoulders
and trying to melt into the wall.

"Watcha going to do with the money?" a photographer asks. He picks up a
cat, one of the big stray kittens, and dumps it on Kate. The cat clings to
her and the photographer says, "Hold it now. Just let me snap a picture."

He takes two steps back.

At the first step the room is silent. At the second step a shattering
caterwaul goes up. He has stepped on the adventurous orange kitten.

The scream freezes us all, except Kate. She shoots out of her corner,
knowing instantly what has happened. The kitten is jerking slightly now,
and bright, bright blood is coming out of its mouth. With one violent,
merciful stroke Kate finishes it. She picks the limp body up and wraps it
neatly in a paper towel and places it in the wastebasket.

The room is still silent for one congealed instant. Kate seems almost to
have forgotten the crowd of men. Then two of them make hastily for the
door. The photographer shuffles his feet and says, "Gee, m'am, I didn't
mean ... I wouldn't for the world...."

Kate whirls and screams at him: "Get out! Get out, all of you! Leave me
and my cats alone! I never asked you in here!"

At that moment my pop comes in the door. Of course he doesn't know
anything about the kitten, but he takes in the general situation and herds
the two remaining newspapermen to the door. He gives them his card and
home address and tells them to look him up a little later.

My knees suddenly feel weak and I slump onto the sofa, and my eyes swivel
round to the little package in the wastebasket. It would be the strongest
one. I really never saw anything get killed right in front of me before.
It hits you.