Title: The Unadulterated Cat
Author(s): Terry Pratchett
Release year: 1989
Publisher: Gollancz
Why in Database: Pratchett’s non-discworld book, telling, how title suggests, about cats. Inside there are two fragments with turtles, one is shorter, with a mention of a turtle in the car, the other is longer and describes the relationship between his turtles and cats. The book is illustrated, the second fragment has two cat&turtle illustrations that we show below:
Animals loose in a car are never a good idea. Goats are generally the worst, but until you realise there’s a tortoise stuck under your brake pedal you’ve never known the meaning of fear, and possibly not the meaning of ‘old age’ either.
The only household pet I have ever known actually faze a Real cat is a tortoise. This may be because a cat has problems coming to terms with the fact that a tortoise is a fellow fauna. It appears to be a small piece of scenery which inexplicably moves about.
These days you don’t shove a tortoise in a box to tough it out for the winter, since no one makes tortoises any more and they change hands, people keep telling us, for zillions of pounds. We used to let ours doze the winter away in front of the fire, lurching awake every day or two for a bit of lettuce. A peaceful, untroubled existence, but one which did not appeal to Real cat because a tortoise is impossible to frighten. Tortoises don’t know the meaning of the word ‘fear’ or, indeed, any other word. Oh, they nip into their shell at a passing shadow out of common sense, but as far as they are concerned the presence of a cat in front of the fire just means that here’s a pile of fur that is nice and warm to burrow under.
They, sneak up on it, because for tortoises there’s no other way, and the first the cat knows is when the edge of a shell is purposefully levering it off the carpet. The cat goes and sits in the corner and looks worried. And then one of them develops an unnatural appetite for cat food. The Real cat sits looking gnomically at a shell seesawing madly on the edge of its dish, and sighs deeply.
Author: XYuriTT
