Chapter 1

My name is Cat and this is the story of me and my best friend Big Bear. Or it is at least the story of how we met. I call it "Bear Meets Cat." I get to tell the story because Big Bear is very busy all the time.

Big Bear is not a cat, he is a big bear. Bears and cats naturally get on well together, as you know.

Like all cats I can speak bear. Big Bear can speak a few words of cat and Big Bear can speak people. He can read and write people. I hear some people can learn bear, but few people are any good at cat.

My people is poor. I know only a few words of people. I think my people is poor because I never really studied people in school. I always found people sort of boring, and never could find out why I need to know any people at all.

Every cat learns basic bear in school. We have to learn some bear, and take a test to show our basic bear skills.

I do not know why cats must learn basic bear. I asked my teacher in school one time why we had to study bear, but she just told me to be quiet and study.

Some people can speak bear, but only a few people can speak any words of cat. Maybe that is why cats and bears usually get along just fine, but cats and people seem to have so much trouble.

I can also speak to others, or at least most of them. Others are the not-cats, not-bears, and not-people. Others are all around. I even know one of the others, the kind that people call dogs, and he is quite a pleasant fellow, even if a bit stupid. My dog is so-so, my mouse is quite good, and I can figure out what most of the other others are saying.

Before I tell you about me and Big Bear and our friends, the places we have visited, the things we have seen, and what and who we have met along the way, I have to tell you the story of how we met. I mean how Cat and Big Bear met, not how you and I met. That's a story for after you and I meet. Like all cats, I know we will meet someday.

So on with my story.

I was sort of hanging around in the big market out in a place people call Inner Mongolia. There is a very simple name for it in cat. We cats call it that big place. I was there looking for work and a place to sleep. That big place is my home place; it is the place I was born.

That was where I saw my first real bear. I could tell at first glance he was a bear. This bear was much larger than any people I had ever seen.

At the time I was still growing. I was just a little cat then, but I could still see the difference between bear and people. He was a big bear indeed, but he sure seemed lost.

The big bear was walking all around the market. "Maybe he is looking for something?" I thought.

He was looking for something for sure, but it was easy to tell he could not find what he was looking for. The big bear went over there, over here, then back the other way, then did it all again.

"What a lost bear" I said to myself. "And what a big bear."

After I learned how to speak bear in school, my teacher always told me, "if you see a lost bear, it is nice to offer your help, it is the right thing to do." Offering help to a lost bear might be the right thing to do, but I had no idea how different from cats bears really were in person. This one looked so much bigger then the bears in our school books.

When I looked up from my thoughts, the big bear was coming right to me! He was walking right to where I was while I was thinking about the teacher and what she had told me.

I was afraid, but determined not to show it. "I can do this" I kept telling myself. "I can do this."

The big bear was right in front of me now. Oh my! He was so very big and I was so very small back then, but I did it. I held back my fright and I called out to him, "excuse me, you look like a lost bear." It was a saying every cat learns in school. I think he understood, but just to be sure I added, "I am Cat, what is your name?"

Well, for some time I was a little worried. The big bear just stood there looking at me.

At first I thought maybe I was not saying the words right. I only learned bear in school, and never had a chance to talk to a real bear, but my teacher always told me I had the best bear speaking skills of any of my classmates.

Then I thought "just my luck, the first real bear I meet turns out to be a big stupid bear that can't talk."

Oh, but talk he did! In a loud and booming voice that seemed to shake the ground he said "I am called Big Bear." He looked around again and said "can you please tell me where the WC is?"

"What a strange bear, this bear called Big Bear" I thought.

I asked him what WC was. It was a people word and I did not learn that word in school. He tried a few times to explain in people what this people word meant. Each time I told him I did not understand.

Then Big Bear started talking on and on in people using many words I had never heard before. It seemed like the more confused I got, the faster Big Bear talked.

"Stop" I said rather sharply to Big Bear. "Tell me in bear what you want, then maybe I can help you."

After Big Bear told me in bear what the people word WC meant, I laughed so hard I thought I was going to cry. "You can WC any place" I told him.

Big Bear looked at me like he was going to cry, but I didn't hear him laugh at all. He just looked sort of upset.

Several people were looking at Big Bear and me while we were talking. I may not understand people, but I know they looked at him like he was a big crazy bear.

Big Bear talked to one or two of the people then and must have found out where to WC. He told me to wait for him and took off some place pretty fast for a bear his size.

I waited for Big Bear, because I did not really have anything else to do. A little while later Big Bear came back and looked very happy and not lost at all.

"Do you have a job?" Big Bear asked me. I thought it was a little strange that Big Bear knew that cats need to have jobs after they get out of cat school.

I told him that I just got out of school last week and was sort of looking around for steady work. I told him about school and about the little work I was getting now.

A mouse here, a rat there, but I was really too little to catch big rats. If I did catch a mouse we would just play for a while and then go our own ways.

I told Big Bear about how hard it was to find a warm place to sleep around people and how I felt that frankly people food is not very good. I also told him how I was thinking of moving some place warmer to try to find work more my size. I think Big Bear understood most of what I was telling him.