Chapter 35

"Terrified?" questioned Bill.

"Yes. One of the tribal elders will accuse me of being a witch."

"I have enough trouble with witches at home."

"WHAT!!?"

"I live with a house full of witches."

"You're kidding!" exclaimed Millie. "That's crazy."

"Nope. Not kidding," Bill laughed, " ... certifiable ... everyone of them. They have long conversations with the cat."

"They have a familiar?" questioned Andie.

"Non-standard Egyptian Mau ... Pyewacket," said Bill. "She just had six Mau standard kittens."

"Oh my, an African wild cat, they're the progenitors of all house cats ... and purported to be magical," said Andie. "There's a legend that tells of a magician who was cursed to live in the body of a cat. The magician was named Pyewacket."

"Pyewacket?" asked Millie.

"Yeah ... long name for a cat," answered Bill. "She comes to it though."

"Not the cat, the magician. Pyewacket. Andie? You're sure?"

"As sure as one can be about African legends."

"Bill, you're an historian. Surely you know the cat at Plymouth Rock was named Pyewacket."

"Cleopatra's cat was named Pyewacket."

"The witch trials at Salem??? the cat was Pyewacket."

"Did you ever see the movie Bell, Book and Candle?" asked Millie.

"No ... oh ... wait ... YES! Pyewacket was the name of the cat." Bill was amazed that he remembered.

"That's the one," said Millie. She pondered a bit, "how did you give the cat that name?"

"I didn't. DD said the cat named herself." Then he had to explain about the rape, beating, death and resurrection of Dorothy Darling Davis. After that he told of DD and her running rescue of the kitten when she could barely walk and the slow deaths from alcohol burns of the rapists.

"Holy Shit! That's an amazing woman ... dumber than a box of rocks, you said?" Millie asked.

"Yup," said Bill, "If they put pictures in an encyclopedia, DD Davis would be the picture of the beautiful Airhead." Then he had to explain the operation and recovery along with the court cases that made DD a multimillionaire.

"Smart now?"

"Beyond measure, the psychologist that tested her says, it's like she heard and stored every single thing people tried to teach her and it all came out after the surgery." Bill was proud of DD and it showed.

"Wow!"

Then he had to explain the airplane, Megan's boat, and Pyewacket and Megan's dad ... oh ... and the Hispanics and Megan's boat. Pyewacket turned out to be quite the cat. Nobody linked Pyewacket to the first Pyewacket.

"Andie ... what's your real name ... Andie is not African," Bill wanted to know.

"You'll never pronounce it ... but it's An!den!g!wis!ye Yeboah ... Oh God, I love that look you Americans get when I say my name."

"Andengwisye," Bill made an unpronounceable mess of it. The glottal stops in the name were something most western europeans forgot by the time they were five.

There are five tones of tongue pops in the language, a native speaker understands the differences in tone, but an American? Not a chance. The position of each tone makes the whole word mean different things. Andengwisye is a boys name but the tone pop makes it feminine.