Nothing So Strange Read Online Free PDF

fed the cats and mice and fixed all the cages, sir.”
    Brad said: “You’d better let me take a look first.” He excused himself to
us and was gone a few minutes; when he came back my mother was all ready for
him. “What’s this about cats and mice and cages? Is that what the smell
is?”
    He smiled. “I hope it doesn’t bother you. I’m so used to it myself I
hardly notice it.”
    “But what do you have them for?”
    “I don’t have them at all—they belong to the man next door. I keep
an eye on them when he’s out. He uses them for his experimental work.”
    “You mean—” She flushed a little. “But of course, that’s very
interesting. I’d like to see your menagerie. Could I?”
    I hoped he would have more sense and I tried to signal danger to both of
them, but without effect. I didn’t know him well enough, anyway, to convey
signals, and somehow at that moment I didn’t even feel I knew my mother well
enough. She had a spellbound look, as if she were eager for disaster. Brad
just said: “Sure, if you like, but I warn you, the smell’s worse when you get
close.”
    We walked down a stone corridor and into another room. It was full of
cages, numbered and tagged and placed methodically on platforms round the
walls. The cats had had their milk and were sleepily washing themselves; they
purred in anticipation and rubbed their heads against the wire when he went
near them. My mother looked hypnotizes as she followed him from cage to cage.
She asked him how the cats were obtained. “I suppose the University buys them
from somebody,” he answered. “Most of them are strays—they’re often
half- starved when they first come here. We feed them well, of
course—they have to be healthy before they’re any use.”
    Without reply see suddenly opened the door of one of the cages. A black
and white cat squirmed eagerly into her arms and tried to reach up to her
chin. See fondled it for a moment, then put it back in the cage. “What a pity
I have to,” she whispered.
    “You like cats?” he asked.
    “I adore them. Do you?”
    “Yes. Dogs too.”
    It wasn’t a very intelligent end to the conversation but I could see it was the end. My mother was already putting on that glassy look she has
when see is saying charming things and thinking of something else at the same
time. I’ve often seen it at the tail end of a party. “I think perhaps I ought
to be going…. So nice of you to ask me here and tell me everything. We must
have you to the house again soon.”
    He saw us down to the street, where Henry was waiting. In the car my
mother was silent for a while, then she said: “It was my fault. I shouldn’t
have poked my nose in.”
    When I didn’t answer she added: “I suppose they have to do it.”
    “ He doesn’t. They weren’t his.”
    She was silent again for some time, then asked suddenly: “Do you think you
understand him?”
    “Not after the way he talked to you today.”
    “Why, what was wrong about that?”
    “Nothing, only I’d always thought he was reserved and shy.”
    “He is.”
    “Not with you. He told you more in five minutes than he’d tell me in five
years.”
    “Wait till you’ve known him five years. You’ll be a better age.”
    “So you think that’s why he doesn’t talk to me as he does to you? Because
I’m too young?”
    “Perhaps. Darling, don’t be annoyed. And I might be wrong too. I’ve never
met scientists before. They must be queer people. The way they can do such things … and yet have ideals. The distant goal—he’s got his eyes
fixed on it and he can’t see anything nearer…. And all his hard life and
early struggles haven’t taught him anything. He doesn’t realize that even in
the scientific world you’ve got to get about and make friends if you want to
be a success. He lives like a hermit—anyone can see that. It would do
him good to fall in love.”
    I laughed. “Mathews says he’s scared of women