The Cat Who Lived with Anne Frank

My boy Peter gathers me inside his coat. The heavy one with the Yellow Star. He wears layers and layers of clothing even though it’s a hot summer day. I know to stay still, quiet. Because Jews are forbidden to own pets.

I burrow. I breathe between the buttons. I smell the sea, the herring, the tulips. I hear my boy’s shoes clacking cobblestones. I hear angry soldiers and tracks and barking dogs. The ones with Black Spiders on their blood-red armbands, collars, flags and banners.
Peter’s heart quickens. Mine does too. Until our hearts beat as one. Church bells chime over crying gulls and the watery putt-putt of canal barges.

Suddenly we’re inside. Peter opens his coat, and a warmhearted woman
scratches my ears. I gulp delicious air
tingling with spice from the factory below. Miep leads us up steep stairs to a bookcase. bookcase that opens like magic to a hidden door and hidden rooms.

A girls there. A sparkling, brown-eyed, dark-haired girl. A chatty Yellow Star girl Peter knows from school. From before the Nazis and their cruel rules. When we were free and unafraid. When I rode, kitten face to the wind, perched high in my boy’s speeding bike basket… to the Oasts, where Peter snuck me inside his coat and I licked right from his cone, and the girl giggled, and she smelled of vanilla too.

Yes, I know this girl. Her name is Anne Anne Frank. The girl smiles a brilliant smile. She strokes my fur and says, “Welcome, Mouscht to our Secret Annex.”