The Sneeze That Wouldn't Stop

Kit was a cat who liked things just so.

She liked her water bowl filled to the very tip-top. She liked her sunny spot on the windowsill at exactly two o'clock. She liked her dinner served in the blue bowl — never the green one — and she liked her naps to be long, quiet, and completely undisturbed.

Kit was, in every way, a very particular cat.

So when the sneeze arrived on Monday morning, Kit was not pleased.

"ACHOO!"

It came out of nowhere — a big, whisker-rattling, ear-flapping sneeze that knocked her right off the windowsill.

Kit blinked. She looked left. She looked right. She licked her paw and smoothed her fur back into place.

"Well," she thought. "That was rude."

She hopped back onto the windowsill, circled three times, and had just tucked her tail around her nose when —

"ACHOO!"

Off the windowsill again.

Kit narrowed her eyes. This would not do. This would not do at all.

By Tuesday, the sneeze had not gone away. If anything, it had gotten worse.

Kit sneezed into her water bowl and splashed water all over the kitchen floor. She sneezed during her afternoon nap and scared the dog next door so badly that he hid under his bed for an hour. She sneezed while trying to eat dinner, and a piece of kibble shot across the room and bonked her owner, Oliver, right on the forehead.

"Bless you, Kit!" Oliver said, rubbing his head.

Kit did not feel blessed. Kit felt ridiculous.

She tried holding her breath. She sneezed anyway.

She tried pressing her paw against her nose. She sneezed SO hard her paw flew off her face and knocked over a lamp.

She tried burying her whole head under a pillow. The pillow launched across the room like a fluffy cannonball.

"ACHOO! ACHOO! ACHOO!"

Three in a row. A new record. Kit was furious.

By Wednesday, Oliver was worried.

"I'm calling the vet," he said.

But the vet had never seen anything like it. She checked Kit's nose, checked Kit's ears, checked Kit's throat, and shook her head.

"I'm going to call in some specialists," the vet said.

And that is how Kit ended up in a room full of scientists.

There were three of them. The first was Dr. Patel, who was very tall and wore enormous round glasses. The second was Dr. Guzmán, who was very short and carried a clipboard almost as big as she was. The third was Dr. Johannsen, who had wild white hair that stuck out in every direction, as if he had been sneezed on.

They set up their equipment around Kit. There were monitors and machines and blinking lights and one very complicated-looking device that went bloop bloop bloop.

Kit sat in the middle of it all, deeply unimpressed.

"Fascinating," said Dr. Patel, peering at a screen. "The sneeze frequency is increasing."

"Remarkable," said Dr. Guzmán, scribbling on her clipboard. "I've never seen readings like this."

"Extraordinary!" said Dr. Johannsen, his hair somehow getting even wilder. "We must run more tests!"

Kit sneezed and blew all of Dr. Guzmán's papers into the air. They fluttered down like enormous snowflakes.

"FASCINATING!" all three scientists said together.

Kit was not fascinated. Kit wanted to go home, sit on her windowsill, and take a nap like a normal cat.

The scientists tried everything. They tried a tiny nose mask. Kit sneezed it onto the ceiling. They tried a special mist that was supposed to calm sneezes. Kit sneezed it into a cloud so thick that everyone stumbled around bumping into each other for ten minutes. They tried playing soft music. Kit sneezed so hard the speaker fell off the table.

Nothing worked.

"We need more data!" said Dr. Patel.

"We need bigger machines!" said Dr. Guzmán.

"We need to think BIGGER!" said Dr. Johannsen.

They started wheeling in even MORE equipment. Bigger monitors. Louder machines. The bloop bloop bloop machine was replaced by one that went BWAAAMP BWAAAMP BWAAAMP.

The room was getting crowded. The lights were getting brighter. The noises were getting louder. Everyone was bustling around Kit, poking and prodding and pointing and shouting over each other.

Kit's ears flattened against her head.

Her tail puffed up to twice its size.

Her eyes went wide.

And then Oliver — quiet, patient Oliver, who had been sitting in the corner this whole time — said, "Stop."

Everyone stopped.

Oliver walked through the maze of machines and wires and scientists. He sat down on the floor right next to Kit.

"Hey, Kit," he said softly.

Kit looked up at him.

Oliver gently scooped her into his lap. He didn't poke her or prod her or attach any wires. He just sat there, stroking her fur, slow and steady, the way she liked it. Down her back, all the way to the tip of her tail. Again. And again.

The scientists watched, bewildered.

"What is he doing?" whispered Dr. Patel.

"Just... sitting there," whispered Dr. Guzmán.

"No machines at all!" whispered Dr. Johannsen, horrified.

Kit's ears slowly un-flattened. Her tail slowly un-puffed. She closed her eyes. Oliver kept petting her, slow and warm, and he started humming — that little song he always hummed when it was just the two of them at home.

One minute passed. No sneeze.

Two minutes. Still no sneeze.

Five whole minutes, and Kit hadn't sneezed once.

She started to purr — a deep, rumbly, rolling purr, like a tiny motor starting up. It was the first time she'd purred in three days.

Dr. Guzmán checked her clipboard. "The readings... they're going back to normal."

Dr. Patel stared at his screen. "Sneeze frequency: zero."

Dr. Johannsen scratched his wild hair. "But... how? We didn't use any of our equipment!"

Oliver looked up and shrugged. "She just needed things to be quiet for a minute."

Oliver carried Kit home. He filled her water bowl to the very tip-top. He set her down on her windowsill, right in the warm patch of afternoon sun. He put her dinner in the blue bowl — not the green one — and he sat nearby, reading a book, while Kit napped.

And Kit napped beautifully. Long, quiet, and completely undisturbed.

She did sneeze one more time that evening — just a little one, a perfectly normal little cat sneeze. She shook it off, licked her paw, and went right back to sleep.

The scientists published a very long paper about the whole thing. It was full of big words and complicated charts. But if you read all the way to the very last line, in very small print, it said:

"Conclusion: Sometimes the answer is not a bigger machine."

Kit, of course, never read it.

She had better things to do.

Like napping.