Slow, Slow, One Paw at a Time

"Plip. Plop. Plip-plop." Warm rain dripped from one giant leaf down to the next, and Cleo sat up straight. Cleo was a small gray kitten with four white socks and a tail like a piece of soft rope. She sat on the mossy bank of the slow river and looked up at the mango.

The mango hung high in the tree, round and orange and fat. It smelled sweeter than anything else in all the Emerald Jungle, sweet and warm, like sunshine you could eat. Cleo wanted it very much. Not for herself. For Tova.

Tova was a sloth, and she took all night to say hello. "Hel," she would say at suppertime. "Lo," she would say when the moon was high. But Tova loved mango more than anybody, so Cleo wanted to bring her one.

Mama Cat lay on the warm stone nearby, one eye open, her tail curled like a comma. "Stay on the moss, little one," she said. "I'm right here."

Cleo crouched low. She wiggled her back end, once, twice. Then she jumped. Up she went, up, up, up, and her paws closed on nothing at all. Down she came, plop, into the soft wet moss. "Hmph," said Cleo, and her whiskers drooped.

So she tried the trunk instead. She dug in her claws and scrambled up, fast as falling rain. Up, up, up, and then her paws slipped, and she slid down backwards, bump, bump, into the moss again. Cleo felt wobbly inside, the way you feel when your legs won't do what you ask them.

"One more try," she whispered. She found a bendy vine and bounced on it like a trampoline. Boing! The vine swung left when Cleo wanted right, and Cleo tumbled into a fern with leaves on her ears. She lay in the green and giggled. "Mango," she said to the mango, "why are you so high up?"

Then Cleo noticed her friend. Tova was coming along a branch, very slowly. One long arm. Then the next long arm. "Hel," said Tova. "Lo." It was the start of her hello, and it would take all night to finish.

Cleo stood up and tried a whole new way. She put her paws wide, the way Tova did. One paw. Then the next paw. She went slow, slow, slower than rain dripping off a leaf. Past the bumpy bit. Past the smooth bit. A drop of warm rain landed on her ear and she didn't even stop.

Up and up she went, one paw at a time, higher than she had ever been. Then her claws grew tired. She hugged the trunk and held on. "I got a little higher," she said. "But that mango is still too high for me."

Tova reached up with one long arm and hooked the branch. Ever so slowly, she pulled it down, down, down, until the fat mango hung right at Cleo's nose. Cleo plucked it, and it came away with a soft pop. "For you," she said.

They shared it on the warm stone, with Mama Cat curled between them. Mango juice dripped off Cleo's whiskers, and Tova took one slow bite at a time. "Hel," said Tova. "Lo." She had finished her hello at last.

The rain stopped. The glow-worms strung through the branches glowed like tiny fairy lights, and one by one they turned down low. Tova yawned a wide, slow yawn. "I'm getting drowsy," she said. Drowsy means sleepy and slow, like honey pouring out of a jar.

Cleo curled up against Mama's warm side and felt her own eyes grow heavy. Slow, slow, one paw at a time, she thought. Tomorrow she would try again.

The river made a soft hush, hush, hush against the moss. The jungle grew dim and quiet, and the last glow-worm gave one tiny golden blink. Goodnight, Cleo. Goodnight, Tova. Sleep slow, sleep soft, one paw at a time.