"Phtew to you too, Slö!" the boy spat back, not altogether unkindly.
The plump cat's untrusting eyes followed the boy on his route as he passed. Slö's face was pinched in a permanent scowl, and his mangy fur stuck out in clumps. He was missing all but two whiskers on the left side of his face. His tail thumped aggressively upon the thick limb of the tree where he was perched.
Each day after school, the boy bounded gaily past Slö's roost and exchanged a greeting that was simultaneously unpleasant and comforting in its routine predictability.
One evening the boy heard a soft mewling from the tall grass not far from the building where his lessons took place. He wandered over to find a tiny orange cat writhing in the mud. The kitten's fur was clumped and ruffled, and patches were missing to expose small, bloody scratches on his skin.
"What happened to you?" the boy asked, bending forward and scooping up the kitten in his palms.
"I don't know," the kitten mewed. "Something took me..."
"You can talk?" the boy asked, wide-eyed.
"I suppose so..."
The boy took the wounded cat in his arms and hurried off towards his cottage. As the pair passed Slö, his hair ruffled up taller than usual, and he issued a more forceful low growl. Still he did not stand from his lethargic position on his limb.
"What's wrong with him?" the kitten asked.
"Don't worry. He's just a grouch."
The boy got the kitten home and gave him food and water and tended to his wounds. He named the kitten Spela and fell asleep with the tiny ball of fur purring contentedly on his chest. For months the pair strode to and from the boy's school together. Spela waited quietly on the boy's desk as he took his lessons and trotted merrily by his side all the way home.
"Pipe down, Slö!" the pair would call, laughing, in response to the grumpy old cat's hisses as they passed each day.
The boy fashioned a ball of tightly bound cloth, which he would toss around outside his cottage. He laughed and laughed as he watched Spela crouch and wiggle and pounce upon the ball and bring it back each time to be thrown again.
He would run through the tall grass and have Spela chase him until he fell down laughing at the way the cat had to bound high into the air to see him over the blades of grass.
Each day after school, the pair played fetch and tag and hide-and-seek, and each night they fell asleep curled in the boy's warm bed together.
The years passed, and Spela and the boy grew together. Still Spela waited on his boy's desk each day until the two could run outside and race home, cheerfully calling, "Bite your tongue, Slö!" as they passed the old, grey cat in the tree.
Tattered balls of cloth littered the outside of the boy's cottage and the floor of his bedroom. Various hidey-holes made of sticks and straw that the boy had fashioned for Spela were placed around the grass outside. A homemade ladder leaned against the tree outside, so that the boy could chase Spela to the top of it.
The two played and laughed and rolled in the dirt until night fell and they went to bed as usual. On the way to school the next morning, Slö hissed a languid greeting.
"Good morning to you too!" Spela giggled.
When the boy entered his school, he turned to find Spela standing still a few paces behind. "What's the matter?" he asked.
Before the cat could answer, a massive bird of prey swooped down in a blur and snatched him into the air.
"No!" the boy screamed, running after the bird. He caught one horrid look as Spela sagged silently from the beast's talons and looked back at his boy.
He dropped his books and chased the bird deep into the tall grass that surrounded his village. Tears streamed down his face as the bird got farther and farther away with Spela still in his grasp.
At last the bird dropped the cat and disappeared into the clouds. The boy ran to where his friend's body lay and fell to his knees.
"Please be okay," he begged, weeping heavily.
"I think that this is the end..." Spela said weakly, his tiny eyes never opened.
The boy laid a hand on his friend, and the cat winced. "Don't go," he pleaded. "Don't leave me."
"I'm sorry," the cat replied. "I cannot control this."
"Why? Why can't it be old Slö instead! Why you?"
"Do not pity me," Spela said.
"I pity us both," the boy sobbed.
"Pity Slö. I may be leaving now, but I have lived twice as much as he."
"It isn't fair. I want you. No one wants that old wretch."
"Perhaps that is why Slö is as he is," Spela replied. "No one ever taught him to love. No one taught him to play... Or they stopped reminding him somewhere along the way."
"What am I supposed to do now?" the boy wept. "I'll be miserable. Just like Slö."
"Move on," Spela said, opening his brilliant eyes one last time to look at his boy. "Age," he whispered, pushing his head into his friend's hand, "but never forget how to play, and you will never grow old and miserable."
