The Brown Fairy Book

by Andrew Lang

The cat said nothing, but he did not feel that he loved his big brother. He had thought a great deal about that deer, and had meant to get on his back to ride him as a horse, and go to see all the wonderful places the lion talked to him about when he was in a good temper. The more he thought of it the more sulky he grew, and in the morning, when the lion said that it was time for them to start to hunt, the cat told him that he might kill the bear and snake by himself, as he had a headache, and would rather stay at home. The little fellow knew quite well that the lion would not dare to go out without him and his ball for fear of meeting a bear or a snake.

The quarrel went on, and for many days neither of the brothers spoke to each other, and what made them still more cross was, that they could get very little to eat, and we know that people are often cross when they are hungry. At last it occurred to the lion that if he could only steal the magic ball he could kill bears and snakes for himself, and then the cat might be as sulky as he liked for anything that it would matter. But how was the stealing to be done? The cat had the ball hung round his neck day and night, and he was such a light sleeper that it was useless to think of taking it while he slept. No! the only thing was to get him to lend it of his own accord, and after some days the lion (who was not at all clever) hit upon a plan that he thought would do.

‘Dear me, how dull it is here!’ said the lion one afternoon, when the rain was pouring down in such torrents that, however sharp your eyes or your nose might be, you could not spy a single bird or beast among the bushes. ‘Dear me, how dull, how dreadfully dull I am. Couldn’t we have a game of catch with that golden ball of yours?’

‘I don’t care about playing catch, it does not amuse me,’ answered the cat, who was as cross as ever; for no cat, even to this day, ever forgets an injury done to him.

‘Well, then, lend me the ball for a little, and I will play by myself,’ replied the lion, stretching out a paw as he spoke.

‘You can’t play in the rain, and if you did, you would only lose it in the bushes,’ said the cat.

‘Oh, no, I won’t; I will play in here. Don’t be so ill-natured.’ And with a very bad grace the cat untied the string and threw the golden ball into the lion’s lap, and composed himself to sleep again.

For a long while the lion tossed it up and down gaily, feeling that, however sound asleep the boy-brother might look, he was sure to have one eye open; but gradually he began to edge closer to the opening, and at last gave such a toss that the ball went up high into the air, and he could not see what became of it.

‘Oh, how stupid of me!’ he cried, as the cat sprang up angrily, ‘let us go at once and search for it. It can’t really have fallen very far.’ But though they searched that day and the next, and the next after that, they never found it, because it never came down.

After the loss of his ball the cat refused to live with the lion any longer, but wandered away to the north, always hoping he might meet with his ball again. But months passed, and years passed, and though he travelled over hundreds of miles, he never saw any traces of it.