When the Queen Reigns:

A Ten-Minute Coup

This morning began in a fog—my brain fog, that is. I retreated upstairs for my usual personal grooming, which included a fruitless attempt to tame my frizzy hair.

I was gone perhaps ten minutes. Apparently, that was nine minutes too long.

When I returned, my husband John (also: part-time barista, full-time litter box scooper, and general peacekeeper) informed me that Nebula had seized the moment of my absence to enforce some ancient and unknowable code of conduct. He had not, he said with the weary tone of a man who has learned his limits, been able to intervene in time.

The full extent of the chaos, as he reported it, went like this:

Nebula—our self-appointed Cosmic Queen of Everything—had taken it upon herself to keep the other cats in line. You couldn’t quite say she was restoring order, since nothing had been out of order. All the cats had been peacefully minding their own business. But Nebula, ever sensitive to shifts in the atmospheric fabric of reality, can sense brewing disorder in the way dust motes float. And so she made the supreme sacrifice for the sake of the Feline Kingdom: she dispensed justice.

First: Newbery.

Newbery is our black cat, the oldest, the first to join our household. You might call her the rightful leader. Nebula does not. Mere chronology means nothing to the Timekeeper. Besides, Newbery’s temperament disqualifies her from command. She’s the most easily agitated cat in the house, all defense and no offense, which ensures that instead of top cat, she remains perpetually bottom cat.

And yet—perhaps out of sisterhood—Newbery is the only cat Nebula does not actively smack down. The most she’ll do is place her mouth against the back of Newbery’s neck and pursue her, relentlessly, across the house. But she doesn’t bite. It’s clearly a play for dominance, but with a ceiling.

This morning, though, she didn’t even do that.

She raised her paw high. Eyes wide. Mouth agape but silent, like a feline oracle mid-vision.

Newbery, sighing the sigh of one who has been here before, lifted her own paw in return.

The two regarded each other in complete silence. Then, like two swordswomen parting after an honorable draw, they turned and walked away.

Respect maintained. Message received. It was ceremonial. A ritual. No claws. No harm. Just principle.

Next: Hugo.

Hugo is our resident Diplocat and Sun Prince, champagne-colored and unbothered. His father was a champion, and Nebula accords him a modicum of respect for that alone. The operative word being modicum.

Hugo is a cat for whom the word “nonchalant” was invented. He rolls in clean litter like it’s a beach. He greets visitors with emotional neutrality and mild curiosity. He has never done a single thing wrong.

And yet he draws the wrath of the feline girls. Newbery regularly kicks him out of the bed they share.

Nebula charges at him when Callie isn’t readily available. Possibly because, in the minds of the girls, all males require periodic correction.

Today was not Hugo’s lucky day.

Even though Callie was within paw’s reach, Nebula chose Hugo. She whacked him. Then whacked him again. Then whacked him a third time for good measure.

He looked puzzled, as always. Newbery’s aggression makes a certain sense—she’s older, was here first, has seniority to defend. But Nebula? She arrived after Hugo, as a kitten herself. Yet she acts like the matriarch.

But why? Hugo seems to ask with his eyes. He’s done nothing. He never does anything.

But justice, according to Nebula, isn’t based on individual guilt. It’s based on atmospheric disturbance.

Something had clearly disturbed Her Majesty this morning.

Hugo, ever the gentlecat, walked away as if nothing had happened.

Finally: Callie.

Perhaps Nebula wanted to save the best—or the worst—for last. Maybe she wanted to give him time to sweat, to feel the claws of doom approaching.

Callie is our largest cat, a gray tabby, a faux Maine Coon Mix with an elegant white cravat. Faux because he looks like one, but a DNA test showed that he barely has two Maine Coon genes to rub together.

Our unfortunate Callie has the heart of a storm-tossed poet and the nervous system of a Victorian child raised on too much literature and not enough hugs.

He is the most scaredy-cat of the bunch. John holding a hat in his hands frightens him. Me wearing a swishy skirt sends him into existential terror. Most mornings, he freezes at the top of the stairs, cringing from some invisible gust of doom. His eyes ask: Is that man down there safe? Who is he? Is it safe now to descend into the realm of coffee beans?

Only after I give him the morning blessing does he venture down.

For Queen Nebula, such a creature is anathema. His mere existence is an affront that sends her into a hissy fit. For him, she reserves her fiercest whacks. She lunges. She grabs him in a headlock and chatters into his face like a hysterical schoolmarm convinced the world is ending and only volume can save it.

And what does Callie do?

He cringe-spins, hunkering down as low as his dense, fluffy body will allow, a Study in Defeated Floof. This, in spite of Callie outweighing Nebula by three or four pounds at least.

And so that is what happened.

In my temporary absence, Nebula attempted to hold the shape of the world alone. She was not restoring peace. She was preventing disintegration.

Sure, Dad-staff was there. But that’s like furniture being there. Useful. Solid. But not in charge of the weather.

It seems that when I left the downstairs ecosystem, Nebula clocked a drop in atmospheric pressure. Not chaos yet, but the potential for drift. And she stepped in as Acting Cosmic Comptroller.

She did not ask who is wrong. She asked who is wobbling.

Which is to say: authority isn’t always loud.

But fear is always legible.