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    Rama the Gypsy Cat
    Rama the Gypsy Cat
    Rama the Gypsy Cat
    Ebook82 pages58 minutes

    Rama the Gypsy Cat

    By Betsy Byars

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Rama the cat has no home. He is the Gypsy Cat, and a life full of travel and adventure awaits him.
    When a gypsy woman found Rama as a kitten, she pierced his ear with a golden earring and named him after an exiled prince who wandered for years, having many adventures. Rama the cat lives up to his namesake when he strays from the wagon that was his home, and begins his own thrilling journey, discovering dangers on the wharf, in the forest, and by the river, encountering new foes and friends. Will Rama ever return to his old life . . . and does he even want to? This ebook features an illustrated biography of Betsy Byars including rare images from the author’s personal collection.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateMar 26, 2013
    ISBN9781480410640
    Rama the Gypsy Cat
    Author

    Betsy Byars

    Betsy Byars is the author of many award-winning books for children, including The Summer of the Swans, a Newbery Medal winner. The Pinballs was an ALA Notable Book. She is also the author of Goodbye, Chicken Little; The Two-Thousand-Pound Goldfish; and the popular Golly Sisters trilogy.

    Read more from Betsy Byars

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      Book preview

      Rama the Gypsy Cat - Betsy Byars

      Rama the Gypsy Cat

      Betsy C. Byars

      To Nancy Lois

      Contents

      The Gypsy

      Wharf Cat

      Fight

      On the Raft

      A Boy and a Cabin

      Recovery

      Danger

      Wild River

      Alone

      A New Friend

      The Peddler

      Going West

      A Biography of Betsy Byars

      THE GYPSY

      THE GYPSY WOMAN SAT on the steps of her darkened wagon. Her heavy embroidered skirt hung over her feet and smelled of oil and dust and the smoke of many fires. At her feet, leaning against her, was a cat.

      He was a young cat, but strong, and in his left ear he wore a tiny golden earring. The gypsy woman had put this in his ear when he was a kitten, just as mothers place earrings in the pierced ears of gypsy babies.

      Now, she had said when his earring was put in place that first night, now you are a gypsy. Never forget that. You are Rama the gypsy.

      He had scratched at the earring for a while and once had caught his claw in it, but now it was part of him, and he accepted it as another animal would accept a collar.

      Rama stared at the fire through slitted eyes. The gypsy woman nudged him with the side of her foot.

      You know how many fortunes I have told this week? She slapped her hand against her knee in disgust. Not one, my friend, not even one.

      Rama yawned, lifted one white-tipped foot, and licked it.

      The gypsy woman smiled down at him. I will tell your fortune, Rama, to see if I can still do it. She picked him up with one hand and set him on her lap. She looked at his paw.

      Ah, you are going to have an interesting life, my friend. You are going to catch many mice—I see that here in your paw. And you will catch fish from many streams. And here, she bent closer, here I see a journey, a long journey. Perhaps we shall take that together, eh, my friend?

      She leaned back against the side of her wagon where pots and strings of herbs hung from the roof. Tomorrow we leave this place, my friend. We will go south at last. Antonio’s wagon is repaired, his leg heals, and there is nothing else to keep us here, eh?

      She stroked the cat’s throat with her long fingers, which smelled pleasantly of oil. Soon snow will fall, my friend, and you will not like that. Here, let me see your paw. She lifted it again, Anh, she said sadly, one day you will know the cold, my friend. One day far from here, you will know hunger and cold. It is in your paw.

      Tired of the game, Rama moved restlessly in her hands, then was still, waiting. He had only to show the gypsy woman he was restless and she would release him. She moved her hands, and Rama rose on her lap, stretched, and jumped lightly to the ground.

      You are leaving me already, my friend? the gypsy woman asked. The moon is barely over the trees.

      Rama stretched first one front leg, then the other. Without a backward look, he moved like a dark shadow around the fire.

      On the other side of the fire in the long shadows, a man sat strumming a guitar. Where are you going, Rama? he asked with a smile.

      Where is he going? Who knows? the gypsy woman shouted from her wagon. He is a gypsy cat. What he does, he keeps to himself. She lifted her hands. Anh! Then she rose and went into her wagon.

      Rama walked to the gypsy man’s wagon, one of ten in the clearing, and sharpened his claws against the log which served the man as a step. He dug his claws deep into the bark, and as he raked them through the wood, he could feel the fibers separate and tear. It was a good sound, and Rama’s muscles felt strong and young and able to accomplish whatever he wished.

      He paused a moment more to lick his bib, then moved slowly around the wagon. Quickening his pace, he entered the black-green of the forest.

      Through the mosses and grasses he went, silently, steadily. Behind him, the gypsy man began to sing, a strange song of far lands and dark people, a song of longing, but it was not strange to Rama. He had heard these songs since he was a kitten, when the gypsy woman had found him on a dusty West Virginia road and taken him into her wagon. Later, in a nearby village, a young boy had seen the kitten on the wagon seat beside the woman and had cried, "That’s my kitten. That gypsy stole my kitten. She stole it."

      The gypsy woman had been scornful. Look, she had said, holding up the kitten for

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