A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively

S.C.P. 1860. One or two of these seemed more approachable to someone of her modest abilities, and she played them through, not worrying too much at her mistakes and enjoying the large, competent sound of the piano.
    A movement, in the shadowy evening gloom of the room, distracted her and made her produce an ugly discord. The cat was squatting on the arm of a chair observing her.
    â€œWe aren’t concentrating, are we? Not giving the matter our full attention. There’s a certain basic lack of talent too, I’d say.” It stared squint-eyed into the garden, its tail twitching slightly.
    â€œYou again,” said Maria. “Thinking about eating the birds, I suppose.”
    â€œThat’s always an interesting possibility,” said the cat.
    â€œBeast.”
    â€œPerfectly true. Of the species ‘cat’, to be precise. Felix felix. So what’s wrong with behaving like one?”
    â€œJust because it’s your instinct doesn’t make it a nice way to behave. Sometimes I feel like hitting people and I suppose that’s instinct but it’s still a nasty thing to do,” said Maria.
    The cat curled up like a bun and closed its eyes. “My, we are feeling argumentative this evening, aren’t we?”
    â€œIn fact,” Maria went on, “when I come to think about it I suppose that’s the difference between us. That I try not to do things that might be nasty even if they are my instinct and you just don’t bother. In fact you don’t know what nasty is.”
    â€œOh, clever clever,” said the cat irritably.
    â€œAnd the other thing, of course, that’s different is that you can’t remember things like I can. What did we have for lunch yesterday?”
    â€œDon’t pester me with details,” said the cat.
    â€œThere you are! And of course the most important thing is that you can’t talk. Unless I let you.”
    â€œOh, shut up,” said the cat. It slid off the arm of the chair and made a sinuous exit into the garden, without looking at her.
    And the other thing, of course, Maria thought, is that it can’t expect things either. Like wondering what we’re going to do tomorrow and if it’ll be good or bad, and thinking how funny that I don’t know now – anything might happen, there might be the end of the world, or an earthquake, and I simply don’t know but by this time tomorrow I will. She put the music away and closed the lid of the piano.
    Lingering over this odd thought, and with it other confused but not really unpleasant thoughts – of that sampler, of fossils, of Martin – she went upstairs to her room, undressed, washed, and was lying tidily in bed when her parents called in, singly, to say goodnight. Mrs Foster adjusted the bedclothes, removed some dirty socks and a shirt, and said, looking out of the window, that there was a lovely sunset and she thought that meant good weather.
    â€œNot an earthquake, then,” said Maria, from deep within the bed, mostly to herself.
    â€œWhat, dear?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œWell, goodnight, then.”
    â€œGoodnight.”
    Her father came in and gave her one kiss with exactly the same careful deliberation that he gave her twenty pence pocket money every Saturday morning. This did not, Maria had worked out, mean that he did not love her but just that he believed money to be important. He always knew exactly how much money he had, or should have, in his pocket, in just the same way that he always cleaned his shoes at the same time every evening and always folded the newspaper right side out before throwing it in the dustbin. He was a very tidy person. I am tidy too, thought Maria, I suppose I have inherited tidiness like I have inherited my mother’s straight hair, but I am untidy in my head, in the things I think about… And, thinking this, and wondering if, were it possible – and oh, how amazing and interesting it would