Thanksgiving gift books that steal the show.

German Rex / St. Louis, Missouri

The hair was white, curved and almost three inches long. Marcus held it between thumb and forefinger above the clean counter.

“Edie,” he said.

Edie sat on the kitchen mat. The red-and-white cat had a soft coat that lay in little waves, especially along her shoulders. Her whiskers bent and hooked in several directions. She lifted her face when Marcus said her name, then looked away.

His son was loading the dishwasher. “You don’t know it’s hers.”

“We own one cat.”

“We own brushes.”

Marcus had promised his sister a clean kitchen. She never commented on the old cabinets or the chipped tile. She noticed everything on the counter. He had wiped it twice before breakfast and had asked his son to keep Edie off it, though Edie preferred the mat near his feet.

He laid the white strand on a dark saucer. It was exceptionally straight except for a neat bend at its end. Edie’s whiskers curled untidily. Marcus leaned down to examine her face. Edie sniffed his fingers, found nothing edible and settled with her paws under her chest.

His son took a new bottle brush out of the drying rack. Its bristles were white. Near the tip, one small space showed between them. He set the brush beside the saucer.

Marcus looked at both. He rubbed the strand between his fingers. It sprang back. Then he bent it farther. The strand kept the bend.

“Plastic,” his son said.

Marcus put it in the trash. He put the brush there too. He asked his son why he had not mentioned the loose bristles earlier.

“I was told to keep an eye on the cat.”

Outside, a delivery van stopped at the curb. Edie got up and went to the front window. Marcus rinsed the saucer and inspected the empty counter from one end to the other.

His son finished the dishwasher, closed its door and went to stand beside Edie.

For a while, they both kept an eye on the van.

Feline rulingA whisker should belong to somebody.

Domestic shorthair / San Diego, California

The blinds were clean, but the stripes on the floor kept moving. Rosie noticed Dot following them while her mother wiped the last slat.

The kitten crouched behind the laundry hamper. A bright stripe crossed one black spot on her back. She raised a paw toward the neighboring dark stripe and waited. When her mother lifted the blind cord out of reach and secured it, the stripe moved. Dot moved too.

“She’s learning geometry,” Rosie said.

Her mother put the cloth down. “She’ll know more than some people I work with.”

Rosie had spent Tuesday drawing parallel lines at school. She retrieved a ruler from her backpack and held it above the floor. The sunlight made a new shadow, straight and narrow. Dot crawled toward it. Rosie shifted the ruler. Dot stopped, laid one paw across the dark line and looked at the bare floor beyond her toes.

They tried this four times. The fifth time Dot looked up at Rosie’s hand.

“She knows,” her mother said.

Rosie tried putting the ruler behind her knee. Dot stepped around the knee. She sniffed the ruler, rubbed her cheek against it and went to sit in the patch of sun beneath the clean window.

The apartment had begun to smell of roasting squash from the closed oven on the far side of the kitchen. Her mother needed the hamper back, and Rosie still had to wipe the low baseboards. She put the ruler on the desk and took the damp cloth.

Dot watched from the sun patch. Rosie worked along the wall, moving the hamper as she went. At the corner she found the small blue ball they had lost on Sunday. Dot rose at the sound of it rolling, followed it round Rosie’s wrist and pinned it with both front paws.

Here was something a kitten could hold. Rosie left it with her and finished the baseboards.

Later she looked at the desk. A stripe of sunlight lay across the ruler. Everything on it could be measured except the morning they had already used up.

Feline rulingThe lines are allowed to move.

Domestic shorthair / Des Moines, Iowa

Owen’s suitcase had one wheel that squeaked. He knew which one, but he had packed the case so heavily that the quiet wheels could not carry it by themselves.

The noise traveled from the driveway to the enclosed porch, where he shut the outer door before opening the inner one. His sister took the pie carrier. Her daughter took his scarf. Dime appeared in the hall with her head low and her ears forward.

Owen rolled the suitcase three feet.

Dime followed three feet.

“She’s glad to see you,” his sister said.

“It’s mutual.”

He rolled it another foot. The gray-and-cream cat inspected the rear wheel. Owen stopped. She pressed her nose close without touching, then sat beside it.

His nephew offered to take the suitcase upstairs. He was fourteen and had recently grown strong enough to make ordinary tasks look like favors. Owen accepted, but the boy dragged the case backward. The squeaking wheel stayed still. Dime stopped following.

“Don’t scratch the floor,” his mother said.

“I’ve got it.”

He changed direction. The squeak returned. Dime trotted after the case, her small feet silent on the boards. Owen laughed and took back the handle. He made a slow circuit around the coat rack. The cat accompanied him, then sat when he sat.

His sister watched from the kitchen doorway. There were potatoes to peel. There was a guest bed without sheets. Owen had promised to assemble the folding table, and instead he was operating a luggage carousel for one cat.

“Upstairs,” she said.

Owen tilted the case onto its good wheels. Dime looked at the silent wheel, then at him. He lowered it again.

The nephew brought down a cotton swab and a teaspoon of plain water. He cleaned grit from the wheel while Owen held the case still. When the suitcase rolled quietly, Dime sniffed the boy’s knuckles and walked away.

“Fixed,” he said.

Owen thanked him. Then he stood in the hall without a cat following, feeling less welcome than he had before the repair.

Feline rulingThe wheel may proceed under escort.

Highlander / Madison, Wisconsin

Ellen folded twelve napkins into rectangles and counted eleven. She counted them again, touching each folded edge. Eleven. Dolly watched from the kitchen stool, her cream fur bent on one cheek from a long afternoon nap.

“She likes cloth,” Ellen said.

Her sister asked whether liking cloth constituted possession of a twelfth napkin. Ellen did not answer. She looked under the stool, behind the pantry door, and inside the dry sink. Dolly moved her head with each inspection. This made Ellen feel observed during work she would have preferred to conduct privately.

The children were setting water cups in the other room. Their father had been sent to find the extra folding chair. There was plenty of time for everyone to use a napkin, but Ellen wanted twelve rectangles. Her mother had always made twelve. Even when there were nine people, there had been twelve.

“Perhaps you only washed eleven,” her sister said.

Ellen opened the linen drawer to demonstrate the absence of napkins. Dolly stepped down from the stool and rubbed against the outside of her calf. Ellen stood very still. Somewhere in the dining room, a child asked if water counted as a course.

The twelfth napkin was on Ellen’s shoulder.

She had put it there while moving the stack from the laundry basket. It lay neatly folded beneath the apron strap, with one white corner hanging down her back. Her sister saw it when Ellen turned toward the light. For a moment she said nothing. It was a small apartment. Good opportunities were scarce.

“Search her,” she told Dolly.

The cat sat beside Ellen’s shoe and looked toward the dining room, where a chair had scraped the floor. Ellen removed the napkin from her shoulder. She shook it once, although it had acquired no wrinkles worth shaking out, and made the rectangle.

Nobody announced a correction. Her sister carried the twelve napkins to the table in both hands. Dolly returned to the stool, where the indentation left by her cheek was still visible.

At dinner, Ellen unfolded her napkin carefully. Her sister waited until she had spread it on her lap before saying, “That’s the one.”

Feline rulingArithmetic remains a household problem.