How I Learned Portuguese

The sun was blazing on a lazy Monday afternoon. I was sitting on my porch reading a novel in a language I did not understand (Romanian), when a pretty gray cat walked by. It stopped in front of my house, looked straight at me, and very politely asked if I knew where the closest book store was, because this was a new town to him, and he was very lost. I replied that it was a few blocks away, and since I wasn’t doing anything particularly interesting, that I would give him a ride. We both climbed onto my Jeep and the cat attempted to put on the seatbelt, but then I remembered that it was not working, and told him so. He looked quite concerned, and decided to sit on the floorboard. The drive was short, and the cat tried to make friendly conversation. "Nice neighborhood," he commented stretching his neck to try to see out the back window. I said that I thought so too, and that he should think of moving here. He shook his head and said, "too many dogs without leashes. Who would feel safe in a place like this?" Then he caught himself, and apologized, saying that he didn’t mean to insult the place where I lived. I said that I felt the same way about it, and had actually talked about it to the neighborhood watch people but they had dismissed me for being paranoid because dogs were perfectly safe to be around. When we arrived at the bookstore, I asked the cat what it was looking for. He said that languages really fascinated him, and that he was working on learning Portuguese. "Would you like to learn it with me?" he asked. I replied that it sounded like a nice idea, and so we set together on a search for a good Portuguese course. When we found it, the cat offered to pay for it since he was planning on doing so anyway, and I did not complain. The cat moved in with me and we studied night and day. We both became quite fluent after only four months of studying. One morning I woke up later than usual, and I found a note on the kitchen table. It was clearly the cat’s handwriting, and it said that he was very grateful for everything I had done for him, and that he will be forever grateful, but that he hated good-byes because he got all emotional, so he apologized for leaving like that. It took me a minute to realize that it was written in Portuguese and that I had understood it perfectly. That though made me happy. I still think of the cat almost every day and hope he thinks of me too. So wherever you are, adeus meu bom amigo. Você sempre terá um lugar no meu coração