Read Luna's book
An example. Nine photos, seven answers, about ten minutes. Yours is made the same way.
LunaLuna
2009 – 2025
LunaLuna
2009 – 2025
For Luna, who watched over all of us.
Luna1- Breed
- Moggy, long-haired
- Born
- 2009
- Died
- 2025
- Lives with
- Madeleine, Tom and Rufus the dog
- Loves
- Boxes, the yellow chair
- Fears
- The doorbell
Luna2The house wakes up on Luna's schedule.
Luna3Ten to Six
At ten to six she sat on Tom's chest and stared. No sound, just the stare. If that didn't work, one paw came out and pressed against his nose, claws out. Once he was up, she led the way to the kitchen and sat by the bowl as if she had been waiting there for hours, patient and wronged, until someone fed her.
Luna4Leaves in a Row
In sixteen years, never a mouse. Instead, leaves, carried in one at a time and laid on the doormat in a row, like something delivered on purpose. Once it was a whole slice of bread, taken from the neighbours' bird table and carried home dry, set down with the same quiet ceremony as the leaves before it.
Luna5
The doormat, arranged just so. Luna6
Luna7Every High Place
Any box was hers the moment it arrived, claimed before it was even empty. Failing that, the top of the bookcase, where she could see the whole room and nobody could reach her. And in the kitchen, the yellow chair, hers alone since about 2012, when the household quietly gave up sitting in it. Boxes, shelves, chairs: she claimed the whole house, one calm decision at a time, and never had to ask twice.
Luna8
Twenty minutes later, exactly where she chose to be. Luna9Silent Alarm
The doorbell terrified her, not the visitors, the bell itself. The moment it rang she vanished, and reappeared on the top shelf twenty minutes later as though nothing had happened at all, as though she had simply chosen, of her own accord, to be sitting up there all along, above the fuss, entirely unbothered, waiting for the room to catch up with her.
Luna10Words of the House
- The stare
- Silence on Tom's chest at ten to six, until he woke.
- The paw
- One claw on the nose, used if the stare failed.
- The yellow chair
- Hers since 2012; nobody else sat there again.
- The doorbell
- The one thing that could clear a room in seconds.
Luna11The stareThe pawThe yellow chairThe doorbellLuna12An Hour Like That
She fell asleep on the window sill and slid off it very slowly, landing on Rufus, who was asleep underneath. Neither of them woke up. They stayed like that for a whole hour, the dog and the cat, arranged by gravity rather than by choice, and nobody in the house dared to move them.
Luna13
Both of them, waiting for Tom's car, and pretending not to be. Luna14Who Luna Allowed
- Rufus
- Her pillow, though she never returned the favour.
- Madeleine's mother
- Allergic, but brought her own blanket to sit on.
- Tom
- Woken most mornings at ten to six.
- Madeleine
- Kept the yellow chair empty after 2012.
Luna15RufusMadeleine's motherTomMadeleineLuna16
The kitchen floor at dinner time, staring until someone gave in. Luna17
The window sill at four o'clock, when the birds come to the feeder. Luna18The Quarterly Report
Her favourite spot for a while was the laptop keyboard, warm and directly in the way, and it always made Tom stop typing. She got away with it every time. Once, entirely undisturbed, she slept there through the writing of an entire report, and Tom simply worked around her rather than move her.
Luna19He wrote a whole report around her once.
Luna20Forty Pages, One-Handed
The report was for the water board, forty pages long, due whether or not a cat was involved. Tom typed the whole thing one-handed, leaning around her rather than moving her, because that would have felt rude. She stayed exactly where she was, stretched over his papers, entirely unaware of the water board and its deadlines. It was never noticed by the board.
Luna21
Draped over the kitchen table, on the report Tom was writing. Luna22
Between the cookbooks, where she slept through a whole dinner party. Luna23
The top of the cat tree. Nobody could reach her there, and she knew it. Luna24Between the cookbooks, on the yellow chair, on the top of the bookcase until she was fifteen: Luna picked her spots and the house arranged itself around them. Madeleine and Tom still glance at the top of the cat tree sometimes, half expecting to find her there, chosen and unreachable, exactly as she liked it.
Luna25Luna, 2009 – 2025. Any box, always.
Luna26This book was made for Luna, from the words and photos of the people who love Luna.
bookofmypet.com
The book on screen and as a PDF. €6.99.