The Lighthouse Keeper's Cat

The lighthouse went automatic eleven years ago. Nobody told the cat.

Every evening at a quarter to six she climbs the iron stairs, one hundred and twelve of them, and sits beside the lamp as it wakes. She watches the beam swing out across the water, once, twice, and then she settles, satisfied that the job has been done properly.

The engineers who come twice a year have stopped trying to carry her down. One of them leaves a tin of sardines on the top step. Another wrote her name in the maintenance log, under Staff.

On foggy nights the horn sounds every thirty seconds, and she answers it every time.