Why the Cat Always Lands on Its Feet

A gentle magician was traveling in a forest. He’d been traveling forever, it seemed. So when he spotted a tree with gnarled roots, he had to lie down among them to rest. He had just snuggled in and closed his weary eyes when a great serpent slithered out of a thicket. Had the magician noticed the snake in the undergrowth, he would have turned it into a harmless stick.

When the snake saw the sleeping man at the foot of the tree, it coiled in anger. “I will kill him!” it hissed. The snake recalled that this was the very man who had surprised it sometime earlier, just when the snake was about to dine on a tabby cat for breakfast. “Flee for your life!” the magician had cried, and the cat had scrambled up a tree just in time.

The serpent slithered closer now. It hissed its war cry as it remembered the magician’s meddling. “You will be my breakfast,” the deadly troublemaker spat, its forked tongue testing the air for a sniff of its sleeping quarry. “And when I swallow you down, you will be sorry you ever interfered.”

Now, it just so happened that the same breakfast cat had noticed the conflict from the branches high above the sleeping magician. “A,” she snarled, her little body quivering in fright when she heard the serpent’s hiss. She was slight compared to the enormous serpent. But as she watched the evil one glide toward the man, the memory of the magician’s kindness to her transformed her fear to anger. That snake would pay for preying on helpless victims! The tabby sprang for the coiled serpent like a bolt of striped lightning!

Flames shot from the serpent’s eyes as it struck wildly again and again. But the tiny cat clawed and bit with such passion that the creature soon lay dead.

The magician awoke with the snake’s dying hiss. He found the injured cat lying nearby and guessed what she had done. “Little cat,” he said, “in honor of your bravery you shall always have a home with man. And because you leaped from the high tree to kill the deadly serpent, you shall leap where you wish and always land upon your feet.”

How is the snake’s attack on the cat similar to the snake’s attack on the magician?

A. The snake is interrupted and unsuccessful in his attacks on both the cat and the magician.

B. The snake puts great thought into his plans to attack both the cat and the magician.

C. The magician prevents the snake from attacking him and the cat.

D. The cat watches the snake in both instances, without the snake realizing it.