All summer there had been no East Wind in Chicago, and no rain. Usually, the East Wind blew across Lake Michigan, and the air picked up moisture and formed clouds. The clouds came over Chicago and surrounding areas and made rain. But this summer there had been no East Wind, and no rain, for months. Yards were dried up, and crops were not growing well. Everybody was worried.

Randolph Scott was especially worried. He was the weather man for Chicago, and every day he had to go on television and tell people “Sorry, it looks like no East wind for the next few days, so no rain.” Everybody was mad at Randolph. Most of the people knew that he didn’t make the weather, he only reported about it, but still they got mad at him, and sent nasty letters to the TV station. One evening Randolph went home and collapsed on the couch dejectedly. “It’s just awful” he complained to his cat Mackenzie. “Everybody is mad at me. What am I going to do?” Mackenzie sat in Randolph’s lap and purred, but he was secretly thinking of a plan.

That evening, Mackenzie snuck out through the hole in the basement screen, and crossed two yards, a street, and three more yards to the home of the Great Panjandrum. The Great Panjandrum was reading Diogenes’ In Search of Human Virtue (in the 1812 Hoffington translation). He heard a scratching at his door, put his paw on the page to mark his place, and looked up. “Who is it?” he asked.

Mackenzie introduced himself, and explained the problem with the East Wind, and how it especially affected his human Randolph. The Great Panjandrum said “I think we can do something about this problem. Come tomorrow night at midnight, and bring two other helpers. They must be brave, with strong claws, and not afraid of water.”

The next night, Mackenzie showed up with Lafayette and Mackintosh. Lafayette had heard about the water part, and had made himself some rubber boots out of some rubber fingertips. The Great Panjandrum handed out supplies: Mackenzie carried a coil of rope, Lafayette carried a roll of duct tape, and Mackintosh carried the flashlight. (This was unusual—since cats can see so well in the dark, they rarely use flashlights). The Great Panjandrum carried a small bag. “With some additional equipment,” he explained.

The four cats made their way across the yard, under the fence, and past several streets into the park. They skirted the Field museum and the aquarium, and made their way out the far edge of the planetarium, where the land ended. The Great Panjandrum led them to a small hidden cove, where a little boat bobbed in the water. “I’ve arranged for this boat,” he explained. (The other cats never did learn how the Great Panjandrum had arranged for a boat to be there.)

Mackenzie sat in the bow, Lafayette and Mackintosh in the stern. The Great Panjandrum sat in the middle and handled the oars. Quietly, with just the creak and splash of the oars in the windless night, the small boat headed out into the middle of Lake Michigan. After about half an hour, they found themselves under a cloud, which was floating above them, perfectly still. “There’s our destination,” said the Great Panjandrum. Under his direction, the cats used duct tape to fasten the oars to the sides of the boat, pointing straight up. A very large rubber band, from the equipment bag, was tied to the tops of the oars. “Now,” said the Great Panjandrum, “Mackenzie will go first.”

Mackenzie sat on the middle of the rubber band, and the Great Panjandrum pulled it down almost to the floor of the boat. Then he let it go, and Mackenzie flew up, up, up into the air, until he banged into the bottom of the cloud. He grabbed on with his claws, and scrambled up to the top of the cloud. Lafayette took off his rubber boots and was propelled up to the cloud the same way. Mackintosh was heavier than the first two cats, and the Great Panjandrum miscalculated— Mackintosh didn’t go high enough to reach the cloud. He started to fall down again, faster and faster. He was worried that he would fall right into Lake Michigan, but the Great Panjandrum reached out and caught him, and pulled him into the boat. On the second try, Mackintosh made it up to the cloud, and soon he too had scrambled up to the top.

None of the cats saw how he did it, but a minute later, there was the Great Panjandrum, scrambling up the edge of the cloud to join them. “Well, let’s see,” he said, and started looking around on top of the cloud. “Ah, here we are.” He opened a small trap door in the top of the cloud. There were steps made of cloud material going down into the dark interior of the cloud. Mackintosh, with the flashlight, went first, and the four cats descended into the middle of the cloud. They soon came to a small room filled with gears and pulleys and levers. A seagull hung from the machinery, with its wing feathers caught between two of the gears.

“I think we’ve found the source of the trouble” said the Great Panjandrum. “How did this happen to you?”

“I’m very sorry, Sir,” said the poor seagull. “I was catching fish, and I tried to take a shortcut through the cloud. My wing got caught in something, and I’ve been stuck here ever since. I’m very sorry, and I’m very hungry.”

“Well, let’s get you out of there,” said the Great Panjandrum. He engaged some latches, shifted a cotter pin, and exacerbated some castle nuts using a small wrench from the equipment bag. Then the four cats, working together, were able to rotate the gears enough to free the seagull. “Oh thank you thank you thank you!” said the seagull. I don’t suppose you have any food with you, do you?”

“We didn’t bring any bird seed,” said the Great Panjandrum, ” but there’s a whole lake full of fish right below us. Help yourself.”

“Thanks again,” said the seagull, and he zoomed off through the bottom of the cloud.

The Great Panjandrum engaged the machinery again, and the cloud started moving toward the shore. All the other clouds that had been stuck behind it also started to move, and the East Wind, which had been blocked by all the stuck clouds, started to blow again.

When their cloud was over Chicago, the cats tore off pieces of the cloud, and the Great Panjandrum tied a piece of rope to each bit of cloud, to serve as a kind of parachute. Mackintosh had a bigger chunk of cloud, and the Great Panjandrum had a piece that was half the size of a house. At the right moment, all the cats jumped off the side of the cloud, and came down through the rain, gently drifting down with their cloud bundles. As the cats landed in the back yard, their pieces of cloud dissolved into the rain.

Mackenzie made his way home through the rain, and snuck in the torn basement screen. He found Randolph awake and excited about the rain. “It’s raining! Halleluyah!” he shouted, putting on his rain boots. “I’m going to the TV studio right now to make a special weather broadcast!”

So Randolph was happy, but he never realized how lucky he was that he told his troubles to his cat, and how lucky he was that his cat had found the Great Panjandrum, and how the cats had unstuck the broken cloud and brought back the East Wind and the rain.

Originally reported 4/1/2010