The “Wildcat” in the Display Cabinet

EV-PO? LY-PO? is the password-question that Melia and Myrtyo exchange shortly before falling asleep.  Two young sisters who live on an Aegean island - the year is 1936 - who listen to their grandfather talk endlessly about his “ancient ones,” who eagerly await for their friends to meet them outdoors as summer approaches, who, above all, are crazy about the magical stories of the “wildcat” that their cousin Nikos, a student in Athens, tells them.

The “wildcat” or “kaplani”(*) –as they refer to it on the island – is a stuffed tiger locked up in the display cabinet located in the large living room of the house. A stuffed tiger that at times looks out at you with its blue eye, at other times with its black one, depending on its mood.  What’s happening on a warm August day that upsets the girls and their loved ones?  Who wants to harm the “wildcat”?

“Alki Zei must, I think, be hailed as a literary phenomenon.  The book, with its natural, effortless plot – you laugh on every page – enlightens and teaches you.  It pinpoints the wounds that for ages have chronicled and tyrannized Greek life…”

(*)kaplani : word used in the dialect of an Aegean island that is of Turkish origin (kaplan) which translated means tiger or wildcat(*)tsardakia: another word that Alki Zei uses in this story that is of Turkish origin (çardak) which translated means one’s small home

(from the Biblionet database)

The Wildcat in the Display Cabinet

Publisher: Metaixmio

Date of Publishing: 2011

Pages: 224

for students in grades 4 - 6