All day and most of the night the dogs continued their racket. When they jumped about, they rocked their cages, which made a loud rattling noise, so sleep or relaxation of any kind were out of the question. I could not eat a single bite and just drank a little now and then. The rest of the time I rolled myself up into a tight ball, suffered quietly somewhere deep inside and vowed never, ever to let my family leave me here again. I have never forgotten the unhappiness I felt during those long days. Even now I can recall that smell, that noise and the discomfort of that horrible room as though it happened yesterday. My biggest disappointment was that my family left me there. They had never done anything to hurt me, and I loved them for it. Why did they do this to me now?
By and by, I started looking around at the cats in nearby cages. There was a straggly tortoiseshell, who looked as though she hadn’t had a brush in years, a very fat old cat who seemed not to notice what went on around him as long as his bowl was full, and a scrawny kitten that shared a crate with his haggard-looking mother. They were a pretty rough lot; as far as they knew, pets everywhere stayed in hovels such as this one. I felt sorry for them.
One night, when there was a semblance of peace from down below, I told them about the nice cat hotel where I had spent my holidays in Australia – the personal attention, the peace and quiet, the excellent food, the climbing tree out the back with a view of the fishpond. What a difference! The cats looked at me with concern and clearly thought I was having hallucinations. I assured them I wasn’t mad, but it was obvious they didn’t believe a word I was saying and started whispering among themselves, darting furtive glances at me from time to time. I gave up trying to talk to them after that. What good would it do, anyway? It occurred to me that if I stayed in that place long enough, I might start to look, talk and think just like them. I curled my long, silky tail tightly around myself to stop it straying into another cage, shut my eyes tight and kept as close to the centre of my cage as I could.
At one point, the mean-looking woman dragged in a particularly ferocious dog. It was straining on the lead she was holding, slobbering all over the floor and sniffing at our cages as it panted past. It must suddenly have realized what the smaller cages contained – us! – because all at once the room erupted into bedlam: the ferocious dog jumped up at our cages to get a closer look and in doing so, managed to dislodge the tortoiseshell’s cage, which came crashing down to the floor, its occupant tossed about like a fur ball inside. It was awful to watch! The dog hurled itself onto the cage with a throaty growl, while the poor cat tried to squeeze herself into the far corner and screeched. All the other dogs in their cages, sensing battle, started to bark, howl and rattle their cages. This alerted the vet and several other staff members, and soon the room was a jumble of arms and legs, some belonging to humans, some to animals. Everyone shouted and shrieked in their own language.
It took them a while to bring the dog under control. Once they had caught it they had to put a muzzle on its nose to stop it snapping at everything and everyone. The poor tortoiseshell was hoisted back up to her old place. She looked terrible, her eyes huge, her fur even wilder than before, and continued shaking for the rest of the day. The dog was finally wrestled into a cage, where it continued to crash about and snarl viciously. It caused such a disturbance that all the other dogs remained restless and the cages below us kept shaking alarmingly. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, the humans came in again and took the dog away. None of us cared where they took it or what they did with it, just as long as it never came back.
More days and nights passed; they seemed like years. I was exhausted by the time the woman finally opened my door again, pulled me out and carried me to where Mum was waiting for me. The welcome smile died on her face when she saw me. I must have looked quite a sight after my ordeal, because she took me into her arms straight away and asked to see where I had been kept. They showed her; reluctantly, I thought. When she saw the conditions in which I had lived, she grew really angry: she yelled at the mean-looking woman, and when the vet came in she yelled at him as well. She even stamped her foot, and I would have stamped mine as well had I been able to. But I had to cling to Mum to make sure she took me with her. When she finally stomped out to the car with me, I dug my claws so deeply into her jumper that it probably hurt her quite a lot, but she never said a word. The whole way home I could not settle in the car and jumped around until there was hair all over the car and all over Mum. Mum said she was really, really sorry and that I would never have to go back to that awful place. She blamed herself for not having checked the room before she booked me in there and said that apparently, vets in this country could not be trusted.
When we got home, I ran straight away under Mum and Dad’s bed, where I sat and listened to my heart pounding. Mum came to find me and sat down next to the bed. She talked to me soothingly until I felt myself relaxing, and then I was very, very tired. I crawled out from under the bed onto Mum’s lap, and she laid me down in the middle of her soft bed, covered me with a warm blanket and stroked my head until I fell asleep. I slept and slept for ages; it stayed very quiet in the house the whole time. At one point I thought I heard the children come back from school, but I also heard an angry hiss from Mum, and they left me alone.
I felt much better when I eventually woke up, and when I came into the kitchen everyone was sitting around the big table waiting for me. I was so happy to see them again! I jumped up on the table and rubbed heads with everyone in turn. Then I had a big, delicious dinner and a whole bowlful of fresh milk as a special treat. Everyone was cross with the vet and promised I could stay home the next time they went away. I thought it had better be a long time before they left me again.
14
MY NEW FRIEND IS INJURED AND WE HELP HIM
In late winter, my new friend the grey cat needed our help. I was just hanging the washing out with Mum when he came limping slowly and painfully across the lawn towards us. When Mum picked him up, we saw that he was bleeding from one of his front paws. It looked pretty bad to me. Mum carried him into the kitchen, where she sat him down on the table and went to make some camomile tea. He looked surprised, but pleased to be inside our house and sat patiently on the table, holding his injured paw up. I sat down next to him. When the tea was ready, Mum put it in a bowl and cooled it down. Then she told Emily, who wants to be a vet and always looks after me when I’m unwell, to dip the grey cat’s paw into the tea and wash it carefully. Emily was very gentle and my friend didn’t flinch; he just sat there with his paw in the tea and looked mournful. As Emily washed him, she discovered a thorny twig that had lodged itself between his toes. She pulled it out and we all had a good look at it. It was very sharp. I was glad it wasn’t in my paw. Emily finished cleaning the wound, then put a bandage around it and told my friend he would be fine now.
I was pleased that we had been able to help him and expected him to leave now, but he had other ideas: he wanted to be shown around our house. I didn’t like that much, but Mum and Emily told me to be nice to him since he was wounded, so off we went. I noticed his limp was already improving. He admired everything and said our furniture was much nicer than his family’s. He sat in my armchair for a while and pronounced it very comfortable. He sniffed at my food and looked under the big bed. When I suggested he might like to go now, he looked mournful again and gave a sad little meow that had Emily come and check on him. She shot me a sharp look, then she asked my friend to rest for a while, until he felt better.
I squeezed onto the armchair next to him and we rested together. Emily also stayed with us; she named my friend ‘Piglet’. I think he liked his new name. He certainly purred loudly enough, rubbed his nose against her hands and stayed until Dad came home from work. As soon as Dad walked in, my friend decided to leave. He told me he didn’t like men. I thought that was strange, but also quite convenient. It was good to see him run off with hardly a limp, and even better to have my house and family to myself again.
15
; I DISCOVER THE JOYS OF SPRING AND PROTECT MY FAMILY FROM A DANGEROUS BEAST
Spring arrived in a flurry of apple blossom and sweet, sweet scents. Previously dead trees pushed out tiny leaves practically overnight, and in no time at all the russet forest had turned bright green again. My camouflage was gone.
Birds twittered everywhere, busily building nests. I watched them lazily as I lay on my deck in the morning sun, soaking in the pleasant warmth, wondering whether one or two of the birds might build their nests in accessible places. In fact, a pair of finches had the cheek to build theirs in one of Mum’s hanging baskets, right on the deck! I knew, of course, long before Mum discovered the little eggs while watering the flowers. From then on, both Mum and I watched the nest very carefully. We both knew I could easily jump up to the nest from the deck rail, and there seemed no way she could stop me. Or so I thought. But when the first egg cracked and I was just sharpening my claws in delicious anticipation, Mum and Dad appeared on the deck with a wooden board brimming with sharp, shiny nails and fastened it on to the deck rail just underneath the nest. It looked lethal and ran nearly all the length of the rail. No way was I going to get at the nest now; Mum was a spoil-sport. I gave her a hard, green stare and turned my attention back to the mice and moles that were back in force. Someone else could have the silly birds, for all I cared.
Grey cat Piglet and I hunted together for days among the fresh grass and flowers of the spring meadow next to our house. His bandage had long fallen off and his wound had healed. There were hundreds of butterflies and tiny lizards besides the usual rodents. Under the roots of a large tree we found a hole with young rabbits in it. I took one into the house for my family, but they put it straight back outside and locked me up for a whole day – well, no more presents for them!
Instead, another visitor began to turn up with annoying regularity as the weather improved: one of the neighbours had a goat. It was usually tethered to a tree by a long rope, but the spring weather seemed to have filled it with wanderlust and it regularly broke loose to come and visit us. The first time we saw the goat, it was following Robin up our driveway after school. I watched them from the safety of the deck. Robin didn’t look too happy: he kept looking nervously over his shoulder and telling the goat to go home, but it wasn’t listening. Fortunately, he knew better than to run, but I could tell he really wanted to.
Mum was taking the washing down when Robin and the goat rounded the corner of the house. Mum’s hand froze in mid-air, clutching a peg. I didn’t blame her. You don’t get to meet a goat every day in your back garden. Robin, once he was within safe reach of Mum, ran and hid behind her, so she had to face the goat all on her own, armed with just the peg in one hand and a towel in the other. I was proud of her. She did really well at first, talking brightly to both the goat and Robin, but it wasn’t long before the goat took a shine to the clean sheets on the line and started charging at them with its horns. Mum wasn’t very happy about that and tried to push the goat off. That made it angry and it charged at Mum, head down and horns facing her. Robin, I’m sorry to say, abandoned her at that point and ran into the house. Mum, who clearly was in no mood to sacrifice her washing to the goat, threw the last of the sheets into the basket, picked it up and ran after Robin, using the basket as a shield against the goat, which was getting quite vicious by then. She just made it into the house and slammed the door shut as the goat’s horns crashed into it.
I had wisely entered the house some time ago. Now the three of us stood by the closed door and listened to the goat bashing about outside. At one point it came around to the window, stood up on its hind legs and peered in at us. For an awful moment we thought it would break the glass, but then it trotted off and hung around the house until dark. When we turned on the lights, it came back and stared accusingly at us through the windows. Mum told us to turn all the lights off once more, so we sat in pitch darkness for a long time, whispering to each other and wondering where the goat was.
The banging of the kitchen door almost had us jump out of our skins. The goat had finally broken into our house! I was halfway out of my cat door to find myself a nice, safe tree when we heard Dad’s voice from the kitchen, calling us. I had never been happier to hear his voice. We all ran to meet him. He laughed when he saw our stricken faces and asked what we were doing, sitting in a dark house. He had seen no sign of the goat.
16
WE HIDE EGGS, JOIN A HUNT AND HOST A GREAT PARTY
I woke up at dawn as Mum and Dad were rustling papers in the kitchen. When I got there, I found them packing coloured eggs and tiny chocolate rabbits into little paper bags. They looked smug and secretive and told me to be very quiet so the children wouldn’t wake up. The three of us were going on a top-secret mission. Breakfast could wait.
Two minutes later, we slipped noiselessly out by the kitchen door. The birds were trilling their morning songs and the sky was pale blue as the sun rose behind the tall trees. It was going to be a perfect spring day. As the three of us tiptoed across the dewy lawn, I felt a sudden thrill of excitement in the air. Whatever we were up to was going to be fun!
We walked all around our garden, and wherever there was a good hiding place – under an overhanging bush or in the fork of a small tree, behind a fallen trunk or in the centre of a clump of yellow spring flowers – we placed some of the coloured eggs and chocolates. There were dozens of little nests everywhere by the time we had finished.
Back at the kitchen door, we turned around to see whether we could spot them. They were pretty well hidden, but if you looked carefully, you could just spy a speck of pink here and a splash of blue there. It was all very intriguing. I just hoped the real rabbits weren’t going to find the chocolate ones and take them away to their burrows. Or, banish the thought, the goat didn’t come back!
When the children woke up and came down for breakfast, they were pretty excited and kept looking out of the window, but Mum made them eat their cereal, followed by pieces of toast and hot chocolate. The meal seemed to go on forever.
We were saved by the sound of cars coming up the drive. Several families with young children spilled from them and rushed towards our house with waves and gleeful shouts. I sat on the deck to welcome them, but my dignified gesture went unnoticed in the noisy welcome. Soon everyone raced off down the garden together. The hunt was on; I followed on their heels.
For the next half hour, there were children everywhere, screaming and laughing, some spying hidden nests, some running right past them without seeing anything, some actually treading on eggs before noticing them. I don’t think kittens could ever be this silly. Meanwhile, the parents got in everyone’s way, clicking cameras and exclaiming in great surprise whenever a new nest was found. Mum and Dad seemed surprised, too. Unbelievably, they had already forgotten that it was us who put the nests there in the first place. I was clearly the only one in the garden who had any sense left.
It took them a long time to find all the eggs and chocolates, but once they were done, everyone sat down in a large circle to eat their treasures. That seemed a sensible enough thing to do; I quickly caught myself a small mouse and joined the circle. It was quite delicious, and everyone else enjoyed their snacks, too. Most of the children looked as though they could do with a bath when they had finished: they had brown faces and sticky hands. I made sure they didn’t touch me. Since only the tail was left of my mouse, I wandered off to find my sunny spot on the deck, leaving the parents to clean up their offspring as best they could.
They stayed all day and ate lots of food. The adults had sparkly, bubbly water in tall glasses. The children played games, laughed, cried, sang, argued and generally made a lot of noise, so after a while I retreated to my mossy wood pile in a quieter corner of the garden to have a little snooze. Next thing I knew, the visitors’ cars were filing past my hiding place, sticky hands waving from windows, goodbyes sounding across the garden as the sun threw long shadows on the lawn.
It was safe to emerge from my mossy wood pile. Th
e garden looked a bit tired: here and there, squashed chocolate bunnies and the odd coloured egg lay scattered on the lawn, along with plastic cups and paper serviettes. Back in the house, Mum and Dad were resting on the sofa, looking exhausted, while the children were finishing up the last of their chocolates. I was finally able to have a peaceful meal, without having to worry about children tripping over me.
Later on, we tidied up the garden, the house and especially the kitchen. It had been a tiring day, but an exciting one, too. For a long time afterwards, I kept stumbling across forgotten nests of eggs and chocolates during my hunting expeditions. As the days grew warmer, the chocolate melted and oozed out of the shiny paper. The ants obviously liked chocolate; they feasted on it for weeks. It had been a successful party for everyone.
17
I AM HOME ALONE
A couple of days after the party, the travel bags made their appearance again. It was the first time after my traumatic experience in the cat prison some months ago. Naturally, I was aghast and ran straight under the double bed. They would not be able to prise me off the bedroom carpet; it was very thick and I had buried my claws deep in its pile. When they came to talk to me, I hissed at them and refused to listen. Soon five faces were lined up on one side of the bed, upside-down, smiling and cooing. I was not fooled. No matter what they promised me, I would stay put.
A visitor came in the afternoon, a young girl with long hair and a bright voice. I had never seen her before. Her face lined up next to the other five on the side of the bed. She talked to me for a long time, while I pretended to sleep. I stayed put right through dinnertime, even though my stomach was rumbling, and never moved even when Mum and Dad climbed into bed above me and everything went quiet. I slept fitfully, expecting the worst when dawn finally broke.
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