Tigger

by Susanne Haywood

  So I went off on my own to find tasty rabbits, juicy mice or the odd bird to take home as gifts. Even though the forest was teeming with squirrels, I had made a conscious decision not to hunt them any more. Killing the one in America had been fun, but once was enough. Ever since my nightmare in prison, squirrels hadn’t seemed worth the effort any longer. Anyway: who needed squirrels when there was so much else to hunt? I enjoyed myself tremendously as it was and felt brimful of energy. Sunbathing just wasn’t my thing.

  All the exercise was giving me an excellent appetite, yet I felt my body grow leaner all the time. I was practically flying over our fence, my muscles were so lithe and there was so little weight on me. When Mum picked me up, she remarked that I was as light as a feather. She seemed worried about that. How typical! For years, while I was housebound and getting badly out of shape due to their dogs, the whole family had made fun of my chubbiness. Now I was fit and lean, for some reason that was no good either. There’s no pleasing humans. I for one was perfectly happy with my new shape.

  11

  I AM TRICKED

  It’s a sad truth that a cat cannot allow himself a minute of distraction, even in his own home. Mum caught me in one of my rare off-guard moments, as I was snoozing in the morning sunshine. I was immediately suspicious when she picked me up and briskly carried me into the kitchen, humming one of her little soothing tunes for added subterfuge, feigning cheerfulness. I was not fooled for a second; my claws were out and ready for battle.

  Even so, it came as a shock to see my travel container standing open on the kitchen table. I had firmly believed we had a deal that I should never see its interior again. I struggled heroically, but she had already slipped me inside and banged the door in my face before I could get my claws in position. Then she carried me outside to her car. I was seething with anger at her trickery. She had put some little treats into the container to mollify me. I threw them out one by one as she got into the car next to me, and I hissed and yowled all the way down our driveway, along the open road and into the unknown, reminding her of her promise that there would be no more trips. No more! She made happy noises and continued to drive. I began to suspect she had gone insane.

  At least our journey didn’t last long. We turned into a car park, Mum stopped the car, lifted me out and carried me into a house. As soon as we entered, I knew what this was, because there’s only one place that has that heady mix of disinfectant, fear and pee: we were at the vets. Actually, I’ve never minded the vet. Once they open the travel container door, there is much to occupy an inquiring mind. A wealth of intriguing equipment is just waiting to be explored: cupboards filled with little bottles and boxes, bowls containing dog treats or soft cotton wool pads, interesting posters on the walls illustrating my insides, and of course the scent of hundreds and hundreds of other animals that have passed through the consulting room before. Should I ever run out of things to investigate, which happens rarely, then there’s always a comfortable white plastic platform to one side where I can curl up and doze while Mum and the vet talk about me.

  Of course, before the interesting part begins there is usually a wait in an open area where other patients – including dogs – hang about and often misbehave. There was one this time, desperately scared and unashamed to show his fear to all the world. He had already peed on the floor, and when that had been cleaned up, he proceeded to howl and beg for mercy. His owner was almost in tears by the time the vet opened the door and asked them to come in. Dogs are so pathetic.

  When it was my turn, I strolled from my container to commence my usual round of exploration, occasionally interrupted by the vet, a nice young lady, who insisted on prodding my insides and listening to my heart with one of those earphone things Emily used to annoy me with. It was only mildly uncomfortable and didn’t interfere much with my main agenda. Plus, the vet admired me, stroked my head, back and tail, checked my teeth (cleaned only just the other year, so no need to look again!) and talked at length to Mum. Then she encouraged me to step on to the plastic platform on the side. I wasn’t really ready to settle down there – I hadn’t had time yet to look at the area over by the sink – but humoured them by sitting down on it for a minute. The vet fiddled with the buttons on it and then spoke to Mum, who looked worried. But Mum is easily worried, so I didn’t pay much attention to the long conversation that followed, and during which I continued my investigations of the room. I discovered a fascinating model of a cat just made of bones, no flesh or coat; it looked weird and smelled of nothing but dust.

  Before I had time to check it out properly, the vet picked me up and carried me into another room to meet the nurse. Between them, they produced one of those long, sharp needles and took some blood from my leg. I knew the drill and held still; it’s easier that way. When we got back to Mum, I was ready to return to my travel container. I had had fun, but it was time to go before they thought of anything else. How well my instincts always serve me: just before I slipped into my box, the vet opened my mouth and pushed a large white tablet down my throat. I was so stunned, I swallowed it before I realized what it was: a worming tablet! I hate those things and never take them if I can help it. Disappointed by the vet’s deceitful behaviour, I withdrew behind the bars of my travel box and turned my back on her.

  Mum received a mysterious plastic bag, then we were out of there. Back in the car, Mum opened my container and gave me the run of the car while we drove home. It was so much better. I actually enjoyed the trip, checking the car over and looking out of the window as we sped along, just like I used to do years ago. We saw a row of shops, people and dogs out walking, a train passing over a bridge – all very entertaining. I settled down on the soft platform in between the two front seats, just by Mum’s shoulder, and helped her find our way back home.

  Tammy was waiting for me in front of the house. She looked so relieved when I jumped from the car. As usual, her imagination had got the better of her, and she had feared the worst for me: another move. I told her all about my visit to the vet and she was totally impressed by my adventure.

  That night, Mum bustled about secretively before bedtime, then carried me out into the lobby – a small room by the front door – and locked me in there. I was confused. Why would she do such a thing? We’d had our adventure for the day, surely, and it was time to go upstairs to bed. How could I sleep in the lobby with its cold stone floor? True, she had prepared a blanket for me in one corner and a litter tray, but why? I wasn’t aware of having done anything bad. I had even taken a worming tablet at the vets, for crying out loud! I walked back to the door and called and called for Mum. It didn’t take long before she came back, looking guilty, as well she should. She opened the door a crack and slipped into the room next to me. I started making my case and asked her what she meant by her behaviour. Put on the spot, she explained she needed me to do a wee in the litter tray, for the vet. That was all? Just a simple pee? Why didn’t she say so straight away? Humans are so complicated. I walked over to the tray, stepped inside, squatted down and did a big wee. There; done. Now was she happy?

  She was! She absolutely beamed at me and called me her clever cat. So were we going upstairs to bed now? We were, thank goodness. I watched Mum pour my wee into a small plastic tube and close it with a stopper, and then finally we climbed the stairs together.

  Whatever message my pee had given the vet resulted in a bottle of tiny pills. Mum put one in my dinner and told me to make sure I ate it. It was quite tasteless and small enough not to bother me. I’ve taken one each day since then, and while it hasn’t helped me put on any weight, it seems to make Mum and Dad happy, so I guess it’s worth it.

  12

  WE GET A HOUSE SITTER

  Early summer is an amazing time of year here. It makes you forget that you’ve just spent an eternity curled up by the heater, gazing out on to bare branches of uniform brown and a tired, waterlogged lawn. Once the sun warms the soil, a veritable explosion of greenery transforms the world outside, turning stark bran
ches into waving green clouds. The borders fill with all kinds of colourful shrubbery, and when Mum’s flowers open up you know that the good times really have begun: sleep-on-the-terrace time is on!

  That’s in between the hunting, of course: the abundance of greenery is matched by the proliferation of rabbits and mice in the field next door. Alas, new humans have moved in across the field, much livelier than the ones who lived there before, and they have a dog, so my forays over the fence have had to be restricted to very early mornings, but no matter: entire families of small bunnies come over to us through a hole in the fence. All I have to do is sit there and pick them off one by one as they emerge. It’s almost too easy. I take them to my secret hiding place behind the house, where I can munch them undisturbed, substituting my poor diet of dry food and a bit of fish in an effort to put some meat on my ribs, while keeping our garden rodent-free.

  At the start of our first summer in the new house, Mum decided to stop working so she could spend more time with us. She also wanted to plant more flowers and make various other changes to the garden. This suited us fine: we enjoy watching her work. Tammy likes to stretch out on her back near Mum, wriggle into the smooth soil and soak up the sunshine. She was delighted with the new rhythm of Mum’s life. Mum’s friends were, too. We had a constant stream of visitors, and as a special surprise Caroline came back for a little while. We were all keen to spend time with her. Mishka, over-eager to get more attention than the rest of us, hyperventilated and ended up getting a bloated stomach, so she had to go to the vet and missed out on a whole night of Caroline’s visit. It served her right.

  A little later Robin returned with all his things and moved back into his room for a while. We enjoyed long, lazy lunches on the terrace under a big umbrella. Cocktail hour was resumed when Dad found another yard arm somewhere behind the shed, and sometimes the hammock was put up on the lawn – always a magnet for Tammy, who loves to snooze on people’s stomachs as they rock from side to side. It was a long, warm summer, and we all made the most of it.

  Once the shadows began to lengthen again, Mum and Dad announced they were going on holiday. Needless to say, this filled me with misgivings, given our track record of poor cat hotels in countries other than Australia. I quizzed Mum thoroughly to ensure she had thought this through, and by the time they packed their bags, it seemed she had. We were to stay home with a house sitter.

  While this was unquestionably the lesser evil, several concerns remained: would this house sitter know where our food was kept and when to feed us (I am quite particular when it comes to food times)? Would this human be able to handle the dogs, or would I yet again have to do everything myself? For a while, I fretted, imagining all kinds of disastrous scenarios. Then I remembered Lily and relaxed a little. If luck would have it, we might just end up with someone really nice like Lily with the long hair back in America. Now she had been a lot of fun. Best to approach Mum and Dad’s departure with an open mind.

  The house sitter Mum had chosen for us this time turned out to be a kind, conscientious lady called Betty, who stuck meticulously to my schedule and never once forgot our dinner time. Full points to her for that alone. She didn’t have long, brown hair, but I reckon you can’t have everything.

  Betty groomed the dogs with great abandon. They loved their regular beauty treatments so much that Tammy and I longed to have a turn ourselves. Next time the brushes came out, we lined up behind the dogs and were duly slotted into the grooming programme. The feel of the tough dog brush bristles on our skin was surprisingly pleasant. We asked her to do it every day from then on, and sometimes twice.

  I made Betty feel welcome from the start by bringing her little gifts and leaving them outside her bedroom door. Had she left her door open like everyone in our family always does, I would have taken my mice and bunnies right up to her bed. As things stood, my gifts risked getting stepped on and squashed by an unobservant foot – and did, twice, to begin with. After that, she was more careful when she opened her door first thing in the morning, and my gifts remained intact.

  Tammy took a long time to get used to the presence of a stranger in the house. She ventured out from under Mum and Dad’s big bed only when Betty wasn’t around and refused her fish at dinnertime. I didn’t really mind that, because it meant two dinners for me, but Betty was worried. She sat down at a safe distance from Tammy and spoke to her quietly for ages, until Tammy’s eyes returned to their normal size and she agreed to try a little dinner. Regrettably, it didn’t agree with her: she vomited everything up again in the night, in front of Betty’s bedroom door. It ended up being quite a mess when she stepped in it in the morning, having looked out only for my gift, not Tammy’s, but we kept her company while she cleaned the carpet.

  Sadly but not surprisingly, the dogs tried to play tricks on Betty. They pretended that Mum and Dad always fed them treats from the table and that Mishka slept upstairs at night, but I explained that they were lying. As an extra precaution, I saw to it that no food was ever left out on the kitchen worktops, particularly in the middle of cooking if Betty ever had to leave the kitchen. She was amazed when she returned from a phone call and found everything cleared up, spick and span. Encouraged by my example, Betty became almost as good as Mum at putting food away immediately or covering it up.

  Our days without Mum and Dad passed very pleasantly. Betty was nearly always home with us, cleaning, grooming, wandering around the garden accompanied by us or cooking interesting meals as I watched. In the mornings, she took the dogs for a walk one at a time – wisely, she didn’t trust them when they were together. Even on his own, Max proved quite a handful for her: he took her for a really long walk one day, so long we didn’t think they were ever coming back. Betty looked hot and a little scruffy when they returned and went straight upstairs to have a bath and a lie-down. Another time, Max attacked another dog and we had its owner banging on our garden gate, promising revenge. I felt a lot of tension in Betty’s legs that night as I sat on her lap when we watched TV.

  By the time Mum and Dad came back, looking tanned and relaxed, Betty seemed ready to get back to her own home. I reckon she was looking forward to having a rest. We all lined up by the front door to say good-bye and to thank her for all she had done for us. Sadly, we didn’t see her again for a very long time.

  When eventually she did agree to look after us again, I sensed the kind of wariness in her dealings with our dogs that most humans tend to develop around them. She no longer took any chances at all with them on walks and watched them like a hawk even at home. I helped her by alerting her to any irregular behaviour during those brief moments when she nodded off on the sofa or was otherwise distracted, so while she may not have had a relaxing time with us, things worked out fine.

  Until, that is, Mishka decided she wanted Max’s dinner as well as her own and attacked him viciously one night as he was happily crunching on his dog food. The attack came quite suddenly, the only warning a snarl and a hoarse bark, before she was all over him. Once recovered from the first shock, Max defended himself bravely, and within seconds my favourite time of day had disintegrated into a noisy bedlam, the two dogs hell-bent on killing each other by tooth and by claw, while Betty wrung her hands and Tammy hid behind the kitchen bin. I reckoned my bowl was out of harm’s way up on the worktop, so I continued eating while keeping one eye on the battle, which raged for some time. It was impossible to say who was winning until Max aimed a decisive bite at Mishka’s cheek. Suddenly there was blood everywhere and Mishka ran off, howling, on a tour of the house.

  Betty remained admirably calm: she went to find Mishka, washed her wound with camomile tea the way Mum does, and cleaned all the blood off the tiles and off the living room carpet. Then she phoned a number of people to get advice on what to do with Mishka, who seemed to be at death’s door. I told her not to worry too much: Mishka is pretty tough. But that didn’t stop her playing the dying swan for several days, while her wound healed. I could tell by then that Betty was fed up with o
ur dogs.

  The next time Mum and Dad went on holiday, we got a different house sitter, Danielle, who was strict and somehow managed to keep one step ahead of the dogs, like I do. They behaved like lambs for her when she took them out for walks, always together and sometimes even with other dogs! I fully expected more bloodshed and possibly a death or two, but they always returned looking docile, their long tongues lolling happily. She clearly had the magic touch. Minor incidents in the house – such as Mishka gobbling up her food too fast and then bringing it up almost immediately on the living room carpet – marred Danielle’s time with us a bit, and on one or two occasions she just wasn’t fast enough when I announced an urgent call of nature in the night, which began to be a bit of a nuisance for me around that time, but otherwise she did well.

  All in all, both our house sitters looked after us well whenever Mum and Dad decided they needed a break, and being able to stay at home made up for minor inconveniences, so we hardly missed them at all.

  13

  MORE VISITORS

  Autumn brought more and unexpected visitors to our garden. A large, colourful bird flew in one morning, uttering a warbling screech of alarm as he crash-landed on our lawn. He wasn’t a very graceful flyer. His size may well have been a hindrance to his flying skills: he was bigger than next door’s chickens. When he had regained his composure, he strutted about and painstakingly inspected Mum’s flowers one by one, shooting his beak forward at each careful step to peer at a bloom in great surprise, only to retract it disapprovingly before moving on.