In trying to keep me safe, Karen had isolated me.
At last, she notices that the brown cat living with our back neighbours comes to visit me regularly at the fence. Before allowing her to join me in my garden, she asks the neighbours if their cat has had its vaccinations. The brown cat must be safe because Karen opens the gate in the fence to let her in.
Slowly Brown Cat enters. Without taking her eyes off me, she moves towards me. We sniff each other as we step cautiously around each other. She checks my territory. Once she feels satisfied she is safe, we begin to play. After all our exertion, we sleep in the weak sunlight.
When Karen doesn’t need me, I call her to open the gate for Brown Cat. There are other cats that prowl as well. Karen calls them feral and refuses to allow them into the garden. Dogs of all sorts come past the fence barking and growling, but I ignore them.
Honey, a tiny dog slightly smaller than me with a fluffy coat, lives with the Humans on the other side of my garden. She sits and barks at the gate between her garden and mine every day. Karen says she is a Toy Pom.
For such a tiny creature, her mouth is large and her jaw looks strong. As we do not speak the same language, we find each other confusing.
Her bark is loud and sharp. Instead of growling at me like some of the bigger dogs, she whines. What an unpleasant wailing sound. I haven’t heard a dog sound like that before. It might mean she is upset or want something. Perhaps a dog’s wailing is similar to a cat’s meow. I am learning that when dogs wag their tails they are happy, or excited in a positive way. They are nothing like us. Dog language is strange, almost as strange as human language.
Our tails express so many of our emotions. Humans who know and like cats understand how important our tails are in showing our feelings. A wildly flicking cat’s tail means annoyance or anger, even boredom. A tail held high with a question mark at the tip can signal a playful or loving mood. I am sure that Honey has trouble understanding my tail.
Today Honey is scratching the fence wire, whining and her tail is wagging. I think she wants to come into my garden to play. Honey’s owner calls her, but she continues to sit at the fence watching me. As small as she is, she knows what she wants, unlike most dogs who seem to follow each other or their owner.
Her owner laughs. ‘Leave Bella alone, you silly doggie. She’s a cat. Dogs and cats do not get along. You are both predators – always have been. If you had grown up together as babies it might have been different.’
Today, Karen opens the gate for Honey. Karen and the Humans next door must have talked.
‘Take it slowly, Honey. You don’t need to get your face scratched,’ her owner says, but Honey races into the garden.
She is not as cautious a cat.
Racing Rats! My body arches. My tail stands erect and bristles like one of the brushes in the cupboard, and I hiss at her. She is not intimidated. She sits and waits, her head to the side as if trying to fathom my message.
There will be no further communication from me. I want nothing to do with this little dog.
I ignore her. She jumps and barks. What a dominant little creature. As soon as she comes closer, I climb up the halftree and observe her. She scratches the base of the tree, and barks endlessly.
The Ancient Cat Voice in my head says, dogs are not to be trusted – not Honey or any dog, even one as tiny as her.
While I eye her, I sharpen my claws on the bark of a branch. My sharpened claws are my best weapon. Karen cut the tips of my claws but they are still lethal. Obviously, Honey has no clue about cats – an advantage for me. I will make sure that she will have a very long wait.
It is a breezy day and her canine scent floats up to me. Her fur is filthy and she stinks. Her owner ought to wash her. Cats are so clean, as we wash ourselves often. Unless we are sick, we do not smell. That’s why Humans enjoy having us on their beds. Imagine that filthy bundle on a bed. Meeyuk!
Honey is extremely annoyed, and tired of waiting for me. She paces and growls, showing her teeth. She attacks the tree trunk instead of me and barks again.
She can scratch all she likes, but she can’t climb. I leap onto the roof of the house. Up there I am even safer.
Dogs don’t belong in my garden. As for playing with her... it won’t happen.
I’ve had enough of Honey. Meow, Meow! I call to Karen.
Thank Cat’s Nine Lives, at last she hears me.
‘Where are you Precious?’ She spots me on the roof.
I stare at her pleadingly.
This has been enough dog to fill the rest of my life.
Karen turns to her neighbour. ‘I think it’s time for Honey to go home.’
At last Honey’s owner whistles for her. She responds immediately, and leaves.
‘Your cat and Honey don’t get along together. It is a waste of time. She won’t be back,’ the neighbour says.
What in Catland! Stupid Honey is at the fence again today, but she looks different. She is prancing and showing off her clean coat, a fluff ball, shades lighter. She’s had a bath and smells of flowers. What a huge improvement! I go closer, and somehow our noses almost touch through the fence wire. I step back quickly.
I would prefer to like her, but she is a dog and I don’t trust her.
I hover for a moment undecidedly and then walk away.
Karen is calling, ‘Come, Bella, Tamara is not doing well, and we must visit her at the hospital.’
After my usual resistance, my harness is on, and I am in the carry box as we drive to the hospital. We park, and then Karen carries me through the hospital to Tamara’s ward. Her parents and brother are sitting next to her bed looking gloomy.
‘Thank you for coming, Tamara has been asking to see Bella,’ her brother says.
Karen lifts me out of my carry box and places me on Tamara’s bed.
‘There you are, my darling, Bella’s here now,’ Tamara’s mother says lovingly.
Tamara is weaker and paler today, and her head has no hair. She talks softly, but I hear her say, ‘I need a huge cuddle, Bella.’
Purring loudly, I move up higher and put my paw on her shoulder. She is very ill and I can tell that she will be going away soon, but I hope to make her passing easier. I nestle closer.
Tamara strokes me slowly, touching my fur with the tips of her fingers. She makes sure to caress my cheeks, tickle my chin and neck.
She wants me to remember this delightful experience... to remember her. I sense the inner beauty of her being, and know that I will not forget her.
Karen is about to place me in my carry box and leave, when a doctor stops us.
‘Could you bring your cat to visit a young patient who adores animals? A few minutes with your cat will lift his spirits.’
I rub my head against Tamara. She strokes me lovingly, and gives me a long look that says “goodbye”.
Then Karen clips on my lead and we follow the doctor to a skinny teenager who is watching television.
‘Benjamin, this is Karen and her cat Bella. They’ve come for a quick visit,’ the doctor says.
‘Wow! What a great surprise! I love cats,’ he says, opening his arms to me.
‘You can go onto the bed,’ Karen says to me.
I jump into the boy’s arms and he holds me tight, but I do not squirm. He is sick and needs to feel my Cat Love.
As he strokes me, he asks Karen about me.
I delight in listening to Karen talk about me.
‘This visit from Bella has been the best thing that has happened to me all day. Please, visit me again if you are in the hospital.’
I enjoyed being with him and hope to see him again.
Once we are home, Karen strokes me, kisses my head, and tells me how much she loves me. I am filled with love for her too.
Cat Delight! Late that afternoon, while Karen is working, I am on her pillow! It is here that I drift into another one of my important dreams.
The night sky is dark apart from a milky moon. I am in a dense forest, on a high branch of a tall tree. I li
sten to wild dogs howling. Like their wolf ancestors, the dogs are talking to each other. At a lower pitch we cats chatter, sharing warnings about the danger of dogs in the forest. If the dogs detect the slightest movement in the trees or smell the presence of cats, they will hunt for us in packs. Their sense of smell is even more powerful than ours. They are huge, fast animals with strong jaws and sharp teeth, and present a serious challenge.
At sunlight, dead cats, rabbits, possums, and other small animals litter the forest floor. I am hungry, but I hide and wait until the sun is blazing and the dogs are asleep, before hunting for mice or crawling creatures. I am a lone, stealthy hunter, and I do not go hungry. I catch a mouse and eat it immediately.
I wake from my dream, yawn and stretch. I am hungry but it is not dinnertime yet.
The night is still, the moon has vanished and the sky is streaked with yellow and green.
Major Cat Alert! My whiskers flutter, my nose quivers. I sense a huge change is on its way in Catland.
I wake early. Restlessly, I patrol my house and do my Cat Work of rubbing my scent on the furniture and carpets to mark my territory. Outside, I leave my mark on the plants and fence, and pee on the rocks to reinforce my ownership.
The cold wind blows dry leaves and twigs in my face as I pace along the fence, listening. I have prepared for whatever is about to happen. I find a protected spot, curl up for warmth and sleep lightly.
Later, I am in the garden, in the pale sunlight, when the heavy, crunching sound of human footsteps alerts me. A tall, foul smelling Human walks along my fence carrying a box.
When he sees me, he laughs. His laugh is not like Karen’s happy laugh. ‘The people who live here are stupid cat lovers. I think I’ve found the ideal place,’ I hear him muttering to himself. ‘Perfect for this strange looking creature with big ears. It must be the ugliest kitten I have ever seen.’
He laughs again, looks about, checking that no one except me sees him. Then he tries the gate into my special garden. It is open. Karen forgot to lock it. He places the box on the grass, makes certain no one has spotted him, and disappears.
I have a sense of dread in my tummy. I listen and sniff. There is something alive in the box. Slowly I approach it. I hear a thin, soft mew, mew, the sound of a distressed kitten calling for help. The box is closed, but I claw at it until I open it. Inside is a tiny, skinny kitten.
Purrrr, pree, purrrr Little One, I say to it softly, as I grip it in my mouth and lift it out of the box. I place it gently on the grass. It looks exhausted and terrified.
‘Don’t be afraid, I’ll look after you,’ I tell it.
Quickly, I carry it in my mouth through my cat door into the house. The small thing is barely hanging on to life. I leave the kitten on the kitchen floor, search for Karen and call loudly for her.
‘What’s worrying you, Bella?’ She asks, following me as I race ahead of her to the kitchen.
She sees the kitten. ‘Poor, little darling, you’re alive, but weak and cold. I’ll give you something to eat and keep you warm.’
She grabs a towel and wraps the kitten in it. Then she puts some of my special cat milk and food into the whirring machine.
‘You are even too weak to eat. I’ll look for something to help you,’ she says.
She takes a clear bag from the cupboard and cuts a small hole in its corner. She fills the bag with some of the mixed food. While holding the kitten wrapped in the towel, she feeds him slowly from the bag through the cut corner. Slowly, he sucks the food from the bag.
Thank Cats! I watch amazed. Karen is a Cat Mama. She most definitely had to be a cat in her last life. Now I am convinced. How does she know how to feed him? She hasn’t even carried and suckled her own human kitten yet.
He rests, and is a little stronger after the food. She places him on the floor. Though he is slightly unsteady, he manages to stand. The remainder of the food she pours into a small bowl so that he can feed himself. While he eats, she puts down a saucer of water for him. Then she makes him a warm temporary basket and a litterbox.
‘I know that you won’t want to share litterboxes,’ she says to me.
When he has finished most of his food, she takes him to his litterbox, hoping he knows how to use it. I’m surprised that he does.
‘Someone must’ve known we owned a cat and wanted us to look after you,’ she says, as she looks closely at him. ‘You’re filthy, and if you’re going to stay here for even a short while, I will have to clean you.’
The word “clean” sends shivers all the way down to the tip of my tail. Cleaning, like washing can be a terrible experience.
‘I’m sorry Sweetheart, she says, as she takes a wet cloth and tries to wipe the kitten, but he squirms and cries.
There must be two cats inside my head telling me different things. The one cat says that I should growl and hiss at the kitten so that Karen sends him away, as he is going to bring me a lot of trouble. This is my house and I do not want company. The other kinder cat tells me that I tried to save him, and now I can help to lick him clean like his mama would. I listen to the kind cat in my head and I lick the kitten all over.
He purrs for the first time, and I look at him. He has eyes the colour of a clear, blue sky, a soft, white body, but his feet and big ears are the palest brown. As tiny as he is, I know that he is a very different kind of cat to me and my mama. Even his mew, mew is different. I have not seen or heard a cat like him before, and I cannot stop myself wondering if he has Catness, the blood of a real, strong cat inside him.
Karen is pleased with me for cleaning him, strokes my head and tells that I am ‘her precious, a good girl.’
She stands back and looks at him. ‘You are a lovely little creature. I want to keep you, our second found cat...so I hope Tony won’t argue. I hope too that Bella won’t mind you being here, even though she was here first, and the house is hers.’
Little Blue Eyes is terrified. He hides under a chair.
Enough of him! I’m not going to try to drag him out. He is safe from immediate danger. I have done my job. Now Karen and Tony can look after him. I am too tired. Time for a long sleep.
I wake to hear Tony shouting.
‘What, another cat!’ He says with a hiss in his voice when he sees the kitten.
After Karen explains how I found the exhausted kitten in the garden, he is kinder.
‘He is a beauty and a pure bred Siamese, by the look of him. Why would someone dump him?’
‘Siamese cats don’t look like other cats. Their elongated bodies and markings are unusual, and they have huge ears as kittens. The person who left him here him might not have seen a cat like this before, and not wanted him. Maybe he didn’t realise that the cat was worth selling, and could’ve fetched quite a large amount. Who knows, but let’s keep him, anyway.’ Karen says.
‘Yes, it’s our good fortune. We’ll keep him,’ Tony says.
‘He can be your cat. Bella seems to be mine.’
Tony walks around before answering. ‘I like the name Oliver. It suits him.’
‘Oliver is his name, then,’ Karen says, and gives Tony a hug and kiss.
‘So Bella, Oliver is your new friend,’ Karen says to me in her sweet voice. She bends to talk to the kitten. ‘Bella will be kind to you, and teach you all you need to know, won’t you Bella?’
As if I don’t have enough to do, she is now given me the job of teaching him the ways of the house.
I turn from Oliver, Karen, and Tony, and walk away.
‘We’d better keep the two cats separate while they get used to each other,’ Tony says.
Karen puts Oliver in a room at the back of the house. It is the room where I stayed when Karen brought me home. He has his food and basket there, and his litterbox is in the room as well.
She leaves me and goes to Oliver. I realise she is trying to help him to become accustomed to his new home.
Rats! I miss her, and of course I’m jealous that he has all her attention. I must never, ever complain of
being lonely or bored again!
Later, I sleep on her side of the big bed, and try to forget about the new kitten. Karen strokes me and tells me she loves me. After a few hours, she wakes and moves me out of the way.
‘I have to go and feed Oliver now...see if he’s alright,’ she whispers.
I follow her slowly, hearing his distressed mewing at the back of the house. The kitten is trembling with fear. She feeds him and talks to him in a whisper.
The good cat in me, the Therapy Cat, goes to him. I slip into his basket and give him reassuring purrs. I tell myself that of course I won’t be sleeping with this kitten permanently. I am helping him just this once.
The next morning he is stronger. He eats his food and goes to the litterbox before returning to his basket. I have done my job for now.
Life is good, unless I think of Oliver. I go past his room and listen at the closed door. At least he has stopped mewing.
I am confused and wish I could settle down. I am restless and unhappy. My food I leave half-eaten and my thoughts are constantly about change. Before he arrived, I called the house, my house, the garden was my garden, and Karen was all mine too. Everything was mine.
I know that I ought to be fair and kind to him, and that right now I am behaving like a Catyuk. I am a healer, a Purr Therapist for children and other Humans, and yet I am being horrid to this tiny, orphaned kitten. Of all cats, I should remember what being alone and unwanted feels like, and treat him with care.
But, I want things to be the way they were before he came. I hate changes in my routine. Part of me wants to scratch his beautiful, little, blue eyes and bite those big ears of his. I know it is all about my territory, my place as top cat and about Karen too. Instinct and love for her drives me. I am afraid he might steal Karen’s love from me.
Eventually, I will have to learn to share it all, even though it will be extremely hard. He is still a tiny kitten, so I don’t need to worry about sharing the house with him yet.
Karen is talking on the phone to Mia’s mother. ‘I’m so pleased that she’s feeling stronger.’ She laughs, ‘I’m not surprised Mia wants to see Bella again soon...and tell her that we are both thrilled that she is recovering so well. She is welcome to visit Bella after school.’
Bella Page 10