When I was in hiding

I was just getting used to walking along the yard walls. So many interesting places to see from up there!

So on Friday evening I decided to go a little further. I jumped down into Auntie Lesley's yard.

That was my Big Mistake. High walls, nothing I could jump up onto again so that I could get out. I was trapped! It was like falling down a well!

Later I could hear Mrs Danvers calling for me, but I kept quiet in case she was cross. I had broken a plant pot in my attempts to escape.

All that evening I heard her calling. I didn't know what to do, and after it got dark, I found a little hiding place in Auntie Lesley's little cubby hole in the yard, and stayed there, tucked in tightly - all night. I didn't know that Auntie Lesley had gone away till Monday.

The next day Mrs Danvers asked Auntie Lesley's neighbour, Suzy Nextdoor, to look out over Lesley's yard wall from her house. No one could see me where I was hiding, and no one could hear me because I was keeping quiet. Suzy Nextdoor didn't notice anything.

Mrs Danvers says that she and Sandra called and called and listened very hard, and Roger got on his wobbly ladder and looked over the wall too. Mrs Danvers asked him to see if the cubby doors were closed, and he said that they were. He didn't know about the little gap behind them where I managed to get in.

I stayed in that little shelter for 3 nights, and it wasn't very nice. I began to feel very scared that no one would find me, so I began to cry. Mew! Mew! Just a little cry, not my big loud howl. Mrs Danvers and Sandra called so many times, and walked all round the area. Mrs Danvers told me later that sometimes she had to have a big cry.

It wasn't very comfortable in the cubby hole, and I had to make a bed on a hosepipe, but I stayed dry when it rained all day on Sunday.

And then, on Sunday night, Suzy Nextdoor, who is often rather deaf and has to have her ears syringed - can you imagine how horrible it must be to get water in your ears? - heard me. She was in her own yard having a cigarette, and she definitely heard me.

So she phoned Mrs Danvers, who had gone to bed nearly an hour before, and was sound asleep; she came running out in her nightie.  Even though she could tell that Suzy Nextdoor had had a little drinkie and was deaf too, she decided to believe that she had heard me crying, and wasn't imagining things just because she was worried. Together they called for me again and again, but quietly so that neighbours didn't come out and say that they were worse than the students.

And I don't know what came over me, but I didn't reply. I must be mad, I think. Mrs Danvers says she loves me very much but that she has to accept that I don't have two neurons to bang together. I don't know what that means, but at least she loves me, which is a good thing.

Anyway, they both went back home again, although Mrs Danvers says she hardly slept again. The next day, she spoke to Auntie Lesley about it all, and Auntie Lesley said she would be home at 10 o'clock. She was very worried too. When she came home, they both came through the house into the yard. Auntie Lesley was so worried that she set her own house alarm off.

As soon as Mrs Danvers saw the little cubby and the little gap, she could tell that I could have got in there. She says her heart leapt in her chest and her hands shook, and she opened the doors to find me inside. I was so scared that I couldn't move; she had to help me out by the scruff of the neck, and hold me very tight.

And then I came home, and when I realised where I was, I was so happy, and purred so much that a lot of drool ran down Mrs Danvers' arm, but she didn't mind a bit.

Hamish gave me a kiss, and Lottie spat at me and called me some very rude names for making Mrs Danvers so unhappy. But she's not unhappy any more, I told her. She told me so, and has been giving me lots of treats to show me how much she loves me. But she says I mustn't go adventuring like that ever again, and I don't think I will.

No offence, Auntie Lesley, but your accommodation doesn't compare well to my own nice warm bed.