Dream

Today I sat in the back lane, and dreamed of the day when we will have our own garden. Rachel has promised.

I will be Leader of the Boundary Patrol. I have the gravitas to be taken seriously.

Managing humans: Lesson 1

Start the day purposefully.

Always make sure your human gets up at a reasonable time, even on Sundays. Your breakfast depends on this rule.

The dog wants me to add that so does the successful management of a dog's bodily functions.

This means that we have to get up first. The dog prefers to wait in bed while we organise things. She's an idle blighter too.

Humans are, by nature, lazy and slow. Like us, they love to sleep, and can spend hours doing it, but once they get up, they stay sluggish, and need to do so many things before they are truly awake and alert. Not like us in the least!

In order to get your human to a state where getting up is possible, gentle but persistent waking is essential. We send Lottie in first. She has patience and tenacity. She advances carefully.

She purrs loudly, meaningfully. This reassures the foggy-brained human.

She also has big paws, with a tiny hint of sharp claw.

Then the rest of us advance. Humans crumble under a united front. Success is ours!

A couple of yawns and we're ready for anything - bed-making, bird-watching, duvet-pouncing, then breakfast and a little stroll out of doors.

Lottie likes to do her Victory Roll.

And then we can all troop downstairs, tails aloft.

The human is still grumping around in a tatty old dressing gown, trying to find the switch for the kettle, bumping into us, muttering about  harassment, and we have accomplished much.

Management by Committee. It works for us.

Common sense

Nobody likes bad table manners, me least of all. But sometimes I have no choice.

Wouldn't you think I'd be given a higher chair? That way I could reach Rachel's dinner without having to put my paws on the table.

.

Naked

So far in my captivity, I have evaded the microchip press-gang. Instead, I have a red collar. And a name tag that is easy to read, in case I get lost.

Mrs Danvers says the red tag is the best she could find, and that whoever designs collars and tags for cats should be shot made to wear scratchy polyester clothes in violent shades and patterns; no taste, she says, no aesthetic appreciation of how a smart ginger cat should be dressed. She hates glittery collars most of all. 

But then she says that if she bought proper engraved name tags, she'd be replacing them every few weeks. She says none of us can be trusted not to lose them.

Today I am naked. Scooter knows how to kick my collar off. Its safety catch is sensitive to wrestling holds and head locks.

This time it was the Arm-Trap Triangle Choke that did it. Or so Scooter says - he's a bit of a show-off.

Mrs Danvers carries the collar around in case she can coax me back into it. I know what she's up to though!

 Fat chance, says I.... You have to be quicker than that, Mrs D!

I run away and hide behind chairs. Mrs Danvers says I'm a blithering idiot. A naked blithering idiot, she said, and it would be my own fault if I got lost and couldn't remember where I lived, and ended up being eaten by a wolf. I think she was cross.

But I wouldn't let anyone near me to read the tag anyway, so why does she bother?

I'm going to become a Naturist.

.

Scooter regrets.....

Zzzzzzzzzzzz..........

What d'you mean, wake up, Scooter, it's your turn to post? 

No!!! please noooooooooooo!!! 

What would I write about? I can't; I just can't. I'm too scared.

Don't make me do it! People will look at me! They might even want to speak to me, or touch me! Help!

I'll climb out here. They can't get at me if I'm outside, on top of the bay window.

Honestly Millie, I can't do it. Don't make me. Look, my paws are shaking. My paws are damp. My whiskers have wilted with fear.

I'm stre-e-e-e-e-essed!

It's all right for you, Millie, you're fearless and a little bit mad. Me, I'm a shy, sensitive soul.

Write about my life? What if people laughed? Rachel laughs at me all the time.

I'll stay out here all night. I'll jump. I will! Then you'll all be sorry.

Er.....it's a bit high up here....

Maybe I'll come inside now.

Maybe I'll tell you about myself next time it's my turn. But you mustn't laugh.

Phew, that was close. They'll have to understand that I'm a cat of few words.

I'm a cat of action.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........

Ginger is the only colour

I am Hamish the Red. I am a prisoner in this house in the city. I may look domesticated, but my real identity is that of a wild and free Woodland Creature, a tiger at heart, captured and dragged into servitude.

When I lived in the woods, I had a brother, Evan, who lost the end of his tail. He was captured before me, at the same time as Scooter, and lives somewhere else now. This is the only picture I have of him:

I live here now, and I don't run away, because of:

my friend, Scooter.

They think I'm the youngest, but that's only because Scooter is so big and fat. We came from the same woods, but Evan and I were captured 2 weeks later than him, and he ate for us both while he waited for me. He still tries that one if I don't keep an eye on him.

Then there's the dog. I love her, even if she won't play with me. She says someone always gets hurt when they play with me, and it's never me. Puzzling.

My toys. I love mice most of all.

No, that's not quite true: I love birds. Real ones. Someone brought a dead bird indoors the other day, and I loved it so much I had to hold it in my mouth for half an hour and growl fiercely, like a tiger. It reminded me of my free life in the woods, before my captivity and enslavement.

Mrs Danvers took it away in the end. I still feel bitter about that. Mrs Danvers (or Rachel as the girls call her) is such a spoilsport.

This is how I arrived here. Caged. Yes, you may well gasp in horror. Me, a wild forest creature, caged! I had lived with another family for a few weeks before I came here, the same family where Millie was born, but I stayed fierce and wild and proud, and I defeated them!

They sent me here to be socialised so that I could be adopted, like Evan was, but Mrs Danvers wouldn't let me leave. She said her home needed a ginger cat to light up its dark corners.

I wouldn't come out for a long time. I don't give in that easily!

And when I did, I stayed under the table and chairs, until Mrs Danvers gave me a bed behind the furniture.

I kept to my woodland hours, sleeping under cover during the day, and waking up at night to eat and play. I was lonely during the night, because everyone else went to bed, and I had to run about on my own and throw my toys about all over my room.

Then Mrs Danvers began brainwashing me. Bits of chicken, soft voices, furry toys on a string. I fought, but I had no choice but to give in.

Slowly I started to forget my home in the woods, and to stay awake during the day. I moved into the little den on the climbing frame. Mrs Danvers gave me a hot water bottle, and sometimes I would let her stroke me. She liked that.

Eventually, the brainwashing got stronger, to make me come out from undercover.

And to pounce and wrestle with Scooter, even if the humans were watching.

I still let her stroke me. I'm much braver than Scooter. But she isn't allowed to pick me up, oh no!

I have to keep an eye on that Mrs Danvers. She's cunning; once she even tricked me into the cat basket, but I escaped when the door fell off. I wouldn't let her near me for a long time afterwards - she was going to take me to be microchipped. Me, the free spirit!

So I wait for her to come out of the bathroom every morning, and I watch her every move during the day, till she's safely tucked up in bed. I'm her Shadow, she says, but she doesn't understand why I still run away if she looks at me too much. She doesn't understand the soul of a Woodland Creature, I think; we need to know exactly where our human captors are, and what they're doing. They are sly and underhand, and whisper to each other about vets and microchips and cat baskets.

Never let your guard down, is my motto!

It's easier when we stay in a group; I like it best when we can all hang out together and relax. Mrs Danvers never gets up on our climbing frame, and we can watch out for each other.

I think I might stay here. But I will always be the woodland tiger at heart.