by Patricia Fry
Rob was almost as upset as I was and he, being the great promoter that he is, immediately contacted the media. A missing cat might not be news, unless there was nothing more pressing to report on that night. But a cat gone missing from his book signing…now that’s at least mildly newsworthy. And a couple of local news stations ran the story. I have to say that, while it was good publicity that served us well later, it did nothing to recover Rags.
No, it was Rags himself—his incredible instincts, creativity, and skill—that brought him back to us. He evidently used his Houdini abilities to break out of Marvelle’s home, which turned out to be about a five-mile walk for Rags, and he showed up at my mom’s house, where we were staying, tired and with sore paw pads. That incident was worth another news story, featuring the amazing homing-pigeon cat.
But that wasn’t the first time Rags went home with a stranger. Rags has always liked kids. Maybe it’s their toys, the fact that they’re more his size, or that they have the time to spend with him. So it wasn’t unusual for parents to discover Rags in their yard or inside their home with their children. Here’s one such story:
I didn’t realize Rags was missing until a neighbor called me. By then, several people had my phone number and most of them knew Rags and his naughty habits. As it happened, a seven-year-old girl met up with Rags while she was riding her bike with an older friend. The child found Rags so intriguing and he seemed to be alone, so when it was time for her to go home, she took Rags with her. She put him in her bicycle basket and latched the lid.
When her mother became aware of the cat, he was sitting across from the girl in her bedroom at a table set for a tea party and he was wearing bunny ears. I still have the picture she sent me that day.
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Yes, he is cute and funny and entertaining. Everyone seems to love him. And I adore him. But Rags has managed to get me into some precarious situations. Because of Rags, I’ve been yelled at, disrespected, attacked, sued, stalked, and almost arrested. In the case of Marvelle, the woman who took Rags from the bookstore, she threatened to sue me because Rags tore her screen in order to escape while he was visiting her.
He once took a piece of jewelry out of a stranger’s purse and put it into mine without my knowing it. That became another sticky situation, as you can imagine. He barfed on a woman’s sweater at the library during one of our readings and she wanted three thousand dollars from Michael and me so she could go back to Ireland to replace it!
Rags escaped from our hotel room once and joined us for breakfast in the hotel dining room. And he has also made some wonderful connections that we both enjoyed.
He found a desperate woman’s passport just in time for her to travel to another country, where she planned to adopt a child.
He found a medic-alert bracelet that belonged to a little boy and put it into my purse. Naturally, I contacted the family, who turned out to be awfully nice people. The boy, Jayden, had been struggling with medical issues and the doctors couldn’t find the key to his problem; however, one evening Rags seemed intent upon resting his paw on an area of Jayden’s neck. It seemed so deliberate and Rags appeared to be so intent, that Jayden’s father asked if Rags had ever alerted us to a medical emergency before—if he seemed to be sensitive to illness.
I remember shrugging, because I didn’t recall any such circumstance. Jayden’s dad was convinced that Rags’s actions meant something and he vowed to discuss this with the boy’s doctor. Sure enough, whether intentional or not, Rags had pinpointed the problem and doctors began appropriate treatment that helped Jayden immensely.
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Rags has had experiences that few cats ever have and he seems to take them in his stride. He loves car trips. While he prefers riding free in the car—no restraints or pens—it’s not the safest way for a cat to travel, and I secure him most of the time.
Rags rode in an airplane from California to Connecticut one year. We carried him onto the plane inside a soft cat carrier designed to fit under the seat. I couldn’t bear the thought of him being loaded into the luggage compartment and certainly not in an overhead bin. We just hoped he’d behave and that we wouldn’t be thrown off the plane. For a long flight, I’ll let him out of the carrier and Michael and I take turns entertaining him so he doesn’t cause a commotion. So far, I have no stories of airline catastrophes, although Adam, believes we were close to being reprimanded once when Rags reached out and grabbed at an airline attendant as she walked past. He said the woman didn’t even see Rags because he was on his dad’s lap under a blanket, but that she sure gave Michael a strange look. On that same flight, while I was busy with Lily; and Michael and Adam weren’t paying attention, Rags evidently irritated the guy behind us by standing up with his paws on the back of the seat and staring at him while he ate his lunch.
It’s a rare cat, indeed, that participates in a book signing like Rags does. Rob sets up the signings and I take him, sometimes along with Auntie and one of her cats that is also featured in the children’s books.
How does a cat sign a book? We have a cute little paw-print stamp with Rags’s name on it that we use most of the time. When he’s calm and awake and willing, we sometimes use his paw—we put it on a pad containing a nontoxic ink-like substance, then press his paw on the book page. The children enjoy seeing the cat use his actual paw, but sometimes that isn’t possible—like when Rags won’t cooperate.
Rags has gone camping and hiking. You might wonder how he has the endurance for hiking. The fact is cats don’t have a great deal of endurance, so we rig up a way to carry him. We have a backpack he can ride in and another one that he can ride on top of when he’s too tired to walk. Otherwise, we always walk him on a leash when we’re in the wilderness, to keep him out of trouble and out of harm’s way.
I wrote earlier about the fact that Rags can ride a horse. He does love our mare, Peaches, and likes spending time with her. Ever see a horse pet a cat? I have videos of Peaches rubbing her upper lip against Rags’s fur as if she’s petting him. But generally Rags sits on the fence railing and watches Peaches move around in the corral. If Peaches comes close enough, Rags will sometimes step onto her back and sit or lie there while she walks around.
He rode Peaches into the wilderness once. That day, we’d taken Rags with us to search for our sweet friend, Marissa. We put Rags in his small canvas carrier and encouraged him to lie across the saddle in front of me on the horse. When he’d get tired of that position, he’d sometimes sit up and ride for a while. But it takes a lot of muscle control and concentration for him to stay seated while traversing rough terrain, so the best position for him is to lay out flat across the front of the saddle.
Rags has also been known to ride a bus. Yes, all by himself. Once was during the time we were staying at Peter’s beach house. A few of us were sitting out on the deck listening to the ocean and soaking up the wonderful salt air, when a security guard showed up with Rags in his arms.
Evidently, the cat had found his way to a seafood restaurant several blocks away. Some of the neighbors we’d met at the beach were eating at the restaurant, and they recognized Rags and gave the guard our address. Another witness had told the security guard that he’d seen the cat climb off a city bus and walk into the eatery.
I believe he learned how to ride a bus when we were still living in Los Angeles. I used to walk with Rags in his jogging stroller to my mother’s house. If I was in a hurry to get back home or too tired to walk, we’d ride home on a bus. I’ll never forget the day one of the bus drivers told me that Rags sometimes rode the bus without me. She said that Rags seemed to be waiting for her at the bus stop near my apartment. She’d stop and he’d hop aboard. He’d make himself comfortable on a seat in the front of the bus and ride it all the way around the route. She said she often had to coax him off the bus when she returned to our stop, but usually he didn’t make a fuss. She showed me a few pictures she’d taken of Rags, her only feline passenger.
Actually, communicating with Rags so he
understands isn’t too difficult. He generally catches the drift of what you expect of him—such as, “Time to scat off the bus, cat!” Rags hasn’t always followed commands, though. And he hasn’t always behaved in a gentle-catly manner.
There are his many incidents of thievery. Sometimes he is downright blatant in his pilfering and other times sneaky. Because of Rags, we have a shelf in the living room designated for visiting ladies’ handbags. We also offer to hang visitors’ jackets and coats in a closet. But it took us a few years to get into the habit, and sometimes we still forget.
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Because of Rags’s celebrity status, we are sometimes invited into libraries, where we read his books to groups of children. We visit schools, as well. One spring while we were involved in the reading therapy program, we visited a fourth-grade classroom and Rags managed to create more chaos than the tranquility I’d hoped to offer. This day, he intercepted a note that was being passed from one girl to another. Rags picked up the note, carried it around for a few moments, then dropped it at the feet of the boy the little girls had discussed in the note. While the teacher was trying to deal with that situation, Rags knocked a small cage over and inadvertently let the class’s pet rat escape. Some of the girls were screaming and some of the boys started chasing the rat, which was also being chased by the cat. In the melee, a vase of flowers toppled and the water spilled out all over Rags.
The boys managed to catch the rat and return him to his cage. I found Rags hiding under the desk, and everyone laughed when I pulled the soggy cat out from under it. I’m not surprised that we weren’t invited back to that classroom, but those children sure had something to tell their parents when they got home that day.
****
Rags almost got me killed once—or at least maybe beaten up. It all started out innocently enough. Mom and Brianna were visiting and we took Lily downtown to have lunch and do a little window shopping. Bri took Lily out of her stroller and into a children’s store, where she allowed her to pick out whatever she wanted. I waited outside the store with the stroller.
Suddenly, a man came running down the street and he stumbled into the stroller. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but we were soon to find out it was a highly significant and intentional act.
That night we were awakened when a man and a woman broke into our home with a gun and demanded that we give them the diamond necklace they’d stashed in our diaper bag earlier.
They were thieves and they’d robbed a jewelry store that day. Evidently when the cops were chasing them, they ditched the evidence in Lily’s stroller. Fortunately, Bri saw the intruders from the top of the staircase before they saw her and she called 911. In the meantime, the couple searched the diaper bag and the stroller and rummaged through my car. When they couldn’t find the piece of jewelry they were looking for, they became threatening and frightening.
Once the officers arrived and the couple was under their control, the story came out. Mom, Bri, and I were still at a complete loss as to what might have happened to the necklace until…yes, you’ve probably guessed who had it. Out of the blue, here comes Rags walking down the staircase carrying an exquisite diamond necklace in his mouth. He’d evidently found it in the diaper bag and took it to his stash.
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It might seem weird to some of you reading this, but I often use mind-talk with Rags. When I want to communicate with him and I really need him to understand me, I’ll conjure up an appropriate thought—you know, a mind picture—and I try to convey that to Rags. You might be surprised at how often he responds to my thought, whether it is, “Time to go to bed,” “Do you want your supper?” or “Let’s go outside.” I learned this technique from an animal psychic and started experimenting on my own.
When we took Rags out to the desert to find Marissa, I pictured the child in my mind, hoping he would pick up on it and focus on finding her.
People wonder how and why he does the things that he does. For many of his activities, there is definitely no explanation, but it’s certainly possible that mind-talk is behind some of them. I say this because, while he is a cat and his behavior is basically cat-like, he sometimes tends to border on the unnatural, or against the nature of a cat. He has moments when I (and others) might tend to personify or humanize him. That would be when he shows up with a specific and integral clue or leads us to a missing person. Everyone praises Rags. He becomes a star—a phenom—in everyone’s eyes. Then he walks into the room, sits down with one leg pointed straight up in the air and begins licking himself. Yes, there’s no denying it, he’s a cat.
Conclusion
That’s Rags’s story so far. I’m a little surprised that it reached fifty thousand words. I don’t know about you, but I’m eager to see what fun he has in store for us from now on. What mischief will he get into? What brilliant discoveries will he make and what boundaries will he break? What wonderful (and not so wonderful) people will he bring into our life? Hang on for the ride as we experience Rags’s next seven years.
Just as I finished that paragraph, something happened here in our home. Rags came trotting up to me and dropped something at my feet. He’d been outside on his long leash with Michael and the children for a while and evidently found this somewhere in our yard. I’m not sure, but it looks like it could cause someone we know a whole lot of trouble. Oh my. Just when I thought we could relax and enjoy life, it looks like Rags is about to catapult us into another mystery.
Rags stars in the Klepto Cat Mysteries with Savannah and Michael Ivey and their family and friends, as well as a kit and caboodle of other animals—cats, dogs, horses, and more. The Klepto Cat Mystery series is the brainchild of author, Patricia Fry. The books are available in print and for Kindle at Amazon.com. Book 1 and Book 27 are also available as audio books. Order an autographed copy of the print books here: http://www.KleptoCatMysteries.com
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Other books in the Klepto Cat Mystery series
Catnapped (Book 1)
When Savannah Jordan agrees to help her aunt while she recovers from a broken foot, she doesn’t expect to walk into a mystery, become part of a not-quite-legal surveillance team, be kidnapped by a deranged stranger and meet a steaming hot veterinarian.
Beloved neighborhood cats are missing—the community can only guess at their fate—and Aunt Margaret’s life is being threatened. Is it because she has a clue to the missing cats or is it something more sinister? Of course, as in all of the Klepto Cat Mysteries, Rags, an ordinary cat with a most unusual habit, has a paw in saving the day.
If you like light mysteries with only a little terror, if you’re infatuated by interesting cats and if you love a love story, you must read this book.
Available at Amazon.
Cat-Eye Witness (Book 2)
Savannah and Aunt Margaret open the old Forster home to the Hammond Cat Alliance for a fundraiser to help rehabilitate the abused horses rescued months earlier from the catnappers.
Before the afternoon is over, the collected funds go missing and someone is murdered in an upstairs bedroom.
Suspicion surrounds Iris, a local waitress and Savannah’s new best friend. The only witness to the murder is Rags, Savannah’s cat. With the assistance of a cat psychic and Rags’s good friend, Charlotte (the young girl with Downs), the cat helps to “paw” the killer… but not before an attempt is made on Rags’s life. The case is solved only after Rags comes face-to-face with the killer for the second time.
Detective Craig Sledge is new to this book, as is Damon, Iris’s errant son. Sledge finds this to be one of the muddiest cases he has ever worked, with inconsistent clues and no apparent motive. He’s constantly surprised, perplexed and impressed by the cat’s uncann
y ability to come up with clues he has missed. His fascination with the attractive Iris Clampton also mystifies the detective.
In this story, one of the rescued horses goes into labor and there’s a night of high drama at the ole corral as veterinarians Savannah and Michael work to save the foal. This experience renews Savannah’s deep interest in horses and riding, which ultimately serves to help her bond with a very important surprise character who finds his way into her life and Michael’s just as they prepare to say their wedding vows.
While Rags is the animal star, he isn’t the only animal featured in this story. Layla is back in all of her tangerine feline beauty. And Rags makes friends with Buffy, a perky almost Himalayan cat and the inseparable duo, Walter, an all black cat and his sidekick, Lexie, a charming Afghan mix dog. Savannah’s new ride, Peaches, also debuts in this story. An incident with this mare adds another dimension to Savannah’s and Michael’s relationship. Can he hold her with open arms?
Some say this is a love story with a mystery in the background. And it’s a story of family and friendship as newlyweds Margaret and Max continue to be a meaningful part of Savannah’s and Michael’s world.
Available at Amazon.
Sleight of Paw (Book 3)
In this story, Michael Ivey, the local veterinarian (Savannah’s new husband) is attacked by an enraged client and then later accused of this man’s murder. The evidence quickly stacks up against Michael, until Rags, Savannah’s kleptomaniac cat, starts digging up clues implicating the unlikely suspect.
Coinciding with the details of this challenge is the discovery that the old house, which the couple purchased from Savannah’s aunt, is cursed. Is this why the couple has not been blessed with a child?
