“Outwitted him, too, so I hear.”
I was unsure of how to answer.
“He’s got a bit of a reputation, has Bruce. Claims to eat kittens for breakfast.”
“Ah,” I said uncertainly.
“You did well.”
And with that Pip stalked off, leaving me shocked on two counts. First, that I had finally had a conversation of more than two words with him, and second, that I had somehow outwitted a notorious canine cat-hater.
It was not until I ventured outside the following day that I realized the significance of my actions. More cats than usual passed through our garden that morning. In fact, more cats than I had ever seen. They came alone at first, then returned in pairs, all of them casually glancing in my direction.
I could hear them whispering, “That’s the kitten who fought Bruce. And won!”
Gossip being what it is, by the end of the day my story had morphed into an epic tale, a gladiatorial encounter in which I had launched myself ninja-style at Bruce’s face, and he had run off whimpering with his tail between his legs. Having an innate understanding of the benefit of good PR, I did not rush to correct any inaccuracies. The upshot was that my reputation as a fearless explorer was born, and consequently, my place as the de facto “wunderkind” in the local cat hierarchy was established.
Newly confident of my street cred (and knowing which garden to avoid), I began to familiarize myself with the other homes on my street. Many of the houses had cat flaps of their own or left their back doors open in the warm weather. I was bemused to find one house in which three rats were kept in a cage. Amazed at the notion of the world’s least popular rodent being kept as a pet, I introduced myself. Bish, Bash, and Bosh were erudite and intelligent and aware of the irony of their vermin status, given their species’ superior intellect. They explained that they had made a conscious decision to embrace their life of imprisonment, believing that true freedom exists solely in the mind. I admired their fortitude, though I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them, discussing the relative merits of the existentialist philosophers as they sat in sawdust and nibbled a cardboard tube. Thankfully, Brambles seemed unaware that there were vermin living on the street or he would have had a nervous breakdown at the hygiene implications.
I would often find a bowl of cat food in my neighbors’ kitchens—a welcome sight for a hungry, active kitten. Sometimes, after repeated visits, the bowl would inexplicably vanish, but after a quick hunt around I would usually discover it on a worktop or sometimes on top of the washing machine. Occasionally it would turn out to be in a wall-mounted cupboard. I was perplexed by this quirk of human behavior, but I was happy to indulge my neighbors’ eccentricities. I began to notice how often I would come across the smiling face of the Kit-e-Licious cat as I rooted around in people’s kitchens. He was on food packaging, tea towels, even on the food bowls themselves. Remember I was at an impressionable age, and I convinced myself that, somehow, this cat was following me.
After a few weeks, when I was a familiar visitor to all the houses on my street, I began to yearn for a greater challenge. Be it wanderlust or ambition, I didn’t have a name for it but I knew I had a calling for something bigger. The mantle of wunderkind weighed heavily on my narrow shoulders and as time went on I felt it was my duty to spread my wings. I was ready to explore the rest of my hometown.
CHAPTER 3
Team Nancy
No cat is an island.
—(Adapted from) John Donne
As autumn drew on I began to venture farther from home (or Nancy HQ, as I was beginning to think of it). My encounter with Bruce meant that word of my chutzpah had spread, and I decided the time had come to set about widening my social circle.
I soon established that my hometown, which lay about twenty miles north of London, was what people call “wellheeled.” In other words, affluent. I came to this conclusion not because of the impressive houses and fancy cars that I came across on my wanderings, nor because of the chichi boutiques on the high street (not to mention the cupcake shop called Yummy Mummies). No, my method for measuring affluence was by the proliferation of pedigree cats.
On my street, for instance, which was at the more modest end of the spectrum, Brambles the Siamese was the only pedigree, the rest of the feline population comprising bog-standard alley cats. On other streets in the town, however, I could hardly move for pedigree cats. My theory was that, for a certain type of owner, a pedigree cat was a status symbol, like a luxury car or a designer watch. The wealthier the person, the less likely he or she was to be satisfied with a run-of-the-mill cat. Why make do with a homegrown moggy4 when you can afford a rarefied variety of cat with unusual looks and a poncey name? It’s rather like Madonna’s and Angelina’s approach to adopting children, I suppose. The more exotic the better.
The pedigree cats I encountered around town also tended to suffer, like Brambles, from afflictions of mind and body. In Brambles this took the form of an irritable bowel and obsessive-compulsive tendencies, but I discovered that this was just the tip of the neurosis iceberg where pedigree cats were concerned. Phobias, allergies, eating disorders—you name it, a pampered cat in my town had it. That’s what you get if you pay two hundred pounds for a kitten, unfortunately. They are beautiful to look at, undoubtedly, but—be warned—you will end up with a cat with “issues.” Particularly susceptible to anxiety disorders, pedigrees will often venture no farther than their own garden (sometimes not even beyond their own back door). They don’t want to explore in case their fur gets matted, they never hunt because they have sensitive stomachs, and they can be the most dreadful divas. One Burmese that I met would only pee on fresh laundry. If that’s not the definition of high maintenance, I don’t know what is.
So there I was, small but perfectly formed and, thanks to Bruce, already something of a celebrity among my peer group. But you can’t be leader of the pack without a pack to lead, and the way I saw it there was a vacancy for a cat who could liven up the dull lifestyles of these small-town felines. I knew that I was capable of great things, but I also knew that to reach my full potential I would need support, or, in Hollywood parlance, an entourage. As I made my way home one afternoon the penny dropped that what I needed was “Team Nancy”—a group of loyal followers who would back me in my quest for wider glory. Spurred on by this epiphany I turned the corner into my street and trotted up the pavement, wondering which of my feline neighbors I should recruit onto the team first.
A sinking feeling struck me as I caught sight of Bella crouched on her front doorstep, looking morose.
“What’s up, Bella?” I asked, trying to sound upbeat.
“Door’s locked. They’ve gone out. I don’t know when they’re coming back. Or if . . .” She trailed off, assuming the worst.
“Oh, Bella, come on. They haven’t emigrated. They’ve gone to work. Just like they did yesterday and they will tomorrow. Cheer up!”
But Bella did not want to be cheered up. No matter how many times she observed her owners go about their everyday routine, in which they always returned home at the end of the day, she could not stop thinking that she was about to be abandoned. I know it sounds harsh, but I wasn’t sure whether I really wanted Bella in Team Nancy. I wondered what she could bring to the party, other than a pervading sense of gloom. I was looking for cats who would cheer me on and suggest publicity stunts, not sit around moping all day.
Not to worry, I reasoned, there are plenty more fish in the sea. I could see from the pavement that Brambles was in his bed, which overlooked the street from the windowsill in his front room. I suppose my alarm bells should have rung when I noticed the giant pump-action dispenser of antibacterial gel next to him. I jumped up onto the window ledge and shouted through the glass.
“Hey, Brambles. How come you’re inside?”
Brambles looked at me in disbelief and mouthed something that I couldn’t understand.
“Slime poo?” I mouthed back, at a loss as to what he was saying, and wondering i
f his IBS had flared up again. He then began a first-class performance of charades: curling his tail around his paw and squashing his nose into a snout, before miming a violent sneeze. I admired the effort he had put in, but was still none the wiser as to what he was saying. I stared blankly at him before hazarding, “Pig . . . sneeze?” Brambles shook his head, rolled his eyes in despair, then put his face to the glass.
“Swine flu!” he shrieked.
“What are you going on about, Brambles?”
“Haven’t you heard? It’s arrived. Fifteen cases in the town already this week. It’s an epidemic.”
“But, Brambles, swine flu doesn’t affect cats. You don’t need to worry.”
“How do you know that?” he shouted, his blue eyes ablaze. “It wasn’t supposed to affect humans, either, and they got that wrong.”
At this Brambles pumped a squirt of antibacterial gel onto his paw and began to rub it around his nose and whiskers.
“You do what you like. I’m not taking any risks. I’ll come out again when the epidemic has passed. Or when you’re all dead and I’m the only one left.”
Brambles paused for a moment and stared into the distance, allowing the full horror of his prediction to sink in. Then he took another squirt of gel onto his paw and resumed his manic smearing.
Realizing Brambles would not respond to rational argument, I jumped down from the window ledge. This was not going according to plan. My first two intended Team Nancy members had to be ruled out on the grounds of questionable mental health. Of my friends on the street, that only left Dennis. Surely he was more in touch with reality than Bella and Brambles, I reasoned.
I knew Dennis would be due to pass through our back garden on his daily spraying rounds, so I waited among the geraniums for him. It was not long before I began to catch wafts of his scent drifting over the fence from next door, shortly followed by his footsteps rustling through the undergrowth. I surprised him by jumping out from behind the shrubbery as he approached.
“Dennis, why do you feel you have to spray this bush every day?”
He stared at me with incomprehension.
“Because it’s there.”
As if hoping a demonstration would help, he then lifted his tail and delivered a dose of pungent scent into the foliage, missing my face by inches.
“But think of all the other things you could be doing with your time, Dennis.”
“Like what, hiding behind a bush waiting to jump out on other cats?”
“No, I mean like helping me to put this town on the map. . . .”
I trailed off, as Dennis had given me a withering look and sauntered off.
It would be fair to say that Team Nancy still needed some work. It consisted of, well, me. And possibly Pip, but only by default, because he lived with me. I mentioned my plans for stardom to him that evening and he pulled a face (which I was to become very familiar with over time), which could roughly be translated as “You’ll learn.” Team Nancy was going to require a more organized recruitment drive if it was to avoid becoming a self-help group for every special-needs cat in the district.
The following morning was sunny and mild, so I embarked on my mission with a determined step. I headed to the end of my street and turned right up the hill, onto a street that I knew to be rich pickings for moggies. Choosing a house at random, I leapt over the side gate into its back garden and could immediately discern the presence of felines. I surveyed the garden, ignoring the birds who had spotted me and started up a chorus of “It’s a cat! A different cat!”
I noticed a cat flap in the back door, so I ran across the lawn and slipped into the house.
As the flap swung shut behind me I was taken aback to find myself almost nose to nose with a cat who looked remarkably like me. A tom with short black fur and green eyes, who I guessed was around two years old. He smiled at me.
“Hello. Who are you?”
“I’m Nancy,” I replied.
The cat looked me up and down for a couple of moments.
“Is that Nancy as in the Nancy? Of Bruce fame?”
I smiled and nodded.
“I’m Murphy. Pleased to meet you.”
Reader, I can’t tell you how relieved I was to finally meet a well-adjusted cat. I had begun to despair that there were any in this town. Here was a cat who not only looked like me but seemed to have a similar outlook on life, too, which is to say he was friendly and all his mental faculties were intact.
I followed him into the kitchen, where we stopped to eat a snack (Kit-e-Licious, I noticed) from a pair of cat dishes on the floor. As I was eating I became aware of a growling sound.
“Is that you?” I asked Murphy.
“No,” he replied. “That’s Molly.”
I turned round to see a female calico stalking across the kitchen, her eyes fixed on me. Judging by the way her undercarriage brushed along the floor, I guessed she was middle-aged.
“That’s my food,” hissed Molly.
“Sorry,” I said, backing away from the bowl.
“Molly lives here, too,” Murphy said, with a faintly apologetic look. “She’s my stepcat.”
I introduced myself to Molly, who glared at me before glancing at her bowl, glaring at me again, and then exiting through the cat flap.
“Don’t worry about Molly,” Murphy said. “She’s always like that when she first meets someone. Took her at least a year to get used to having me around.”
I looked at him dubiously.
“Seriously. When our owners bought a new sofa she couldn’t walk past it without growling for six months. Doesn’t like change.”
He shrugged, clearly as bewildered as I was by this concept.
The jury may have been out with regards to Molly, but I knew immediately that Murphy would become an integral member of Team Nancy. He asked about where I was from, what had happened with Bruce, and what I thought of the cats in the neighborhood. He laughed when I described Brambles’s performance with the antibac gel.
“That sounds like classic Brambles.” Murphy chuckled. “Whatever you do, don’t get him started on his lactose intolerance. He’ll never shut up!”
Like me, Murphy knew how to have fun. One of his favorite pastimes was lying motionless near the bird table in his garden, waiting for the birds to come and feed, then springing out and scaring the life out of them. I may already have known that I was destined for great things, but that’s not to say I couldn’t also enjoy old-fashioned feline pursuits, especially ones that involved tormenting birds. We spent that morning happily engaged in this activity, amused and amazed in equal measure that the birds fell for the same trick over and over. We could hear them in the trees:
“Is there a cat?”
“I can’t see one.”
“We’ve made this mistake before. Where are you, anyway?”
“I’m over here.”
And so it went on, until one of them would flutter down to the bird table, whereupon Murphy and I would leap out from the shadows and send it flapping skywards, shrieking, “I told you there was a cat!”
When we had tired of the birds, we jumped over the gate into Murphy’s front garden. As we were sharpening our claws on a tree, I noticed a parked car on the street with its rear door left open. The driver had gone back into a neighboring house to retrieve something, leaving a toddler sitting in a booster seat in the back.
“Kitty! Kitty!” the toddler shouted in our direction.
“I think she’s talking to us,” I said to Murphy. “I’ve never ridden in a car without being in a cat box. Have you?”
Murphy gave me a smile as if to say “I dare you” and without a moment’s hesitation I dashed down the driveway and hopped into the backseat, to the delighted giggles of the little girl. The car was full of the usual detritus generated by toddlers (soft toys, food wrappers, pieces of infantile artwork), so I was easily able to conceal myself from the adult when she returned. She slammed the door shut and drove off, unaware of her feline stowaway.
&n
bsp; It was only a short ride, but I have to admit I got a certain illicit thrill from being unrestrained inside a moving car, compounded by the excitement of the toddler, who shouted, “Kitty! Kitty!” at me for the entire journey. When the car stopped I took a deep breath before jumping into the driver’s lap. She let out something resembling a scream, but thanks to my fan in the back, who roared with laughter, she quickly saw the funny side and started to stroke me.
“Where on earth did you come from?” she asked as we all disembarked in her driveway.
I trotted up to her front door and mewed, “Well, what are you waiting for?”
She gave me a quizzical look, then with exemplary compliance unlocked the door and let me in.
From this point on it was business as usual for me. I had been in enough houses to perfect my routine: a quick scan of the living room before heading to the kitchen in search of food.
“Poor kitty, are you lost?” the lady asked, rummaging in the fridge and then placing some cold chicken scraps on the floor for me. As I devoured them I felt her hand slide the name tag on my collar around my neck, and she looked at me dubiously. I knew from experience that, once the name tag had been studied, a phone call back to NHQ was imminent.
As anticipated, my owner soon appeared at the front door and, after much thanking and apologizing, scooped me into the cat box and set off for home. I tried to look out of the car window, to see if Murphy was still outside his house waiting for me, but all I could see from my box was the car’s glove compartment. In what seemed like no time at all we were back home and I was tipped out into the hallway, where I meowed for food, claiming to be half starved after my “adventure.”
As I settled down on the sofa for a postprandial nap, I reflected on the day’s developments. To my mind, events had demonstrated two things. First, that thanks to Murphy, my plan for Team Nancy might be back on track. And second, that my owners were evidently able to retrieve me from any household, regardless of distance. With those happy thoughts in mind, I fell asleep.
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