“I’ve got bigger fish to fry,” he replied enigmatically.
“Do you think I could get Maud to bring me something else to eat? I don’t fancy the look of this food.”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. She won’t be coming back for at least a few hours.”
Disappointed as I was, I did not want to waste this opportunity to find out more about where I was, and this cat was the first living thing, human or feline, to engage me in conversation since I had been carried away in the van.
“I’m Nancy. What’s your name?” I asked.
“My name?” he said, apparently surprised by the question. “Well, I’m Number 29, if that’s what you mean.”
“Number 29?” I replied, confused. “But you must have a name as well. What do your owners call you?”
“I don’t have owners. None of the cats in here have owners. That’s why we’re here.”
Seeing the confusion on my face he added, “We’re feral. Homeless. Stray.”
He spoke slowly, as if hoping I would be able to follow what he was saying.
“Well, I’m not feral!” I replied indignantly. “I’ve just lost my collar, that’s all.”
Number 29 pulled his lips back into a smile. “Yes, of course you have. We’ve all tried that one.”
As he said it, I heard a few chuckles and titters from the other hutches, whose inhabitants had taken a momentary break from charades to listen to our conversation. “So how long have you been here?” I asked him.
“Coming up to four years now,” he replied, and, seeing my jaw drop, he added, “I’m not the longest-serving inmate, though; that’s Number 17 down there.” He pointed in the direction of an elderly calico who was fast asleep in her bed.
“I was born here!” another voice piped up, a young tabby who looked about my age.
“Born here? But how ... ? Why ... ?”
“Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to have a nap.”
Number 29 jumped off the litter box and curled up in his bed. The other cats had resumed their game, and I heard one of them say, “Film . . . two words . . . it’d better not be Born Free—again!”
I sat in my hutch, dumbstruck. Was this another dream? Was the Kit-e-Licious cat about to rappel through the window and rescue me, with or without the aid of reindeer?
A phrase I remembered my mother using suddenly popped into my mind: “When in doubt, wash”; and right now this seemed like my only option.
I began to wash furiously, determined not to dwell on the possible implications of my situation.
It’ll all be fine, I told myself. My owners will realize I’m missing. They’ll send out a search party or do ... something.
But in the back of my mind, I wondered whether they would be searching for me. I had gone missing many times before. So many times that my owners had become quite blasé about it, always trusting that the phone would eventually ring with news of my whereabouts. I calculated I had been away from NHQ for about sixteen hours, which was still perfectly within my usual routine. They wouldn’t start worrying about me for at least another twelve hours. And when they did, would they know how to find me? I didn’t even know if I was still in my hometown.
I sighed, finished my wash, and stepped cautiously into the bed. Its tartan fabric was faded and worn and offered little comfort, but I eventually managed to drift off into a light sleep.
I was woken by a soft but persistent scratching sound. I opened my eyes and looked around. There was no movement in the room now—all the other cats were asleep, worn out by their parlor games.
The sound was coming from Number 29’s hutch, although he was nowhere to be seen. His bed was empty, and he was not in his lookout post on top of the litter tray. The sound seemed to be coming from the wall at the back of his hutch.
“Hello?” I whispered. “Number 29, is that you?”
Suddenly his head popped up from behind his bed. His expression was a mixture of startled and annoyed.
“What are you doing back there?” I asked, perplexed. “Is this a dream?”
He paused, clearly deciding how to answer.
“No, you’re not dreaming,” he replied.
He walked to the front of his hutch and stared at me through the chicken wire.
“Can I count on your ... discretion?” he whispered.
My ears pricked up.
“Yes, of course!” I whispered back.
“Okay. Check this out,” he said, slipping down the back of his bed and starting to push it out of the way.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Hang on. Just need to ... push . . . a bit . . . harder. . . .” And as the bed slid across the concrete I glimpsed something behind it.
On the rear wall of the hutch, the exposed brickwork had been chipped away, and there was now a hole, just large enough for a cat to squeeze through.
“How did you do that?” I asked, somewhere between admiration and horror.
“Claws. And willpower,” he replied with a smile.
“It’s taken me two years. It’s not finished yet. I reckon it should take another six months, then I’ll be free!” He said it with a twinkle in his eye.
“Wow.” For the first time in my life I was genuinely lost for words.
“What’s it like out there, anyway, where you live?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s so much fun!” I replied, and his eyes widened. I told him all about my neighborhood, NHQ , and Team Nancy, and he listened in silence, totally absorbed. I enjoyed talking about my life just as much as he enjoyed hearing about it, and I lost track of time for the first time since I had arrived at the shelter. We were eventually interrupted by the jangle of keys on the other side of the door, so I jumped back into my bed, and he hurriedly pushed his back into position.
Maud reappeared, this time carrying an industrial-sized sack of dry cat food. As I had suspected, there was no sign of the Kit-e-Licious cat on the packaging.
“Right, you lot. Dinnertime.”
She began working her way down the hutches, sprinkling the dry food into the bowl in each, ignoring the jibes raining down on her from all sides.
“I’ll have the smoked salmon today, Maud.”
“Mine’s the duck à l’orange!”
“Take your time, old lady. Don’t rush!”
When she eventually got down to my end of the corridor, I watched as she opened Number 29’s hutch and poured out his allotted rations, oblivious to the act of subterfuge that was taking place under her nose. Number 29 saw me watching and winked.
Then it was my turn. I didn’t even bother to meow as Maud opened the door and messily poured out the biscuits, half of which missed the bowl completely and spilled all over the floor. I gave them a sniff, but even fresh from the pack they smelled no more appetizing than the stale ones that had been there since I arrived.
How can anyone end up here for four years? I wondered. What kind of life is that for a cat?
I tried to suppress an image of myself in four years’ time, marking off the days of my incarceration on the wall of my hutch, praying for the moment when my owners would turn up, in tears and begging for my forgiveness. Surely that wouldn’t—couldn’t—happen to me, would it?
I looked disconsolately at my food bowl, ignoring the cheesy grin of the Kit-e-Licious cat on the side.
Still, if I am going to be here for a while, I thought, I shall have to eat something.
I reluctantly picked a few biscuits out of the bowl, crunching them between my back teeth. They were dry, as I’d feared, and with no discernable flavor.
Shortly after we had finished our “dinner” the familiar sound of jangling keys alerted us to another imminent visitor. This time it was a man, carrying a yellow handheld device that reminded me, with a pang of homesickness, of the plastic toys the little people had at NHQ. At his appearance all the other cats suddenly became animated, stretching up at the entrance to their hutches and yelling, “Scan me! Scan me!”
>
“What’s going on?” I shouted to Number 29 over the din.
“He’s the scanner man. If he scans you and it beeps, that’s your ticket out of here. It’s never worked on any of us but once in a while it happens. Looks like he’s heading your way.”
Sure enough, the man was walking in my direction.
“I’m over here! I’m over here!” I shouted at the top of my voice, climbing up the chicken wire door to attract his attention.
He checked the number on my hutch.
“Right, then, little girl. Let’s see if you belong to anyone.”
He held me under the belly while running the yellow scanner up my back. The other cats had fallen silent, waiting with baited breath to see if the device beeped. As the scanner passed over my shoulders, a clear, unmistakable “Beep! Beep!” sounded and the room erupted into a frenzy.
All the cats in the room were celebrating for me, shouting “She beeped! She beeped!”
The man checked the back of the scanner and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Well, look at that. Let’s go and find out where you live.”
And with that he left the room. I looked around, bemused.
“What just happened?” I asked Number 29.
“It’s called a chip. Don’t ask me how it works. All I know is that I don’t have one. But it means they’ll be able to find your owners.”
I almost didn’t dare let myself believe it.
I spent the next hour in a state of nervous excitement, straining to hear any sounds coming from the other side of the door. Eventually I heard voices in reception, and then Maud’s keys in the lock.
“She turned up this morning,” Maud was saying. “Had followed someone home. There was no collar.”
Then I heard the sweetest sound imaginable, my owner’s voice, apologizing as usual, trying to make excuses for me.
“She did have a collar—she must have lost it. Thank you so much for contacting us.” And then she appeared in front of my hutch, smiling with relief.
“There you are, you naughty girl! What have you been up to this time?”
“I’ll tell you later—just get me out of here!” I shouted back at her as I hung off the hutch door.
I had never been so happy to climb inside my cat box, with its familiar smell and newspaper lining. As my owner carried me away I peeked out at the other cats. They were all yowling and catcalling again, but this time I knew not to be afraid.
As we passed his hutch, Number 29 gave me a conspiratorial wink and whispered, “See you on the other side!” I winked back and lifted my paw to wave, but he had already started pushing his bed to one side, ready to begin the final phase of his own escape.
I was welcomed back to NHQ by a pair of ecstatic little people who excitedly showed me the brand-new collar and name tag they had for me. After the collar had been fitted I was given a fresh pouch of food—the tastiest meal I had ever eaten—and then I was straight out through the cat flap.
Just wait till Murphy hears about this, I thought, already working out in my mind how best to tell the story for comic effect.
I was aware of my owner looking at me intently as I trotted past the kitchen window, but it didn’t cross my mind that she might have plans for me of her own.
CHAPTER 9
Local Hero
Some cats obtain fame, others deserve it.
—(Adapted from) Doris Lessing
A few days later I was on the footpath behind the garden when I heard my owner’s voice at the back door, calling me.
“Ah, there you are,” she said as I trotted down the garden.
I chirruped at her, “Well, what do you want?”
“Your presence is required inside, Nancy. You’re going to be famous!” she said with a grin.
I followed her through the kitchen into the front room, where a man was unpacking a large camera from a black bag.
“So where do you want her?” my owner asked.
“By the window would be great,” the photographer replied.
I jumped up onto the windowsill, and as the photographer’s lens clicked I followed his directions to the letter.
“Look as if you want to escape, Nancy.” So I looked longingly at the park.
“Look inquisitive, with an undertone of mischievous,” he prompted, so I composed my face into a picture of mischievous inquisitiveness.
“Now look straight into the camera, and do me your best frustrated yet intrigued.”
I duly obliged.
“That was fun,” I meowed to my owner when the photographer had left.
She seemed happy with my performance and opened a cat food pouch by way of reward.
“Well, what did you make of that, Nancy? You’re going to be in the paper!”
In the what? I thought as I tucked into my lunch.
It was lamb chunks in jelly, my favorite.
Afterward I set out to resume my tour of the back gardens, turning right, toward Brambles’s house. He had remained under house arrest since “the incident,” hardly moving from his bed by the window, so my heart lurched when I caught sight of him sitting on his back doorstep.
I took a deep breath, wondering whether I should turn and run, in the hope that he hadn’t noticed me. But I knew that things could not be made right until I had apologized, so I waved my paw and tried to catch his eye.
When he saw me he smiled, and, almost purring with relief, I jumped down from his fence and walked over.
I sat by his side on the doorstep and, being British, we talked about the weather. When we had exhausted this topic and had sat in awkward silence for a few moments, I blurted out, “You know, Brambles, I’m really sorry about what happened after the party. I never should have made you go.”
He looked into the distance, apparently studying the foliage on the far side of the garden.
After a pause he said, “That’s okay, Nancy. It wasn’t your fault. And besides, you’ve got to experiment once in a while, if only to work out what your limits are.”
I nodded, inwardly amazed that his response was so sanguine.
“But, for the record, I won’t be upset if you don’t invite me to your next party.”
He turned to face me and smiled.
“Sounds like a good arrangement to me!” I laughed. “So are you back on Team Nancy?”
“Of course. Founding member,” he replied with a chuckle.
Then there was another silence, during which Brambles began furiously scratching one of his shoulder blades, and I was seized by an urgent need to wash my hind leg.
Once we had washed and scratched the awkwardness away, I stood up to go.
“You coming?” I asked.
A frown of anxiety appeared on his brow as he contemplated the patio.
“You go on. I’ll be right behind you. One step at a time and all that.”
I jumped back up onto the fence and turned to look at him. He was making his way slowly across the patio, trying to avoid all the cracks between the stones—not easy on crazy paving. If one of his paws touched a crack he would wash the paw furiously at a snail-like pace, each paw hovering before making contact with the stone.
As I slipped out of Brambles’s garden, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
Only now that we had talked could I finally let my conscience rest. I had been amazed by the dignity and, dare I say it, sanity of Brambles’s response. I had underestimated him.
Of course it would take time for him to get back to normal, or at least, as normal as it was possible for Brambles to be. As he had said himself, “one step at a time.” But I felt optimistic that he was going to be okay.
A few days later I was woken by the little people jumping up and down in excitement. “It’s Nancy! It’s Nancy!” they shouted.
“Look, Nancy, you’re on the front page!” my owner said, spreading the local newspaper out on the dining table.
I jumped up and, sure enough, there I was, pulling my “inquisiti
ve yet mischievous” face, under the headline “Nancy feline fine after hitching lifts” (as I was to learn, journalists are unable to resist a cat-based pun). The piece took up the whole front page, detailing some of my recent exploits, combined with some despairing quotes from my owner. It ended with an (unnecessary, in my opinion) appeal to the residents of my town to look out for me in their homes and cars.
“Front-page news, Nancy!” my owner said, tickling me under the chin. “I guess it was a slow news week!”
I chose to ignore her sarcasm but made a point of walking in front of her face and wafting my bottom under her nose, until she stood up to go.
Once I had got over the shock of seeing myself in print (it’s true what they say about the camera adding five pounds) I decided that I came across rather well in the article. In addition to my owner, the landlady from the Amble had also been interviewed, referring to me as the pub’s “popular furry punter.” Adventurous and charming is how I would sum up my press persona, although a journalist would probably prefer “bursting with catitude.” Either way, I sounded like a cat who was going places. In every sense.
“Murphy, you’ll never guess what . . . ,” I said as I ran through his kitchen to tell him my news. There was no need, however. Murphy was sitting on the doormat by the front door, staring at the newspaper, which had just fallen through his letterbox.
He was spellbound by it and said breathlessly, “It’s you! On the front! Of the paper!”
“Indeed it is.” I laughed.
“That’s awesome!” he exclaimed.
Meanwhile Molly slept in her radiator hammock, oblivious.
In the days following my front-page scoop, my owners took endless calls from journalists—some of them from the national press—and more photographers arrived to take my picture.
I became such a pro at being photographed that I would preempt the photographers’ instructions, able to turn on “inquisitive yet mischievous” at the flick of a switch.
One of the national tabloids ran the story with a photo of me in the car, under the headline “Tabby gets taggy,” in which they claimed I was to be fitted with an electronic tag in the manner of a delinquent teen.
Sex and the Kitty Page 7
