Hello all, Monty here again. I’ve been a bit busy recently – new toys to play with, new favourite spots in the house to sleep in . . .
. . . there’s only so much a cat can fit into his time, so I told Sheila she’d have to wait for me to have a free day before I could meow some more of my story.
Well, I have to tell you: we had a bit of a scare, a little while after we’d settled down in our new home. We’d got used to being served our breakfast at a reasonable hour in the morning, but one day we were woken up by our humans moving around while it was still dark. They came into the kitchen, put on the lights and started dishing up our food.
‘What on earth are they doing?’ Maddie meowed. ‘It’s still the middle of the night.’
‘Maybe they’re becoming nocturnal,’ I said, yawning. ‘Well, we’d better go and eat it now it’s been served. We can go back to sleep afterwards.’
But when we’d finished eating, the humans started stroking us and making a big fuss of us.
‘We’re going on holiday now,’ Sheila said. ‘But you’ll be fine, you’re going to be looked after. We’ll see you soon.’
‘What’s a holly-day?’ Maddie meowed.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, as the humans closed the door behind us. ‘Maybe it’s got something to do with that big bag they’ve had lying in the hall all week.’
‘It sounded as if they were leaving us here on our own,’ she mewed, sounding scared.
I didn’t want to admit it, but it had sounded like that to me, too. Who was going to feed us our dinner later on? How long before our litter trays got too dirty and smelly to use, if there were no servants here to clean them out? Who was going to give me the cuddles I so deserved, and talk nicely to Maddie to calm her down?
But we needn’t have worried. Later on, we heard the front door opening again.
‘They’re back!’ I meowed in relief.
‘No!’ Maddie squeaked. ‘It’s not them! It’s some strange humans.’
And it was . . . a female, with a young, almost-grown male.
‘Hello Maddie, hello Monty,’ said the female. ‘We’ve come to look after you while they’re away.’
I remembered her – she’d come to the house before, to meet us. She was friendly, and seemed to like us. And the young male was really nice too – he must have been her kitten – he kept stroking me. They put the radio on for us so that the house didn’t seem so quiet and empty, and – thank goodness – they sorted out our litter trays. They didn’t stay too long, but they said they’d be back every meal time, so we knew we weren’t going to starve, anyway. And we had each other for company, and enough room to run around chasing each other and having the occasional play-fight (in between sleeps).
But of course, we were happy when eventually, our normal servants came back. Maddie and I both walked around their legs meowing for ages, and it was so nice to sit on the sofa with them again that evening. I purred myself to sleep.
‘You know what?’ I meowed to Maddie the next morning. ‘I think we can trust whatever humans come into this house now. Sheila wouldn’t let them in, if they were dangerous.’
Maybe I spoke too soon. Because a few days later, we had a visit from another one of Sheila’s grown-up females – with her own two small human kittens. And one of them was one of the noisiest human we’d met so far!
‘She looks quite cute, though,’ I tried to reassure Maddie as we watched from a safe distance. ‘And at least she’s very small, for a human.’
‘Yes, but she’s so shouty!’ Maddie said, shivering with apprehension.
Sheila and her young female were trying to keep the little one quiet, but she didn’t seem to have any other volume of meow available to her, apart from the shouty one.
The slightly bigger human kitten was much quieter, so I overcame my nerves enough to go and sit with them, and I even let the bigger one stroke me and brush me. It was nice. I liked it. But still Maddie stayed on top of the cupboards.
‘Come down!’ the little noisy one shouted to her. ‘Come and play with us!’
‘Maddie’s scared of you!’ Sheila laughed. I didn’t really see why it was funny. ‘Keep your voice down!’
‘You know what kittens are like,’ I tried to convince Maddie, after they’d gone. ‘They meow loudly all the time, for no reason. Human kittens are probably like that too, until they get a bit bigger and more sensible. I don’t think we need to be scared. She only wanted to play with us.’
‘Hmm,’ Maddie meowed. ‘Not sure about that. I’ll see how noisy she is next time they come.’
I sighed and settled down contentedly for a nap. I thought I knew all there was to know about our new home and our new humans now, and their family and friends. But as a wise old cat once told me – when you drop your guard, and your ears and whiskers stop twitching, that’s when trouble starts.
More next time . . .
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