TAILWAVERS

Dear Jenny, I have a bone to pick with you. AND Fred and Kate. I told you all I didn’t want two cats, not even two friendly ones, let alone ferals. I told you no, and no, and no, and NO!... ...So they sat together in the carrier coming home, on Fred’s lap: Fred looking intolerably smug, Domino peering anxiously through the bars and Smudge-the-Tonsils sitting round-eyed and quiet--except once when she undertook a very professional examination of the carrier latch. “That’s going to be your lively one,” Fred commented judiciously. I almost ran off the road. “NO! That’s the timid one! Kate said so! She promised!” So we got home, but nobody had mentioned keeping them in one room until they got used to things. So I didn’t. At once, it was too late. Domino, tail and ears apprehensively low, tip-toed out, and slunk cautiously along the wall to the sand box. From behind her an impetuous furry black bullet shot out and vanished. Since, she hides in one impossible place after another. She is now holed up under the bathtub. You may recall, my tub is on cast-iron claws, with particle board all around. Only now it has a large gap at the outer corner, which is how I found her. Shone in the flashlight (torch to you) and there was a pair of glowing emerald eyes at the very back corner, defying me to reach her there. Which I couldn’t, of course. She’s been there ever since, hissing when I appear at the corner crack and talk to her. Says she’s never coming out. I believe her. Dear Sally, Yes, she’s here, and nobody is going to be allowed to forget it. Three o'clock in the morning I woke up to find Max throwing ping pong balls for her. He told me she couldn't sleep. And it was he who had said we should put a hot water bottle in her box in case she was cold or lonely. Box be damned! That kitten has not set foot in that box. She sleeps where people are meant to sleep, in bed. On his chest under the duvet, and he'd better not fidget, otherwise she wakes up and lectures him. It's his own fault. I told him he should be firm with her, and he looked at me as though I had suggested frying her. Oh yes. Those curtains you liked. Well. . . Have your two found curtains yet? Don't try to stop them if they do, because Feline Revenge is not something to be taken lightly. I looped up the curtains and told her she was a ruddy nuisance and would she please use her scratching post and her climbing tree, and she slitted up those blazing blue eyes and looked at me. A long, considering look. And she didn't half teach me. She got into the wardrobe. Just as much fun as curtains. Max's academic gown for his lectures at Oxford that cost the bank a packet, my last decent evening dress, and my car coat. All the jumble sale stuff was left strictly alone.