Cat Flap by Alan S. Cowell

Author:Alan S. Cowell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

twelve

Where do flat-cats go at night? Or when humans leave them to their own devices during the day in that expanse of time between hurried breakfast and evening Chardonnay? Emancipated cats roam. They prowl along the tops of walls and sprint from foxes and get run over and disappear and adopt new families who put food out for them. They stalk sparrows and voles. They mate with operatic anguish, disregarding bloodlines, pedigrees, household budgets. Black ones cross people’s paths and leave bipeds wondering whether that means good luck or bad.

X prefers to sleep. Day, night, whatever. Whenever. Deep sleep with the occasional twitch suggestive of impenetrable dreams.

She has identified designated locations where she takes her naps, perhaps according to the position of the sun, or dictated by the inner clock that ticks to the rhythm of her bowl being sprinkled with pellet resupply. One route takes her past the defecation box. Another leads to secret positions below human sleep-pads. An array of potential places combines two key strategic elements—comfort and security—within ear-range of sounds whose sequence and nature alert her to the impending presence of bipeds: a key in a remote lock, a footfall outside the great barrier, now breached, the faint rumble of a 4 × 4 pulling into the garage. Only in the small hours, when her liberated brothers and sisters crisscross the dark undergrowth and cropped lawns of the communal gardens, does she move silently from room to room, checking on the regularity of breathing, the snuffles of dreams whose secrets are unknowable. In human terms, she is the night nurse, patrolling the wards, alert for the final rattle.

Dolores is fighting this ingrained behavioral pattern for all she is worth. When X curls and settles, the inner part of her that is her mistress imagines herself with eyes wide and whiskers a-tremble, propelled by curiosity. X finds these urges unwelcome but not always resistible. Hardly has she seemed to snuggle down than she is up again, exploring. But why? There is no sign of food-bowl replenishment, no alarm reaching her from the staircase or the Chubb locks. Yet she has risen, sliding along the skirting board of the vast central tunnel of her prison, easing past the door that leads into the room of the younger humanoid playmate. She leaps onto a bed. Her paws are silent, the landing soft. No one stirs.

She is searching. For what, she does not know. She snuffles, sniffs. Jumps down from one bed, up onto another. Down again. Across a carpet. Up, now, onto the device that becomes a human sleeping bed when it is not a place for them to sit. And there it is. Whatever it is. Behind a soft, stuffed thing that she is pushing aside with her head. The flat shiny toy. But inverted, its glassy surface facing downward.

X rolls onto her back and pushes her front paws underneath it and tries to lift it, like an Olympic medalist struggling with a bar of enormous weights. She succeeds.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.