When We Were Kittens. David Greagg

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      1

      No I wouldn't. The little monsters have eaten clean through one of the plastic boxes! There is a little mouse-sized hole in the bottom of one now, and they've been nibbling away at our humans' food. Shadow and I have been looking hard at the Food Box but we can't see any mice. I don't know what's going on but Something Should Be Done About This.

      2

      Belladonna caught a mouse today. It was running across the Food Room floor and she jumped down from the table, hit it just once and it fell over. After that she lost interest in it, though my little sister played with it for a while. I couldn't see the point, but it seemed to make her happy and I imagine the mouse didn't care. Eventually Man found it and took it outside to do whatever he does with dead mice.

      Woman then took a lot of my fur (off the floor of course) and made it into a little ball. I watched her push it into a small hole at the back of the Food Box. I thought this was very clever of her, because any mice who are chewing through our walls to get at the Food Box will come nose to fur with something which smells of Me, and if that doesn't discourage them I don't know what will.

      3

      It's been pouring rain all day. I doubt we will have any walk tonight. But it's very snug and comfortable next to Man's pillow. Man cleared out our room today, and the bed is now on the side of the road. I looked at him and asked if we were expected to sleep on the roadside in the rain? I think he's playing a trick on us and that a new bed will arrive very soon. But hey: I'm just a cat and what would I know? All I can say is that there is too much spare floor in our room right now.

      We watched Man curl up on the bed in the TV room, but there really wasn't room for us there so I found myself a little nest in Woman's Other Room among all the clothes. There were too many things in there but I managed to find myself a place to sleep. I heard my sister pushing things onto the floor near me to make room for herself there too. Some of the things she moved were were quite loud, but the noises stopped eventually.

      4

      Man did something even more strange to our room today. First he pushed a broom around the floor, so we got right out of the way. He does this every few days and no cat likes to come too close to brooms. Shadow once tried to play with the broom when he was doing it but the fluff got up her nose.

      Eventually the Broom Thing stopped so we went back in to see what he would do next. And what he did was really bizarre. First he got some rough sandy paper and wiped it all over the walls so funny-coloured dust went everywhere. (We went away while that was happening.) Then we heard a new sort of noise and we went back in to watch Man put ordinary paper all over the floor! After that he brought a really big tin into the room.

      My sister got really excited because she thought it must be the biggest tin of cat food in the whole world. She rubbed up against Man's back paws and looked very interested, until he took off the top and showed her. It wasn't food at all but some peculiar liquid.

      She looked at him, then she looked at it again and then she looked at me. If this is milk it's a very funny colour, she said. I'm not touching that; it smells weird.

      I had a sniff myself and it didn't smell like food to me either. We were sure it wasn't food when Man got a hairy stick, dipped it in the tin and started putting the smelly stuff on our walls.

      Shadow sat underneath it, waiting for something interesting to happen. Of course some dripped onto her fur, so Man put down the stick, grabbed a piece of cloth and rubbed it off her. After that he picked Shadow up and locked her out of the room. She was furious. I wasn't. I'd already gone to sit outside the room looking in, when I saw the stuff starting to drip on the walls.

      Come on, Shadow, I told her. This is no place for cats right now. Come and play outside. So we did that, and later on Man let us back in to our room - and it was all different! He had taken all the paper away from the floor, but the walls were bright and shiny. They still smelt weird but different-weird, and it was exciting in a funny way.

      Shadow looked at me. Well all right, she said, so our room's been redecorated. There's still something missing, however. Have you noticed our bed is still out on the side of the road?

      Well, yes, I told her. But if Man won't sleep on our bed on the road himself, I don't see why we should have to. I don't like all this, she answered. I wish he could have just left it alone.

      So we went into the Food Room and had dinner.

      Then someone knocked on the front of the house, Man went out to talk to him, and they both came in with a huge metal Thing, and a whole lot of other bits, and what looked like a big soft thing to lie on. We watched Man start playing with all the bits.

      Shadow said, You know what this is, don't you? This is a new bed; only it isn't right yet. He's doing things to it and soon we'll have a proper bed again in our room.

      Man dropped a big heavy thing, narrowly missing my sister. He said some words which sounded a bit cross, so we left him to it. A bit later he called us and we went in to see what he wanted.

      Shadow was right. There was our new bed just like she had said, with all our cloth things on it. Man called us onto the big new bed with him, so we all lay down and stretched out on it. We thought it was great. It's higher than our old bed and it's got metal things which stick up but it feels really great under paw. So we all found places to curl up and have a nap, and Woman came and hugged Man too and it was so cosy I fell asleep.

      Cats always want humans to leave our things alone, but since they can't seem to manage that it's good to know that they get it right in the end.

      5

      Our room smells better now. My sister isn't sure about the new bed but I like it. A huge car came and made a lot of noise outside. Our old bed is gone now, so maybe it went with the car.

      6

      I think Man and I have come to an understanding about the birds on our walks. There is a big bush where lots of them live, and I want to chase them and he doesn't want me to. So now, every time I get to their bush I have a bit of a stalk, and then he calls me away and I do what he wants. I don't want to kill them. I just want to play.

      7

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