Cat Tales 19
Meee! Meee! Meee!”
A tiny kitten crawled out from betwee n the weeds in the empty lot opposite my house. The kitten was only about six inches long, from nose to rear, and its head was the size of a Ping-Pong ball. I picked it up and looked unde r the tail. Female. She had bright blue eyes rimmed with thick eyelids that had only recently pa rted, indicating she was only a week to ten days old. And she was filthy. Clearly, the mother was no longer around. I’d seen a feral cat hanging around the vacant lot, but now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen it for several days. Although I didn’t think the kitten had a chance, I couldn’t bear to leave her. So I took her home and tried to clean her up with a damp cloth. After an hour I gave up and bathed he r instead. At least it drowned most of the fleas. Underneath the di rt, she was marmalade.
Then I washed out an old eyedropper and fed he r with the only milk I had: UHT cow’s milk (treated with ultrahigh te mpe ratures so that it can be stored without ref rigeration for several months), which even I knew was wildly unsuitable. She purre d as she gulped it down and then promptly fell fas t asleep in the palm of my hand. Something as small as a kitten’s tail crept around my heart and clung on.
What could I do? This tiny soul was depending on me, and I hadn’t a clue how to mothe r a kitten. Besides, she presumably needed at least four feeds a day, and I had to go to work on Monday. Since I’d let myself in for the whole kit and caboodle, I called her Kitten Caboodle.
I phone d my friend, Cecilia, who lived two hours’ drive away in the countryside. Cecilia had a large family of adopted cats and dogs, so I figured she’d know more about it than I. “I’ve found a tiny orphaned kitten, far too young to be away from her mother. Do you know anyone who’ d look after he r?” Cecilia sighed. “Oh, all right. Bring her here.”
That was better than I’d hoped for.
I drove over. One of Cecilia’s dogs had recently given birth. Tassat was mostly Dachshund and we had no idea about the father, but the puppies were only about twice Caboodle’s size and age. Cecilia promptly put her in with them for warmth and compani ons hip. Then she laid a major guilt trip on Tassat.
“You see this poor starving kitten? What she needs now is lovely warm milk. You reme mbe r how good that felt with your own mother, don’t you? When you we re pregnant and starving, we took you in and saved you. Well, now it’s your turn to help.”
It worked. Caboodle grew up on dog milk. It looked wei rd, six dark brown puppies and one marmalade kitten, all sucking away together, but they all seemed thoroughly happy with the arrangement.
Puppies grow faster than kittens. Caboodle had one bad week whe n her larger foster siblings’ play was too boisterous for her to cope with. Then she made two important discoveries:
Kittens can climb where puppies can’t follow. And kittens have claws.
The rest of the litter soon learned not to push her too far. Eventually, they we re weaned. Twice a day Cecilia would fill a large bowl with food for he r family of rescued animals, and they’d all gather around the edge. Not Caboodle. She climbed on top of the heap and ate the patch directly underneath he rself until her belly stuck out like a seahorse’s. When the German shephe rd gave her a friendly sniff, out came the claws and she walloped him across the nose. She’d almost starved once, and nobody was going to threaten he r food supply again, even if they happene d to be big enough to swallow her in two gulps. Fortunately, the dog was a big softie and didn’t argue the point.
Even fully grown, Caboodle was small for a cat, physically, that is. We used to wonder how she managed to fit so much personality into such a petite body. The dogs enjoyed chasing the cats up trees. They hadn’t the slightest intention of hurting the m; the y just liked to make sure they got plenty of nice healthy exercise. But when they rushe d at Caboodle, barking like crazy, she gave them a disdainful stare, as if to say, You and whose army?, and continued walking at exactly the same pace as she had been, while the dogs stood around looking embarrassed.
For all that, she was very affectionate, especially with her foster brothers and sisters. She was particularly fond of washing their faces for them. In fact, she ’d hold the m down by their floppy ears to preve nt the m from wande ring away in the middle of a wash.
In time, she had her first litter of kittens. Since she couldn’t possibly have remembe red her own mothe r, I worried she wouldn’t know whe re to start. But she was brilliant. She kept he r family in the bottom of the wardrobe and left the m only for meals. I think her canine brothers and sisters were rather relieved that she was too busy washing her children to bother he r siblings. It was a good time for an unde rsized cat and her kittens to stay indoors.
A neighbor’s Graafian hunting dog kept “visiting” and stealing anything edible. It was a huge beast, almost the size of a donkey, and eve n Cecilia’s German shepherd was terrified of it. At last the great day came when the kittens ventured outdoors for the first time. Caboodle sat in the kitchen doorway, with one eye on her offspring and the othe r on Cecilia, who was cooking lunch. Well, it was bound to happen, and next thing you know, the huge dog lumbe red along the path to the front door. And the n it sniffed a kitten.
A bolt of marmalade lightning shot out the door and zoome d up the bank beside the path. From the re, Caboodle leaped onto the dog’s back and dug in all eighteen claws, hard. The dog hurtled up the garden path, howling, with Caboodle riding on its back like a jockey. Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! . . . and the howls faded off into the distance. Meanwhile, Cecilia didn’t know which sort of hyste rics to have. It was like a trailer for the world’s best comedy film, but she had little hope of ever seeing Caboodle again.
Forty minutes later, Caboodle strolled home, looking as nonchalant as, well, there’s really nothing as nonchalant as a cat, is there?
Wheneve r I feel I’m too small to tackle a problem, I re me mbe r Caboodle.