Refugee

Posted on September 20, 2002 in Cats

We have a visitor.

Shirley, a pudgy calico tabby, sneaked out of her condo for a little gadding about and came back to find that her owner had left for some merrymaking of her own. We found her howling at the garage door. Tim suggested we tack a note to the garage door. He couldn’t take her in because he’d already tried integrating her. Shirley wasn’t the problem, I gather. He’d found her injured near his condo. Tim guessed she’d been ambushed by a dog or a coyote. He and his partner Kristi nursed Shirley back to health. They would have kept her exept that they already own a psychocat who tolerates no interference in love from other felines. So I carried Shirley home to the bathroom, put up the toddler gate so she couldn’t dash out when we went to use it, and made her comfortable with a water dish, some food, a little kitty litter in a box, and a towel.

We forgot to leave the light on. Her owner came home, it seems, found our note, and decided not to disturb us at the late hour.

So Shirley remains in our bathroom with a little food of possibly inferior quality to what she is used, a water dish, and a cardboard box with a little litter in case she gets the urge during the night. This is a spoiled cat. Her frame is no larger than that of Tracy, but I think I can make out the letters “Goodyear” hidden among the stripes on her convexly distended sides.

Ambrose, Tracy, and Virginia sniff at the door, trying to get the scent of the stranger. Unlike the last time we took in a refugee — an orange and white Persian who we dubbed the MadCat after a few weeks of fruitlessly attempting to integrate her — no one hisses or growls under the door.

Ambrose sits outside the door doing sentry duty and then seeks me out to reaffirm that he is still my only little boy. “She goes home to her mommy in the morning,” I reassure him. “You’re still the number one little guy in the house.” He blinks his green eyes, rubs the glands under his chin on me, and then trots off to march the line and be sure that this interloper doesn’t get out to sleep on our bed.