That first night, I graduated out of the red baseball cap and found myself in a hastily contrived breadbasket alongside a stuffed toy named Lammie --a lamb who was ten times my size, who was fluffy and pure white, and who had two black eyes, a button nose, and a soft underbelly, suspending four long legs. This was fine for me. I fit perfectly into the cavity between his legs. I later discovered the lamb was part of a Christmas Manger for the Christ Child. I knew I had good company. The lamb didn’t have wings, but somehow, I knew Lammie was my guardian angel.
The woman said I’d think the toy was my own cat mother because of the soft fur. Really? She was wrong, you know. I lost my mother when I found myself in that red baseball cap, and whether the woman liked it or not, I was hers. All hers.
The cooing started again in the morning when she picked me up. I was so small, I fit on the top of her hand, and when she put me on the floor, I wobbled. I wobbled with my tail straight up and my nose pointing toward the dish with milk. There were more oooohs and ahhhhs when she realized I could lap milk by myself. She doesn’t know how self sufficient we cats can be. You wouldn’t see a baby on the floor at my age, would you? "Baby, get off the floor. Baby, stop licking the cat dish!"
Lammie and the breadbasket were my whole world, for all I thought about was sleeping and eating. Tell you the truth, little has changed in seventeen years. When it became obvious that I was becoming more adventurous and would possibly climb out of my basket at night, the basket was placed in a huge cardboard box, and the box was placed by my new Mummy’s bed. It was like being in the bottom of an elevator shaft. These tall straight brown walls rose up to infinity. But I devised a game. I would leap from the basket, grab onto the wall with my claws and slide all the way to the bottom. Thummmpp! Scratccchhhh! Thump! Scratccccccchhhhhh! This made a wonderful sound at 2:00a.m. in the morning when accompanied by mewing, so the tempo increased into Mew! Mew! Thump! Scratchhhhhhhh! Mew! Mew! Thump! Scratch! And then, suddenly, Mummy’s husband would pick me up.
My Mummy said growing up in a box was good for me, because it would teach me to appreciate the world more when I was allowed to explore. She said a lot of people grow up in boxes like mine, but they never get out. They go through life only seeing the sides of their box. They never appreciate the wondrous world outside of their own confines, and sadly, carry their boxes filled with limitations, narrow mindness, and tunnel vision with them even when they travel. Isn’t that absurd? All those humans walking around with brown cardboard boxes over their heads. I am so glad cats don’t wear boxes.
But you know, my box had another side. Not to keep me in, but to keep someone out. That someone was another cat. The meanest, cleverest, most spiteful cat anyone would want to meet. "She’ll eat you, that’s what she’ll do," my Mummy said. "She’ll think you are nothing more than a rat."
Wow! I was growing up fast. I had a guardian angel, and now I had an evil presence---a cat!
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