Шейла Нортон - Charlie The Kitten Who Saved A Life

Now, I should say here that I hadn’t forgotten your lessons, Oliver, my mentor. I know you taught me that it’s always best to try to resolve a sticky situation like this by the most expedient means possible. By running away. Yes, you did explain that most sensible cats will drop the aggression if you retreat. After all, what’s the point in wasting energy? But I don’t think this guy had ever had the rules explained to him. He didn’t seem to like me at all. I was getting less and less keen on him by the minute, too. Fighting back was now my only option. For a few minutes we rolled over each other, teeth and claws out, screaming abuse at each other. It was the first time ever, you understand, that I’d been involved in a real, full-on, serious cat fight, and looking back I’m quite surprised at how my survival instinct took over. I did get myself free at one point, and managed to jump up on my paws again, arching my back at him, my fur up on end, hissing in his face, swiping at him with my paw. Take that, you skinny, stinky black Tom cat, you! And then it happened. Out of nowhere, there was another cat on my back, clawing me, biting me, and then another pounced from the other direction, wrestling me back onto the ground, swiping at my face. I tried to wriggle free but he’d got me in the eye, and I felt it swell up and close. Yet another body landed on top of me and I began to realise I was done for. Oh, I tried my best to fight back, my friends, I can assure you. I didn’t want to forfeit one of my lives at such a young age. But it was three cats, or four, or maybe more – I couldn’t tell anymore – versus one.

‘I submit!’ I cried, flattening my ears and trying to roll onto my side to prove it.

The biggest of the cats who’d joined in as reinforcements, a scrawny looking manky tortie with one ear missing and scars on his head, towered over me scornfully.

‘All right, boys,’ he said to the others, although his Cat accent was so strange, I had trouble understanding him. ‘Let’s leave the Cowardy Cat to wallow in his own pee, shall we? I don’t think we’ll see him around here again.’

With that they all slunk away, looking back over their shoulders once or twice to smirk at me.

I lay there for a moment panting, watching them out of my one good eye. I hurt all over, my heart was racing and I felt like crying for my lovely warm bed in my lovely comfortable home with my kind, gentle human companions. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I was not going to lie here and die, and I wasn’t going to give those thugs the pleasure of seeing me behave like a terrified new-born kitten. I was not a Cowardy Cat! And I was not wallowing in pee ! The cheek of that ugly great bony bruiser – I was a well brought up, decent, family pet who’d been taught to respect other cats’ territories and stay out of fights. I wasn’t going to stand for this! The physical abuse was bad enough but the insults simply could not be borne.

I struggled to my paws, gasping from the pain in one leg and shuddering at the dark stain of blood I’d left behind me on the ground. I felt a growl growing in the back of my throat as my anger and determination took hold of me. And crazy though it might have been – looking back, I guess it definitely was – I decided that perhaps it would be better, after all, to lose a life defending my honour against that gang of hoodlums, than to lose it lying broken and defeated on the ground. I took a couple of deep breaths – and hobbled after them.

Tabitha, please don’t cry. Or you, Nancy. I did warn you, didn’t I, about the scary parts? Honestly, nobody would believe the pair of you are my sisters, you’ve got such nervous dispositions, for the siblings of a local hero. Do you want to go home? No? You’re too excited about the rest of the story? Well, in that case I’d better get on with it!

Can you imagine how I felt, my friends, limping along the pavement in that strange place, with every bone in my body hurting and blood dripping down my face, knowing I was probably going to be finished off at any moment? If I hadn’t been so angry, I’d have gone in the opposite direction, trust me. But I hobbled on, round the corner where I’d seen my attackers go, and into an alleyway that eventually came out in a small yard. There were big tall buildings around the yard, but it didn’t look like anyone lived there – everything was closed up and some of the windows were broken. There was one lamppost, right in the far corner and, as I approached, I saw him sitting there – the big one-eared tortie – and he was on his own. I had the advantage of being in the shadows, but on the other hand he was twice my size and presumably had two working eyes against my one.

I flattened myself against the wall of a building and crept slowly closer. He was engrossed in washing himself, and didn’t even look up once before I finally made my move. I’d like to say I pounced, but although I’m proud of the fact that I took him by surprise, I have to admit it was more a case of flopping myself at him, with what little strength I had left. I’d timed it so that I got him while he was engaged in cleaning his private parts, so I was able to knock him off balance without too much trouble. He made a grunt of surprise as he toppled backwards, and I immediately threw myself on top of him and, yowling my fury straight in his ear, I took a very satisfying bite out of his neck.

‘Ouch! What in the name of bloody catnip?’ he squawked, in his peculiar Cat accent. ‘Get off me! Who the dog’s backside are you? Boys! Where are you! I’m being attacked!’

He squirmed, trying to get to his paws, but I aimed a swipe for his face and followed it up with another bite. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for him to throw me off. He was skinny, but muscular as well as being big, and I hadn’t hurt him anywhere near as much as I’d been hurt. I put my head down and hissed, waiting for him to start on me again, but just as he was aiming his claws at me, he suddenly blinked in surprise and growled: ‘Well, by my tail and whiskers! If it ain’t the little Cowardy Cat, come back for more.’

‘Take that back,’ I hissed, forcing myself to sound really brave. ‘I’m not a Cowardy Cat. It was four or five of you against one.’ Out of the corner of my good eye, I saw some dark shapes moving towards us in the shadows. ‘And if your boys are coming back to do the same thing again, then they’ll probably succeed in finishing me off. If you think that’s a fair fight, then I don’t know what kind of hovel you were all brought up in …’

‘Talk posh, don’t you, Sunshine?’ He lowered his paw. ‘All right, boys!’ he called. ‘It’s only the little Cowardy—’ He stopped, looked me up and down, and then went on: ‘The little brave tabby from earlier on. No, leave him alone, Black. We’ve already done him enough damage, and it took a lot of guts for him to come after me. He doesn’t look very old but he’s a good fighter.’

And do you know what? He lay back down again, deliberately, in the submissive position in front of me. I could hardly believe my one eye. The other cats hung back, waiting, and when he got to his paws again he came up and rubbed himself against me.

‘Sorry about earlier,’ he said gruffly. ‘But for the love of catnip, what’s a posh lad like you doing around these parts?’

‘I got lost,’ I said. Now the danger seemed to be over and I was apparently still alive, I was starting to shake from head to tail. ‘My humans are staying somewhere around here, but I don’t know where.’