Treed

By: SilvorMoon

It's something of a cliche that you do not own a cat - a cat owns you. I had forgotten the truth of this particular maxim in the wake of my old cat Timmy's passing. He had been very old by the time he died, and his idea of excitement was getting his breakfast early. Most of the time, he made a very good sofa pillow (with the possible exception of him throwing up that breakfast on a regular basis). However, when he died at a ripe old age, we were all fairly used to having a cat around the house, and none of us were looking forward to spending the summer cat-less.

Just our luck - one of Dad's friends came by that very evening, and upon hearing the sad news, commented that one of her cats had just recently had kittens, and they were just at the right age for giving away. It was resolved over dinner that we should adopt one of these. We agreed on a female, believing them to be more gentle-natured. Therefore, a short while later, my parents came home with a cat carrier containing not one, but two kittens. They had been convinced the kittens would do better in pairs. Thus, Samantha and Belle entered our lives.

Samantha, familiarly known as Sam, is an ordinary cat, a simple black and white model. From the day we adopted her, she knew how to do all the things house cats are supposed to do - sit on laps, chase her tail, scratch in the litter pan, and generally be cute and cuddly. She seldom if ever gets into trouble, resigning her energy toward chasing balls and catnip mice.

Belle, on the other hand, is the cat to look out for. She took the name because everyone looking at her usually says, "Oh, what a beautiful cat!" Eventually, even that didn't seem good enough, and she began getting tagged with nicknames liked Belladonna and Belldandy. She's as round and fluffy as anyone could want a cat to be, with round, innocent eyes, and when you even look like you intend to pet her, she purrs like a diesel engine. She's the one to look out for. Her idea of fun is unraveling the toilet paper, playing fetch, and getting into anything you're trying to do no matter how many times you shove her aside.

Our story begins far too early on an ordinary Tuesday. Myself being the only one in the family who doesn't have to get up and go to school for one reason or another, I was still sleeping comfortably at seven o'clock that morning, when my mother came shouting at the door.

"I'm going to let the cats out," she said, "so keep an eye on them."

"Okay," I said, and went back to sleep again.

A few hours later, feeling more rested, I got up again feeling there was something I needed to be doing. What would... Oh. Right. Cats. I got up and looked out the back door. There were the cats, right there on the doorstep. They came in long enough to purr me a good morning, then dashed away again to take advantage of the cool morning. Feeling that all was well, I went upstairs to get dressed.

When I returned to the back door, I saw my first sign of trouble. Across the street from my house lives a nice family called the Burtons. Unlike the rest of the houses in my neighborhood, their home does not sit in the middle of a neatly manicured square of lawn, or even, like my house, a weedy and overgrown patch of lawn. They live in the middle of a stretch of weedy and overgrown oak trees, full of shrubs and vines and poison ivy, with only their driveway leading out to the main road showing any clear space. Flanking this driveway is a pair of massive oak trees, both of them so large that I couldn't reach my arms around them if I wanted to, even if there wasn't a threat of biting ants and poison oak.

However, it seems my cats don't have that kind of worry, because there they were, one on either side of the biggest tree, halfway up the trunk. As I looked out the door at them, they looked back at me, as if sensing my disapproval and sending back a catly "So what?" I debated going out and capturing them, braving their struggles and sharp claws to carry them back to safety, and decided against it. For one thing, my last scratches from them hadn't healed up yet. For another, I was still in my socks. Most importantly, I knew that if I came anywhere near them while they were doing something they weren't supposed to do, they would rocket up the side of the tree and not come down until sometime next April. After a moment's reflection, I decided the best thing to do was to eat my breakfast. I figured that as long as I left them to their own devices, they'd get bored and come home eventually. After all, they never roamed very far when there was no one to watch them...

However, I had forgotten that if you ignore some problems long enough, they go away. Anyone who has ever owned a cat will tell you that all of them qualify for the title "problem" at some point in their life, and sure enough, the kittens had gone away. They weren't in the back yard, nor in the oak tree, or the driveway, or even under the driveway. Reluctantly, I sought out my shoes and went looking for the cats.

A short search of the Burton's property led me to cat number one. My ears registered a rustling in the bushes, and I looked and saw Samantha looking back at me. Deciding a cat in the hand was better than one in the bush, I captured her and dragged her home, kicking and squalling. As soon as I released her, she sat down and purred at me. I quickly darted back outside and went in search of the other cat.

It was true, as my parents had guessed, that two kittens together do better than a kitten on its own. The two cats were inseparable, so I reasoned that where Sam was, Belle could not be far behind, so I began a methodical search of the area. It couldn't be too hard to find Belle - after all, the majority of her fur brilliant white, and should show up against the dark colors of the forest. So I looked in the bushes. No cat. I checked the trees. No cat there, either. I prowled around the Burton's house, looking in the ditch, in the drainpipe, and on the back porch. Still no cat! Beginning to grow concerned, I checked the backyard of the next house, then the house across the street. Thinking perhaps she might have slipped past me, I searched my own yard a few times. No cat.

Finally, I gave up and went back inside, figuring that Belle would come home when she got tired and hungry. So I began going about my morning routine, expecting Belle to come crying at the back door as soon as I stopped worrying about her. Samantha followed me everywhere I went, clearly wondering where her sister had gotten to. I apologized profusely for not being able to find her, but I was beginning to get a bit worried myself. A major road runs close to my home, and drives to town are often punctuated with the sights of dead animals lying along its side. Usually, they're squirrels or rabbits, with the occasional possum or raccoon thrown in, but sometimes they're the sad remains of someone's cherished family pet. I just couldn't shake the image of poor little Belle, not even full grown, lying stretched out stiff beside that highway. I went back outside.

One of Belle's greatest loves is to play ball. We have a fine selection of toy balls - rubber ones that bounce, fuzzy ones, shiny ones, ones with bells inside, soft foam ones that she can sink her teeth into. Her favorites are the ones withe her namesake bells inside; her ears prick up any time someone shakes one, even if you're in another room, even if she was sound asleep a moment ago. In the next instant, she'll be at your side, ready to play. Thinking it might be useful, I picked up a ball and began walking around the perimeter of the yard, shaking the bell-ball and calling for the cat. Finding no sign of her, I went jogging over to the Burton's property - right in front of a car.

At the edge of the driveway, the local mailman stopped his car and leaned out the window to look at me.

"What'd you lose?" he called.

"Cat," I said.

"What color is she?"

"Polka-dot."

"Oh," he said. "You haven't seen a beagle, have you? A friend of mine lost a beagle."

"Nope. Someone found one out in Yogaville, but that's a fur piece from here."

"Yeah. Well, if I see her, I'll come back and tell you."

The mailman drove off. Back into the bushes I went, searching once again for some sign of the missing kitten, wondering how she could possibly have gotten so far away that I couldn't see her bright white fur. As I walked up and down the roadside, peering under shrubs, through the tangle of half-dead vines, and squinting up into treetops, I heard something. I stopped in my tracks.

"Belle?"

Somewhere in the distance, a bird called. I sighed and resumed my search. I walked the length of the Burton's property, then over to the next house, but I couldn't make myself get close enough to the highway to have a proper look. She couldn't possibly have gotten that far. She wouldn't go so close to those cars roaring by. She wouldn't... would she?

On my next sweep of the bushes, I heard a sound again. I froze, listening intently. Yes, there it was again!

"Belle?" I called.

"Mew!"

"Belle, where are you?"

"Mew!"

"Are you okay?"

"Mew!"

I stared intently into the bushes. I could see no sign of the little cat, but there was no mistaking that sound - it was the helpless cry of a small, frightened cat. I looked frantically for the source of the sound.

"Belle!"

"Mew!"

Yes, the sound was directly in front of me... but the cat wasn't! Had she crawled under some bush and gotten stuck? Did she go down a rabbit hole? Where was she? I stared frantically into the shrubbery again, hoping to see so much as a whisker, but all I could see were the thick tangles of poison oak and ivy mixed in with more benign plants. Perhaps she was deeper into the forest, where I couldn't see her? I ran back around to the driveway, finding a rough path leading away from it. It had once led the way to a rough garden a few yards away. Now all that was left were a few vines struggling their way up their wire frames, and a place where the underbrush was thinner. I ran up the path and stopped near the place where I had heard the crying. It was silent. Was she all right, I wondered? Had she been hurt, and was now becoming too weak to cry out?

"Meow for me, baby!" I yelled.

"Mew!"

I frowned. Now the sound was coming from the other side. She had to be right there, in that two-yard wide strip of plant life between myself and the road. Why couldn't I see her?

I ran back around to the road and stared into the bushes, hoping to see something I hadn't before. Steeling myself, I climbed through the twisted vines and into the mass of half-dead trees and poison ivy, telling myself my cat's safety meant more than a few itches. That was all well and good, but it wasn't very practical until I could actually find the cat. Despite my daring, she was still invisible. Now she was crying with a steady, "Mew! Mew! Mew!" as if begging me to hurry it up.

I was beginning to become frantic. It crossed my mind to call the neighbors, my parents, or the animal rescue shelter. "Hello? My cat has turned invisible! I can hear her, but I can't see her!" If I tried that, they were liable to send out the men in white coats instead of a rescue team. Desperate, I ran back up the garden path again, intending to start from there and work my way through the bushes. What I really wanted was a nice saber saw so I could hack through all that stuff. I thought longingly of the Burton's yard being turned into a manicured lawn where innocent kittens couldn't lose themselves.

Suddenly, I heard the crack of a twig. That sound did what Belle's plaintive mewing couldn't: it drew my attention in the right direction. Looking up, I could see some tree branches rustling. Then I saw the cause, a frantic kitten trying to get down from the very top of a tree.

"Belle!" I cried in relief.

"Mew! Mew!" she cried back. She looked down at me, the wideness of her eyes and tilt of her ears plainly scolding me for being so dense as to not be able to find her for so long. I stared back at her.

Despite the fact that it was very good to know that Belle was still alive and reasonably safe, I was now presented with another problem. The tree she had scaled was a thin one, too small for me to be able to climb. However, it was also a good ten or twelve feet tall, whereas I barely break five. There was no way I was ever going to be able to reach this cat clinging for dear life five feet above my head. I thought frantically of stepladders - but how was I going to get one through all that brush to get close enough to reach her. What if she fell out and hurt herself in the meantime? I resigned myself; I was going to stay here by her until she made it out of that tree.

Acting more out of desperation than any real sense, I barged through the briars so I could stand at the base of the tree, raising my hands as if I expected her to jump down to me.

"Come here, baby!" I called, slapping the side of the tree nearest me. "Come on down!"

Belle cried; she obviously found my idea easier said than done. However, as I continued encouraging her to climb on down, she managed to find a limb growing a few inches below the one she was clinging to, and carefully stepped down onto it.

"That's it!" I encouraged. "Keep on coming!"

With much protesting and searching, Belle managed to find another limb and take another step down. I walked around the tree, calling reassurances to her, drawing her attention to the next limb so she could continue making her slow way down. She continued crying the whole time, as if she couldn't understand why I was making her do all the work while I stayed safe on the ground.

Finally, she was only a few inches above me... and stuck. A tangle of vines was growing up the side of the tree in a thick, twisted curtain, and it was between her and me. As she tried to wiggle through the tiny opening, her legs got stuck. She struggled and cried, panicking. I did the only thing I could do, which was to reach up to her. Amazingly, she stretched out a front paw and was able to touch her toes to my fingers. I grinned in spite of myself. Somehow, that touch was all the reassurance I needed that somehow, she was going to get out of this all right. I reached up my other hand, and she stretched out her other paw. With my support, she was able to wiggle through the opening and free herself. She was now within reaching distance, so I put my hands around her middle and began to lift her gently from the tree.

She wouldn't budge. Whether it was a cat's perverse determination not to do anything a human wanted her to do, or because she didn't realize that she was no longer in any danger of falling, she would not loosen her grip on the tree. It took a great deal of wrestling to get her to finally let go, but even then, she continued to kick and squirm as if she were in mortal peril. It wasn't until we were out of the shrubbery and back on her home turf that she finally seemed to realize she was safe, and she drooped limply over my shoulder. However, by that point, she had nearly escaped my grip, with only her back legs hanging down my front, while the rest of her drooped down my back as if she'd melted.

As I tromped back toward the house, it occurred to me how absurd I must look with this kitten hanging down my back, and I laughed. It started as a weak, "Ha!" and then built into a louder "Ha, ha, ha!" and finally into a full-throated laugh. I reached the safety of the house and dropped my burden down to the floor, where she and her sister had a purring reunion. Then Belle, utterly exhausted, dropped onto the floor to take a well-deserved nap. I knelt next to her, running my fingers over her soft fur. She purred until her ears vibrated, and I smiled.

"You crazy cat," I said affectionately. "You crazy cat."