lenora_rose | Sneaky Cat

I woke up this morning to the usual blare of Colin's far-too-loud talk radio, felt the sudden movement against my leg of Irina leaping off the bed, and followed her at a more zombic pace to go downstairs and feed the cats. As I put down the bowls, and Irina crouched down in lioness-pose to have a taste, I looked around, a bit fuzzy still, for Élise. No sign of her, and she hadn't been on the bed - she's a lot more obvious than Irina, since she's larger (And therefore heavier), and she invariably tries to curl up in the same spot right at my side, and tends to scramble right over Colin. That was odd.

About then, it occurred to me that she also hadn't tried to lie on top of me while we were watching Hartnell and Troughton Doctor Who eps the evening before, and she hadn't come in to sit on the floor and look at me hopefully as I went onto the computer later. Or tried to jump in my lap. Nor, when I tottered to sleep, been curled up with Irina, snubbing me for paying more attention to the computer than to her.

This had me feeling more uneasy than seemed entirely logical, even knowing her habits.

So I started checking rooms. Irina, who'd had enough of a nibble to be curious, followed me, clearly bemused by my behaviour. Nothing anywhere on the main floor. Colin's radio was blaring again upstairs, as he'd only hit snooze before he went to shower. Élise was most definitely nowhere near that room, so before I went upstairs, feeling a bit silly, I opened the back door and glanced around our deck - which seemed, if anything, to amuse Irina more than the rest. Nothing but undisturbed new snow. Nor did my cat come from behind me to see what was going on outdoors, though she tends to come running if she hears the door open.

I went upstairs, trying to persuade myself that my cat had decided today she wasn't intent on her food dish, though, unlike Irina, Élise never skipped breakfast (The other reason, besides size, that she's the heavier one). I turned off the radio and glanced in my closet. Nothing in my study. I wasn't going to wake my snoring brother, who would have gone to bed anywhere from five hours to only one hour before, but I managed to get enough ambient light from the hall to be sure there wasn't a mostly-black tortoiseshell lump on his black bedspread.

Irina had been following me, or watching me from the last room, the whole while. If something had one of our cats' attention this thoroughly, the other would usually turn up to see why.

I peered out the front window, and noticed a line of tracks, too deep and large to be squirrel or rabbit, in a place few, if any, of the neighbour's cats had been all winter. Already covered by the new snow, but they hadn't been there when I came home the night before. Just before bed, I'd gone to check an odd rattling noise at the window, which had proved to be the start of a bit of freezing rain, right before the snow proper began.

Freezing rain.

I opened the front door, huddled low so my nightshirt kept my legs warm, and called her name a few times. Nothing. Irina, aside from an attempt to see what was outside for herself, still seemed utterly calm.

So I picked up the cat "fishing rod" toy, and swung it for Irina, who was absolutely delighted to get even a minute of play at a time she rarely got one, and all to herself, too! Another thing neither cat can do without drawing the attention of the other. Yet if Élise were locked in the pantry, for instance, Irina would make it clear there was a problem. If one is in distress, the other does notice.

So I opened the back door again, trying to convince myself the bad feeling was...wrong.

Except there were fresh tracks around the door. I called her, and got a small meow - and now Irina's attention changed from curious to uneasy.

Élise hopped up from under the deck, and wandered inside, looking pleased to be indoors in time for breakfast.

And silly me, I just about burst into tears. I sure as heck didn't lie back down to nap until *my* alarm went off, as I usually would. So I was early to work.

No, nobody let her out and forgot. She's just sneaky, and she does try to get outside when we can't or won't let her, and she does like being out for much longer than I'll let her stay. (Though I'd guess that overnight is longer than even she approves, because there were some cracks in her blazé that seemed like "Why didn't you let me in sooner?") She's also not very vocal, so it's plausible that Irina wasn't worried because Élise wasn't yowling to get our attention.

Now, before the Humane Society found her, Élise was a stray -- to socialized to have been born to that life, but also obviously, from the fleas and the kittens, out there long enough to know how to make her own way. (her behaviour the first time she met a cat toy was pretty much proof she was used to taking what she hunted back to shelter to eat it.) She knows how to take care of herself. I know that. It doesn't mean I don't think of all the bad things that could happen to an animal stuck outdoors in wet snow, with racoons int he neighbourhood, neighbours of varying or unknown levels of friendliness and awareness of whose cat that is.

She's also been out overnight once before, back when we lived in the apartment She snuck into the main hallway of our apartment block when my brother came in at 11:00, wandered to her heart's content, discovered that the open window by the elevators had no screen, but does have a sort of gravelly bit of flat roof outside it, which led right to our connected run of balconies. That time, too, Irina didn't fuss until Élise started meowing outside my bedroom window, within a few minutes of breakfast time. (It took me a while to figure out how she got onto the balcony when I knew we hadn't opened it at all the day before).

And we had to turn back and check on a trip to the lake, when I discovered a misunderstanding between my brother and I meant the door had been left open far longer than intended during the packing and loading. That was only about two hours, but if we hadn't checked, it would have been over two days, and when we got back, she was already panting.