I despaired of his future in our household. I
agonised whether to rehome this juvenile delinquent because Biggles and Garfield
had been nowhere near as naughty as him. Or had they?
I tried to think back to when they arrived.
No, I reassured myself, of course they hadn’t – they had been ‘model’
felines – but even as I thought about it, a nagging memory came back of The
Cheese Plant Incident. The cheese plant in question having been peed in just
once too often had issued me with an ultimatum - ‘it's them or me.'
Despite repotting it lovingly with extra
enriched compost, feeding it with a top of the range plant food, and washing
each beautiful leaf with cotton wool balls soaked in asses milk it sulked
resolutely, spitefully dropping a leaf a week until it stood nude, proud and
unembarrassed and poking its tongue out.
I sadly let it go to wherever it is nude,
proud and unembarrassed cheese plants go once they have given up the will to
live and undeterred, Biggles and Garfield found another houseplant to annoy.
As I was at work during the day these
activities went on unseen by me and it was only at the later stages of a
plant’s sad existence that I became aware that anything was amiss.
Occasionally I would notice that the soil around the plant had been disturbed
and it was only when I discovered a poo (around the poor lamented cheese plant)
that I began to have my suspicions. But, I reasoned, there was a perfectly
adequate litter tray with the best litter available for them to use – why
would they want to use the cheese plant as a latrine?
Why indeed! And then other memories came
flooding back and I realised that in their looks of mock shock horror at each of
Charlie’s escapades they’d led me to believe that they had been the most
perfect of kittens.
Charlie’s behaviour was normal kitten
behaviour. He was just exploring his world and it was unfortunate that I had the
flu at the time and couldn’t cope with his antics. He was such an adorable
little kitten that I didn’t really want to rehome him. He had already had one
home for 5 or 6 days before coming to me as his second home. I didn’t want to
admit defeat so he stayed. He was put on 3 months probation to clean up his act
or else. I didn’t really want to think about the ‘or else’ but I needed to
be tough.
When Biggles and Garfield were Charlie’s age
(8 weeks) they used to sleep on my bed at night with me. They each had their own
defined spot which they stuck to without fail. It was quite amusing as Garfield
had bagged the upper portion of my torso and Biggles was relegated to the lower
portion.
Before they settled into this routine though,
they would regularly have wrestling matches the minute I tried to sleep. This
would involve jumping over me several times to escape one another, landing on
various parts of my anatomy and generally jumping up and down before hurling
themselves headlong into a full blown wrestling match with paw locks, full
nelsons and whatever else they could think of.
After a month or so of feeling sea sick in my
own bed, I decided it would be better for all of us if they were put into the
dining room for the night. Their food and drink was in the kitchen which led off
from the dining room and the litter tray was under the dining table (for
privacy) so they had all their comforts to hand. Various toys and suitable beds
were at their disposal – the cheese plant, which, as far as I was aware,
hadn’t been tampered with at this point.
They soon came to recognize the signs that
meant it was time for bed and accordingly cleverly devised some cunning evasive
action. This varied from hiding anywhere in the house refusing to come out –
despite me shaking the box of dried treats maniacally as a lure! – to digging
their claws in my shoulders if I had managed to get hold of them and refusing to
unhook them.
One of Biggles’ favourite tricks was to hide
behind the curtain which covered the front door. The curtain had been put there
as a draught excluder because the gap between door and frame was so big an
elephant could have easily walked through without breathing in. It was quite
usual to find mini snow drifts behind the curtain during winter months.
Biggles’ plan was excellent the first time
he did it as I had no idea he was behind the curtain. He would be almost wetting
his pants giggling as I roamed the house looking under units, behind sofas, and
on top of cupboards. The more tired I became, the more plaintive my voice got as
I desperately craved sleep. Finally, barely able to contain himself, the curtain
would twitch and his hiding place would be revealed.
The trouble was that, at 12 or so weeks,
Biggles lacked originality and behind the curtain was the first place he would
run and hide and it would therefore be the first place I would look! He always
looked cross and surprised to be found so quickly, so sometimes, if I was in a
reasonable mood, I wouldn’t hurry to find him!
