Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life

When I woke up, it was dark. I must have had a longer sleep than I intended. For a minute I couldn’t think where I was, or what had woken me up. I lifted my head and pricked up my ears. I could hear something, but more to the point, I could sense something – some kind of threat nearby. You’ll understand what I mean when I say I could feel it in my whiskers. Then the sound came again, and I was up on my paws at once, instantly alert. There was a strange cat somewhere close to me, and whoever it was, he was making the low, rumbling, growly noise in his chest that we all know means only one thing. He wasn’t best pleased to see me.

I waited, still and tense, only my eyes moving, checking all directions. I knew I had the disadvantage. I was a stranger, in someone else’s territory, and I still couldn’t see the other cat. If I ran, I’d only precipitate the attack. But when it came, it still took me by surprise. The skinny black cat jumped out of the shadows and went straight for my throat with his claws, forcing me to the ground.

‘OK, OK,’ I managed to squawk desperately as I wriggled on my back, trying to get free. ‘Sorry. I’ll clear off.’

But that didn’t seem to be enough for him. With his claws still into me, he rolled us both over so that his back paws were kicking me. At the same time he was trying to get a mouthful of my face to sink his teeth into. Obviously not a happy chap at all.

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.

CHAPTER

TEN