Smarty's Story

We were born under a bush in late October in the garden where Kaz's friend works as a gardener. It was a bad time to be born, with the winter coming on. There were five of us in all, and we all survived. Our mum moved us to a warmer place behind the garden shed, and the gardener made us a shelter, a box on its side with a blanket in it. There was a gap under the shed where we played games and hid if a human came too close. Every day the gardener put down a bowl of food for our mum, and later when we were bigger we used to eat it too. There was never enough for all of us. One day the gardener came and caught our two brothers and our sister (she was a tabby like mum), and he took them away to live with humans. Sooty and I were quicker than the others, so we didn't get caught.

Sometimes our dad came to the garden to visit mum and us. He would always make a grand entrance, singing loudly and holding his tail up high. He was very proud and rather fierce - he had an ear missing and was blind in one eye after a lifetime of cat fights. He wasn't afraid of much, though he didn't trust humans at all.

By December it was getting very cold and we were getting too big to squeeze into the gap under the shed. The box with the blanket had become very soggy and not at all pleasant to sleep in. Our mum used to eat most of the food and we were always starving. Then one day a human came and put mum in a basket and took her away. We were very upset. We had more food to ourselves but we missed cuddling up to her warm furry tummy at night. We cuddled up to each other instead but we were too small to warm each other up much. We missed our mum a lot.

Not long after that one frosty night before Christmas a human lady came to the garden in the pitch dark and put a long basket behind the shed, next to the soggy box that had been our shelter. She immediately went away again. Sooty and I were curious about this. Suddenly a wonderful fishy smell began to waft through the night air into our nostrils. Our tummies were rumbling so we didn't hesitate to follow the smell to its source. I pushed Sooty aside (she was smaller than me) and ran into the basket and began to fill my mouth with delicious salmon when suddenly there was a loud crash. I nearly leapt out of my fur. To my horror a door had shut behind me and I couldn't get out. Sooty ran off into the darkness, terrified, while I tried as hard as I could to get out of my prison. Then I heard someone approaching and I froze. It was the same human lady again. She lifted up the basket with me inside it and took me home in her car. I didn't know it at the time but that was Kaz. I'm afraid I was very rude to her. I hissed and spat at her and if she dared to try and touch me I bit and scratched her till her hands bled. She put me in a little pen at home because I was too wild and naughty to be let out into the house. She brought me lovely food, fish and roast chicken, but I still spat at her as hard as I could.

Not long after I arrived she opened the door to the room where my pen was, and let a grey tabby cat come in to visit me. You could have knocked me over with a feather - it was my mum. "Look Maisie," said Kaz, "here's one of your babies." "Huh," hissed Maisie to me, "What are you doing here? I thought I'd done my stint of looking after you!" "Miaaaaaaaaaow!" I cried in the most babyish voice I could manage. I was over the moon to see her, even though she was so gruff. I began to calm down a bit. But I was worried about Sooty.

Late every evening Kaz went back to our garden with the trap. But Sooty, hungry though she was, resisted the temptation of going inside to taste the salmon. She was convinced that I had come to a sticky end and she was terrified the same might happen to her. So Kaz came back here every night with an empty trap, though she always left the food for Sooty.

Then over Christmas Kaz got ill, probably from hanging around too much in the cold night air. For three weeks she wasn't well enough to set the trap and wait for Sooty - the most she could do was to go and leave a bowl of food for her each night. The gardener was fed up with the whole feline affair, and to tell the truth he was beginning to think Kaz was slightly batty. "Nobody's seen that other kitten in ages," he said, "I'm sure it's not here any more. Why don't you give up?" But Kaz kept putting the food down because she had a gut feeling. Kittens don't just disappear in puffs of smoke, do they? Anyway the bowl was always empty when Kaz came to refill it.

Then one freezing night just after New Year, Kaz set the trap again, in the same place as before. She went to sit in the car where it was slightly warmer than outside, and waited. "I'll wait half an hour," she thought to herself. But after ten minutes she had another gut feeling - that Sooty was already in the trap - so she returned to the place behind the shed, and sure enough, there was my sister Sooty, hissing and spitting for all she was worth, with pieces of salmon flying everywhere. Kaz put her in the car and whispered "Thank you God" as she started the engine.

Kaz brought Sooty into my room and tried to put her into my pen with me. But it had been three weeks since I had seen her and I wasn't sure if it was her or not, so I growled at her as threateningly as I could, and Kaz decided it was best to separate us initially. She put Sooty in another pen, next to mine, so that we could growl away without any damage being done. Then eventually when the growling stopped we were allowed to live together, and sometimes our mum, Maisie came to see us. Sooty was as relieved as I was to have her back again.

Poor Sooty was terrified of everything, and hid behind me whenever Kaz came near. Some days later Kaz decided to let us out for a trial wander round the room, but Sooty went crazy, running up the curtains and into the bookcase, knocking books flying. Later on Kaz put our pen into the back room where the other cats sleep and have their meals. Gradually we got used to seeing them, and eventually we were allowed out of our pen for good. We can go anywhere now except cat-free zones where birds are kept, though we are not allowed outside yet. "You're still too small to go into the garden," said Kaz. "The fox might get you and then you'd be sorry." The vet says we are very small for our age because we had a bad start in life.

Kaz gives us all sorts of food. We especially love cat biscuits, but we have to eat these out of her hand. I allow Kaz to stroke me now but Sooty still won't let her. Sometimes Kaz tries to pick me up but I don't like that much and I jump out of her hands. She sometimes plays with us - we have a lot of toys, a fish on a fishing rod, a furry spider, catnip mice and best of all, ping-pong balls. Our mum, Maisie, is the best footballer of all. We get on all right with Maisie even though she is always a bit gruff and strict. She often washes our faces for us just like she did when we were babies. Kaz adores her and often picks her up and cuddles her. She allows her to sit on the washing machine, which is quite an honour, because that's what Daisy, Kaz's cat who died, used to do.

Kaz had another cat who died before Sooty and I were born. His name was Tinker, and he had long black fur and a bushy tail like me, but he was a boy. (Kaz thought I was a boy too until the vet put her right.) Tinker's legs became paralyzed and his life had to be ended when he was only five, which broke Kaz's heart. She said she had always felt another long-haired black cat would come into her life. The funny thing is that Tinker had one cranky habit, which was to pinch the sweetcorn that Kaz prepares for the birds. Out of curiosity Kaz gave me a bowl of sweetcorn to try, and to her surprise I gobbled it down. She was very surprised. But she believes it's just a coincidence. Not many cats love sweetcorn but Tinker was Tinker, and I am Smarty.

Sooty prefers broccoli. Every morning Kaz offers her a piece as she prepares it for the birds, and Sooty takes it gently in her mouth and goes off to chew it or play football with it before carefully storing it under an armchair with lots of other pieces of withered broccoli. By the end of each week when Kaz does the cleaning, there is quite a lot of rotting vegetation to be swept up. Sooty says the smell reminds her of the vegetable patch in the garden where we were born.

There are four other cats here apart from our mum Maisie - there's Suzie the granny cat who's smart but grouchy, Aunty Foxy who is white like snow and kind to us, Ruby the grandad cat who likes his peace and quiet, and Uncle Kenny whom Sooty adores above all others. If Kenny goes out through the cat-flap (which Kaz immediately locks), Sooty waits by it till he comes back. When he comes home she squeals with delight and nuzzles up to him so that he can barely walk in a straight line without tripping over her.  Kaz calls them "Me and My Shadow".  Sometimes Kenny stands on the windowsill outside the kitchen peering in at us and Sooty, in the kitchen with Kaz, squeals up at him like a fan at a pop concert. "Look out Sooty, here comes Elvis," laughs Kaz. This gets on Kenny's nerves a bit, but he humours them and deliberately walks with a swagger. Kaz loves Kenny every bit as much as Sooty does. She cuddles him a lot and calls him her little beta blocker because he calms her down. Kenny puts his paws around Kaz's neck and laps up the attention. Kenny was starving in a garden just like us when he was little, and he was all skin and bone when he came here, but that was way back in history, when even Fay (Kaz's first cat) was alive. Kenny's quite portly now. Kaz likes portly cats. Kenny will have the responsibility of watching over us when we are eventually allowed out into Kaz's garden. But not yet, says Kaz, not just yet…

Sooty's Update:

One boiling hot day in the middle of our first August, Kaz suddenly opened the back door and said to us: "Sooty and Smarty you are ten months old now. You are allowed out into the garden." I dashed outside fearlessly but Smarty was too scared, and she ran upstairs to hide under Kaz's bed. The following day, she went out for five minutes, then she ran back inside and hid under an armchair. The day after that she stayed out half an hour. Gradually her confidence grew, and then she would prowl around the garden in the undergrowth, pretending to be a tiger. Kaz always calls us in for dinner when it gets dark, and then we sleep in the cat-room till morning, but one day Smarty refused to come home. Kaz called her as usual and rattled the biscuit box, but Smarty was sitting in the flowerbed near the aviary, enjoying the night air. The fox entered the garden and Kaz thought he might catch Smarty and eat her for his dinner. So Kaz went outside to search amongst the undergrowth - and suddenly Smarty dashed across the garden and jumped over the fence. She did not come home that night, and Kaz was very worried.

In fact to this date she has still not come back, not indoors that is. She says it's something in her blood. She needs to feel free. Sometimes she visits our garden to play with me, or she sits on the garage to look at Kaz in the kitchen, but she won't come in. Kaz puts food out for her just in case, though Smarty doesn't always eat it. She eats mice and things like that now. Smarty wants me to live wild like her, but I won't. I did that when I was small and I was hungry and lonely and frightened. And I could never leave dear Kenny, so I always come home. When Smarty ran away Kaz was very sad, but she's over it now, though she misses her a lot. Kaz says we animals are only lent to her after all, and at least Smarty is alive and happy. And she knows where we are if she wants to come back. "I must accept you all for what you are, not what I want you to be," says Kaz, "though it isn't that easy sometimes."

If there is any more news about Smarty I will let you know.

Love from Sooty XXX

Sooty's Second Update:

Smarty has come home! Kaz was so happy that she made a celebration meal in Smarty's honour. There were dishes of salmon, tuna, coley fish, meat and biscuits for us all to enjoy, and Smarty hasn't stopped eating yet - she was really starving. Kaz says she is all skin and bone after living wild for nearly three weeks, so we've got to fatten her up. Smarty has to stay indoors for the time being because she is so tired and thin, but she doesn't seem to mind very much. Kaz is making a huge fuss of her, and the two of them have been playing with ping-pong balls and the toy goldfish on a rod, which is Smarty's favourite, and Kaz keeps tickling Smarty under her chin - Smarty is lapping up all this attention. Maybe I should try leaving home and then coming back, so that I too can have a feast and games held in my honour! (It's all right, Kaz, I'm only joking…) Lots of love, Sooty XXX

Home Page