The Life of a Cat

2. About a rainy day and a heroic action

Sometimes Cats are heroes. Actually, quite often; more often than humans are, at least. Humans aren't heroic at all –– they are cowards! Mike, for example, always runs away from everything, even if I've just killed a small bird. I mean, it could be worse, right?

But, even though Cats have such a high chance of being heroes, it never happened to me, except once. You want to hear about it?
I bet you're just saying yes for being nice. But if you don't mean it, you will be the one being stuck hearing my story. So here it goes.

That day was a rainy day. And if you just know the tiniest bit about Cats, which you probably don't, you'll know that Cats hate the rain. Cats hate water in general, except the water for drinking — we wouldn't survive if we hated it. Still, I am no exception.

It was the morning, the sun had risen and made the sky blush because of its beauty. I ran outside, as I always do in the morning, because Dad opens the door to get a grey roll of paper he studies religiously for at least an hour every morning and I jumped on the grass. Which means: right on the wet grass. Which means: I get myself wet and I have to be washed. Something else I don't understand. I already got wet, why do I have to get wet a second time? It's stupid, am I not right?

I don't understand this habit humans have to wash everything. I wash myself too, but with my tongue. When humans want to wash, they get under a thing that spits out water. Humans can't wash themselves with their tongue. No, they cannot. Don't argue. It's way too small, although sometimes Mike licks his human paws, but Dad and Mom don't like it and they tell him to stop. That's weird, really. When I was small, my parents were GLAD when I licked myself. They encouraged me to, and they even scolded me when I did not wash myself before sleep. That's just injustice. I hated licking myself (now I've come to terms with the fact that it's necessary) but I still had to, and Mike likes it, but is forbidden to. I call that unfairness.

And every time humans take those pieces of fabric off that they wear, they always stick them into the big-box-that-takes-the-smell-off-everything. First of all, cats don't wear pieces of fabric — what's the use, we have fur for keeping warm; then again, humans don't — and second of all, a piece of fabric is only comfortable when it has your own scent! So a piece of fabric can't pick up your smell if you take the smell off it every night!

Humans don't make sense. That's what I always say.

So, anyway, to get back to my story, I came back from my bath and I was so bored, you would've thought I was stuck in a lecture of some human. It was so early to get bored as well!

So I ran a bit around the house, I tried to get Mom to play with me, but she wanted to play with Mike and not with me, I chased a mouse in the kitchen but stopped when Mike came (because he always spills water out of his eyes and gets me all wet), I jumped onto the bed that Dad sleeps in, but Dad was still in there, so I got punished, and so on and so on. You get the idea.

When the sun was all the way up, like Mom always does, she got into the kitchen, took some fish and meat, put it into a metal pot and put that pot on some fire! Then she left and I was... still bored. I bet you thought I was up to some mischief. Well, I wasn't. I always do good things. Those things are just misunderstood.

So I was bored and I sat on the table. You do things you normally don't do when you are bored. At least that's what cats do. I can't say anything about humans, I don't even understand them. And there was something waiting for me. A fish. A big, fat fish.

What would you do if there was a big fish in front of you, just waiting to be eaten? Oh, that's right, I forgot. You, dear reader, are a human. So imagine you are a cat. I bet you would pounce on it and eat it quickly. Well, that's what I did. Except I couldn't.

And you know whose fault that was? Mom's, of course. She came in running and told me to get somewhere but not on the table. Then she noticed that the meat-water-fish mixture on the fire was almost bubbling over the edge of the pot! So she ran to the fire and turned it off.

Later, she told me that if the mixture had completely bubbled over, we could've had not anything to eat. That's pretty sad, if you ask me. But nobody ever asks me. I, sometimes, ask myself, but what's the use of that?

Now you're probably wondering why I said I'm the hero of the day. My jumping on the table and eating the fish caused Mom to run in and see that the water was bubbling over. So I'm what caused Mom to notice that! So I'm the hero!

You're probably going to say: "That's not a very heroic action!" But believe me, for a cat that has never done anything exciting, this is the most heroic thing ever seen.

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-dedicated to AnEmperorPenguin for her absolutely fluffy book The Strange School and her support on this book. Thank you Ara!