Scarred for life

Well I'm back home. I have a new box: bright red, with peppers, produce of Spain in white lettering along the side. My wool blanket is freshly laundered. I have a new sleeping place, under the radiator in the kitchen. My plot to bribe worked well (I'm back home) and badly...

I was going to catch Martin (male human of the household) a gift of a large rat- ok part bribe part pressie, but I had misjudged the grey furry beings lack of desire to become an ungift-wrapped edible token of my good nature. The brute -and he was huge this rat- and his family turned on me, I could have lost an ear or worse an eye. I had just positioned Roland into a corner of the out house ready to spring - my whole body as taut as a trapeze wire when there was a sharp pain from my tail, I turned my head just for a split second and the next thing Roland was at my head and several other huge rodents were nipping at my ginger coated being. They drew blood. I shall be scarred for life. How I managed to escape owes much to my skill and high intelligence. After I finished running I clattered through the cat flap and shot under the tool chest in the conservatory, knocking over a couple of potted cactus enroute and so have a couple of the nasty phallic object's thorns embedded in various parts of my anatomy too boot. Dolly arrived first at the scene of devastation, quickly followed by Martin, and then Susan (female human of the household.)
Three pairs of eyes were peering under the trunk. Three pairs of distinctly different coloured eyes: one pair brown, one pair blue and then green. A kaleidoscope of corneas.

I was finally coaxed out from my safe haven with a promise of not being taken to the knackers and a saucer of sardines the tomato sauce scraped away. I was lifted from my glass ceiling abode to the pepper box that Susan had prepared earlier and my wounds tended with cotton wool balls soaked with dilute TCP.

The television is on in the living room, there is not much to see or do here in the kitchen, double glazing prevents sounds from the outside stimulating my auditory organs, but I am warm, I feel safe and I start to doze just as big Lil arrives with her size nine paws and does a double take at my ginger coat bundled up in a blanket in her kitchen. Lil being now deaf as a post has been unaware of the commotion or the medical emergency on her doorstep. She plonks herself down next to her Friskies and after having a snack counts the remaining ones eyeing me with a
"you can stay there mate but you eat just one of those biscuits and I'll I'll..."

I dozed, woke, and fitfully slept, I dreamed: Gertie with the darned cardie and the Friday fish supper. Gertie, leaving me, our life together. The day she left after I had followed her carriage to the end of the road. I knew she had died but I didn't understand it. Everyday I would wait outside her front door at the times she should be leaving for work and when she didn't arrive would return again at the times she was expected back from work. The door never opened. Each day there was a little less Of Gertrude. The smell of her became fainter and fainter.

On this last day of this episode of my life and as I stood by Gertie's door sniffing and sucking the air, Mrs Cratchet from number ten sidled up to me making strange cooing noises, in one hand she held a saucer, she moved closer, stooped lower, her large yellow teeth coming nearer,
"coo coo."
The saucer nearly under my nose disclosed overcooked chicken bits.
Suddenly her hidden arm shot out from it's hiding place revealing a long pole with a loop on the end.
"Not that hungry thanks."I wailed as I legged it to the underbelly of a rusting Bedford Rascal. Her tartan slippers with pompoms followed me to the shadow of the chassis. When I moved her pompoms would follow my movement from the parameter of the vehicle. Only the arrival of a removal lorry distracted the owner of the tartan house shoes. She and they made their way back to her front door and vanished only to reappear some few moments later minus saucer and the evil pole contraption.

She and I now shared an interest, the goings on at number twelve. Three rather large human males were carrying stuff in. A box followed by another box, by a chair, a sofa, table, and a bed, on and on it went this procession of human worldly goods. Mrs Cratchet making a mental inventory of every item. Number twelve's door closed, the van doors slammed shut and with much manoeuvring the lorry left the cul-de-sac. The tartan slippers returned to their own front door, and being forgotten I slipped out from my haven and stood for the last time outside the door of my old home. I sniffed and now there was no longer any trace of Gert, her scent, her perfume had been replaced by alien aromas. I understood at last what her dying meant..