The rabbit ate my hat

My hat looked cool. Electra loved it, loved me in it and loved me wearing it, quite, quite literally. I am the happiest ginger tomcat in the whole world.
I don't have a bald spot (Dolly!!!!) and I had Electra. Happy, happy ginger me.

I'm nearly home, almost safe. I can just see my conservatory roof and I imagine me in my box on my blanket. Nearly home, unsquished by big black rubber wheels, ungnashed by the jaws of the canine lunatic fringe, undrenched by the water hurling Mrs Higginbottom (funny; Dolly was determined to write about the events on the night she accompanied me and got soaked by the said Mrs Higginbottom, but she hasn't mentioned it in days, perhaps she's forgotten? Good!)

Raymond spends most of his days incarcerated 'cos he is stark raving bonkers. Raymond is a psychopath. This early morning he is out of his cage and on the loose. Luckily, I have seen him before he sees me; everything about him is tense and twitchy. Nose one big tic. Whiskers a wobbling. And those two big yellow ugly teeth and beige/grey furry huge ear type things, one standing up the other hanging down; he is just one big ugly animal.

I creep stealthily; keeping close to the hedge, I am intent on crossing this garden without his noticing. I keep an eye on the rabid rabbit but I am concentrating so hard on my paws not making one solitary sound that I forget the hat. Although aesthetically pleasing it has enlarged my head and I have misjudged the space needed for me plus hat, it, and I become entangled in a mahonia bush. Horrible little thorns stick in my nose and an involuntary squeak alerts the berserk bunny from his foraging.

"Ah! Ferdinand I believe! I seem to be having a ginger cat for dinner."

He is hopping to me at a ferocious pace. He leaps. Luckily, his weight knocks me out of my hat, which is left impaled on the mahonia bush. With expert timing, I dash to the fence, and he, although strong, as well as enormous, and ugly and with a bland shade of fur, lacks stamina and I am on the fence, on high ground and safe in a single bound. I stare down at him and he glares up at me. My hat at that moment plops to earth and he is upon it in a flash, teeth ripping at the straw, a thing possessed. I am transfixed at this horrible sight. That hat could have been me. I was still watching with fascinated disgust as he devoured the last of the daffodils.

He looked up and said in his deep slow drawl,
"Ferdinand maybe next time youll stay for dinner."
That is one scary rabbit.

I am in my box; the stars have left the night sky and the first rays of sunlight break above the rooftops. This is the morning after the night before. And I Ferdinand ginger cat am the luckiest cat in the whole world.