Whiskers and Whodunits
A feline adventure unfolds during the fall migration
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Within milliseconds of flipping the switch in the unfinished basement bedroom, my mother’s meter for all things wrong pulsed in the red zone. There was nothing so alarming as to make me run. Rather, my curiosity pulled me further into the room. My memory drew me to the egress window. The day before I had noticed a mound of dry dirt piled along the far edge of the window well that hadn’t been there before. Was the creature who created it stirring? Nope. I looked at the fleece blanket folded on the spare bed. It held the impression from a former nap, yet it held no Checkers the cat. I was within seconds of leaving, feeling confident I had checked thoroughly for trouble and found none, when I spotted a small smear on the concrete floor.
I lifted my right leg to investigate the bottom of my sock. Nothing. I twisted my left leg to look at the bottom of that foot. Nothing. Like a crime scene investigator, I squatted close to the clue. The smear was brownish, tinged with a little red. To the right was the faint outline of something dried.
I grabbed the cleaning supplies and began to scrub. When confident I had removed the remains of a hairball and nothing more, I set aside the task and leashed Shiloh. The air was cool but comfortable, a perfect day for her to lounge in her outside kennel after our walk.
When I re-entered the house, the first thing I noticed was Checkers in the same location as yesterday’s sunbeam, only he was sitting attentively not sleeping blissfully. He had a look of expectancy like Shiloh often does when her toys roll under the furniture. I knelt and put my ear to the floor to improve my view under the ottoman. I lifted the edge, retrieved a handful of pompoms, and threw them across the floor. Checkers didn’t budge. Uh oh. Houston, we have a problem. When Checkers, the world’s best mouser, doesn’t budge, it’s time to pay attention.
I knelt again, my hearting beating faster as I pressed my ear to the floor. More poms but no mouse. Phew! I settled my heart and stood, then bent my knees to ready my back as I began to lean into the weight of the heavy chair. My eyes followed my hand as it moved to the corner, noting with dismay the pills and dangling threads - the telltale signs of a cat who indulged his toenails in the loops of fabric. Darn cat!
My hand found the corner of the solid wood frame and pulled upwards against the weight. FLASH! A blur of black and white darted under the chair and exited as fast as it went in.
I quickly lowered the chair and grabbed the cat. There I stood in the family room with its wide windows connecting our climate controlled interior to nature outside holding a wiggling cat who was clenching a wriggling mouse. The irony wasn’t lost in the moment. I ran the duo to the outside dog run that we’d fenced with bamboo screen in a manner that prevents Checkers from escaping. I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a dessert plate, and heaped it with canned cat food. Out to the dog run I ran again, placing the plate under the flicking tail of the mouse in Checkers mouth.
Chex backed away, his nose twitching, a deep throaty growl letting me know he was not happy. A moment later, he cautiously stepped forward, his eyes giving away nothing of the conflict that surely must have been playing in his head. One sniff of the gooey concoction and Chex dropped the mouse to lap the treat. The mouse scurried away. With plate licked clean, Checkers followed me inside with expectation for more. I indulged him. “Good cat,” I exclaimed while patting his head, thankful he’d caught the mouse, thankful he let it go, and ever thankful Shiloh had not been in the house to add to the shambolic events!
As I turned to place the clean plate into the dishwasher, a lightbulb illuminated the morning’s mystery. The mouse scurrying to safety had not been mouse one. The dried bits and smear on the concrete floor had been the remains of a first mouse not so lucky as the second.
When my kids were younger, they had begged me to let them adopt pocket pets like hamsters and rats. I resisted their relentless badgering. I warned of prey-predator relationships with the animals already in our lives. All these years later, it wasn’t our pets causing chaos but rather the rodents in fall migration who fell prey to the mighty feline who hunted from the comfort of a sunbeam.
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