‘WOW!’ he gasped. The crying stopped, and Leroy’s big eyes stared at me. His rough hand reached out and grabbed me round my skinny little tummy. He held me up close to his face and I saw the anger draining away, and a look of pure delight dawning in his eyes. ‘You’re MY kitten!’ he announced, and pulled a stretchy red-and-white sock from his bag. I screamed and struggled, but he stuffed me inside it, right down into the toe. My fur was squeezed flat, my legs twisted as my claws caught in the fabric, my tail hurting. I prayed for Angie to rescue me, but she didn’t. Trapped in the boy’s football sock, I was bundled into a bag and bumped up and down as the boy ran. Then I heard a bell ringing and the sound of children.
I listened carefully, sensing that Angie was there amongst them, and suddenly I heard her bright voice.‘Will you sit down, children, please?’
‘Miss! Leroy McArthur’s got a kitten hidden in his football sock.’
‘WHAT?’
‘He has, Miss. I heard it meowing.’
Terrified, I crouched inside Leroy McArthur’s red-and-white football sock, quiet now because I had no energy to meow. Three days without food and the shock of losing everything I loved had left me too stunned to move. A sustaining flame of pride burned in my heart. I was the best of Solomon’s three kittens, my long black fur glossy and soft, my baby eyes still bright blue.
‘Open your bag, Leroy. NOW, please, and show me this kitten.’
The young teacher’s bubbly voice stirred a memory, buried deep in my consciousness, of another lifetime. I had been Angie’s pampered cat, her healer, and her one true friend.
I felt her lifting the sock into the light.
‘It might be a dead rat, Miss.’
She eased me out and cradled me in hands that had crystal rings and fingernails painted jet black. The air shone with the rainbow auras of children crowding around me.
‘Aw!’ they chorused when they saw me peeping out, and their love made a cushion of compassion for me. I managed a plaintive little squeak.
‘How could you do this, Leroy? To a kitten!’
‘I didn’t do nothing, Miss. It were lying in the grass.’
The boy’s scratchy voice made me look up at him. I stared, transfixed, into Leroy McArthur’s eyes, and a darker memory loomed. Long ago, in that distant lifetime, he had hated cats.
‘It’s my kitten, Miss. I found it,’ he said, ‘and I were gonna take it home and feed it. Me mum won’t mind, honest, Miss.’
I didn’t want to be Leroy McArthur’s cat. Beyond the glaze of his eyes lurked bitterness that would manifest as bullying, with me as the victim. I was only six weeks old, and proud of myself so far. How had my life gone so wrong?
It all began when we three kittens lay cuddled up to our mum-cat, Jessica, in a cosy basket under Ellen’s bed. A beautiful lady came to visit our dad, Solomon. She was so full of light that all of us wanted a touch or a word from her. Quivering with excitement, I sat close to my brother and waited while she focused on my pretty tabby-and-white sister. ‘This is a special kitten,’ she said tenderly. What would she say about ME? I was the biggest and the best, my black face bright with anticipation.
But she ignored me– and my brother.
I was livid.
When she had gone I felt the sting of jealousy. I growled at my little sister and smacked her face with my paw. Jessica gave me a disapproving swipe. It wasn’t fair! Angry, I made up my mind to binge on food and grow into the strongest, most independent cat on the Planet.
Being ignored is the ultimate put-down, and seeing my brother’s disappointed face strengthened my resolve. He was smaller and sleeker than me, and he had a white dot on his nose which gave him a wistful look. He was hypersensitive and vulnerable. I felt protective towards him. In that moment of intense humiliation we bonded for life.
We rubbed cheeks and licked each other’s faces. We slept curled into each other, our limbs entwined. I could feel my brother’s rapid heartbeat, and he could feel mine. The thoughts we had flowed together as if we were one. What if nobody wanted a black cat? We had each other, and in those weeks of babyhood we grew ever closer. Tobe separated would be unthinkable. Together for ever. Two black kittens against the world.
Days later our family was cruelly torn apart. We three kittens ended up abandoned in a hedge at the side of a country lane, closely observed by a bunch of chirping sparrows, a blackbird and two hungry crows. At dusk an owl glided low over the grass. On silent wings it swept up and down, turning its predatory face to look directly at me as I peeped from our hiding place.
We survived without our mother for a few days and nights. It was me who found a nest of dry grass to keep us warm, me who encouraged my brother and sister to lap water from puddles and taste whatever we could find to eat. I was the leader, and proud of it.
Fear is powerful. It can turn moments into eternity, and strength into panic, and panic into fury.