TRUE STORY

My name is Merlin. I am a fine specimen of an eight-year-old male cat, black with some white patches on my paws and neck and I live at 5 Stafford Road with my family of five humans. I can’t complain of my lodgings. They feed me twice a day and sometimes they play with me. When I talk to them, they usually make some efforts to understand what I am trying to say and sometimes they even succeed. But all this seems somewhat monotonous and uninteresting for my real life starts at night when my human family are asleep.

They usually leave the little vent window in upstairs bedroom through which I can jump to the roof of an extension kitchen and from there to the back garden and the world of night life is open to me. Few times I have tried to share some of my exploits with my human family by bringing home mice or little birds that I managed to catch but they did not seem to appreciate my gifts and always threw them out. So I stopped bringing home any more gifts and was resigned to enjoy my night life on my own. There was only one thing that disturbed my night life; it was a fox which prowls at night in the neighbourhood and occasionally even visited our garden. Of course, he could never catch me but one night two weeks ago he almost caused my death.

That night I decided to explore the bushes growing by the main road to the south of our back garden when suddenly the fox appeared as if from nowhere and jumped at me. It was all I could do to jump out of his way straight into the main road when suddenly a strong light blinded me and I was hit with something big and heavy and lost my consciousness. When I came to, I was very cold and ached all over. Three of my legs, although painful, were still working so I slowly dragged myself to our back garden. I couldn’t even attempt to climb to the roof of the extension kitchen and reach the warmth and safety of my bed, so I curled up on the door mat by the garden door and fallen asleep or fainted, I don’t know.

The next thing I knew it was daylight, the garden door was open and there stood Maja. She picked me up and brought me indoors and put me on the sofa. It was warm and comfortable and I closed my eyes and fainted or fallen asleep, I don’t know. Then somebody picked me up and put me in a small wicker basket and closed the lid. It was not comfortable and I could not fall asleep. I was carried and driven and at last reached a place which I recognized by its smell.

As soon as my basket lid was opened I tried to run away but somebody grabbed me. I don’t know what they did to me, but I seemed to have fallen asleep again. They kept me there for three days. I think they must have been using something they call anaesthetic for I am not quite sure what exactly they did to me. All I know is that when at last Maja brought me home, I found that large parts of my beautiful fur were shaven off and the bare skin was all covered in stitches. But I no longer think that I shall die though I still spend most of my time sleeping.