Cats on Tuesday: The Adventures of Ragpuff: In the Beginning

I'd liked to think that at one time, Ragpuff had had a home with human adults, and maybe some human children. I'd like to think that he had just wandered away from home and got lost, rather than to imagine that he was mistreated, abandoned, or thrown away the first time. Ragpuff was a brief, three day, bright spot of orange and white fluff in my life, and then he was gone. At first I thought he had found his way back home until I learned the truth. I was frustrated at my helplessness to do anything for him when he first came calling. So this little short story series is dedicated to the mysterious little kitten I call, Ragpuff. From this point on, Ragpuff tells his own story. I hope you will come by often to see what else he's gotten himself into. I can only imagine.

The Adventures of Ragpuff
In the Beginning

The air was dry, hot, and foul from the tar that had recently been poured on the place where humans park their smelly, monster cars. It was a mistake right from the beginning to cross under that fence, the one overgrown with the ivy and trees, and pad across that great, black space to where I had heard human voices. It had been four days since I'd heard a friendly, human voice. I was hungry, too. Very hungry. I guess that's what caused me to be so careless as to traipse across that hot blacktop to where the human's lived. Hunger will do that to a kitten.

The first human I saw was short, roundish, and yellowed haired. When she saw me, she beckoned me closer. I knew she had a big white, fluffy and bouncy dog. One almost as big as she was. He seemed like a pretty nice dog, he was also tied to the banister so he couldn't come after me. I could tell right away that she had a cat in her place, too. He just happened to be sitting in the window, meowing at his human who was outside feeding another cat…me.

Well, to make a long story short, there were a few other humans that lived in those buildings and I soon found out that most of them liked me. They fed me, stroked my fur, picked me up and held me, but not one of them invited me in to stay, to be their pet. They were all afraid of something. I couldn't have been me. I was too tiny to be afraid of. But I could sense it; they all were worried something would happen to them if they took care of me proper.

Oh, yes, indeed. Four days ago I had been someone's pet. They had been very good to me, too. A lady who talked kind of silly sometimes and a man who hardly ever said a word. They got me from my momma's humans when I was almost two months old. I also had two brothers and a sister. They all got new homes before I did. So for a while, it was just my momma and me.

Well, I was happy in my new home. I loved my humans very much. One day the kitchen door was left open a tiny bit and I wanted to go outside and see for myself what was on the other side of those windows that I'd been gazing out of for the past four months. I sneaked out real quiet like. I was only going to take a little peek at the world outside. Honest. That was all. A real quick peek, and then I was going to run right back inside and get back up in my chair. I had the nicest chair, all my very own. It snuggled up against the window next to the street and I had a good view of everything.

I took my peek. It was quiet pleasant outside. The porch was covered with ivy and there were pretty little bushes with flowers on them, and some trees that shaded everything and made it nice and cool. A pair of yellow butterflies darting about the bushes caught my attention. I'd often seen them through the window. They looked like a lot of fun to chase after, so I did. After I got tired of chasing the little yellow fellows, I found some small round bugs with really hard shells, scurrying around in the leaves under the bushes. They were fun to bat around. Then there was this huge bumble bee that came by and I followed him for a bit.

After a while, I don't know how long it had been, I was ready to go back inside and get a drink of water and maybe have a bite or two of my kibble. Lo, and behold, the door I'd sneaked out of was closed! I pawed at the wood. I mewled really loud, and used my claws, which I'm never supposed to do in the house, and clawed at the door. I knew there was another door. I'd seen the old couple coming and going from it a lot. Other humans often came in and out of it, too, so I knew it was an important door. I ran around the house and jumped up on the steps leading to the door. I sat down and mewed my little heart out and no one came to the door to open it for me.

It had started getting dark. The sun was disappearing behind the trees. Like I said I'd never been outside before and now I was out and couldn't get back in. A big old dog started barking at me. He came running after me and scared me off the porch. I ran and ran and ran until I was sure he wasn’t following me anymore. Before I knew it, it was dark. I was lost. I've been trying to find my way back home ever since. It had been nearly four days by the time I found the humans in those big buildings. My stomach was really growling.

I was given some food I was used to, kitty kibble, and one nice lady thought I should have some clean water. So I decided that hanging around those human's places wasn't so bad. I was already used to the dark. I slept under the fence at night and made the rounds to all the friendly humans during the day. A lot of the ones that fed me had cats of their own. I talked to some of their pets through their windows, but they weren't all that eager to talk to me. I didn't care, they were sharing their food with me, so that was enough.

There were a few other, bigger cats that hung out at the edges of the fence at night, but they would never let me get too close to them. There was, however, this one large, gray stripped tom that sort of took a liking to me. He let me sleep kind of near him at night. I told him I'd found human's that liked me and I could be happy hanging out with them. He warned me not to go back there anymore. He told me there were some real nasty humans that lived there that didn't like cats. Some of his friends had gotten trapped there during the winter and he's never seen them since. I told him I'd be careful. All of the ones that fed me and stroked my fur, liked cats.

The very next morning I went across the blacktop to visit my friends at the buildings and have a bit of breakfast. A human I had seen before, but had never actually talked to, came up to me, pretending to like me. She called me kitty. "Here kitty, kitty," she'd said, real sweet like. So, I trotted up to her, real friendly like, and the next thing I knew, she'd grabbed me roughly, threw me into a box, tossed me in the trunk of one of them monster cars and away we went. It seemed like a really long time had gone by. I was getting awful hot and thirsty. Pretty soon the monster car stopped, a hand reached in the box, grabbed me by the back of my neck, where my sweet momma used to carry me when I was really tiny, and then threw me off into some weeds. I should have bitten her hand. I should have left claw marks on her arms and face. I know that now, but I was a sweet, friendly kitten, that loved those humans. I thought they loved me, too. How could I have been fooled so easily?

Now, I'm really lost. Very lost. Lost, lost, lost! I didn't even get to have one last meal of kibble before I was snatched and taken way out here. Well, I have no idea where way out here is, but I can tell you, I don't like the looks of what I see around me. I've been up and down this road about a million times since I was dumped out here. I haven't seen another monster car anywhere. Not one. All I can see is a lot of really tall weeds and really thorny berry bushes. There are also mountains of tiny little rocks. Lots of mountains of them. Some of them have arms. Funny looking things. Somewhere around here has got to be some water and a place to eat, and, whew! It's really getting hot. I've got to find some shade, fast.