Cat Tuesday: Neighborhood Nightlife: Episode 5 - The Aliens

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The Aliens

All throughout the day, Necco had crouched over her paws on the end of her guardian's bed, wondering, pondering what it would be like to have opposable thumbs. She'd never heard of such a thing as a cat with thumbs that could open cabinet door, turn door knobs, and grip things like humans did. What kind of strange beast had moved in upstairs above her friend, Frog? He'd said they were sisters named Polly Dactyl and Paddle Foot. What odd sounding names for her species.

Necco shifted her weight over her paws sandwiched under her fluff. A wry smirk curled her lips, as she remembered how her female human had often laughed at her position, calling her a catloaf. Necco didn't know what a loaf was exactly, but she did know what a cat was and the position she loved best to be in while she was contemplating life, or concentrating hard on a puzzle or a problem. When she'd asked Markus if he'd ever been called a catloaf before, he just laughed, too. "All the time," he'd said. When Necco asked him why humans thought that their round, loaf-like position was so funny, he had explained, "To the humans we look like a loaf of bread or a meatloaf. Things they eat, of course. Thank goodness they don't eat us."

Thank goodness, Necco had sighed. Today's reason to stay crouched in a catloaf position had more than one purpose. One, she was puzzled over the idea of extra toes on cats feet, and two, every time she glanced at her own tiny, soft white paws, she cringed. When she was about five months old, she had been taken to the Cat Clinic to get altered. Something she had been totally unprepared for at that age. She had been adopted out of her momma's home when she was just five weeks old. She could climb anything, anywhere, anytime. There was no stopping Necco. She could out climb any house spider, shred a roll of toilet paper in ten seconds flat, and was very proficient at climbing up a pair of jeans to get a hug or nose nuzzle with her humans, sitting or standing.

Going to the animal clinic that first time, to get stuck in the neck by something very sharp and then feeling so terrible odd; so very dizzy and sick at her stomach all at the same time, was not an experience she liked to remember. When she had waked up she found herself with a white strip of cloth around her tummy and two little strips of cloth around each of her two front paws. At first she had thought it had all been a dream while she slept in the kitty cage at the clinic all of that day and throughout the night. She hadn't realized that the operation she'd just had not only took away her ability to produce kittens when she matured, but she had also been deprived of her most prized possessions. Her sharp, little kitty claws. Her weapons of mass destruction. Her only defense against nature, if she ever happened to get outside the human dwelling places and into the real world.

What an effort it had been to use her litter box those first few days after she came home from the Cat Clinic. What an effort it had been to clean her little toes, stitches where her used to be claws had been. As she healed, the ends of her toes itched relentlessly. She had tugged at those tiny dissolving threads that held her wounds together, she chewed on the ends of her toes, licking them again and again, desperately trying to relieve the terrible itch. Over time, all wounds healed. And then…

Necco pulled her right front paw from underneath her ruff, licked it once and then sat admiring it. The smirk on her face morphed into a broad smile. The weapon of choice may once had been the claws on the ends of her pads, however, no human would expect, no creature would realize, until blood oozed from an open wound that one dew claw had miraculously grown back. Curved, sharp, and dangerous. In triumph she stretched her paw, spread her toes and licked her prized weapon again, meticulously cleaning it, honing it with her teeth at times. It was a dazzling piece of armor that kept her feline heritage alive.

Necco shuddered, then quietly tucked her paw back under her weight again. I'm a mutant, she thought. I'm a mutant just like those two cats that moved in above Frog, are. They're mutants. They're probably from another planet, dropped off one moonless night to fool the human population. They had to be aliens' disguised as cats in order to take over the world. How would anyone know? The only thing that would give them away is their opposable thumbs. Disgusting mutants, she spat.

Necco rested in her catloaf position, paws and claws out of sight, until darkness filled the room. The only reason she moved then was because dinner had been announced and she desperately needed a trip to the litter box. At least she still had the claws on her hind paws. Thank goodness that she had been spared the humiliation of being totally clawless. Markus complained a lot about not having claws all the way around. Many a night he'd leaped for the windowsill with a little less judgment that was needed to make a safe and secure landing and slipped, only to land in a lump of humiliated fur on the carpet below. He knew the others in the building were laughing at him because of his lack of dexterity. Had he had the rear claws like Necco, he would have been able to stabilize his faulted landings.

When the midnight hour approached Necco leapt into the windowsill, the cool November air rushed in on her face. She closed her eyes, letting the breeze tickle her whiskers. Opening her mouth slightly, she let the scents from a million happenings of the world titillate her olfactory nerves in the roof of her mouth, giving her a mental image of the things that often go bump in the night. The frogs didn't sing anymore now that early morning frosts were back. The birds went farther away; the nights eerily devoid of all familiar sounds of summer. The soon to arrive snows would dampen the night sounds even more. Right now, however, without leaves on the trees to buffer the sounds of cars on the road, they and their terrible smells were more noticeable.

Light from the round globes that dotted the landscape outside the apartment buildings, illuminated Necco's front paws: two little white booties. She glanced out the window towards apartment number sixteen. Without leaves now, she had a clear view of the window belonging to her newest, and becoming her dearest friend, Sissy. Miss Sissy had been how Thorny had introduced her shortly after she had called Princess Pricilla Prudence a snob. It had been a humiliating moment when she had learned that she had irresponsibly tagged the proud white mound of fur, with the purple collar, strutting around the complex with her purple clad human, of being stuck up, a Snob, with a capital "S." Thorny had put Necco in her place when he told her that Sissy, as she liked to be called by her friends, was nearly deaf. The news had made all the difference in the world to Necco. Markus and Frog were as shocked as she was, but that didn't take away the sting in her heart that she felt for misjudging a fellow feline for not responding to her calls and paw waving through a closed, double-pained window. She had a new found respect for the former, Miss Prissy Prudy, as she was so apt to call her before she got to know her, and about her.

While Necco whiled away the moments before Markus and Frog came to their window ledges, while she waited for the white shadow to appear in number sixteen's window, while she waited for Thorny, who was at that very moment sitting under Sissy's window, singing a sweet, catly tune, Necco thought about the judgment she had passed on the strangers above Frog. They had been in the building for a little over a month now. They seemed nice enough, even if she never got to see what they actually looked like. They didn't sound like aliens, planted on this earth to fool the humans, or the felines. No, they sounded like normal cats. Still it was very difficult for Necco to form a real image of their strange toes, their so called opposable thumbs.

Their names, Miss Polly Dactyl and Miss Paddle Foot, were definitely not of this world. They each had extra toes, and as Thorny had reported more than once, they could open the lever door handle to their apartment and stroll out onto their balcony anytime they wanted. Their humans never had to worry about them darting off into the night, or out into the busy street. Thorny had said they never, every descended the stairs. He had said they were very gently, fluffy, orange and black calico Maine Coons. To Thorny, they were really awesome.

Necco lifted her right paw with the silver dagger, silver in the lamppost light, that is, and licked it clean. She might just as well be an oddity to them, too. Having a dewclaw that had grown back after it was surgically removed. She held her silver dagger up high and flexed her toes. It curled nicely on the side of her paw, was very sharp, and like the polydactyl's that lived upstairs, it was very useful in getting things done. She could very well be classified as an alien.