The longer I lived outside the more I wanted to get IN. I was cold, I was sneezing, I was hungry and tired all the time.

OK, I was afraid. Bad things happened in the woods where I had to hunt, mean four legs who would eat me. Big birds, too, who past the squirrel nest to tell me they were just waiting for the right time.

One day the squirrel nest fell out of the tree with me in it! I caught myself on a tree branch. I got down from the tree after a while and I told myself that I would never go up a tree again.

I was in trouble and I knew it and I thought maybe my time was running out.

Then it got warmer and I felt a little better, but I still wanted IN!

She was still feeding me. The big black cat that lived in the woods but let her neighbours think he was their cat told me I was stoopid for wanting to go inside. He told me that people are stupid but I should let them feed me, but NEVER go inside.

I didn't like that cat. He was mean. When he hunted he was didn't kill and then eat, he liked to eat while his dinner was still alive. He let the people see him doing it.

Gator had been dead for a long time. When he died I had a bunch of my milk teeth. By now I had a few grown up teeth. Big deal. I still didn't like hunting even though the better teeth made eating my catches a little easier.

UGH, feathers are fluttery and fun unless you have a mouth full of feathers when what you really want is FOOD!

She was away working even more. She needed me. I heard the neighbours talking when they sat on their porches that she was gonna drop dead at her desk if she didn't slow down. They said her son was stoopid for not coming home and bringing the baby to see her.

Whoa, she had a son who had a son! A baby. I know about babies. They smell and cry and are clumsy and incautious about how they touch cats. Probably dogs too.

But I still wanted in and and I decided I still wanted to be in her house. So I started watching to see if she would leave her door open so I could sneak in. I made a PLAN. I would sneak in and be really really quiet and good and she would not even know I was there for a while.

And finally she opened the door and it stayed open for a long time. So long that three other cats tried to get in, but she shooed them out and distracted them from coming in by putting a big bowl of food out on the driveway.

She knows cats.

But I had a PLAN.

I listened and when she was in the back part of the house I ran in the door and turned right and ran into her bedroom and hid under the bed. I smelled all the house smells. I could smell Gator, he smelled old and tired but really sad because he loved her and didn't want to leave her; if a dog could leave that happy/sad smell, then the people person he left that smell for must be a right kind of people. Yes, I was right, this was a good house and a good people, and I was gonna live here and she would be glad.

She came into the front room and sat down. She was reading a book and listening to a TV program, so I came out from under the bed and walked out into the living room. I could smell Gator everywhere, but the smell was really strong in one place a few feet from her chair. I laid down on that spot and stretched out and started to purr.

She looked over at me and said "I know you! You are the cat the people out back adopted from the shelter! But they moved out nearly two months ago! They left you, didn't they?"

Then she went back to her book. We spent the rest of the daytime like that. I would get up to have a bite from the food bowl, then come back in and lay down. I watched the TV, it was just like the one from the shelter that was always on. I like TV.

A cat can learn a lot of things from a TV. I even learned to read from TV, and how to use the Internet to learn more things. I saw a man who was hurt in an accident use one with a straw in his mouth to poke the buttons people call keys to write what he wanted, and after I thought about it I thought I could learn to do something like that with one of my claws, if I could just get a chance to try.

But when the sun started to go in she made me go outside, and I spent the night under her car.

She made a phone call to the people who owned the house out back. "Do you know if they want that ginger cat?"

YESSSSSS!

The next weekend she opened the door again and left it open while she called the people again. "You're sure? Well, that's great, I think I'll take it in then. A cat is the better companion for me with my hours, and I don't think I am ready for another dog really. Thanks Michelle, this is great. I know it's had all it's shots and has been altered because it's a shelter cat. No, I'm good, I've been a catmom before. Mike didn't like cats, so after the cat I brought with me died we didn't have another. Jeez, it's been 18 years since Tiger died!"

Tiger? Gator? She liked wild things, I think. What was she gonna name me??? Possum?!

When she came inside I was trying out her bed and pillow. Niiice! But when she sat down in the chair I got off of the bed and went out and jumped up on the hassock and laid down. I looked at her for a minute while she looked at me, then I started watching the TV because a bunch of people with feathers and other fluttery things came out from the corner of the TV and were fluttering all over the TV to the sound of music-ooooo, I like fluttery things!

She got up and shut the door. She looked at me to see how I was going to take being shut in.

I yawned. I stretched. Then I fell asleep.

When I woke up she showed me where the litter pan is, and where the food bowl JUST FOR ME is and

I

was

IN.