I really hate it when I come downstairs in the morning and the cats are sitting in formation, like boats on a river facing into the tide. Both looking, with that concentrated stare cats have, at one point. You just know then that they have cornered some form of life slightly lower down the food chain to themselves (by their reckoning) and are waiting it out.

This means it could be anything from a very large spider, a small mouse, or a bird. What is certain is that sooner or later you will have to get involved as this crippled, maimed or just plain desperate creature makes a break for it . A mouse will move like lightning and will scare the daylights out of you (and the cats, probably) - or worse, it may jump amazingly high in any direction. A bird will shuffle or limp pathetically out, then make panicked attempts to fly around indoors crashing dramatically into doors, walls - or worse, fly off upstairs and disappear. The spider will either just stay there until everybody goes away, or is long gone already.

The cats will try to keep up with these dashes for freedom, adding to the air of hysteria - or they may just get bored and go out and leave you with it.

We have just come through just such a hiatus, when one of them brought in a tiny field mouse which took refuge behind the book- case. My husband came down in his dressing gown one morning to the cat-watch scene and obligingly moved the book-case for them (he's all right with spiders, but jelly with mice - frightened they are going to run up his legs.....read on). The mouse dashed out, the cats lost it. Two cats, one mouse - mouse one, cats nil.

That evening, they both took up position in the kitchen -trying to outstare the dish-washer - so we assumed the mouse was underneath. Later on I heard sounds of movement, went out there and found they had poor little Marty Mouse trapped by the back door. He was a really brave little chap, and was facing them off with what looked like a pretty good boxing stance. I threw a tea-towel over him, scooped it up and threw it out the back
door.

Unfortunately, the mouse had no brains either, escaped from under the tea-towel, and shot back into the kitchen - and after bouncing around a few times, dived back under the dishwasher. The cats really enjoyed that one, and went to sleep.
For the rest of the evening every time we went out in the kitchen, a tail whisked back hastily out of sight.
We went to bed early, so that they could all fight it out over night.

The next morning, my husband came down early, fed the cats, and while he was standing at the sink filling the kettle he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. The mouse was on the move again. He picked up our ginger wally- boy, and showed him the mouse, which promptly shot under the TV stand. A few minutes later - to everyone's surprise - he'd got him!

My husband opened the kitchen window, grabbed the cat, plus mouse, and tossed them all out into the garden. He went to pick up the kettle again - and the cat shot back in through the cat flap, still plus mouse (well, it was raining out). My husband yelled, the cat dropped the mouse. The mouse, no doubt thoroughly rattled by now, ran up the hairs on husband's leg (remember?) to his knee. He jumped three feet in the air, the mouse bailed out - and ran under the dish-washer. Cats and humans nil, mouse several.

Unfortunately, this story does not have a happy ending mousewise. The next morning the same turn of events took place, but minus the leg -climbing and hysteria, because this time when my husband threw them out of the window - he barricaded the cat flap with the washing basket. At the weekend I found Marty's little body in the garden. He was a brave little chap, but he did let himself get caught in the first place, and nature is red in tooth and claw, even if it sometimes does need a bit of help.

Thelma Mitchell '95

[Previously published in 'Cat World']

(c) Thelma Mitchell 1995, 2001