Patches

After Pip Squeak died, Mom was done with inside cats. But we lived on a farm and still had mice, so we still had outside cats. Damian and I were the only ones still home and we missed having an inside cat. So whenever Mom and Dad were gone, we'd let Patches inside. (Shhh. Don't tell Mom.) She liked being inside, so even when Mom was home, she started figuring out how to sneak in.

Soon, Patches was a known as a phantom cat. You could put her outside, shut the door, look out the window and see her outside, then turn around and within seconds she would be at your feet. We still don't know how she got inside half the time.

One time I was at Stacie's house for her birthday. Damian called me.

"Tianna. You have to come home."
"Why?"
"Patches is inside."
"So?"
"You just have to come home."
"Can't you put her outside?"
"No. You have to come home."
"Is Mom there?" (At this point I was really confused. Why was it so urgent I come home?)
"No."
"Dad?"
"No."
"Then why do I have to come home?"
"You just do. It's urgent."

So I finally gave up trying to get information out of Damian, apologized to Stacie, and went home. (I'm not sure how I got there. I was only about 12 or 13, so I couldn't drive. Maybe Damian came and got me?) I walked inside.

"So, where is Patches?"
"Up in your room."

So I went up into my room. And didn't see Patches.

"Where?"
"Under your bed.

Maybe this is why he needed my help getting her outside? He couldn't get her out from under my bed by himself? So I looked under my bed. Which, admittedly, was a mess. Perhaps Mom told me I had to clean my room before I went to Stacie's house? I don't know. But like a typical tween, I had a messy under-the-bed. Despite the mess, I quickly found Patches. And her brand new kittens.

We moved my bed so there was a rectangle of mess with a circle of kittens in the middle of my room. We stayed on my bed and oohed and ahhhed over the cute little kittens. Mom came home and declared that they couldn't stay there.

"We're not having inside cats."
"But Moooo-ooom! They're one day old! We can't put them outside!"
"That's where they would have been born if she had stayed outside like she should have."
"But they'll be cold!"
"So make them a box so they'll be warm."

So Damian and I made a box with blankets and put it in one of our sheds and moved the kittens out there. And that's where the kittens grew up.

Patches lived a long life and had a few litters of kittens. But she was also a farm cat, and with that comes a high mortality rate. Poor Patches was kicked in the head by a cow. I missed her. But her posterity live on. Even now, the majority of the cats on our farm are directly descended from her.