Introducing Tikus the Cat

Yes, there is a cat. I have been reluctant to introduce her, as the internet is overrun with cute cats. But then, she is not cute. Tikus the cat is a vicious animal, treacherous and willful and all who come near her may pay the price. I’m not sure what makes her so disagreeable. Maybe it is the fact that we called her mouse (or rat), though that was simply because she looked like one when I picked her, wet and screaming, out of a drain some twelve years ago. You’d think she’d be grateful, but that’s not in the nature of cats.

It was a stormy night, outside the old Frangipani, the wind was howling, sheets of rain passing like the scratches on an old black and white movie, the colour had drained out of the cityscape and out of the cat, though that might just be because she’s white. On my way home, I heard a loud, insistent mewling, followed it and there was the thing. Hardly bigger than the palm of my hand, wet and determined. I picked the rather filthy animal up and carried it home. Dried, fed and warmly wrap she found a home for the night in a shoebox. She never left and neither did her abhorrence of getting wet. Bathing her apart from that first, stunned time has been an impossibility. Fortunately she’s a very fastidious cat and therefore clean and excellently groomed.

She looks harmless and to Eddie and me, she is, but all guests must be warned that she has an uncontrollable urge to scratch or even bite people. Even if she looks like she really likes you and you think you’re the one person who can safely pet her, believe me, you are not. We keep multiple tubes of Dettol cream on hand to minister to the poor souls who hear but do not listen. She gets a whack and a good scolding and looks suitably crestfallen for the rest of the day, but come another opportunity to show off those razor sharp claws and she simply cannot resist.

So if you come to visit, stay away from the cat, no matter how cuddly she behaves.