Cat Life

 

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            Diana flicked her tail in annoyance as Norbert nudged her with a small “Meow.”

            Opening her eyes to give him a murderous look, she arched her back and stretched her long body. “This better be important, Norbert.” She eyed the black kitten with distaste and started cleaning the fur on her neck.

            Norbert showed no sign of remorse as he got right up in her personal space. His eyes were bright with excitement. “The humans have left. Can you show me now?”

            “Show you what?” She paused her cleaning and looked at him haughtily.

            Norbert rolled his eyes in exasperation. “You were going to show me how you get up to the top of the bookshelf.”

            Of course, Diana should have realized he wouldn’t forget. The young kitten had been trying unsuccessfully to climb the tall bookshelf but failing miserably. Worried that he might injure himself, she told him she would show him how to do it later. The only problem was that she had never made it up there herself. She kept hoping he would just forget about it, but it hadn’t turned out that way.

            She turned her back on him and walked away to put off her promise of showing him how to do the impossible.

            Norbert wasn’t deterred and padded after her as she wandered into the kitchen and glanced at the contents of her food dish. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose in disgust. Why do the humans insist on putting out her food when she isn’t hungry? The moisture gets sucked away during the day, and by the time she’s ready to eat, it’s a dry, tasteless mess. She spun around with a flick of her tail and found Norbert, waiting for her.

            “Please, please, please, can you show me how to get on top of the bookshelf?”

            The hope in his eyes was so obvious, she finally murmured, “All right, let’s go.” It really shouldn’t be that hard, right?

            With her tail held high, she led the way to the bookshelf and sat on the carpet in front of it, studying how she would make her attempt. A good leap would get her up to one of the upper shelves, but how was she going to get to the very top? A shorter bookshelf stood next to the taller one. She could get on top of that easily enough. The trick would be leaping from there to reach her goal, but it was a little far. Could she make that big of a jump?

            Pushing her doubts aside, she put on what she hoped was an air of confidence. “All right, Norbert. Pay attention, because I’m only going to do this once.” She leapt lightly onto the lower bookshelf and faced the taller one. She gathered herself up, preparing for an epic jump.

            With a tremendous leap, she sprang high into the air and just barely made it to the top of the other bookshelf. Relief turned to fear, however, as she realized there were a few loose sheets of paper up there. When she landed on top of them, she caused the papers to slide as she desperately tried to anchor herself in place with her claws. Unfortunately, there was nothing for her claws to grip, so she skittered around, her tail flailing wildly, before reaching the edge of the bookshelf and dropping to the ground again.

            Before she knew what had happened, she was back on the ground, right where she’d started. When she saw Norbert’s wide-eyed face staring at her, she hurriedly licked her paws and nonchalantly walked off. “That’s how it’s done.” She left him with his surprise as she calmed her own racing heart. She wouldn’t be trying that again anytime soon. At least she had demonstrated her superiority to the small kitten. She never made mistakes, and this wasn’t going to be one of them.