Survival Instincts

Survival Instincts

Bella opened one eye, training it on the clicking high heels as they tapped across the parquet foyer.

“You girls be nice and no squabbling. I won’t be long.”

When the front door slammed, Bella rose and stretched like an arch-backed Halloween cat, shaking off her early morning nap. Up until two months ago, when her mistress brought home “the heathen”, Bella ruled the household. “The heathen” was a calico with big splotches of orange, black, and white. Her nose was half-pink and half-black, giving her the appearance of being cross-eyed. Her mistress called her Donna. To Bella, she was poison.

Bella had done her best to get Donna kicked out. Hoping to pin the dirty deeds on Donna, she pawed open closet doors, pulled books off shelves, clawed the furniture, chewed the strings on the window blinds, and even pottied beside Donna’s litter box, dropping a big stinky one right on the floor. Nothing had done the trick so far. Her mistress just picked up “the heathen”, told her “no, no, bad kitty” and cleaned up the mess.

Flabbergasted and frustrated at her owner's responses, Bella held fast and continued to plan how to oust Donna from the household. Her most recent attempts involved bullying and intimidation. She stalked Donna, cornered her in the bathroom, and loomed in the doorway, preventing her exit. She played with her favorite toys, and when Donna tried to horn in, she growled, snarled, and hissed, chasing her away. That resulted in her mistress calling her the “B” word and shaking a pointed finger at her.

Realizing what was going on, her human resorted to reasoning and pleading. “Bella, you may as well get used to Donna because she is staying. There’s no way I’m taking her to that awful pound." Looking down at Bella with moist eyes, her mistress tried to appeal to her better nature. "Donna found her way to us, and we are giving her a home. Have you forgotten how I took you in when your owners dropped you?”

After being discarded as a tiny kitten, Bella had crawled up the long sidewalk, attracted by a shadowy figure near the front porch. Barely able to see out of her blue eyes, she surprised her current mistress, who was busily planting petunias. She nosed beneath the petals and into her line of vision. The human was astonished by the kitten's size and strength and bewildered to know where she had come from. She had picked her up, cuddled her, carried her inside, warmed milk and fed her through an ear syringe, and Bella adopted the human as her mother. Her memories of litter mates and her real mother faded until they ceased to exist in Bella's mind.

For years it was just Bella and her human until, without warning, her mistress showed up one evening with Donna. Bella's survival instincts told her Donna was the enemy. Deep down inside she knew Donna wanted to take her place, but whatever Bella did, Donna never retaliated.

Bella padded out of the foyer sniffing the lingering scent of her owner. Donna was asleep on the dining room table, curled into a defensive ball next to the sugar bowl. Bella suspected she was deep into a dream because the white tip of her orange and black tail kept twitching.

Bella sauntered into the kitchen. Sniffing at her food, she winced and turned to inspect Donna’s morning cuisine. Although not any different, it tasted better because it was in Donna’s new stainless steel bowl. Bella crunched down most of it and sat back on her haunches to wash up. She licked her pure white fur until it glistened. Needing a drink, Bella slurped some of Donna’s water. She put one paw on the edge of Donna’s water bowl and pushed down, tipping the liquid into Donna’s remaining food and on the surrounding floor. Fishy shapes floated out into the valleys between the green ceramic tiles.

“That’s a start.” Bella sat back, licked her paws and finished washing her face. Fully awake now, Bella looked around the shiny clean kitchen. She heard the whoosh whoosh coming from a metal door her mistress called the dishwasher. It emitted a scent Bella's brain confused with that of her mistress. Sometimes Bella would lie close to it and get warm if it was making the noise.

Already warm now, she ignored it. She loped onto the counter and put her paw under the corner of a cabinet door, pulling it open a crack then releasing it. Thump. Bella loved making that noise, especially in the middle of the night. It made her mistress act crazy, but since her mistress was gone, she moved on.

“What’s this?” In a square basket on top of the microwave, Bella saw a plastic bag that had not been there yesterday. It was full of something. Plastic bags were her favorite. She chewed on them until they were sopping strings of mush. She hooked this one with her claw and pulled it down onto the counter. Sniffing, Bella thought it smelled familiar. Grabbing a corner in her teeth, she chewed through the plastic. Ripping a bigger opening, Bella shook the bag from side to side until the contents spewed out and floated over the counter and down onto the kitchen floor. Bella recognized the pungent aroma. It was stuff her mistress put inside her rolling ball while saying, “Here Bella, want some weed?” It fell out the little holes and drove Bella berserk when she batted it around. This must be the mother lode. Bella pounced at the flakes and rolled across the counter in it, stretching, then curling up, drooling a little, rubbing at her cheeks with her paws, swishing around in it, scratching at it, and even eating some until she was as dizzy as Clem Kadiddlehopper on ice skates.

Getting too close to the edge in her frenzy, she slipped to the floor and righted herself just in time. Bella shook herself off and licked at the tiny pieces sticking to her fur. Losing interest, she flopped down to rest a minute, rolling on her back on the cool floor.

She glanced toward the dining room at the sleeping Donna, now stretched out on her side on the big table making little snoring noises. Bella proceeded into the room. She twitched her tail and kicked out with her hind legs, hurling herself over Donna and knocking over the sugar bowl. The lid spiraled through the air, bounced on the floor, and broke in three pieces as white stuff sailed out of the bowl and sprinkled the dark wood like a Jackson Pollock painting. The empty bowl rolled under one of the chairs, settling on its side with less than a spoonful of its contents.

Donna jumped up on all fours, hissing with flattened ears. “What the h…?”

Bella squatted on the edge of the table and stared. Bella’s eyes squinted to tiny slits until Donna’s tail twitched, and the face off ended. She looked away from Bella and settled into a crouch, tucking her orangey white paws underneath her.

Bella mocked Donna, hoping to provoke her anger. “Look what you did, you clumsy oaf.”

“You know I didn’t do that. Why are you so mean to me? I just want a home like you.” Donna's ears pricked forward as she lay her head on her paws and looked up at Bella.

“Yeah, you want my home.” Bella drew back and began twitching her white tail.

“I want to share it with you. Our mistress loves us both. Can’t we be friends? I have no where else to go.” Donna sat up and wrapped her tail around her hind legs.

“I never had to share before, and I don’t intend to share now.” Bella stood up, tensed and ready to defend herself.

Donna jumped down and raced to her litter box to scratch in the sand. Completing her business, she shook herself off and made a wide path around Bella down the hallway and into the mistress’ bedroom. Bella lurked at a safe distance, poking her head around the doorframe as Donna jumped on the bed. Donna crouched near the comforter’s edge and kept her eyes peeled on Bella.

Bella spied her human’s jewelry box on the vanity. Nosing open the lid, the box tipped on its side and slid off the edge to the floor. The box and its spilled contents lay hidden behind the swivel chair. Hatching a new idea, Bella sank her teeth around a long opalescent strand of pearls. With a piece of the prey clenched between her teeth, she held it high in the air and dragged it all the way to the front door, improvising her plan along the way. Once on the parquet entry, she commenced chewing the silk thread, shaking her head back and forth, scattering pearls until the numbers of them were uncountable. They rolled like miniature white bowling balls.

Donna sneaked around the corner leading to the entryway and looked over the scene. Both cats’ ears pricked up upon hearing the slam of a car door, and Donna bounded off to her favorite napping spot in the bedroom closet. Bella jumped up on the bookcase in the foyer to watch the action and enjoyed a quick cat dream of Donna’s removal from the premises for causing the mess.

Bella heard the key turn in the lock and the door swung open. The mistress’ forward motion screeched to a halt as her high heels crunched on the tiny white orbs. She surveyed her loosed pearls peppering the parquet. “What in the world? How did my pearls get here?”

Instead of screaming out Donna’s name as Bella expected, their mistress removed her shoes and tiptoed through the minefield to her bedroom. “My god, my jewelry’s been stolen. Donna, Bella? Where are my little sweeties? Are you okay?"

By the time Bella jumped down and got to the bedroom, Donna was already rubbing up against her human’s legs. When Bella got to her, her mistress had Donna in her arms, petting and cooing over her.

“Oh, my poor babies. I’ll bet you were so scared.” She put Donna down and picked up Bella for her share of love. After all the necessary purring and rubbing, the two cats lay down on the carpet, and the mistress pulled her cell phone from her bag.

“I’d like to report a robbery.”

Donna looked over at Bella and rolled onto her side. She stretched out all four paws, shook a little, curled up into a ball, and resumed her nap. Bewildered by her human, Bella got busy thinking up yet another plan.