Written for the Stargate Kiddrabble List challenge – Pets!
Danny calls her Isis, I call her Mikta, and the grey bundle of fur currently perched atop my lounge room drapes calls herself queen of the felines.
Isis is a reluctant house guess. "She's a Ragdoll," Carter insisted when she opened the cat box and said kitten exploded out at sub-light speed, making a dash for the nearest hiding space. "Quiet, subdued, loves affection, great with kids, makes the perfect-,"
MEOW!!!!
"… house cat," Carter squeaks, sucking in her bottom lip, eyes wide as Isis manages to get every shred of fur on her tiny body to stick up like a British punk rocker.
"You were saying, Major?"
Carter is remarkably quiet - I think she's going into shock - as she watches the queen sharpen her claws on my new and expensive heavy drapes, gaze darting around the room like she's seeking out her next victim. In all fairness the look on Carter's face borders on disappointment, no doubt she spent hours online browsing through the latest Kitten catalogue – yes, lots of pun intended there – searching for just the right playmate for Daniel.
Target acquired, Isis shoves her butt in the air, muscles straining, with her tail taking on raccoon proportions… and she's off! Like a missile hot out of the tube she launches off the drapes, kissing the top of my equally new and expensive leather lounge, her little claws injecting themselves into the upholstery as she lands on the coffee table.
Ha! Go me! I just polished it!
Arms and legs. Well, okay, front and back paws unable to get purchase she ends up splayed across the slippery surface doing a full three sixty pirouette before sliding off the end.
Expecting her to head for the exit, I'm quietly amused as our psycho kitten erupts in a ball of fur and spit, hissing at the offending coffee table and arching her little back in a display of general dissatisfaction.
"I don't think she's happy, sir."
I'm so demoting Carter back to Captain Obvious. "Ya think!"
My attention has been so focused on the kitty version of Circ de Soleil that I forgot all about Danny, the new owner of the little grey maniac.
"Puuddyy," he says pulling away from my leg and toddling at full speed to the coffee table. As far as tactical advances go, this was not one of his better plans.
My cry of "No Daniel" is right up there with Carters "Stop him, sir" but the kid is just too darn fast. What I thought would turn into tears with me having to bathe Danny's impeding kitty scratched arms in some hideous smelling disinfectant, took on a new twist. In one swift move my kids got his latest acquisition gripped by the scruff of her neck, and sitting down on his diaper clad butt, he draws Mikta on his lap.
"Good puddy," he crows stroking her fur so roughly I swear the poor things gone all bug-eyed. What I don't get though is the kitten. She's just sitting there taking it all in. No claws at the ready, no tail keeping time with the drums of war, and no frothing at the mouth like the homicidal maniac I was so sure she was.
"Carter?"
"Beats me, sir."
So this is the way it's going to be, huh? Isis and her new pet, Danny – One. Me and every other adult – Nil.
I guess I'll have to live with that.
End