A set of ginger-and-white paws hit the floor in front of her, followed by an auburn-ringed bristly tail swishing slowly and contemplatively as, she assumed, the cat observed its new surroundings. As the footsteps of the two humans faded, Minnie did her best to tidy her fur and straighten her collar out in the limited space she had under the sofa before, with some difficulty due to her less-then-slender physique, squeezing out of her hiding place to confront this 'George'.
"Excuse me-" she began haughtily, but quickly trailed off. The cat standing in front of her couldn't have been more then a few months old. At the sound of her voice it turned its outsized head and blinked hazily at her with innocent azure eyes. Minnie suddenly felt very foolish. A bit baffled, she began again in what she hoped was a motherly sort of voice,
"Err…George, is it?"
The kitten didn't reply, but tilted its head to one side, still keeping its unnervingly cute gaze on Minnie in a most uncomfortable fashion. Minnie shook herself slightly and leapt lightly onto the faux-leather sofa to regain her bearings before going to voice her complaints about the kitten to Miss Grosing; eyes narrowed contemptuously at the kitten as it explored the room. What on earth had she done to deserve such a day? It wasn't even half past morning and, and this...
She had just made up her mind to go root out Miss Grosing when a deafening crash sent her scrambling back under the sofa - that wretched kitten had jumped up on the coffee table, knocking over one of Miss Grosing's favorite ugly ceramic vases in the process! Seconds later another tinkling crash of breaking chinaware sounded as Miss Grosing dropped her teacup and ran into the room,
"What the devil happened? My vase!" she cried, staring at the remains of the ugly green urn in despair,
"What's the matter?" said the man, entering the room. Miss Grosing motioned to the broken vase.
"It was an heirloom," she sniffed. The man cut in rather too quickly to be altogether believable,
"Don't worry, I'll clean this up and see what I can do to fix it. George did it after all," he said kindly,
"Oh, I couldn't let you – you are my guest," said Miss Grosing sweetly,
"I'll get it," insisted the man, but Minnie caught a hint of coldness behind his kind voice. Miss Grosing succumbed after that and returned to the breakfast nook – Minnie was sure that she had no real intentions of cleaning up the mess if she could help it.
The man, however, did not clean up the broken vase at first; instead he began to open and sift through the drawers of Miss Grosing's antique dresser. Minnie gave a loud, insulted meow to the man – what did he think he was doing? The man held in a yelp and slammed the drawer shut, cursing under his breath,
"What was that noise?" shouted Miss Grosing's voice. The man said nothing, cursing again, and began to hastily sweep the broken pitcher into a dustpan before returning, defeated, to Miss Grosing.
Minnie stared at the kitten, which now had a rather smug look on his face,
"You did that on purpose," she accused in an affronted voice. The kitten said nothing.
