Chapter 5; Supper

When Humbert finally felt able to move again, the sudden relief of stress leaving him as limp as an overcooked noodle, he looked up to see the brown kitten sitting at his feet and staring up at him.

The white on the nose had been flour, and had come off even faster than the pickle relish. Truly, the kitten was completely brown, and brown like chocolate. There were no markings, no pattern, even the eyes, which are usually blue until the kitten reaches a certain age, were brown, though they at least had a touch of yellow in them.

"Well, you're a strange little thing," he said, staring at it. "Still, I expect that you're still hungry," he added, picking her up and heading for the kitchen.

"Chow on that while I get changed, alright?" he said, dropping the left over scones into a bowl, pouring the dregs of the tea into another, and putting them on the wooden floor before the kitten.

The kitten mewed and set to with a vengeance, biting, chewing, and swallowing like it all might be taken away at any second.

Humbert shook his head and headed up to his bedroom, removing his tie as he walked. The kitten had no way of knowing that all that food was for her, and no one would take it away, but the man still thought it amusing the way the small feline ate so desperately.

She probably had all sorts of diseases, slugs or worms or whatever they were called, from living in the streets, and for all that, he had never seen a kitten completely brown before, she was a pretty kitten. Perhaps he would keep her. The first thing to do, of course, was get some food into her, and take her to the vet in the morning – the clinic would be closed by the time he got there tonight, if it wasn't already.

Wearing a t-shirt that had a picture of Einstein sticking out his tongue on the front, and his pyjama pants, Humbert re-entered the kitchen. The kitten had finished the scones and was testing the tea. There was a dubious expression on her face, as though she wasn't sure whether she liked it or not. Humbert couldn't help but smile.

"I know, it needs milk," he said, pouring a little of the white stuff into the bowl with the tea.

The kitten tasted it again, licked her furred lips and appeared to smile before lowering her face to the liquid again and lapping it up. Humbert laughed, he couldn't help it: the kitten was just a few shades darker than the milky tea she was drinking with such apparent rapturous delight.

Humbert wiped a tear from his eye and made himself calm down. He had vegetables to chop, potatoes to put on the boil, and a lump of half-marinated beef to pot-roast. Oh, yes, he could have taken a container out of the freezer and just heated up some left overs of his own in the microwave, but he was starting to run out of left overs. A big pot-roast would give him a few more meal's worth.

The young man ran a large hand through his flaming orange hair – messing it up a little, but it looked more natural this way – and turned on the radio. He did the vegies while they played "That Don't Impress Me Much". He'd never completely understood the song, but then, he'd never listened very attentively.

Everything ready to go, Humbert set the timer and migrated to his living room, where he chose a book and waited to be interrupted by beeping.

What interrupted him first, though, was the brown kitten jumping onto the arm of his chair and crawling into his lap, where she started to purr.