The Cat Club

Friday evening, when the Daddy and the Mommy went out for a while was the time that the Cat Club met. This Friday all five members were on hand for the meeting in the front yard. LT opened the meeting. “It’s been a bit of a rough week for us here, especially the Peep”, he said, eyeing Fuzzy sternly. “The Mommy has been gone for a long time, and we’ve been a bit worried, because the Daddy’s been sad and little Peep has been very worried, and gotten herself into a dogpoundful of trouble.”

Peep wore a bashful expression, although her coat shone brilliant in the moonlight as a result of her unplanned bath the day before. “I just want the Mommy to be proud of me when she gets home”, Peep protested. “And it wasn’t my fault that Fuzzy attacked me!”

That remark made Fuzzy give a growl low in his throat. LT broke in before the two could begin fighting again. “Fuzzy, Peep, all of you! Remember that the Cat Club is a claw-free zone. No matter what our differences, we all pledged to be ally cats for the duration of these meetings! Now – roll call.”

“Oh, LT, we know we’re all here”, Miss Rudy argued.

“Roll call”, insisted LT. “Peep.”

“Here.”

“Miss Rudy”, LT said with a disapproving look at her.

“Here.”

“Fuzzy”

“Here”, Fuzzy mumbled, still smarting from LT’s earlier remark.

“Ginger”, LT directed at the marmalade tiger, who was rarely seen by the people.

“Here”, Ginger said in her soft southern drawl.

“Okay, now that everyone is present and accounted for is there any old business?” Without waiting for anyone to answer, he rushed to say “New business – are we sure that the Mommy is going to come back? She’s never left without the Daddy before and I, frankly, am worried.”

Miss Rudy raised a paw. “I know I heard her tell the Daddy that she’d miss him but that she’d call him and she’d be back before he knew she was even gone.”

“Hmmm”, mused LT. “That’s good, but still, humans are fickle. They go promising things all the time, and then, bang you’re in Tibet with a needle in your nether quarters.”

Fuzzy had been crouching lower and lower as the other cats talked and now broke out in piteous wails. “Meoowww! I just know it was because of me. I wouldn’t let her catch me in that wire house to take me to Tibet so that they could put me to sleep forever. I didn’t want to sleep for the rest of my life, and now she’s left because she couldn’t send me away. Meoowww!”

The other members of the cat club gathered around Fuzzy and Ginger started to groom his ears. Peep snuggled up next to him on one side and Miss Rudy took the other. LT settled down a few inches from Fuzzy’s nose, which was as close as he could get with all those other cats there.

“Fuzzy, the Mommy was mad at you for hurting me and Miss Rudy, but not mad enough to leave us. She wants us to be safe, not to abandon us. She kept talking about how she wanted to kidnap little Peep and take her with her, but was afraid that the Daddy would miss his little Peep so much.” LT reasoned with Fuzzy, but he seemed too miserable to listen.

LT pushed Peep towards Fuzzy’s hindquarters and lay down next to Fuzzy and started to groom his neck. All four cats purred at full force until Fuzzy started to calm down. “Do you really think that it wasn’t because of me?” Fuzzy asked.

“The Mommy wanted to go to Virginia to be a space cadet. You heard her say that, and you heard the Daddy laugh at her and say that if she was a space cadet that she was the smartest one ever.” Peep relayed this bit of conversation to Fuzzy and then said wisely to him, “You know, it’s not all about you. The Mommy went because she wanted to go, and she told us she’d be back. We need to trust the Mommy. She loves us and would never desert us. We just have to trust the Higher Cat that she’ll be back real soon.

Fuzzy looked at Peep with respect. “Peep, you’re deep. You do the silliest things sometimes and then you say something like that – you impress me. Not enough that I’m going to leave you alone if you come out into my yard, but you still impress me.”

LT looked sternly at Fuzzy. “No claws, no territory. This is the Cat Club. Well, I think that we’ve put that new order of business to rest. I agree with Peep. We need to trust in the Higher Cat that she’ll come home because she loves us so much. If there is no other new business, I declare this meeting of the Cat Club adjourned.”

With that, Peep streaked into the house, determined not to give Fuzzy any opportunity to make good his threats. She settled down on the fuzzy thing on the trunk to wait for the Daddy to come home. She had so much to tell him.