Memoirs of a Feral Cat

5 Dangerous eyes would spot my kittens with no problem in this area, and the cold night wind would blow their scent far and wide. I needed to plod on until a tall fence blocked my path. I scurried to the top and halted, facing the roof of a little house. A yard full of dead grass and scraggly bushes stretched out on the other side, and beyond that loomed a bigger house. Its windows had spider-web cracks running through them, and the walls looked as if some creature had taken bites out of them. The little house was a paw step away from the fence. I padded onto its roof and froze, testing the air. Nothing twitched my whiskers or flared my nostrils. No two-legger, no four-legger, no problem. The roof had a few small holes, big enough to slide an arm through. I treaded around them and slipped to the ground. The side wall was full of scratches with a large hole right under the hanging part of the roof. Easy to jump to and easy to squeeze through as I landed inside onto soft, dry ground. An inspection of all four corners confirmed my earlier hunch: it was dark, musty and empty, a perfect place for newborns. It wasn’t long before I grunted out four beautiful, mewling balls of fluff, so tiny, so helpless and so hungry. Three little mollies had black coats with gold and white streaks blending in just like their mother. The fourth, a tom, was black and gray with tufts of hair circling his head and a white streak running down his neck. Not hard to guess who he looked like. Happiness came first. The joy I felt when I first set eyes on them surged out of me and wrapped me up like the warmth from the sun. We would snuggle while they fed off me. I licked the tops of their heads and backs so much they almost shined. After came the worry. I had to leave them to find food. Predators existed out there who wouldn’t think twice about grabbing my poor kittens for their next meal. Whenever I returned home from a hunt to find them safe, relief washed away the worry. I fed, cleaned and stayed with them for as long as I could before hunger forced me to leave them again. I gave them everything I had: food, shelter, love, hope. It wasn’t