I really don’t know what came over me. One minute I was lying under the kitchen table, as I often do to keep an eye on my food dish, and the next I bolted for the door as it was closing. I just barely made it through. The door shut behind me with a thunk, and there I was—outside!
I hovered on the steps, unsure of what to do next. A sudden noise made me crouch low to the ground. I scuttled down the steps in a panic, overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar sounds and smells assaulting my senses.
I didn’t know where to go, so I ran under the car in the driveway. The engine emitted a faint warmth and ticked quietly as it cooled. The pungent smell of gasoline and oil helped block out all the unfamiliar odors of the night.
I stayed under the car until my racing heart calmed, then I crept out carefully and looked around.
The trees I saw everyday from the window looked different from out here. They were tall, shadowy and dark. Their branches moved with the breeze, creaking softly. The lawn was silvery in the moonlight, the grass peppered with clover and bustling with the activity of tiny insects that flashed with light as they floated upwards towards the treetops.
A small creature skittering through the grass caught my attention. I crouched, tail lashing, and watched intently as it moved closer. I flexed my hind feet, ready to pounce, but a growl of excitement escaped my lips. Before I could leap the mouse was gone, streaking across the lawn where it disappeared beneath the rhododendrons.
Miffed, I stalked along the foundation of the house. Above my head light spilled out onto the lawn and I realized I was under a window. I zigged and zagged, looking for something to climb up on to see inside, but there was nothing other than a few low shrubs.
I ran through the grass, dew cold on my paws, and scaled the trunk of a small tree. From its lower branches I could see the warm yellow rectangle that was the window, and my empty cat tree next to it. A meow of distress arose in my throat.
The flap of feathery wings disturbed the foliage above me: an owl had flown down to roost in the branches. It cooed its deep throated call, and turned a round yellow eye in my direction. I hissed loudly to let it know to stay back before leaping down from the tree.
The heavy night sky loomed over me as I raced back towards the house and the door I had come out of. I crouched in the doorway, shivering, my tail wrapped around myself. I meowed, then again, more loudly, but the door did not open.
I sat up and sniffed the air. The sharp scent of vegetation was overlayed with a gamey odor. I arched my back and puffed my tail out to its full volume as two rotund shapes trundled out of the darkness.
They stopped short at the sight of me, their small eyes startled behind their black masks. I advanced a step towards them, a growl low in my throat; I didn’t want them near my home.
One of them stood up on its hind legs and chittered at me, but the other turned and ran back the way it had come, its striped tail as full and bushy as my own. I took a step closer, and the other one dropped to all fours and scurried after its companion.
My stomach grumbled and I thought of my food dish and my nightly squirt of whipped cream that was probably waiting in it. Unbidden, a howl rose from deep in my soul, a bloodcurdling noise even I didn't know I could make, immediately followed by another, and yet another.
The door opened, spilling yellow light across the steps. “Toast? What the—how did you even get out here?" she said as she scooped me up and carried me into the warm kitchen.
As I’d suspected, my nightly whipped cream was waiting in my dish, but I wasn’t ready to be put down just yet. I snuggled deeper into the arms that held me, brimming with contended purrs. After my big ordeal I would definitely need a second serving of whipped cream.
