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Authors: Doreen Tovey
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to the bars, sworn horrible oaths and threatened to eat him, and Sass, unable to escape, had had diarrhoea on his blanket.
  It was that, I felt sure, which had given him his thing about wool. It was obvious from the first that he was a cat who thought and you could practically see what he was thinking. In this new house you used wool as a lavatory â wasn't that what had been there when he'd had the accident in his basket? Furthermore he'd better continue to use it if he wanted to propitiate the cat-gods. Wasn't that the obvious reason why he'd survived such a ferocious attack by the Enemy?
  Obviously fearing further attack, Sass wetted everything woollen he could find in the days that followed. The fresh blanket I gave him that night. The nest of sweaters I put for him on our bed. He'd have wetted a sweater with Charles inside it one night â Charles happened to be quietly snoozing â if I hadn't spotted the look on his face and whipped him away before he could do it.
  Long after Shebalu had accepted him and he slept in her arms at night as if he were her own, his phobia about wool remained. Give them a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel and they lay against it like Botticelli angels. Put it in a woollen cover or wrap it in a sweater and Sass worked like a beaver all night. Next morning, inevitably wetted, that being part of the ritual, sweater and bottle would lie discarded on the floor and Sass would be regarding us with the air of Sir Galahad after a vigil. He'd kept off the bogeyman but Only Just said his earnest, round-eyed expression. Shebalu, having had to sleep bottleless all night, would be watching us direly from another chair. It was all her fault, we told her. Scaring him the way she had. We'd never had this trouble with any other kitten.
  Eventually, by keeping wool away from him, we cured him of his fetish about wetting. When there wasn't anything woollen around he used his box with an untroubled mind. There was just one rug in the sitting-room which apparently was some sort of touchstone and which we had to cover with a rubber sheet â weighing it down with two earthboxes and an array of ornaments otherwise Sass would lift it up and perform religiously underneath.
  Other than that we'd got him out of it. We even got him round to sleeping on a blanket â with a hot water bottle under it moreover, which with Sass was really something. And then I made my unfortunate mistake. Shut him in our bedroom without an earthbox â with a nest of sweaters and a hot water bottle on the bed.
  It was the result of all the double-checking we'd got the habit of over the years. To lock wardrobes, for instance, to keep our blue-eyed demons out, and then go back and have another look to see we hadn't locked them inside instead. To turn off the electricity at the mains before we went out in the car (Solomon used to poke at wires and switches)... and then, halfway up the hill, reverse speedily back again, unable to remember whether we'd done it or not. In this case I'd gone up to check that the hot water bottle wasn't leaking. It had dripped a little when I screwed it up and if it did that on the sweaters, Sass might get ideas...
  That thought was actually in my mind , so how, having checked the bottle and patted their heads, I could have absentmindedly closed the bedroom door on them, leaving them with innocent expressions, cut off completely from their earthboxes...
  I knew there was something wrong when we came back two hours later and there were no faces at the hall window to greet us. Even more so when I opened the hall door and nobody came through it as if shot from a catapult. Kidnapped. Dead. The wardrobe had fallen on them. The usual Siamese owner's thoughts flashed through my mind. Then I looked up the stairs, saw the closed door at the top, heard the sound of rampaging elephants inside... My thoughts switched immediately to those
  It was that, I felt sure, which had given him his thing about wool. It was obvious from the first that he was a cat who thought and you could practically see what he was thinking. In this new house you used wool as a lavatory â wasn't that what had been there when he'd had the accident in his basket? Furthermore he'd better continue to use it if he wanted to propitiate the cat-gods. Wasn't that the obvious reason why he'd survived such a ferocious attack by the Enemy?
  Obviously fearing further attack, Sass wetted everything woollen he could find in the days that followed. The fresh blanket I gave him that night. The nest of sweaters I put for him on our bed. He'd have wetted a sweater with Charles inside it one night â Charles happened to be quietly snoozing â if I hadn't spotted the look on his face and whipped him away before he could do it.
  Long after Shebalu had accepted him and he slept in her arms at night as if he were her own, his phobia about wool remained. Give them a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel and they lay against it like Botticelli angels. Put it in a woollen cover or wrap it in a sweater and Sass worked like a beaver all night. Next morning, inevitably wetted, that being part of the ritual, sweater and bottle would lie discarded on the floor and Sass would be regarding us with the air of Sir Galahad after a vigil. He'd kept off the bogeyman but Only Just said his earnest, round-eyed expression. Shebalu, having had to sleep bottleless all night, would be watching us direly from another chair. It was all her fault, we told her. Scaring him the way she had. We'd never had this trouble with any other kitten.
  Eventually, by keeping wool away from him, we cured him of his fetish about wetting. When there wasn't anything woollen around he used his box with an untroubled mind. There was just one rug in the sitting-room which apparently was some sort of touchstone and which we had to cover with a rubber sheet â weighing it down with two earthboxes and an array of ornaments otherwise Sass would lift it up and perform religiously underneath.
  Other than that we'd got him out of it. We even got him round to sleeping on a blanket â with a hot water bottle under it moreover, which with Sass was really something. And then I made my unfortunate mistake. Shut him in our bedroom without an earthbox â with a nest of sweaters and a hot water bottle on the bed.
  It was the result of all the double-checking we'd got the habit of over the years. To lock wardrobes, for instance, to keep our blue-eyed demons out, and then go back and have another look to see we hadn't locked them inside instead. To turn off the electricity at the mains before we went out in the car (Solomon used to poke at wires and switches)... and then, halfway up the hill, reverse speedily back again, unable to remember whether we'd done it or not. In this case I'd gone up to check that the hot water bottle wasn't leaking. It had dripped a little when I screwed it up and if it did that on the sweaters, Sass might get ideas...
  That thought was actually in my mind , so how, having checked the bottle and patted their heads, I could have absentmindedly closed the bedroom door on them, leaving them with innocent expressions, cut off completely from their earthboxes...
  I knew there was something wrong when we came back two hours later and there were no faces at the hall window to greet us. Even more so when I opened the hall door and nobody came through it as if shot from a catapult. Kidnapped. Dead. The wardrobe had fallen on them. The usual Siamese owner's thoughts flashed through my mind. Then I looked up the stairs, saw the closed door at the top, heard the sound of rampaging elephants inside... My thoughts switched immediately to those
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