Memoirs of a Rescue Cat

My name is Pie. I'm a rescue cat. When I was a kitten, my owner went to live in another country, so he gave me to someone else. The new owner was good to me for a while. I was very sick and he took me to the vet, bandaged my paws, gave me my medicine and made sure I got better. But then things went wrong. I'm an energetic guy; I love to climb and to play. I love to chew things, to rip up paper and most of all I like cuddles. My owner didn't like that stuff. He wanted me to be calm and quiet and not bother him. Whenever I did something he didn't like, he'd put cold water in the bath and throw me in there to teach me to behave.

Then one day, two people came to our home. One I recognized as my owner's ex-girlfriend. I liked her - she always played with me and let me sit on her lap. She had another man with her who was her friend and he took me away because my owner didn't like me any more. He put me in a carrier and carried me to his car. We waited there for a while until the woman came to join us and the man talked to me and stroked me all the time, even though I climbed all over everything. He didn't mind. This was my third owner.

He took me to his apartment and let me out of the carrier. While I sniffed around and explored, he just sat and drank a cup of hot, brown stuff. He watched me and talked to me and smiled a lot. It was very strange. He didn't even get angry when I climbed on the sofa or the shelves or the table. He just made that funny human laugh noise and petted me whenever I went near him.

My owner would go out most days. I think he did that work thing that a lot of humans do. He always came back about the same time and the first thing he did whenever he came into the apartment was to talk to me and pet me. I liked that a lot.

I tried to be good, but one day I was bored. My owner had left a big roll of white paper on the table, so I played with it. I wanted to see if I could tear it into lots of small pieces and cover the whole room with it. I was quite successful! Then I heard my owner at the door. He opened it and came in and I realised that he would be very angry. I didn't know where to hide, so I just sat very still. His eyes were very big as he looked around the room... and then he did the laugh noise. He did it for a long time! He came towards me and I was afraid he would put me in his bath, but when he saw that I was scared, he stopped. He crouched down and talked softly, then slowly came to me and picked me up. He didn't take me to the bath, though: he just cuddled me and talked and made reassuring sounds. We played with the paper together.

I loved my third owner very much. Every day he would do the work thing, but sometimes he would do it at home. On those days, he would leave the door open and I could go out for a walk whenever I wanted to and meet with the other cats in the building. Sometimes he would not wake up when he should, so I would lick his chin. He didn't mind that, either: he would even make grateful noises because otherwise he would have been late. On days when he didn't go away to work, he would lie in bed and cuddle me until I was hungry and wanted breakfast.

Every seven days, he stayed at home all day. We would spend a lot of time together on those days. He did funny movements to music to try to keep fit and I would join in by trying to catch his feet. That made him do the laugh noise a lot. Then he would wash himself and switch on the glowing box and watch it for a while. Whenever I heard a particular tune come out of the box, I would run and jump onto his lap because that tune meant he would sit and watch the box, and he would cuddle me the whole time and I would purr very loudly.

We lived together for a long time, then my third owner took me on a journey. I had to sit next to another cat that I don't like. She belonged to my owner's girlfriend. We traveled for ages. Then my owner cuddled me a lot and went away, but he left me with an older woman who I think was related to him. She is my fourth owner and I think she will be the last one. She loves me very, very much. She's kind and gentle and lets me go out whenever I want. She lets me sleep on her bed and I have tasty food and everything I need. I have a huge garden and I go outside where the air is fresh and clean and I watch the birds and do whatever I want and, when I come home, I shout at the door and she lets me in and cuddles me. I have my own cushion, too, which is by a big window so I can watch the birds without getting cold or wet.

My name is Pie and I'm very happy. I'm a rescue cat.