I miss my tabby cat (1)

I miss my tabby cat (1)

Tabby cats are very smart and human-like animals. This question reminds me of the tabby cat that I grew up with when I was a child.

One year on my birthday, my father asked a colleague for a tabby cat as a surprise. The little guy was very scared at first and hid under the car that night. My father was afraid that it would starve, so he found a porcelain bowl and put some food in it. The next morning, the food was gone and the cat was still nowhere to be seen. After about three or four days, it finally showed up.

In the past, mice were very rampant in our house. Once, it caught a mouse and played with it as a toy. After the little tabby cat came, the mice in the house disappeared. After the neighbors heard about its “great achievements”, they “invited” it to their house to catch mice with a few sausages. At that time, I thought this guy was really heartless and was bribed by a few sausages! Unexpectedly, it came back home not long after, and when it found that everything was fine at home, it went to the neighbor’s house to “work on duty” again…

When it was about two or three years old, one day at noon, no matter how we called it, it didn’t respond. Before, it would respond with a meow when you called it, and then run to find you. We became more and more worried. Did it eat rat poison by mistake? Or was it caught by someone? We dared not think about what kind of accident had happened.

Every day when I opened the balcony door, the courtyard was all alone. There was no more kitten rubbing against my legs. I habitually called it, and only heard my own voice. Life lost a lot of color…

On New Year’s Eve and the first day of the new year, the sound of firecrackers was crackling. The whole family, except for the kitten, was welcoming the new year together. Suddenly, I heard the sound of “meow” from the firecrackers. It was like an electric shock. I stood up and almost yelled, “Cat! The cat is back!” My father also stood up and said, “How is it possible?” Then the whole family rushed out of the door and saw the cat standing on the wall of the yard tremblingly, with a circle of wire wrapped around its belly! We took it down, and my father took out pliers from the storage room and cut the wire. (I can’t remember how long the tabby cat disappeared. It was a long, long time, at least two or three months, from before my winter vacation to the New Year) After the reunion, the kitten was skinny, dirty, and his eyes were no longer as lively as before. He was in a trance. It broke my heart and I really wanted to cry, but I held back my tears. My father said: “Who is so heartless! So dark-hearted as to tie it up with wire!” It is hard to imagine what it went through during the time it was away from us…

Fortunately, it managed to break free from the shackles of the wire, and after such a long time, it came back by itself!

I remember that our family was very happy that year. It was the most unforgettable New Year in my life! On the first day of the year, my father made a plate of meat and dumplings for the kitten for the first time, saying that the kitten had finally come back and he wanted to nourish it.