Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Houdini Cat


Last night I left Rufus safely asleep on his cat tree in the kitchen. The door to the conservatory was locked and the door to the rest of the house was closed. The only way out was through a cat flap into the locked garage, where the cat flap that leads to the outside world was firmly shut. There was no way out.

This morning, when I opened the kitchen door Rufus had gone. There was no cat yelling accusingly, telling me that he hadn't been fed for hours and that the service in this place is terrible you just can't get the staff these days. He didn't even come when I offered food. He'd vanished.

I checked the cat flap: still firmly shut. I checked on top of cupboards, inside the cupboards, all the (very many) cat hiding places in the junk in the garage. Still no Rufus. Panicking now, I woke my daughter-in-law to see if she had let the cat out overnight. No, she hadn't. I had visions of Ru lying injured in some inaccessible place after trying one spectacular leap too many off a cupboard.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an orange shape moving past the kitchen window catflapwards. Rufus had been out for a stroll and was now gracing us with his presence.

Rufus back from his travels

I still have no explanation for how he could escape from a locked room.

Rufus displaying his usual skill at opening the cat flap when it's NOT locked: 42 attempts before he can get it open
Do you think we should put him on the stage and charge admission?



9 COMMENTS:

Whirlochre said...

I think you should water the tree and grow a spare cat, just in case Rufus ever does go AWOL...

fairyhedgehog said...

Brilliant idea, Whirl! I only wish I'd thought of it first.

Lexi said...

No, you should teach Rufus to type and get him to write a locked room murder mystery, which will baffle and amaze its readers and become an instant bestseller.

As he's a cat, and knows nothing of financial matters, you can get away with paying him trad pub royalties, 6% or so. You'd be rich!

fairyhedgehog said...

Lexi, that's sheer genius!

There's just one tiny little detail. So far Rufus's typing skills look like this:

fvuid j;#=\pikbj;\[';l .p.p€\o€ tpimycqlkm;z

Still, early days, eh?

Simon Kewin said...

I don't know, alien abduction maybe?

jjdebenedictis said...

*waves* (Got your message! :) I'm well, thanks! How are you? I'm trying to get on Twitter a little more often these days, but I'm still neglecting Blogger terribly.)

Clever Rufus! He obviously got himself a set of house keys cut so he didn't have to bother waiting for you inept humans to attend to his whims. If a cat wants something done right, sometimes, he just has to do it himself...

fairyhedgehog said...

But Simon, would the aliens want him? I'm not so sure!

jj, I haven't seen you around Twitter either lately but I'm on there rather erratically!

I should have realised that Rufus had got himself some house keys. That explains everything!

Unknown said...

Naughty Rufus.. He's so mysterious... No wait.. he's 'magical'!

fairyhedgehog said...

Lily, I think you had it right the first time!

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