Our brown tabby, little Mabel, was nowhere to be found for a couple of days this week. She's the shyest cat we've ever owned and she's pulled the Houdini act before, when we've had visitors over to our place. But she's always reappeared either late at night or early the next morning, emerging from some little hiding place under a bed or some such.
This time, we feared she was gone.
With the sunny weekend we had and dinner guests coming over Sunday night, we took the liberty of leaving the door to our rooftop deck open to let in fresh air. Guests showed up around 6 and left after 10 and still Mabel was nowhere to be seen. No biggie, we thought. I had a day off Monday and figured she'd make her presence known at some point. Didn't happen.
When I arose early Tuesday, I found a note Lori had left me on the kitchen counter: "Mabel is gone." Concern turned to worry.
Did she slip out the front door when we weren't looking? Could she have gone onto the roof and somehow made her way down to the street level three floors below? As an indoor cat, would she really do that?
Lori quickly designed a flier and rushed over to a Kinko's to put in an order. Then, back at home, she decided to follow a hunch and headed up to the rooftop deck. She called Mabel's name a few times and finally heard a tentative cry. Mabel had scooted underneath a small piece of furniture in a corner and, as far as we know, spent two nights out there without food or water.
When Lori brought Mabel indoors, our older cat, Rudy, greeted her by licking her ears. Even our terrier, the irrepressible Otto, was able to approach Mabel, who usually keeps him away with an occasional hiss or a hard stare.
As the above photo shows, she's made herself at home again, curling up in front of the natural gas fireplace with Rudy. If only she could talk. What was going through her mind? Was she scared? Did she think we'd abandoned her? Is she likely to head up to the roof again?
We'll never know the answers, but I'm glad we've got her back.
No comments:
Post a Comment