BANDIT'S SECOND LIFE

Bandit jumped from the slippery, peaked roof down to the fence and trotted along the fence rail for about twenty feet finding the scents assailing her nose more and more enticing she jumped to the dusty alley and began a grid search to pinpoint the source of all the lovely aromas.

Just as she located the right doorway, a skinny man with a broom came out and began to sweep the steps and the loading platform behind his little grocery store.

“Scat,” he hollered and shook his broom in her direction.  She melted into the shadows and waited for him to go away so she could get on with her business. 

When he went back inside she approached the door  cautiously and again smelled the delightful odors  drifting through the screen.  She listened and sniffed the air from the old wooden steps still warm from the sun.  She sharpened her claws on the bottom stair and sniffed at the screen door, bumping it in the process and it bounced open a few inches. 

Bandit jumped back and watched the door for further threat and then slowly approached it again because the smells were so tempting.  This time she was ready when she bumped the door and she scooted through the small opening before it bounced shut.

The man came stomping back to the storeroom, “What’s the ruckus back here.”  When he saw that  he had forgotten to latch the door he decided to lock up for the night.

Bandit had faded under a shelf behind some boxes to wait for him to disappear again.  She would have to find another exit now that he had locked up but only after she had located the source of the smells that were making her salivate and her little tummy growl.

She had had a perfect home until a few weeks ago when she had been left behind when the dad was transferred to another city.  Bandit and the little girl had an upstairs room with a soft warm bed and a window that opened out onto the rooftops of the city.  A huge moving truck had come and removed everything, and Mom, Dad, and little girl had climbed into their car and driven  off and never returned.  The little girl had cried and begged for them to take Bandit but her Dad couldn’t be bothered with ‘the damn cat’.

Bandit explored the shadows in the gloomy storeroom behind the neighborhood grocers.  There was one light, a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling and a small lamp on a cluttered desk.  She kept to the shadows and almost forgot the delicious smell as her senses were overwhelmed with dozens of new exotic odors to sort and catalogue.   Even if the room were empty the old wooden floor had absorbed smells over dozens of years and could entertain any half literate cat for hours.

Bandit had checked out the right side of the storeroom when she saw the open doorway.  She peeked around the door jamb and saw the man with the broom behind the counter engrossed in some task with the cash register.  Then she saw the stairs and smelled the delicious aroma again.  She calculated the distance to the man and decided to chance it and bolted silently through the door and up the stairs.

There were three doors at the top of the stairs with a light under one of them and that was where the delicious smell was coming from.  She heard a human voice humming, stirring sounds, and water running when she sniffed under the door.  The room felt warm and filled with good smells so she had her head down sniffing when the door suddenly opened and a plump lady stood looking down at her.

Startled, Bandit looked up and blinked.

“Well, hello, little kitty,” said the plump woman looking down at her.  “Why your markings are just like a bandit,” she said delighted with her own clever observation.

“Well, come on in little kitty before the mister sees you,” she opened the door wide for Bandit and the cat put on her best runway walk auditioning for a cat show’s first prize.

The woman prepared a bowl for Bandit telling her that she had lost her adorable little calico a year ago when a car ran over her.  Lost in thought, the woman stopped preparing the bowl and Bandit decided to meow in sympathy to get the show back on the road.

“Why aren’t you a sweet little thing, chatting and all,” the woman said, and placed the bowl of stew on the floor in the corner for Bandit along with a bowl of water. 

Bandit noticed the window was open wide enough for her and then the smell brought her attention back to the food.  She would explore the upstairs later.

The woman fixed two plates and took them to the dining room and hollered down the stairs, “Mr. Huckabee your dinner is ready, please come while it’s still hot.”

Bandit heard heavy tromping on the stairs and decided to hide in the pantry until she found out where the skinny man with the broom was going.

When the missus came back to the kitchen with two empty plates she told Bandit, “Mr. Huckabee will stay in the living room in his recliner until bedtime, Kitty, and he never comes in the kitchen so we’ll be quite comfortable here.”

After she did the dishes, the missus sat in her rocker in front of the stove knitting a sweater for the mister’s birthday.  She chatted with Bandit and told her all about the calico and Mr. Huckabee. 

Bandit lay in front of the warm stove and bathed from head to foot as the human voice droned on and on.  Occasionally, Bandit would meow just to be polite but after bathing she dozed off as the missus talked and knitted. 

They spent the next three years doing this every evening until the mister passed on and the missus had to go live with her son in Spokane.  Bandit went out in search of her third of nine lives a little heavier, a little more spoiled, and set in her ways.