SMUDGE

The fence round our house is meant to keep all the four legged inmates IN. Considering the time, energy, money and last but certainly not the least, creativity that has gone into making the fence foolproof it should have been a total success….but it isn’t! Kutzn can scale the wall at the count of ten and you just can’t do anything about it. [it may sound absurd but a part of the wall has been tiled to prevent her from scaling the wall but to no avail. Blondie, Kutzn’s sister doesn’t necessarily jump over the wall but is certainly capable of doing so. Worse, unlike Kutzn, Blondie cannot jump back on her own. But the brat who really takes the cake is Smudge.

Smudge is our pocket sized cat who can slip through grills without any effort. Result- we try to keep the three from going out into the garden unsupervised.
Dinner time in our house is usually pretty peaceful for all the animals are brought in ‘catendance’ taken before we sit down for our meal. It is just not funny if it is discovered that a window has been left open by mistake! This is exactly what happened last Friday. With Smudge there is no option of waiting for her to return. A quick search of the house led to a through search of the garden , though we all knew that Smudge would not be satisfied with hiding in the untamed garden. The time was past ten in the night when we gave up on the garden after poking all shrubs and bushes with a long stick- specifically used for flushing out the cats from the under growths.
The security guards were alerted and as usual they were wonderful in trying to locate our missing cat. They heroically climbed walls and flashed torches in all unoccupied houses which is quite a task as most houses are unoccupied!
The two cars were pressed into action- hoping to catch sight of her. B, the culprit, decided to check out the nearby lanes. I decided to accompany her. Just when we had decided she was not in the vicinity we spotted her on a staircase of one of the unoccupied houses. With cats the search has to be three dimensional! An alarm was raised and soon four guards and all the family members were surrounding the house- the RAF in action. Both B and R entered the house through a broken window and rushed up the staircase. ( thanks to our cats we have a fairly good knowledge of how to enter some of these houses).
Smudge decided that her outing was not up and rushed up to the terrace and took a leap. Next moment she was on a ledge of a third floor window- stuck. She had really done it. There was no way to climb down to the ledge-and if R can’t , there really aren’t many who can. The guards talked of arranging a ladder the next morning. Smudge stuck on the ledge meant we stuck for the night. This was not the first time Smudge was doing this but she really had gone too far.
R and B were on the terrace and we were the ones giving moral support and running around on errands. R wanted a basket and a rope, B wanted food and a curtain. We were eager to help though I really couldn’t see anything happening.
The basket with food was let down on the ledge. I was skeptical, catch a distressed animal showing interest in food ! My prophecy was that even if Smudge obliged she would certainly jump off if she found basket moving. Suddenly we found the basket moving- we waited with bated breath. A victory cry broke out- Smudge had been rescued!
Smudge had obligingly gone into the basket and the curtain dropped over her to prevent her from jumping out. We couldn’t believe that the operation had been successful. The time was just 12.30 – nothing compared to what we had expected…