Felix Cattus Brattus Culpa

You remember Daisy and Max from a few stories back? Here is the I.D. picture again, should you, unfortunate, encounter them doing damage. Or should I say that this is the picture of the real culprit, the other being an unwitting and unfortunate accomplice.

Note the strange half a moustache; we are told it's more a Stalin than a Hitler and may be part of the reason for misbehaviour: this cat has a grudge born of not particularly conventional looks.

The children and some of the neighbouring children had, that day, gathered tadpoles in jam jars and they were released into the garden's newly created ponds. Most of the tadpoles lasted just long enough to grow the beginnings of legs before Daisy ate them, carefully prodding them to one side and slurping them up. Those that remained were clearly the most gifted, knowing to burrow in the mud to evade their captor. Then she started on the frogs: there were frogs behind the sofa, a frog in the shower and a partially hoovered-up frog. They were, as the more phlegmatic of the children put it, "killed frogs." And then the worms. Live earthworms, this time. Brought in by the mouthful -- a sort of moveable Salvador Dali  moustache to go with the Stalin-- and shaken onto the carpets and rugs. "Presents. Don't be cross!" said the child.

At mealtimes, Daisy assumed her place on the chair, sitting up straight, like a well brought up child, yet refusing to move when a human came to its rightful place. When forced to get down, she would sulk and nip on the ankles. She swung from the tree as if it were monkey bars, stalked pigeons, peed in the bath (over the plughole, at least) and refused to capitulate in general -- even when next door instituted double thick mulch, a water pistol and an electronic cat deterrent to stop her digging.

This, then was a sort of slightly malevolent super cat. She was Asbo cat. Notice had been served and she stuck up a V for victory right back at them. Asbo cat learned to open the fridge, get into other people's wardrobes and go to sleep there and beg prettily and in a slightly pleading way which human folk like. It worked.Asbo intellectual cat, then. She was training them.

And Max: stool pigeon. Always caught on worktop and windowsill, while she sat sweetly below. Eating what he should not while she sat a few paces away as he got admonished. A bit like Lennie before George euthanised him.

The cat has a sort of style, but she is marked for trouble and she couldn't give a fig because Max (known domestically by the children as El Thicko, The Thickster or Captain Chubby) can be readily framed. So watch out. Felix Cattus Brattus Culpa is about.