Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales
Chris’s cat Bodmin has been hiding a side of his character…
The other day, while sitting in my lounge, having a cup of tea and reading about some idiot in My Weekly who’d been suckered into believing he’d been conscripted to invade the Falklands in a penguin suit, I glanced out of the window and saw something very strange indeed. In a field opposite our house, a cat that appeared to resemble Bodmin was running along, full pelt, with a stick in its mouth. No sooner had I seen it than it had gone, obscured by a clump of trees.
I walked across to the window and stared out into the field, noting a woman walking a small scruffy dog, but there was no sign of a cat. Suddenly, the cat reappeared and jumped straight over the dog’s back, turned, and paw-cuffed it round the face. Definitely Bodmin then. But wait, now the pair were running in circles around the woman’s legs – were they playing together? Then the woman hurled the stick across the field and both Bodmin and the dog disappeared from view.
I was totally intrigued, and also a bit worried that the woman might not understand what Bodmin’s capable of. So I put my shoes on and hurried out, just in time to see both woman and dog come through the gate and head up the street. Moments later, Bodmin appeared, glanced nonchalantly at me, and strode back our house.
“Excuse me,” I called after the lady with the dog, “Sorry to bother you, but that was my cat there. Was he causing trouble? Sorry if he was.”
“Oh! Clarence is your cat is he?” she said, seemingly delighted. “He’s great friends with my dog Jack. He sometimes comes on our walks with us.”
I was stunned. “Clarence?” “That’s what we call him – you know, because of his wonky, swivel eyes – like Clarence the cross-eyed lion” This was all very insulting. “That’s amazing. Well, so sorry to have bothered you,” I told her in no uncertain terms, hoping she’d learnt her lesson.
But no, she went on to tell me Jack and Bodmin have played fetch together for at least a year. The secret lives of cats, eh? I also couldn’t believe he was one of those rare cats capable enough, or stupid enough, to play fetch.
In other news, I’ve recently been looking after a house rabbit named Nelson. While Bodmin seems to have decided he’s currently a dog, this rabbit has spent his entire life as a cat. I had no idea that if you just let a rabbit wander round your house, it’ll use a litter tray, sit on your lap and just basically… be a cat. He’s amazing! He even doesn’t come to you when you call him! How catlike is that? Mind you, thinking about it, neither do snails…
As I write, Bodmin just came hammering in through the catflap and past my legs at warp speed.
“Oi, Clarence, stop!” I shouted after him.
He turned and looked at both me and the wall at the same time – I’d seriously never noticed those cross eyes before…
The cat thinks he’s a dog and the rabbit thinks he’s a cat!