Yarra’s Big Adventure
On a crisp, warm January evening, my wife and I drove to Costco to spend way too much money for huge quantities of things we needed. When we returned home, I took our baby into the house, and we started to bring in our purchases.
A little bit of snow covered the lawn, because in Colorado, you can have snow one day, and weather warm enough for shorts the next. We were expecting more snow that night, but the day had been sunny and glorious.
I carted in boxes stuffed with obscene amounts of granola bars, packs of frozen steaks, and a new television, which was our tax refund gift to ourselves.
Each time I came in and out, I made sure to shut the door behind me, because we have a cat and a dog, neither of which is allowed outside unsupervised. We live in a city on the edge of wilderness, and coyotes roam free in the open space near our home. Outdoor cats go missing all the time.
But I wasn’t worried about the cat, since she’d never expressed much interest in escaping. The dog, though, will bolt if a bunny dares enter the street in front of our house. Bunnies must die.
So we set up our new tv, ate some food, and went to sleep that evening, thinking all was well in the world.
The next morning, I stumbled downstairs, made breakfast for both the dog and cat, then got myself ready for the day. The dog attacked his food as soon as it was in his bowl. The cat, however, often comes down to eat only when she’s ready.
A few hours later, I decided the brush the cat, since she’s a fur-ball with eyes, and requires frequent brushing.
But I couldn’t find her. I looked in all the spots she hides: on the baby’s changing table, in the laundry room, under the bed, on top of the refrigerator.
Gone.
I enlisted my wife’s help, and we spent two hours searching our house, looking in every drawer, digging through every pile of clothes. Had we left the door open too long last night? No, the cat had never seemed in danger of running away. The only time she got out, when a cleaning lady had left the window open, I’d found her sitting right outside the window.
But we couldn’t find her. Maybe she had escaped out the front door, as unlikely as it seemed.
Several inches of snow had fallen during the night, and more were expected over the next few days. I started thinking of her out there, alone, scared, unsure how to deal with a world she hadn’t ever known. I thought about her in the belly of a coyote.
I still kept searching through the house. I’d once had a cat who I was certain had run away when some maintenance men had left my apartment door open, only to find her three days later, hiding at the bottom of a pile of clothes I was going to donate.
A day went by. No cat. I started preparing myself for the possibility that she’d never come home. My wife made flyers to hang in the neighborhood, and I pasted them up on fences, on stop signs. I thought they’d do no good. I thought if she was going to come back, I would have found her in the half dozen times I’d walked up and down the street, calling her name.
A morbid fear settled over me.
The next day, when walking the dog, a neighbor asked me if I’d found her yet. The neighbor had seen the flyers. I had to reply no. She’d said she’d watched our cat sitting in our window several times.
She wished me luck.
That evening, when Yarra the cat had been missing for a full 48 hours and I’d begun the process of accepting a new, Yarra-less life, my phone rang.
“Hello?”
“I think I have your cat.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I live at [REDACTED].”
Just a few houses down from ours. My wife had said she’d read that indoor cats who run away stay within a five house radius. And exactly as prophesied, that’s how far Yarra the cat had gone.
I told him I’d be there within five minutes, then ran upstairs and snatched the cardboard carrier.
A VW bus sat in front of the house in question. On the front porch, a rubbermaid container, sitting on its side, with a towel at the base.
I knocked on the door. A man, fifty-ish, smiled at me. “Come in, come in,” he said. “We’ve got her in the back room. She’s pretty scared.”
He left me in the living room as he disappeared around a corner. Heard him say, “you ate all that, huh?”
He came back into the living room, holding our fluffy little cat. Eyes wide, her claws sinking into the neighbor’s shirt.
“My wife [REDACTED] found her in the bin out front this morning. Just sitting there, looking up at her, in that bin. We leave it out for the neighborhood cats sometimes.”
And Yarra had found it. Luck, or destiny? This storyteller will let the reader decide.
He continued. “Thank God you put out those signs, or we wouldn’t have known what to do with her.”
He passed the cat to me, and she pierced me with her talons as I tried to stuff her in the cardboard carrying box. She meowed softly, her amber eyes full of fear.
“Thank you,” I said. “I was just about to give up on her. She’s never been outside for more than a minute or two. Two days gone is a long time. I figured the coyotes would get her.”
“Sooner or later, they would have.”
We shook hands, and I walked the cat home, her mewling every few seconds, and me trying to calm her. Telling her I’d forgiven her transgression and that there would be no further punishment. Two days living in the harsh world was lesson enough.
Back in the house, the dog went crazy, of course. He tries to pretend like he doesn’t care about the cat, but he’d been lonely. I can see right through his charade.
I opened the box, and she poked her head out. Had she forgotten about her home?
She ducked back inside, then leaped from the box. I expected her to hide under the couch, or scamper upstairs and disappear under the bed for a few hours.
But she went straight to her window perch and sat. Then cleaned herself. Looked at me like, “what? I went out for a while, now I’m back. Now make with the treats, human.”
And the moral of this story? Maybe it’s you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone, or maybe it’s don’t ever give up hope, or maybe it’s just cats will be cats. I don’t know, I’m just glad she’s home.
So hug your kitties tight tonight, brush them, love them, and if they’re indoor cats, don’t let them out of your sight.
THE END