TABBY - a 100 word story

TABBY

I was under the dresser when I heard Mum say Nan was really ill, and I pressed my face into Tabby’s fur. Tabby is the best cat ever but she hissed at me.

“Come away, Lucy,” Mum said but I couldn’t. Gross slimy things were coming out of Tabby’s bottom, and it was even worse when she started licking them, but Mum said, “Those are kittens. They came out of Tabby’s tummy like you came out of mine.”

“And like you came out of Nan’s?” I said and Mum cried.

That’s how I knew Nan was going to die.

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This story was prompted by the above photograph posted on Rochelle's blog for Friday Fictioneers. Follow the Blue Frog icon on  https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/  to read more takes on the prompt from around 100 other writers. 
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KIKA

KIKA

Kika died yesterday. We're not sure how old she was, but she had lived with us for thirteen and a half years. When we moved into our apartment in June 2000 we hadn't planned on having a cat, but Kika had other ideas.

It was the Sunday before Christmas 2000 and we had invited about 16 people for a full English breakfast. This was a tradition we started in England, where the numbers had grown to over 30 and had to be fed in relays in our tiny cottage.
For our first party here in Tenerife we planned to eat on the terrace, but it would still be a logistical challenge.

At four in the morning we heard noises outside our bedroom window, and when we investigated we discovered this beautiful cat had moved her four kittens into one of our plant pots.
 There they stayed throughout the party - watching us while we watched them, but not moving. The mother cat graciously accepted smoked salmon, bacon and pieces of sausage - clearly she had been domesticated - but the kittens were wild and hissing. Even so, they were obviously not going to be deterred.

That afternoon - slightly merry - I made them a bed out of a washing basket and they moved in properly.
We knew we wanted to keep the mother and we called her Kika. She and her kittens all lived on the terrace, through rainstorms and the fireworks of New Year, and it took several weeks for Kika to persuade her brood to come indoors. She saw off an Alsation which thought it could attack her kittens, and came to us for help when she couldn't round them all up at once after a thunderstorm. We enjoyed their company for a month but then we caught and rehomed the kittens.



Kika stayed. She would wait on the wall of the pool for us to come home,
and then weave through the railing or turn somersaults on the path in front of us,

In her last few months she acquired considerable street cred by sitting on the steps of the local bar while we had a drink, and on one occasion she leapt onto the back of a passing dog, which fled in terror. 

She was a lovely cat, a favourite with the entire neighbourhood, and we will miss her badly. RIP Kika XX

KIWIS & KITTENS

KIWI FRUIT. I read in the paper the other day that some Tenerife farmers are adding new crops to their repertoire. One they’re experimenting with is Kiwi, which apparently needs cold to ‘set’ the fruit. So they’re planting them up in Santiago del Teide where the potatoes grow. I can’t wait – I love eating Kiwi fruit with a teaspoon like a boiled egg.

KIKA. In December 2000 we had been here almost a year and, deciding to continue our UK tradition, we had invited about 20 people for breakfast on the Sunday before Christmas. The day before, having bought the requisite sausages, bacon, and eggs, we were relaxing on the terrace with a coffee when we noticed movement on the terrace of the empty apartment next door. A cat and her four KITTENS had taken possession of a nest created by a coiled hose under a sun-lounger. We pushed some food and water through the railing while they watched us warily, and throughout the day they stayed there, the mother cat sizing us up.

In the small hours we heard noises outside our bedroom window, and the next morning we discovered she had moved her entire family onto our terrace behind some plant pots. Well, we thought, if they stay put through a noisy party it looks like we’re stuck with them. They stayed. The kittens were too wild to approach, but the mother was obviously tame – she even deigned to accept a roll of smoked salmon with cream cheese. With glasses of Bucks Fizz in our hands we christened her KIKA. The feline family adopted one of my planters as a litter-tray and didn’t leave the terrace for a fortnight – friends would visit just to watch the kittens’ antics.

Then came KINGS’ DAY. January 6^th – Epiphany – is traditionally the day when Spanish children are given presents, and there is the usual cacophony of fireworks that gets more intense as the day progresses. The kittens were terrified, scattered through the railing and disappeared. Kika was frantic. It took her – and us – all that day and half the night to round them all up again.

A month later we had re-homed the kittens, but Kika stayed. She welcomes us home by turning somersaults on the path, small neighbours stop to say hello to her on their way to school. Every now and then we hear a clang when she misjudges a leap through the railing and bangs her head, and she’s knocked a tooth out doing it which has spoiled her looks somewhat. She’s getting on a bit now - she’s given up even looking at the birds that hop along the railing thumbing their beaks at her, and she is increasingly fussy about her food.

But – she panics if the door is shut while she’s inside the apartment, she still has mad moments when she races from one end of the terrace to the other after a bougainvillea flower, and she refuses to drink clean water, preferring the toilet water or the mucky brown stuff in the bottom of the plant pots – there’s still a bit of wildness left in her.

KILO, KARATE & KARAOKE are the only K words in my Spanish dictionary, which just goes to show what they Spanish think of the “KICKING K”.