Moonlight's High Adventure

This is the story of what happened to me one day when I was very young.  It was when I had only recently started going outside.  I had not been out for very long and I had been wandering around and exploring everywhere that I could.  Suddenly I decided to take a look around me and I saw that I could see for a long, long way.  I could see right along the street and I saw a few cats wandering around.  They looked so small that at first I thought they were mice.  I mewed at them, but they did not see me!  There was the black cat from down the street, who looked just like my sister.  I could also see my sister, Tiddler, who lives with me and there was a tabby, who normally keeps to himself and he was wandering around, too.  I was up high and it was like the world was just a place with dolls and toys wandering around.  Occasionally cars would drive past and it was as though they were on a track.  I watched as people, cats and dogs came and went and they could not see me!  It was fascinating, but after a while I got a little tired of it and wondered how I could get back to the real world, where I had been before.  After a while I saw my human, Kath, come into the garden, which was just beneath me.  She shook a little jingle toy to tell me and Tiddler that it was time to come in.  Tiddler went running into the house, but Kath jangled the bell again and I mewed at her, I could not get down there.  She didn´t hear me and just jingled the toy again.  I mewed again as loud as I could, which was not very loud, really, as I was a small cat.  She looked around as though she had heard me.  She looked up and down the street, she was looking the other way, towards the houses across the street. 

Again I mewed as loud as I could, she looked around and then up and she saw me.  Kath could not believe her eyes, there I was!   She looked very afraid.  She saw me on the roof and I don´t think that she knew what to do!  I did not know how to get down, and I didn´t know quite how I had got there, all I could do was attract her attention and hope that she would rescue me.  I was at the edge of the roof on the guttering.  She thought about phoning the fire brigade, but would they come at midnight to rescue a cat? She thought about a ladder which was at the back of our house and decided that she would have to get the ladder and rescue me from the roof.  She went around the back of the house and called me.  I came over the house to the back guttering, I was very afraid and although climbing over the ridge of the house had given me a wonderful view, I couldn´t grip the slates very well with my paws and claws and I was wishing I was back on the ground. 

Kath disappeared inside the house.  I heard a noise beneath me.  I heard Kath very close calling my name and saying "Come on, come on, jump on here." I peered over the edge of the guttering and I could see that there was something flat and see-through, just underneath me.  Through it I could see Kath´s arm holding the thing out.  She had opened the upstairs window, which is hinged at the top and was holding it open for me to jump onto.  I put my front paws onto it, and then I turned my head and I could see Kath inside the house!  I dropped my back feet onto the window.  I started to panic as I couldn´t grip the glass as it was very slippery!  Kath was struggling to hold the window up and reach me around the side of it.  She got hold of me and shouted for my other human, who had been asleep in bed in the next bedroom.  She shouted that she needed him to hold the window open as she could not hold it and thought that she might drop it.  If she had dropped the window I would have fallen to the ground, about 20 feet below.  He got some jeans on quickly and came running to hold the window open.  Kath was still hold of me and the window, and my other human held the window and, at first, put his hand across the bottom of the frame to prevent me from falling.  They both got hold of me, whilst holding the window with one hand each, and managed to pull me around the side of the frame.  I was so glad to be inside again.  I purred and purred while my humans held me.  They were very glad that I had come through it uninjured.

My humans had had another cat before Tiddler and I moved in here.  They had him (Fluffy) for thirteen years and he never went on the roof.  Tiddler had been here three years and she had never been on the roof.  My humans, who have always let cats out when they wanted to go, at first decided that they were not going to let me out again, but I love going outside very much and was so insistent that now they let me out again.  I have learnt my lesson, though, and will not go on the roof again.

This is a warning, cats, do not go up onto your roof.  I still don´t know quite how I got there and neither do my humans, Every time they see me they think that they and I are very lucky that I am still all right.

Purrs, from your friend, Moonlight.