The Resident Thug

(Margaret Millar has rightly said that Bussie doesn't look much like a thug here. I would point out that he's in disguise. See end of post.)

Yesterday I was talking to my editor about cats. We were comparing notes on how our respective felines wake us up. Hers, being female, is of course much better behaved than Buster, who jumps on my pillow, stanks over to Himself and prods him until he wakes up. “He sounds rather a bully,” she said.

Actually, he's a thug. I love him dearly (sometimes more than others), but that love is tried and tested every morning at around 6am. And recently, because we dared to go and see my mum for a night, he decided to take revenge and wake us up at 5am for his breakfast.

Being a light sleeper, I always hear those feather light footsteps – or paws – as they creep into the bedroom at dawn. Then Buster jumps onto my pillow, while Mollie squeaks and jumps onto the floor. Buster prowls over the bed, nudging both of us, then returns to my pillow. I ignore him. Or pretend to, but I'm wide awake by this time.

The above exercise can tends to be repeated over and over, with Bussie using the bed as a trampoline and Molls almost wetting herself with sibling rivalry. Until eventually, one of us gives in and gets up. They are fed and we all go back to sleep again – if we're lucky.

One memorable time we'd been away for a few days and were loading our belongings onto the pavement. Bussie deigned to come and say hello, then proceeded to piss on everything. I was most angry because he was pissing on my library book, a very fat biography of Margot Fonteyn.

“What are you doing?” I shrieked like a madwoman. “Margot Fonteyn was the most famous ballerina in the world. How dare you piss on her?”

He looked at me with narrowed eyes and aimed another stream of urine at my feet. At that I decided to get our stuff inside before he could ruin anything else.

Bussie would be a very good terrorist, I've decided. (What do I mean, would be? He is.) He is very good at focusing on the job in hand, has no loyalty, isn't afraid of anyone and has NO sense of humour.

Anyone want a cat?