Dumbledore

I once had a ginger cat called Dumbledore. Yes, I am a huge Harry Potter fan, and my mom used to read me the books when I was little. I was about 8 years old, and I loved this cat. He was a bit on the special side and not so much like normal cats, but I loved him none the less. We also had a crazy dog named Jack who was also a bit on the special side. We sound like the Brady Bunch don’t we?

One day we couldn’t find Dumbledore anywhere which upset me no doubt. I looked for him everywhere but this bloody cat did not want to be found. I remember going out, I think it was for ballet, and making my mom promise she would find him. When I got to ballet and saw my friends I probably forgot all about the poor cat, but I was a six year old girl in a pink leotard, I was in my prime.

I came running up the path leading to my house hoping that my mom had found my cat, but I remember feeling disappointed when she fed me some lie about the whereabouts of Dumbledore. I can’t remember if she had said he had died or if she had said he had run away, but it felt as if my life was over.

However depressed I was, life went on and I came to peace with the loss of my precious cat. And then, my stupid brother Alex had to ruin everything for me. You know how some people think they have a tormentor as a brother; let me tell you my brother was worse. If you think you are stuck with an evil mastermind for a sibling, you should know, my situation was worse. My brother decided to share a secret with me my mother had forbidden him to tell. He told me that Jack, his dog, had eaten Dumbledore. But to make matters so much worse and to scar me for life, he proceeded to tell me that all Jack left was his tail and one of his ears. Now I was a six year old girl, so I was bloody traumatized as you can imagine. I ignored Jack for the rest of his life, and he deserved it! He was a horrible creature. I was also mad at my brother for telling me but I had to forgive him because I knew later I would need lifts and money from him. I was obviously mad at my mom for not telling me, but she too was forgiven. I soon learned to love again, and I got another cat and my cat loving void was filled.  

No more Sunshine

To follow with the depressing theme of cats and birthdays, I have a new story for you all. Now cast your minds back to an awkward grade 6 poggel of a Hannah. Depressing enough, isn’t it? Well things naturally went terribly badly on my 12^th birthday.

A few days before my birthday, I was having a casual sleepover with my biff Kirstin. We did all the normal things like play ‘school school’ and write songs for our band. Get this, I was Sarah and she was Jessica and our surname was Parker. Yep, our band was Sarah Jessica Parker. Anyway we were super excited because the next day we were off on an adventure. We had Girl Guide Camp (you may say we were losers, but we were cool and now we know how to do a fisherman’s knot) and we were bloody excited! The next morning though, we were introduced to a something way more exciting – kittens! When I heard little tiny meows I knew there were kittens somewhere in the house, but I didn’t expect them from my alleged male ginger named Tiger (his/her name was later changed to Tiger Lily). To make it like a treasure hunt, we couldn’t find the stupid kittens in my mess of a room. We later found the kittens in my sister’s cupboard. Kirstin and I were late for camp but it was well worth it!

A few days later, to the entire families surprise, Tiger’s sister Jelly gave birth to more kittens. Jelly however, was the neighborhood slut and she couldn’t be bothered with taking care of her babies. She left them and returned to her normal life. I, being super smart, took the kittens and put them with Tiger in the hopes she would take care of them. But sadly, Tiger refused to care for one very special kitten, a pure black one, that I named Sunshine. She kept moving the kitten away from the rest because she knew she wouldn’t survive. I then took Sunshine as my own. I bought a bottle, the right ingredients for milk and fed the kitten all through the night (jokes, I slept while my mom did all the work).

And then it was my birthday; the most wonderful time of the year. The time when Hannah shines! I LOVE birthdays. I had been blessed with kittens and life was looking up. I remember my mom had friends over for church or something so, being the cave rat that I am, I was hiding from them in my room. I was on my phone #chatterbox when I decided to feed my little Sunshine, only he was cold and stiff and very un-sunshine like. I don’t know why, but I picked the obviously dead cat up, walked into the lounge and told everyone the cat was dead.

While I thought for a very long time that the kitten was buried sensibly, my brother told me later that he popped Sunshine in a shoebox and threw it away. To be honest, I don’t blame them, Tiger and Jelly were very young and basically all the kittens passed away sadly and our garden was terribly small. I still would have found a better way to lay the cats to rest.

Now all you rats out there who think you are bloody PETA ambassadors, don’t come and tell me when should have neutered the cats because we brought cats into the world that had a bad life and we are the reason there are stray cats with no homes and blah blah blah. First things first, our cats were family and we loved them very much and it broke our heart that they died so no; we weren’t animal abusers or anything like that. Sorry, one has to cover their ground because you say one wrong thing on the Internet and you have death threats from trolls saying ‘you are what is wrong with the world’.  

Mistaken Identity

My first two cats were named  Blacky and Ginger. SPOILER ALERT, Blacky was all black and Ginger was ginger. I must have been five years old – and these cats were my life. Looking back, I may have smothered the poor animals a bit too much, which left me alone with Ginger after Blacky fled the scene that was the Crocker Household. Anyway life went on, I quickly forgot all about Blacky, and poured all of my love into Ginger.

We then moved houses. This worried me because I thought Ginger would run away. My mother dearest assured me that if she locked Ginger up and put some butter on his paws (apparently they lick their paws and they taste the floor and they know their new home and blah blah blah) that there was no chance Ginger would run away. We put Ginger in the granny flat in the garden and left him there while I was at school. When I came home however, the window was open and alas, Ginger was gone…My mother didn't hear the end of it; I claimed it was the most traumatic experience of my life (I may have overreacted a tad).

Shortly after ‘the incident’ my mom was fetching the mail when she saw a squashed ginger cat in the gutter with its eyes bulging out. While my mom tried her best to break the news to be slowly, my brother found great joy in tormenting me about it. I put on my big girl pants and planned a classy and beautiful funeral for the remains of Ginger and we buried him in the garden.

Being the loving and caring girl that I was, I quickly forgot the memories of Ginger and moved on with my exciting and glamorous life as a 7 year old. Ginger and Blacky were long forgotten to me. Until 6 months later, while I was sitting in the bath. I heard my mom screaming as she walked through the front door and being the amazing daughter that I am, I dismissed her cries and carried on relaxing, it was my ‘me’ time right? It was only when I had gotten dressed after my bath that I found my mom, in the lounge, with Ginger on her lap. Typical Crocker Family, they buried someone else’s cat! Somewhere out there, a family was searching for their beloved cat that was stuck in a shallow grave in my garden...

Ginger stayed around for a few days and then went back to his life as street cat. As for me, I persuaded my mom to get me a new cat the following year and lived happily ever after! Jokes, she had three legs and my friends and family teased me endlessly and called her Tripod but that’s a story for another time!