The Tactics of Kittens

There is some good, my daddy said wisely, in everyone and everything.

We were sitting on the veranda of Ruby's farmhouse, idling away a late summer afternoon and playing with the latest batch of kittens. They were trying to climb the old porch boards but kept tumbling off, landing in the soft grass in an untidy pile of heads and tails and whiskers. They fought fiercely for a second or two then were distracted by a blade of grass, a slow moving bug or a grasshopper. My daddy put aside his second hand copy of "Sailing Alone Around the World" and began to tell me about Captain Joshua Slocum and his travels but it was a trick I recognized - diversion was always his first line of defense for those times when he didn't want to answer a question. I listened patiently, waiting him out with Aunt Ivy's copy of "Anne of Green Gables" in my lap, a book I knew by heart and had loved since my first reading. And so, my daddy said with a smile, that's how Captain Slocum got his second ship. The kittens had now discovered his shoelaces and were fully engaged in stalking and preparing their attack. I could see that it was going to be a full fledged ambush on the unarmed and unsuspecting laces and wondered if I should raise an alarm.

I asked again, why my mother didn't like his family. He sighed and stretched his legs and the sudden movement caught the kittens by surprise. They scattered in all directions in a disorganized retreat then gathered together to regroup and plan a second strategy. Round one went to the laces. Your mother, my daddy finally said, is a force to be reckoned with. And, he added carefully, she's an unhappy woman. He took a pack of Lucky Strikes from his shirt pocket and scratched a kitchen match with his thumbnail. I smelled the sulphur and watched cigarette smoke spiral up into the air as he retrieved his book and began reading again. The kittens were on the move again. They were approaching from different angles, focused on the target with tails twitching and their tiny backs arched, each step a picture of stealth and concentration. My daddy read on, unaware of the iminent threat, believing that his diversonary tactic had worked. I thought about her jewelry boxes, her pink convertible car, her closet full of evening gowns that she would only wear once, the fact that she didn't have a job and didn't want one. But why, I finally ventured, why is she so unhappy? He shrugged his shoulders, a weary gesture, and looking at me over the pages of Joshua Slocum he got as far as I only wish I ........and the kittens pounced. His book went flying into the air and he leapt to his feet with a howl of pain and a curse. A kitten had sunk her claws into his ankle with a death grip and trickles of blood were already running toward his shoe. He detached her gingerly and instead of giving her the smack she deserved, he gave her a slight shake, saying mildly, Bad kitten! and held her to his chest, stroking her trembling tiny body.

Ruby appeared at the door with a towel in one hand and a bottle of iodine in the other, absently removed the kitten, and knelt to clean his wounds. Some good in everyone and everything, she muttered, hmpf!