Professor McMillan's compound was then occupied by thirteen cats! Most of them had no homes and were not accustomed to enter houses. Only two were fellow-occupants: his own and the surprising kitten. Another nondescript one, who was the colour of cement floor, so that she was often kicked because he missed seeing her in time, came into the house occasionally, probably to escape the mob outside.

The professor's newly acquired wild cats amused themselves by chasing the neighbours' chickens and eating quite a lot of them as an appetizer before getting their main meal from Rajab. The neighbours did not like this and finally one of them threw poisoned meat all round the compound. The arsenic killed many of them off, among them his own cat. The kitten and the nondescript grey escaped, while two of the wild ones did not die immediately, but suffered for days and days, one in a corner of his sofa on his front porch, and another deep under the bougainvillea hedge. This meant the Professor had to crawl on knees and elbows for quite a distance through the thorns before he could give him his food (herring in tomato sauce) and water. The first one died in the end, but the second survived and had become so accustomed to him that he would follow him into the house, especially at meal times, but he never allowed the professor to touch him. He called him the Robberbaron, but later had to change his name to Robberbaroness.

The Professor's house then had three cats: the Robberbaroness, the grey one who was so convinced of his own unimportance that he called her Cinderella, and the funny kitten. When he asked Rajab where this kitten had come from, he told him that it was not so young and that he had seen it before. And indeed, he remembered that two days before he left for Britain, he had found two of Sheikh Abdulsalam's far too small kittens in his garden, but these were in such a bad way and so covered in pus dripping from their eyes and noses that the Professor thought it most humane to give them milk and let them die.

When the Professor left for Britain, one was already dead and the other not so far from it. It was this second one who had managed to stay alive, but he had refused to grow while he was away. Probably because of its harsh babyhood it showed a whole rage of aberrations. The eyes and nose were still full of pus. Although the eyes finally healed, the nose was still then dripping in pus, three years later, and one should not have been in his neighbourhood when he sneezed. Often his nose was so bunged up that he refused to eat because he seemed unable to recognise food if he could not smell it. He also did not know how to mew, but could only produce a passionate soft moan, which was very effective for begging bits of meat at meal times.

At first, this cat had a bad head for heights although he loved climbing on top of things, just like normal cats. But then he dared not come down from his tree, cupboard or ceiling and was unable to warn the Professor and his servant, because he could not make much noise, so they were always on the alert to rescue him. When he started to grow at last, his body seemed to grow only in length and then he had the shape of a cheetah. As the Professor was sure that this cat was also mentally retarded and as he reminded him a bit of mongoloid children, being very affectionate and lovable, he called him Mongo. He was still living with them, practically never leaving the compound, although he was then a mature tom cat.

In the mean time Cinderella and the Robberbaroness were getting kittens at least twice a year. At first, they had them somewhere in the bush outside where many, if not all of them, died of pneumonia or were murdered by dogs, mongooses and children. But one rainy season, the Robberbaroness brought home her soaked kittens to the Professor's spare bedroom and then Cinderella, never too old to learn, started having them in the roof space above the ceiling, so that the house was regularly flooded with young cats for whom he had to find homes. This was not always an easy task as his chairs, table legs and mutilated flower-beds clearly showed.

Endit

Khamis Kabeu-2005
P.O.Box 3073
Mombasa
Kenya