The Therapy Cat

Nugget begins a new life at an old folks' home, but nobody asked him about it.

Credit: Image FX

I was lying in a patch of sunlight in my living room, minding my own business, when Ellie picked me up, gave me a cuddle, and popped me in a box. She tied string around it to close it up. Can you believe it? The idea! Now I like a cardboard box, no doubt about it, but I'll get in when I decide and not one second before. And I want to be able to get out of it as and when required, alright? Needless to say, I was annoyed.

So she picks up the box, right? With me inside it, and carries it to her car, and I'm struggling to get out, but I can only get my paw through a chink in the flaps. Well, I didn't go quietly, I promise you. Oh, no, I made my displeasure clear to Ellie all the way to wherever we were going. To be honest, I was convinced it was the Vee Ee Tee, but when we got there, it was somewhere else.

The first clue that it wasn't the vet's was the smell. As we went into wherever it was, with me swinging back and forth inside this cardboard box, I smelt the kind of warm plastic that Ellie has on the desk in the corner of the living room at home. The thing she hates me walking on when she's sitting in front of it. This scent was concentrated, as if there were a few of them. I could smell several humans and a hint of hot food. I heard her speaking to some people there, then she put me down. She tugged at the string and pulled it away. Then she opened the box.

On either side of me were two metal towers. They smelled of rust and old paper. Behind me was a dull white wall, and in front were the unfamiliar faces of at least five people. They gazed down at me, making silly cooing noises. I didn't like that much so I cowered down in my box. Ellie led them away from me. I presume it was to give me space—and a chance to get used to my surroundings. I could see, through a corner where the flaps split, that it was still daytime. Humans are most active then, and I had no idea of what they were planning to do with me. The soft thing I was sitting on smelled faintly of Ellie. I remembered her crying about it being shrunk in the wash, whatever that means. I needed it just then—it was the only connection I had to my home. I hoped Ellie wouldn't leave me there, but she did.

“His name is Nugget,” I heard Ellie say. “Give him a chance to get used to this place. He won't like you grabbing at him.”

I approved this message. The last thing I wanted, while my senses were being assailed by new sounds, scents, and sights, was strangers grabbing me and rubbing my fur, just when I'd got it nice and clean. If I want to be petted, I'll let you know.

They left me alone all that first day, and before they went away they put some food in a bowl for me. When I was sure they had gone, I crept out and sniffed it. It was the stuff Ellie always gave me. And they'd had the decency to put some tiny fish-flavoured biscuits on top of it. I ate it all. It took a while to locate my litter tray. It was my litter tray—Ellie had brought it from home, and it still smelled of me. I used it, then went exploring. I climbed on every desk, and on all the machines (some of them had tiny winking lights on and hummed softly) and cabinets. There was nothing interesting outside the window, which was far from the ground. Just the dull roar of passing cars, leafless trees swaying in the wind, and a brazen fox sniffing at the wheelie bins. I returned to my box, curled up, and went to sleep.

“Nugget!”

Her high-pitched, whiny voice annoyed me. Short yellow hair swung forward onto her cheeks as she loomed over me. Her face was coated with some kind of powder and her lips were smeared with a dull brown grease. She bared her teeth at me and put her hand down to pet me. I moved out of the way.

“Leave him alone, Cheryl,” said one of the others. He was tall and chunky, grey on top, and had a patch of fur around his mouth. He smelt of oranges and perfume. Gross!

Through the split in the flaps I watched the strangers move around the big room. I saw them feed the big machines with paper and sit in front of the smaller ones on their desks. This, I observed, made the big machines hungry, and they had to be fed again after a while.

For two days it was like this; the strangers leaving food out for me and Cheryl looming over my box until Dayy-vid told her to stop. On the third day, Dayy-vid wasn't there, and the others were busy. Cheryl came to loom over my box, and put her hand down to pet me. I moved out of the way. This time, she picked up my box, and can you believe it? She tipped me onto the floor! I ran straight under the nearest desk, and found the deepest, darkest place to hide.

“What are you doing, Cheryl?” asked a woman the same colour as gravy.

“Nugget is supposed to be a therapy cat,” she replied. “Well, he’s not doing much, is he?”

“He's new here, Cheryl,” the woman replied. “Give him a chance.”

But Cheryl didn't want to give me a chance. As a therapy cat, my job was to… I had no idea. These people were always talking about training, but the only training I'd ever had was for using the litter tray. Which gave me an idea. When the strangers had gone, I went sniffing round the room to find out where her desk was, and left a little gift on her chair. When she discovered it, she was furious. And she stopped chasing me around trying to pet me.

When Dayy-vid came back, a few days later, he changed my name to Felix. “He's black and white, like the cat in the ad,” he said.

So Felix it was. That's what they all called me. I wouldn't come when they called me Nugget, but whenever they called me Felix, they held out treats for me. I only came for the treats.

I never left the office, except for the one occasion that boredom had sent me out to find out where the smell of food was coming from. Dayy-vid had left the office door open, Cheryl was feeding the big machine, and the others were busy at their desks. I was lurking by the small bin, and could see the crack in my small world. One quick glance around, and I was out. Well, that was a mistake!

Old people sat in chairs facing the box with moving pictures that humans spend hours staring at. I counted at least two paws’ worth of them. When they saw me, the ones who could rose to their feet, making cooing noises at me. I heard the door close behind me. Glancing around, I could see no way to escape. And they came. One pale grey female with a face like rough tree bark who smelled of perfume, powder, and pee, made a grab for me. “Puss puss,” she said.

I ran. Dodging between the wobbly legs and long metal poles, I found a safe space beneath a long seat, and stayed there until they all stopped hunting me, and sat back down to stare at the box.

Someone came and called them. As the door opened, I smelt the whiff of hot food. The people shuffled away, then the office door opened. I ran back in and hid between the two metal towers. My box was still there, and I jumped into it and settled down. I was half-aware of Dayy-vid's footsteps as he left the office, as grooming soothes me and I was giving myself a thorough tongue bath at the time. I was fully aware when he returned bearing something heavenly. I had to have it! Oh, that smell! Fishy goodness and milky something called my soul's name, and pulled me towards it with the promise of divine satisfaction if only I could get my face against it. At once, I left my box and jumped up onto Dayy-vid's desk, whence came the delicious aroma. Savouring the redolence, I put my best feline smile on, crooked my tail, and meowed. There was no way he could resist my wide eyes and slightly crouched aspect; it always worked on Ellie.

“Get off, Felix!” Dayy-vid snapped. “You've been fed.”

Affronted by this cruel display of human indifference, I meowed again.

Dayy-vid snatched up his dish and held it away from the desk. Away from me. How could he? The nerve! Well, I still had a trick up my sleeve (metaphorically, of course. Only internet and storybook cats wear clothes): I looked around at the gravy-tinted woman, who had always been the kindest to me, and squeezed as much pathos as I felinely could into my next meow.

“Dayy-vid,” she said, “put a little in his bowl.”

“No,” he replied. “Look, there is plenty of food in there. Tell you what, Donna, if he clears his bowl, I'll give him some, but not before.”

How could this not work? Ellie gave me anything I wanted when I cried like that.

Donna went out, and a short while later—long enough for Dayy-vid to finish eating his food in front of me—she returned with the fishy stuff in a container, which she dropped into my bowl. I leapt off the desk and devoured the food. Then I made a point of rubbing up against Donna's legs. Nobody else got the privilege since none of them ever brought me the fishy stuff. I even let her pet me. And I honoured the plastic thing on her desk with my presence. I couldn't, for the life of me, work out why the small shape kept multiplying in a row till I shifted to get more comfortable. Then a different one spread itself across the white screen until Donna tempted me away with a slice of cheese.

When the office people left that night, I made my round of the room. Dayy-vid had left his bottom desk drawer open, so I positioned my bottom above it and left him a token of my esteem.

It took a while to get used to life in the office. Ellie came to see me a few times, bringing extra treats. I was resigned to not going home, though I still had no idea of what my job here was supposed to be.

Cheryl got it into her head that, now that I was used to the office, I would submit to her grabbing at me. She was mistaken. I only lay on her laptop (which was always on her desktop) because it was warm. Where she got the idea that I liked her from, I'll never know. I left a little something under her desk, and she put her foot in it as she tucked herself into a working posture. I couldn't resist smirking as she walked it all over the room, working it into the carpet tiles as she went.

That snitch Donna pointed it out, then Dayy-vid, who was reaching into his bottom drawer at the time, found the tiny parcel I'd left him. The sneaky git cried out, then got up and pretended he was doing something else. Now, I'd hoped into my box for a bit of peace and quiet, and he saw me. Before I could do anything about it, he folded the flaps down and trapped me. Cheryl brought the string he asked for and tied me up in there.

The office door opened and closed. Footsteps came and went, then I heard Ellie's voice. “Oh, Nugget, what did you do?”

She picked my box up (with me inside), and brought me home. The familiar smells of plants and soil and bread filled me with joy. She put the box down, then tugged at the string to let me out. Unusually, all the doors were closed. I looked up at Ellie's sweet, brown-wreathed face, her blue eyes magnified by her oversized glasses, and chirruped. She petted me, and said, “I don't know how we're going to make this work,” in a worried voice.

“Make what work?” I thought.

“Woof!”

Oh, RATS!