But, Where was she???

Friday got off to a roaring start, but by 12:30 the day had ground to a halt when we couldn’t find the cat. 

I had taken the day off work to get a jump on the long weekend, so I was at the grocery store by 7 a.m. and home from the full round of errands by 10. Breakfast and packing followed swiftly; Holly, the cat, was in from her morning rounds and settled — it seemed — into her quilt on the sofa. 

I began to load the car. So far, so good. 

Then I heard the thunk of the cat hitting the floor. She left her place of comfort for…where? I wasn’t immediately worried as she was, after all, in the house; far easier to find her inside than out. I continued to pack the car. Val, compromised by an ankle injury, was stuck on kitchen duty. 

By about 12:15 we were both done, the car was loaded and all that was left was to get the cat into the car and head off up the highway to the cottage. So, I went down to the guest nook in the basement to look under the bed: Holly’s favourite you-can’t-get-me spot, when she’s playing hard ball. But she wasn’t there. And, as it turned out, she wasn’t anywhere. 

I checked under every piece of furniture that seemed a likely hiding place, and even under some and in several corners clearly unlikely. No bright cat’s eyes gleaming in the beam of the flashlight anywhere. 

When Holly can’t be found outside, I get anxious pretty quickly. But when I can’t find her inside, I go from annoyed to frustrated to furious in short order. Purely emotional, entirely illogical. It’s a small house. She’s a small cat with a small brain. How can it be so hard for me to find her? 

After a couple of rounds of looking upstairs and down, I pronounced that she must have gotten out through the open door when I was coming and going in and out to load the car. “Well. That’s that,” I said in a peevish tone, horribly annoyed. “We’ll just have to wait for her to come home.” 

Val had a bright idea: She got in the car and drove around the block, because Holly knows the sound of our car and often comes to greet the driver when it pulls up out front. But not this time. No feline anywhere.

Val then gamely hobbled around the yard trying to find Holly. I walked around the block. Still no cat. I sat in the front, Val puttered in the back. No cat. I wandered down the road again. Came back. Gave up. Went up the front steps and opened the door. Before I knew what was happening, Holly streaked past me, down the steps and into the neighbour’s front flowerbed. She had been inside all along! 

“Val,” I shrieked. “She’s here!” And with that shriek, the chase was on. 

Holly took a sharp turn and deked through the gap in the fence into our backyard. Val couldn’t see her among the ferns (and weeds), so I went round and tried to nab her. But she was faster than I, turned tail and made her way back into the neighbour’s flowerbed. I couldn’t squeeze through the gap in the fence, so had to walk around the house. By then, Holly was deep under the neighbour’s front steps. 

Val came limping round to help. She took one side, I took the other. Val used the neighbour’s rake (handily laying just there) to prod Holly in an attempt to get her to move towards me. 

What was that I said about her small brain? An unfair assessment of her capacities, clearly, because she moved alright, but away from me and out the front. That cat can move when she wants to! 

I followed right behind but couldn’t reach her before she took cover under our dogwood, then our false spirea and, finally, under the other-side neighbour’s front bushes. And there, finally, I was able to nab her and pick her up. 

We stowed her in the bedroom while Val iced her ankle, I calmed down and the cat looked innocent. 

We eventually arrived at the cottage, several hours later than planned. And we still have no idea where Holly had been hiding in the house. She’s not talking.