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Tugger Lives! Tugger Lives!August 27, 2009 Tugger the dark gray cat escaped from the Jaws of Travvy on August 13. This was a miracle on the order of loaves and fishes or water turned to wine: that when Susanna said "Drop it!" the Jaws of Travvy opened and Tugger fled up to the hayloft. Tugger was sighted two days later, on Saturday the 15th (by some reckonings the birthday of T. E. Lawrence, my lifelong hero), and said to be OK, albeit with a wound on his side. (Knock off the Christ complex, Tugger. Cats are supposed to have nine lives.) I was immensely relieved by this. As the days went by, however, I saw neither hide nor hair (strange expression, eh wot?) of Tugger and I began to wonder if Tugger really had put in an appearance. Maybe no one had seen him. Maybe they were just saying they'd seen him to make me feel better. I told myself that no one would be this clueless. Sooner or later I would catch on. More to the point, though less likely to be spoken in a cat-dominated court, I didn't feel all that bad. To be sure, I didn't want Travvy to have given Tugger a fatal wound, but on the other hand I am not a cat person, and this particular cat had disgraced his tribe by acting like an idiot. Every Cat's Guide to Dealing with Dogs has a chapter right near the beginning about dogs that aren't to be messed with under any circumstances, and near the top of the list are Alaskan malamutes. Tugger had probably skipped that chapter and cut straight to the one on How to Con Food from Humans. Anyway, I wanted to see for myself that Tugger was still among the hale and hearty, and day after day I wasn't seeing what I wanted to see. Other people saw Tugger, but not me. This probably had something to do with the fact that I invariably arrived at the barn accompanied by Travvy, who considers all small furry living things a potential food source. Don't be such a gutless wonder, Tugger, I thought. Travvy is tied up. The overwhelming majority of the world is beyond the radius of his tie. No Tugger. Theo, however, was all over the place. Chowing down on the shelf under the window, lounging on one of the Adirondack chairs. Yesterday morning I was in one of the stalls, collecting empty feed pans. I heard yeowling. I looked around, then I looked up. Peering down at me from the opening that we drop hay through was Tugger. Yeow! Yeoww! Yeowwwww! I was ridiculously glad to see his well-fed cat face. I climbed the ladder to the hayloft. Hiya, Tugger, where ya been? Along the ribs on his left side, well concealed by fur, was a rough scabby line two or three inches long. It didn't seem sore, which is to say that Tugger didn't screech or claw me when I touched it, and it didn't seem to go much deeper than the skin. Stay away from the dog, jerk, I said. You used up at least two lives on that one. I climbed back down the ladder. Tugger faded back into the hayloft. Travvy, outside, was oblivious. I think.
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