Little furry friends

My mother had a cat called Pedro.  We used to call him Pedro the Fisherman Cat.  He was grey and tabby and a very handsome gentleman.  Of course he had to share the house with Chloe.  You remember, the dog on a tilt?  If you don’t, read the story called Chloe – a Dog of Many Talents  below. Anyway Pedro was a school cat just like Chloe was a school dog and he was very used to children and sudden loud noises.  Despite his handsomeness, he was also very tough.  I’m don’t know why.  What ever it was, he was fearsome when he put his mind to it. There are some stories about his fearsomeness but this is not one of them.This is a story about a tough cat who nearly met with his comeuppance.  That’s an odd word.  Comeuppance.  But there you are.  The world is full of strange and cumbersome words.  And some strange and cumbersome experiences as well.Pedro ruled his domain with an iron paw.  his paw wasn’t really made of iron, but he had very big paws.  My grandmother would have said that they were plebian but there you are.He had one small weakness.  He liked to sleep on top of people’s cars.  He like the bonnets of cars in the winter when their slowly cooling engines kept him warm.In the summer he preferred car roofs, if they were in the shade, or he’d lie down underneath them.My mother had one particular friend who had a car with a roof rack.  The friend would often call in to visit my mother and they would drink tea and eat biscuits and talk and talk.One such day, the friend said good bye and went out to her car which was parked in the driveway.  My mother often went out to wave her away down the street, but on this particular day, the phone was ringing and the friend let herself out and away down the drive.There wasn’t much traffic and so she drove along beside the river in the late afternoon sunlight, humming a little as she went.When she stopped at the lights she noticed that people were staring and pointing at something.  She looked around but she couldn’t see anything.  The lights turned green and off she went.She was passing a car sales shop which had large desplay windows and  she happened to look in at the cars that were on display and then she caught a glimpse of her car in the reflection.And she jammed on the brakes, nearly causing an accident and nearly unroofing her passenger.She jumped out of the car and there was Pedro looking a little shocked on the roof rack.  Apparantly he was much fluffier than usual and his eyes were very wide.She said afterwards that she will never forget that glance in the window, of Pedro standing braced on the roof rack, the wind blowing back his ears and whiskers.  How had he managed to hang on?She brought him safely home.  She said that he was not pleased about riding inside the car, and that he’d seemed to be using a lot of swear words in cat language.Needless to say, Pedro never slept on the roof of a car again.