My name is Ace.
I didn’t always have a name, so I am glad to have one now. When I was a kitten, the others called me ‘Runt’ because I was so small. I called myself ‘Lucky’ because I survived. Humans called me hard names, and threw things, except the ‘Kind Hands’ who took me, and made me go to sleep with a needle, and when I woke up, they fed me. My bottom was a bit sore but otherwise nothing seemed different.
The ‘Kind Hands’ humans fed us once a day in the street, when they let me go again, but I didn’t want to stay. The other cats were big and scary.
I come from a town called Limassol. It is on an island called Cyprus, where it is always warm or hot, but most of the people there don’t like cats, and sensible cats hide from them, and only talk to humans who come in the big metal birds to visit.
I was nearly a year old, and my life was about to change.
It had been a bad week. Scraps were few, and in the heat they soon went rotten, and anyone who ate them got a bad tummy. I caught a bird, but a big Tomcat took it off me, and scratched my eye. Oh! How it hurt! I ran away, towards a rubbish tip I knew where there were sometimes scraps.
And when I got there, I recognised a smell!
It was a kitten who smelled of my mother; a little brother of mine! He looked terrible. His eye, the one opposite my bad eye, so like a mirror, was swollen and seeping pus. Yuk, it really smelled bad. Did I look like that? I thought. Actually, yes, I probably did.
This little brother of mine had cuddled up to another kitten who was crying faintly. Not surprising, for I could see where his tail had been bitten half off, probably by dogs, and it was swollen and definitely the wrong colour for a tail to be, and it was covered in flies. He was about the same age as my brother, half-grown kitten-cats.
There was no food.
There was no water.
There was no shade.
I was too weak to go any further.
I think that was the moment I decided I would adopt both kittens as my brothers and look after them while we all died. Lucky’s luck has run out, I thought. I curled around them as best I might, for they were almost as big as me, since I have always been so little.
I don’t know how long we lay there, half unconscious in the heat. But suddenly there were ‘human hands.’ I stiffened; but they were ‘gentle hands’ and they came with a gentle voice. I heard the gentle-voiced one called Anna. The next few days are a blur in my memory, but we had food and water and a cool pen, and then we went to sleep with a needle again and when I woke up my eye was no longer throbbing, just a bit sore. It didn’t smell the same bad smell any more either, but it smelled of place-with-needles smell. I know now this is a Vet smell, but I didn’t know much about vets then.
My brother, who is white with tabby spots like, me [though I have more spots than him] had his bad eye taken out too, and we had whiskery things across the hole, which I know now were stitches. Our adopted stripy brother’s tail had been taken right off! And I’m afraid we pointed and giggled.
When we were able to take in what was happening, Anna who found us told us we had names. Stripy was now called Kelly, my little brother was Piper, and I was Ace.
“You are going to stay with a lady called Cynthia, and then you are going to England,” we were told.
“What’s an England?” squeaked Piper.
“I think it’s a ‘where’ not a ‘what’, I purred at him. “I think it’s where the big metal birds live, who bring humans with food.”
It was quite nice with Cynthia, but we lived in a cage to sleep and had a room to play in. We had lots of needles, which was not nice, smelly stuff put on our backs where we couldn’t get at it to wash off, and blood taken out of us. But we got plenty of food and we were safe and Cynthia played with us, though Piper was too scared to play much.
And then Cynthia said,
“You are going to your human Mummy and Daddy, Sarah and Simon. You will be in a crate for a very long time until you get to them.”
In a crate for a very long time? What was that for?
We found out when they took us to a place in Cyprus where the metal birds roost. We were going in a metal bird! We had to be in a plastic crate so the metal bird couldn’t really eat us, but it was so scary when Auntie Cynthia was making cross noises. We clung together, frightened.
And then I was taken away from my brothers! I shouted and shouted, and Auntie Cynthia cuddled me, and said I had to go in a separate crate, something about weight.
I was sure I hadn’t got that fat for just eating every day.
I didn’t like being away from my brothers and I told the humans all about it, but I ran out of breath to shout, and we had to be inside the metal bird, which smelled peculiar.
It was so very scary. The bird lifted us up so fast my tummy stayed behind and I had to poop in the crate, and I could smell that my brothers had done so too. At least we had water and some dried food, but no room for a litter box. The bird’s tummy rumbled too, all the time, very badly. I was scared that if it was so hungry it might eat us when we got to England. I know it’s the only way to go to England, but it’s not pleasant! However, we were desperate for a home so we had no choice.
When the metal bird landed it didn’t eat us and pretty soon we were smelling vet smells again who poked us about, and they were talking about problems with the paperwork of two other kittens who had travelled with us. Really, the amount of paper humans seem to find necessary! They’d do better to use it to wipe their bottoms, since they can’t wash properly.
Eventually [oh, how long it took!] we were put in a car with the other two kittens. It was so cold outside, and I didn’t have my brothers to snuggle up to! And was it right to be with the other two?”
“Are we going to the right home?” Kelly shouted.
“We have to trust the nice humans!” I shouted back. The two female humans had been nice, but we were supposed to have a daddy.
However, we stopped after we’d been driven a while, and another couple of humans came and took our crates, and there was much hugging and kissing. And it was ever so nice, because in the back of their car was a big, big cage with a litter box and an igloo house and blankets, as well as food and water. I went and used the litter box right away, I was so pleased!
And we were all together again in there, and we were so relieved we curled up together. And our new mummy sat in the back and put her hand in to stroke us and talk to us. Piper was scared, but then he’d had worse from humans than Kelly and I had, he told us he had been booted into the air by a human once. You can see the shape of the boot on the scar on his chest. I rewarded our new mummy by climbing onto her lap for a cuddle, before going back to my brothers. And then we drove through the night, and the car was warm and we slept, exhausted. It wasn’t very nice going from the car to the house because the cage swung about a bit as they carried it between them, but we came at last into a warm room. And we were finally properly warm again, and no more travelling.
There were lots of other cats looking at us curiously, but we were used to other cats. So we curled up and went to sleep.
Next day Mummy and Daddy put us in a smaller cage but all together, and we had to travel again, but it was only to a vet. We found out we needed ear drops, which sounded ominous, which is probably because it was ominous.
I would like to mention that I do not like ear drops, and nor do my brothers. Piper made a fine mess of Daddy’s hands clawing and biting him, but Daddy never stopped being gentle.
It was Kelly who gave us most drama though.
He wriggled clear out of Daddy’s arms, up onto his shoulder and tried to jump!
Silly idiot, how was he supposed to jump without a tail to balance him? He landed heavily, too shocked to cry, having caught one paw on the way down on a stone step.
“Why do they always do these things at the weekend?” Daddy asked, as Mummy picked up Kelly for a cuddle.
To be fair to Kelly, he was having to put up with a lot of soothing creams and cleaning for his bottom as well as ear drops. Losing your tail is a dreadful thing, because you don’t know when you are pooping, as well as not being able to jump. He was very brave. And with the cold journey he also got the runs.
Anyway, off he went to the vet and came back with a pink bandage on his paw.
It took him overnight to get rid of it.
Meanwhile we were getting to know the other cats, who were very friendly, especially Rosie, who cuddled up with us like a mummy-cat. Mummy Sarah laughed and said we all made a cuddle-puddle.
But I was the first one, when they left the cage door open overnight so we could come and go as we pleased, to find my way upstairs and onto Daddy’s feet.
Kelly was next, and that was when he shed his bandage. His problem was that he couldn’t get downstairs without it.
Mummy did persevere.
She put it back on him four times.
It only took him six hours to get rid of it the second time, and when he shed it after just ten minutes, Mummy said,
“I give up; he’ll have to limp and let it heal naturally.
It did, and he strengthened it on the big running wheel Mummy and Daddy have for those of us who want to run.
We got used to it being colder than we were used to, we could cuddle each other, and Rosie, or curl up with one of our humans. Not that Piper wanted to trust humans that much. Kelly and I did. Piper discovered that longhaired Cecil and blind Leo were nice and warm and friendly so he cuddled them instead.
And gradually the winter went away, and we were allowed outside on warm days, in a nice, safe run, where nobody could get at us to hurt us. Piper learned that being stroked was nice, and he had special places where he allowed it. The Stroking Chair was where he had made friends with Cecil and Leo, and first Daddy, and then Mummy, were allowed to stroke him there.
And when Piper showed mummy his tummy, she found the scar shaped like the welt of a boot, and she cried a lot, and understood why he didn’t much like humans.
Meanwhile, I’m afraid it was I who next provided some drama! My sewn-up eye got uncomfortable, and then it burst open with horrid smelly stuff. Mummy said it was probably because there was so much poison from the first wound, that it ate part of my little skull above my nose. When the vets had sewn that up it made the little diamond shape which made Mummy call me ‘Ace’.
Nice Dr. Jenny said my eye would be fine, but it should be left open to drain. Mummy and Daddy bathed it with warm salt water, which wasn’t nice, but I was very, very good about it, and it healed up perfectly.
And we got to summer, and if it wasn’t as warm as Cyprus, we became used to that. The window is open most days through the summer, and we can come in if it rains.
Oh, and I help Mummy to write. I scramble onto her lap, and one time I managed to pull off five of her keys on her keyboard. She must have been so pleased, she said “Oh, ACE!” and she picked me up and hugged me.
My little brothers are a year old now, and almost grown up, and Kelly’s bottom only produces little nuts, not sticky goo except on really hot days. Mummy says it saves a lot of washing!
We have a home and lots of love. The only bad thing was when our mummy-sister, Rosie, died. I cuddled her while she was dying. She needed me, like I needed her when we first came.
But life goes on, and we have a good life and we will live it for ever and ever.
Somewhere a good angel was watching over us on that day when we all cuddled together to die on a rubbish tip.
Please send more angels to Cyprus.
