Today I am over at Tara Lain's blog, with my co-author for The Good Boy, JA Rock. We're taking part in the Paws with a Cause blogfest, and talking about crazy pets and our almost identical history of "Please! PLEASE MUM! Can't we keep it, PLEASE!"
Check it out! You can win a copy of The Island, by me, your choice from JA's backlist, and a heap of other great prizes.
Now, because there are only so many words you can write on a guest post, I talked about my cats, who are all adopted. I mean, obviously I didn't give birth to them, but I also didn't go to a pet shop and buy them. No, I had no choice but to take them in, you know, once I looked them in the eye.
But because I had to keep it short and sweet, I didn't talk about Eudo.
Also, because Eudo is a sad story.
Eudo was the stray cat who used to come into my house and eat my cats' food. My cats hated him with a passion, but the sort of repressed British passion you only really see in Merchant Ivory productions. They glared a lot, and looked miffed, but Eudo didn't care.
.jpg) |
| Eudo, not caring. |
Once, Eudo didn't come around for a few days. When he finally showed up, he was in bad shape: dragging his swollen leg behind him, his ear torn, his tail all busted up. But still hungry.
So I made a vet appointment and gave him breakfast.
"Don't eat too much, Eudo," said my mother, who was visiting that day.
"Fuck it, Eudo," I told him, "eat as much as you want. Go nuts."
Because I knew where this was going.
The vet was very nice about it. Yeah, it was bad. Yeah, it would be the kindest thing. No, they wouldn't charge me. So I made the Grown Up decision.
Which was no consolation at all when it occurred to me later: that stray cat, hit by a car, had managed to drag himself to the one place where he felt safe. And how did I repay him?
With a Grown Up decision.
You can't save them all, of course, but a part of me will always be the little kid standing outside the pet shop or the animal shelter, begging to have the chance.
