The couch was comfortable and the blanket warm.  She wished the house would stay quiet, but it never did.  Some sort of scratching came from the kitchen.  Quickly, she sprang from her makeshift bed and dashed into the other room.  There was nothing.  She sniffed by the rack, her tail twitched, but whatever had made the sound left no trace.  Before leaving, she checked the floor by the counter to see if any food could be found.

Another sound caught her ear, and she ran back to the living room and jumped onto one of the ledges on the tower.  It gave her a good view, but first she had to check out the ledge itself, to be sure that whatever had made the noise wasn’t up here.  She sniffed a few places, looking for clues, and discovered some of the small green leaves from last night.  She must have missed them.  But no, not now; she was on the hunt.  Just a taste or two couldn’t hurt though, could it?

She thought she saw something move below her on the floor, and she hung over the side to get a closer look.  Before she knew it, half of her body was hanging off the ledge.  Her balance slipped, but she grabbed the ledge with her claws and kept hold.  After struggling for a few seconds, she managed to climb back up safely.

A bird chirped outside the window, and she leapt from the ledge to the back of the couch.  They taunted her from outside.  She knew she couldn’t reach them, and they knew it too.  But she crouched anyway.  One wrong move and they would regret flying too close.  If any of them made the mistake of coming into her house, it wouldn’t live to regret it.  But they didn’t, and soon they tired of the game and flew off.

So far, things hadn’t gone well.  No bird.  She never did find what had been making those noises.  But finding some of the leaves had been good.  The others weren’t even trying to help.  They might lift their heads occasionally to watch her, but they didn’t seem to worry about these things the way she did.

Instead, she walked over to the closed door and began to yell.  Sometimes the big ones would at least listen to her concerns, even if they rarely did anything about them.  But they seemed to care and even talked back sometimes, though she never could understand them.  First, she had to get their attention.  They were very slow.

Finally, one of them opened the door and picked her up.  It wasn’t the way her mother had done it, but it was still nice.  And soon she climbed upon its shoulders.  It chatted at her, even while it ignored most of the troubling noises.  Still, it was comfortable and safe.  Before long, she curled up to go back to sleep for a bit.  She trusted the big one to stay vigilant while she rested.