Dougal's Diary. David Greagg
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A funny thing happened today. Stripy Two started chasing her tail. She spun round and round on the smooth bit batting at her tail with her paws. Finally she pinned it down with her front paws, leaned over and bit. Quite hard, probably. She looked round nervously and ran away to hide under one of the big tall things.
Silly kitten! It's attached to you so of course it hurts when you bite! I spent a lot of the day playing with Black Kitten. We run across the carpet and dive forwards onto the smooth bit. If you run really fast you can slide all the way to the wall. In fact Black Kitten hit her head on the wall and blinked and looked a bit dazed, so I went over and washed her face for a while.
I keep getting the idea that something's following me. Later on I lay in wait for it and jumped around on it suddenly, just like Mum showed us. I padded it around with my paws for a moment and gave it a quick bite just to teach it a lesson. The weird thing was that somebody bit me at the same time. I looked around quickly but there was nobody nearby.
20
Today we found out about Chairs. Humans sit on them and we can too. It's fun climbing them, but you have to be careful because Stripy Two was sitting on a chair and one of our humans tried to sit on it too. We were worried she'd get squashed, but she flew off the chair and yelled at the human. She wasn't hurt and it was all OK.
I think our tails are getting longer as we get bigger.
And we are getting bigger. I thought Mum was getting smaller, but she isn't. We're growing. One day we'll all be as big as Mum, she told us. Even Black Kitten. We played all over our room and The Room With The Food, and ran up and down the long narrow room chasing each other and the white ball until it was bed-time.
21
When I was chasing my tail I got bitten again. Then I saw Stripy One do the same thing and I finally worked it all out. When we think we're being chased by something it's actually our own tails! No wonder it hurts when we bite them! I think we've been a little silly. But it wasn't long afterwards that I clean forgot all about it and bit myself in the tail again. What a foolish cat I am.
22
Today was great because our humans let us go Outside! It's got a funny floor that is very hard. There are big green things which smell funny and some softer ground with flat green stuff. There is one very big green and brown thing which you can run up and down, so we all did, one after the other. Mum says it's a Tree. The green stuff all smells amazingly different.
We were so excited about being let outside it took a while for us to realise something really scary. Outside has no roof! The room just goes up and up and up and there's no top to it. When Black Kitten saw this, she ran back inside. Stripy Two and I sat there side by side, looking up. We didn't know what to make of it but we sat there being brave. And Stripy One just ignored it and played Chasey with Mum. Eventually we got used to it, except for Black Kitten. But the smells on the air as it blows your whiskers are just brilliant. I sat on the green stuff and just drank it all in.
23
Even Black Kitten managed to come out to play today. She kept looking up at the total lack of roof and running back inside again, but after a few goes she stayed. We were getting used to it. It's very strange the way the yard doesn't have a roof, but you can get used to strange stuff pretty easily when you're a kitten. We all chased each other up and down the big green and brown tree thing. Mum said it wasn't a very big one, and we should get used to trees because they would be an important part of life later on.
24
We mostly stayed inside today. It was very hot outside and we didn't stay there long. I wanted to drink from Mum but she batted me away with her paw. I felt a bit surprised, but I noticed she wasn't letting anyone else drink from her either.
You're getting to be proper grown-up cats, she told us. You eat grown-up food now and you don't do this any more. I asked Stripy One about this and he said she'd been batting him away for ages and hadn't I noticed? I hadn't. Obviously I was so busy running round the yard and everything, that I'd forgotten about trying to drink from Mum.
And Black Kitten said she'd managed to get a drink from Mum yesterday when the humans were stroking Mum's face, but apart from that no one else was getting any, either. I can cope with this. I like wet food, but I like the little hard munchies best. They are great, and when I ask them for more and stand there looking cute, sometimes the humans give me more. I like our humans.
25
Played in the yard all day. It was wonderful. I love the smells outside. There's a wonderful little soft thing all folded up; it's a strange colour and it smells lovely. I spent a long time just rubbing my face against it, but some of the bits started to fall off it so I let it alone after that.
And today I found out about Mats. They are big brown things made of funny sort of wood and they are for scratching. There's one near the door to the back yard, and apparently there's another one out front, only we haven't been there yet so I haven't seen it. Mum showed us how to scratch properly.
Apparently, she said, humans don't like it if you scratch at their clothes. And I asked her, what are clothes, Mum? She told me she'd show me later.
So after dinner Mum took us all into the room with the bath and there was one of the humans. And we all watched him, absolutely fascinated. because what he did was this: he started taking his fur off! Bit by bit. It was very weird because he was pink and hairy underneath his fur, and all this stuff was just lying on the floor.
The human didn't seem to mind as we watched, and Mum got us to sniff his things on the floor. They all smelled of him and you could tell he'd had them on him. Mum explained that was why our humans looked different every day, because they put clothes on themselves and every day the clothes were different. So now we know about clothes.
Black Kitten asked if we needed to wear them and Mum said, No, although sometimes the small humans tried to put them on you. Her advice was, Only let them do that if you feel like it.
The rest of the whole bath thing was quite ridiculous because the human had filled it with hot water and then just climbed straight into it and started to wash!
It looked weird, but we sat and watched until Stripy Two jumped onto the side and fell in. The human lifted her out of the water and she started to cry, so Mum took her back to our room and washed her all over.
26
Played in the yard again and spent lots of time scratching the mat. After a while, though, it started getting dark and there was a funny wet smell in the air, so Mum called us inside and we ran up and down the long passage until it was dinner-time.
27
Played in the yard again and today it was dry and a bit hot so we kept stopping to have a break. It seems to be hotter outside than I remembered. I wonder why that is? We got different food today. It was red meat and I felt very excited afterwards. Stripy One growled when he was eating his. I thought he was funny. We have started noticing about lights. Apparently the humans can make it go light or dark just by doing something with their paws. It would be handy if we could do that but we can't.
28
Mum washed us all over today and we played inside because it was too hot outside to go out at all. It's a lot cooler inside under the roof, and there's this funny little place in the wall where cool air comes in. Black Kitten spent a lot of the day lying next to it.
Today Mum brought us some sausages to eat. The humans had given her two of them and she gave them to us. Stripy One practised jumping on one of them and biting the back of its neck.
Mum