RA'S REVENGE
by
Lea Tassie
Copyright 2016 by Lea Tassie
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Ra’s Revenge
“Angus MacDonald, come in here and drink your tea before it's cold!”
Fenella was standing on the back veranda, hands on hips. I knew she must have hollered at me several times already, because she only tacks on the 'MacDonald' when she's mad enough to throw something. Trouble is, when I start gardening, I get so wrapped up in it I don't hear anything but those dratted weeds sneaking up through the soil.
I struggled to get up, my knees, elbows and knuckles creaking with arthritis. The vegetable patch looked good, though. I'd just finished trimming the edges, so it was neat as a pin. I'd spaded and raked the fine, black soil, and now all I needed to do was put in some stakes either end and tie string to them so I'd get the rows arrow straight.
“Angus!” Fenella's tone was ominous.
“Ay, I'm coming.” I picked up the shoe box full of seed packets from the veranda steps and took it into the kitchen to sort through while I had my tea. Cabbage, peas, beans, zucchini. I’d cut up a few old potatoes and plant them, too. Wee potatoes are a good treat in early summer. The first batch of lettuce, radishes and green onion was already growing in the greenhouse. The luscious pictures on seed packets drive me crazy; it seems to take forever before I can get my teeth into the first radish and the green crunchiness of fresh lettuce.
When I'd finished my tea and the shortbread Fenella makes because it reminds her of her grannie's in Argyle, I stood on the veranda for a minute to look at my yard. It's the trimmest and most productive on the whole block, if I do say so myself. Last fall I gave the greenhouse in the corner a fresh coat of pale green paint, like freshly sprouted grass, and the back fence, too. That's where I'll put the scarlet runner beans. The red blooms will show up a treat against the green. Over in the other corner and all along the front of the house, Fenella plants flowers but I don't dare interfere with that.
A movement in the vegetable patch caught my eye. I opened my mouth and roared, but I was too late. The cat from next door, a gray tabby, had already done his business and was covering it up.
“I'll teach you, you little bugger!” I jumped down the steps, picked up a rock from the edging around Fenella's nasturtium patch and threw it at the cat.
“Angus! There's no need to injure the poor animal.” Fenella had come out on the veranda.
The pain was so bad my knees were close to buckling. “I've just ruined my back throwing that rock, Fen. Help me up the steps, I've got to lie down for a bit.”
As I hobbled toward the kitchen door, I saw another cat. This one was sitting quite still under the wild currant bush behind the carport that’s attached to one end of our house. It was staring at me. One of those fancy Oriental breeds with slanted blue eyes and big ears, lean and cream-colored, except for all the bits on the ends. You know what I mean, the feet, muzzle, ears and tail. Those were chocolate brown.
“Who does that creature belong to?” I asked.
“Elegant beastie, I must say,” said Fenella. “Angus, mind the door sill.”
*
Ten days later, I was still having trouble walking. If I could have got hold of that tabby cat, I'd have brained it. Fenella had to plant my vegetable garden, with me shouting instructions from a chair on the veranda. She's a good lass but she can't make straight rows worth a hoot. It'll be a miracle if the plants grow, the way she slapped dirt over the seeds. I guess I’ll have to live with the crooked rows, too.
Every time we went out back, that cream-colored cat was sitting under the wild currant. It didn't claw anything, or chase birds, or use my garden to mess in. It just sat and stared at me. “What do you suppose it wants?” I asked.
“Haven't a clue,” Fenella said, “but it's a pretty animal. I got a book from the library about cats and I'm sure that one's a Siamese. They were first bred by royalty, the book says.”
“It better stay out of my garden, or it'll be dog meat.”
Fenella drove me to see the doc. I told him I was feeling pretty good, but he didn't believe me and said to take it easy for another week. When we came back, we had a cup of tea on the sundeck, which also happens to be the roof of our carport. With a table, a few garden chairs and some hanging flower baskets beside the sliding doors, it looks decent enough. I stood at the railing and looked down at the vegetable patch. I couldn't see any green shoots yet but it was obvious a cat had been digging holes. “That damn tabby has a garden where he lives. Why does he have to come over here and use mine for his toilet?”
“Oh, stop fussing, Angus. Think of it as fertilizer.”
“It's no any good for that. Cats are meat-eaters. If I want fertilizer, I'll buy steer manure or rent a cow.”
“Well, don't get yourself in such a state. What's done is done.”
“Maybe so, but I'm going to keep those animals out of my yard, even if I have to put a fence around the whole thing. It's my yard, not theirs.”
I turned from the railing to see that same gray tabby on his belly at the edge of the sundeck. A couple of sparrows were at the bird feeder. “Get out of there, you!” I wanted to throw something. The only thing handy was my teacup and if I broke that, Fenella would kill me. But the cat wasn't taking any chances. He fled back down the trellis I’d built for Fenella a year or two back.
“I’m going to take that trellis down,” I grumbled. “Then the beasts won’t be able to climb up to the roof.”
“No, you’re not, Angus. That trellis is for my sweet peas.”
When Fenella uses that tone, I know better than to argue. But I still do it. “That's another thing,” I said. “The tabby's not the only one that comes up here and kills birds. I've found feathers many a time.”
“Well, what do you expect, you great lump?” Fenella said. “You've got the feeders sitting on a table. It's like you're inviting all the neighborhood cats to supper. Why don't you hang the feeders under the eaves where the cats can't reach them?”
“It's my yard; I shouldn't have to hang them up,” I muttered.
“Don't be daft. Cats don't recognize boundaries.”
We carried the tea things inside. I turned to glance out before I went to the kitchen and there was that cream-colored cat, sitting in the middle of the sundeck. Staring at me. I stuck my head out the door and yelled, “Get away!” The beast didn’t even twitch. Just sat there. Staring.
“Stop fussing and sit down,” Fenella said. “Rest your back and I'll read some of the cat book to you. When you hear their history, you might respect them more.”
“I have no respect for man nor beast that steals from others.”
“The cats aren't stealing from you.”
“They're stealing my birds and using my space. They're making me spend time cleaning up after t
hem, too.”
“The birds don't belong to you.” Fenella picked up her library book and began reading aloud. “Because of their ability to kill snakes, especially cobras, cats in ancient Egypt were revered highly, sometimes given golden jewelry to wear and allowed to eat from the same plates as their owners. Dead and mummified cats were brought for burial in the temple at Per-Bast. More than three hundred thousand were discovered when it was excavated.”
“Well, those chaps knew what they were about,” I said. “Three hundred thousand is a tidy number.”
“You've got it wrong,” said Fenella. “The cats died natural deaths.” She flipped ahead a couple of pages. “Cats were sacred to Bast, and to harm one was deemed a great sin. People were executed for killing a cat, even if it was accidental.”
“Those Egyptians were daft buggers,” I said. “We don't execute humans even when they kill other humans.”
“Perhaps they did carry it a bit far,” Fenella conceded. “Listen to this: when a cat died, the whole family went into mourning, the measure of their personal loss signaled by their shaving off their eyebrows.”
“I told you they were daft.”
“Not completely,” Fenella said. “It says here cats curtailed the spread of disease by killing vermin.” She put the book down. “Maybe your tabby friend has been killing rats and mice in our