A story about Hattie, our little long-haired black cat. Soon after we first got her back in 2001, we thought heard mewing coming from down in our basement. When we went down there, the mewing seemed to come from upstairs. This went on, with us ascending and descending the steps repeatedly as we tried to pinpoint the source. Finally, we decided she must have crawled through one of the temporarily ungrated intake vents for the heat/AC and gotten down into the heating ducts in our basement! Just what we needed, a young kitten stuck in the bowels of our house!

The only answer seemed to be to dismantle the ductwork until we found her. As we stood in the kitchen contemplating how to even begin this task, we heard another series of meows. Finally, listening carefully, we traced them to their source: the kitchen cabinet. They're old 1950's metal cabinets, and her cries reverberated in them, sounding like they came from elsewhere.

We opened the door and She, High Princess, padded delicately into the light, purring her greetings, her tail held high in the air.

Cats.