Sydney Does It Again

by Henri Of Twin Brooke

Every time I decide to take my much needed morning snooze, some terrible thing will happen, often to Sidney, and disturb my sweet dreams. February second was no exception. I heard a terrible crash and then a high-pitched yowl coming from the computer room. At first I thought it had been part of a dream but then realized that it was not dream which was making all that noise. It was Sidney. I shook the sleep from my eyes, stretched my legs and back and sauntered toward the disturbance. When tragedy befalls Sidney, my housemate, it is usually a melodramatic response to a trivial matter. As I entered the computer room I saw Sidney sprawled on the floor near the big bookcase. He was moaning loudly, holding his left hind foot in the air, pounding his front feet against the floor as if to relieve the pain of his injury. “What happened?” I meowed, bending over his prostrate form. I saw no blood or other bodily fluid oozing from the corpse. “The book fell on my toes! My foot is broken! All my toes are going to fall off!” His wails grew louder and more shrill. I inspected the foot he continued to wave in the air. “It is a little swollen,” I admitted. “We can pack it in ice. Helen, Erika, could you get some ice cubes?” I hissed. “Sidney hurt himself!” Erika and Helen who had been watching birds flit about from the window in the living room rushed to my aid. “Ice? No problem.” Those kitties are so clever. There is no way a cat can open the freezer door without help. They pushed one of the kitchen chairs over to the refrigerator. Helen stood on her hind feet leaning against the door and Erika climbed up on her shoulders. From that position, she was able to pry open the freezer door. Hanging on to the door frame with one paw, she was able to pull a tray of ice cubes from the shelf with her other paw. She threw it on the floor where all the cubes broke free of the tray. Together, she and Helen wrapped the ice cubes in a kitchen towel which Helen had pulled from a hook. They dragged the bundle into the computer room. I took it from their paws, propped Sidney’s injured foot on a stack of newspapers and applied the “bag” of ice. “That should make the swelling go down,” I purred. “Now tell me, why were you trying to get the dictionary down from the top shelf? It’s a very heavy book and takes two cats to get it from the shelf safely.” “I was going to look up the wood ‘groundhog’,” he moaned loudly. At that moment Raymond Hazelwitz, rodent activist tapped on the window. Together, Helen and Erika pryed the window open and let him into the computer room. He was not alone. At his side was George, the neighborhood woodchuck. He looked sleepy and a little disoriented. He yawned, showing us all his molars. Raymond looked at Sidney’s prone figure and shook his head. “That cat finds trouble just by breathing,” he sighed. “What happened to his foot? His yowls woke up poor George here. He wasn’t really ready to come out of hibernation, you know.” Sidney sobbed. “I was trying to look up the word ‘ground hog’ and the book fell on my hind foot and broke it. I am in terrible pain and you should feel very sorry for me and fetch the container of cat treats which are on the second shelf in the kitchen cabinet....” George yawned again and stretched his front paws toward the ceiling. “And why, exactly are you so interested in ground hogs, Sidney,” he growled. “Because,” sniffed Sidney, “today the ground hog comes out of his den and if he sees his shadow, then there will be six more weeks of winter. I was going to go out and let every cat in the neighborhood know about it and then they would all admire me!” George sighed, wiping his face with his paws. “In the first place, that is a silly myth perpetrated by a bunch of silly humans who have nothing to do with their time but sit around talking, playing cards and drinking decaffeinate coffee.” He grimaced. “Unfortunately, there are some ground hogs who got caught up in the myth and the attending celebration and have made a little money at it. Some actually believed it would result in a movie contract. To each his own. It’s not my game.” “How would you know?” hissed Sidney, his eyes blazing with anger. “I happen to be a ground hog and I would never get up from my den and see if I had cast a shadow. Not for anyone!” growled George. Sidney stood up on his hind legs, facing our visitor. All eyes were focused on the two belligerents. “You are a wood chuck, not a ground hog!” “Same animal, Sidney. Just different name,” squeaked Raymond Hazelwitz. “That’s true, Sidney,” meowed Helen. Erika nodded her head. Sidney stared at his feet, sat down and began washing his paws, carefully licking between his toes. “Oh,” he meowed. “Well I would have found that out from the dictionary.” “You could have found that out by asking me, Helen, Erika or Raymond,” I meowed. “Or you might have asked me,” growled George. Raymond merely shook his head and chattered under his breath, “The cat’s an idiot....” Sidney overheard the rat’s remark, got up from sitting on the floor, turned tail and ran from the room. “So much for the broken foot,” meowed Helen. “Come on Erika. Let’s watch the birds.” The End