What’s So Funny: Ferocious little puffball

One morning years ago I was sitting in a friend’s apartment, resting my eyes in an easy chair, when my friend’s kitty thought she saw something on the curtain rod behind me. In order to get to it, she had to run up my face and leap off the top of my head, so she did that. I don’t know which of us got up higher.

When I caught her I held her up close to the rod and said, “WHAT WAS IT? WHAT DO YOU SEE UP HERE THAT YOU HAD TO DO THAT?” She couldn’t remember. It’s the closest I ever came to spiking a kitty.

That was a long time ago, but that kitten still lives. Its soul has transmigrated into the one now staying with us.

This is the summer of Katie’s kitten, Scout, acquired at the age of a few weeks and the weight of nothing.

She’s a wide-eyed calico who has graduated from tiny to little. She flees, lurks, crouches and pounces, practicing for when she’s big enough to bring down an elk.

Booker, our Welsh springer spaniel, has a sore knee and has been holding his left rear paw up lately. As he passes by, Scout flings herself at the bad leg, much as her ancestors attacked the wildebeest that lagged behind the herd.

She falls right off, and Booker takes it in his hoppy stride. They’re pals. They lie on the couch together. He pretends to bite her. She goes for his eyes. The most interesting aspect of her behavior is our reaction to it. We’d be mad at anyone else, but Scout’s too light to hurt anyone, and she’s just acting instinctively, so she’s one of nature’s paradoxes — a cute sociopath.

We are correcting her, of course. We’re teaching her to stop attacking our knuckles and feet. On Katie’s orders we say “Tssss!” and push her away. We don’t throw her across the room; I was outvoted on that one.

She already attacks less than she did, and is even affectionate about half the time.

She’s sitting on my lap as I write this, because Katie’s not home. She’s really quite sweet in her quieter moments. And she’s funny. When she miscalculates her leaps and lunges, she falls off tables and counters, flailing. Great stuff. Then she bounces back unhurt, like a cartoon cat.

At night she curls herself around Katie’s neck. Children and predators are all good when they’re sleeping.

As for my own sleep, I take care not to doze off in the easy chair. I don’t wish for my appearance to sink below its present standard, and when a kitty runs up your face, you look like you’ve been in a fork fight.

SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident. He has written four novels, three of which were critically acclaimed. His novel, “Diminished Capacity,” is now available in bookstores, and the film version is available on DVD.