Читать книгу Dougal's Diary - David Greagg - Страница 60

I guessed right about today! Man finally got up and gave us our breakfast. I must say that all the usual things just don't work with him. Patting his nose, washing his face, lifting his eyelids with our paws. We tried them all and nothing worked. I got about half of my breakfast before the Black Food Thief got the rest.

When Man did get up though, he just opened the door and let us out! Carefully we walked out onto the new wooden floor and began to sniff around. The floor is covered with boxes under the new bed in there. There were a few little toy things and we played with them for a bit, but they smelled of other cats, so we ignored them.

Speaking of other cats, there is definitely at least one cat in the house with us. Every now and again over the last few days we can feel her just outside the door. We just sit there and we can smell her clearly. She smells very cross and annoyed. This is a pity, but I'm sure we can learn to get on. I think the other cat must be locked away somewhere else in the house while the door is open, because we can't smell her anywhere. Plenty of time to make friends with her later.

After a while Woman lay down on the big bed and turned on the picture box. This is a really big one and it got Shadow terribly worked up. She raced across the floor and reached up and tried to chase the humans on the screen. She pawed frantically at them and mewed at them and I just looked at her.

She came back and sat next to me on the floor and I explained as best I could about picture boxes. It's very hard to explain anything to other cats if they've never seen anything like it before; which she hadn't. My old home had one and our new humans do, but Shadow's old humans mustn't have. It was a bit funny watching her chase the humans on the screen, because everyone knows they're not real.

But she behaved quite sensibly when I tried to explain, and walked around the back of the box to see if anyone was there and of course they weren't, so I think she believed me. Then we curled up on the bed next to Woman and we watched a whole lot of cats playing on the picture box. They looked like they were having fun, because they were outside and it looked like a nice day wherever they were. Better than here, anyway. It was hot today and we had to drink a lot of water to stay cool.

Then suddenly on the picture box there were two big dogs. Shadow crouched down and looked really nervous. I was a bit tense myself, even though I know they're not really there. Dogs barking make any cat scared, even when we're perfectly safe.

So Shadow crept up on a black plastic thing next to Woman and she batted it with her paw until the dogs went away and there were just humans again.

How did you make the dogs go away? I asked her. She just looked at me. Haven't you noticed? she said. She can change what happens on the picture box by tapping the black thing. So I just tapped it until the dogs went away. I don't like dogs! she said, and looked away.

I am beginning to think my adopted sister might be one very smart cat. I hadn't noticed that at all about the picture box. We stayed in the room until late and Man shut us back in our room with our supper. Today was a very good day indeed.