NIPPER…NIP…NIP, by Robert Reginald

I am Nipper, son of Tigereyes, grandson of Sharpclaw, of the lineage of Longfang, and no one masters me.

I deign to stalk a space enclosed within four walls on two levels, which I graciously share with three mutts, two humans, and assorted smaller critters—my playthings—whose lives I control, although not all of them realize that fact. Such is the superiority of the feline being.

This is the story of how I, the smallest in body of these other, lesser creatures, but the largest always in spirit, how I, Nipper of the Grinding Teeth, how I…I saved them all.

Through the middle of the night I roam, endlessly—for no dark is dark to me—sniffing, watching, listening for intruders in this, my own sacred space. And on one such occasion of the not-too-long-ago, I heard, when no one else did, the slightest crinkling of glass, the sound of an intruder. I slipped out the door of my humans’ sleeping space, and bounded down the stairs, making nary a sound, and crept thence to the side door—the glass door—the pool door, the door that was now being pried open by a figure in black.

I made myself one with the carpet under a chair in the dining room, I became a slight irregularity indiscernible by the human eye—and I waited and I watched and I quietly gnashed my teeth. This was going to be fun!

Slowly, carefully, silently (but not to me!), the figure pushed open the entryway, and eased his body into the house. The purring of the pool motor behind him covered the small sounds he made.

He flashed a light around the middle part of the walls of the room, examining the shelves where my female human kept the idols of her horsie gods (when she failed to feed me on time, I sometimes would knock one of them off its base). He carried with him a sack into which he inserted certain of the items that he seemed to regard as having value. I almost yawned—noticing such trinkets was beneath the dignity of any true feline person.

But this was my human, not his, and he had no right to take her things, even if I personally found them empty of charm. Everyone knows that the only true god is Catnip the Green, for whom I was named, and whose mere presence creates an ecstasy of mind and body and…well, never mind that now!

But what to do? The intruder soon answered my question for me.

There was an upper shelf in the room that was not easily accessible, even for the human-creatures. So he grabbed the chair under which I crouched, moved it near the wall as I dodged its wobbling legs, and climbed up on the seat.

Ah, now his situation was slightly more precarious!

He flashed his lighted cylinder on the images housed above, looking for who-knows-what, picking this one or that, according to no rational decision that any true being could possibly understand. I waited until he raised himself up to reach for a horsie image further down the shelf, opened wide my mouth, and chomped down on the back of his heel.

He screamed, to my utter delight, teetered on his perch, and then fell to the floor with a large “thud.” I heard the doggies-dead-to-the-world upstairs suddenly come alive, and take up the chant of “woof-woof-there’s-someone-down-there” and “bark-bark-we’ve-got-a-problem-master!” That would rouse them from their deadly sleep!

The invader moaned and tried to sit up. I leaped into the air—oh, such a moment of delightful flight—and then plopped squarely on his face, all four paws and claws outstretched, and dug them in as I landed. Then I hopped away out of his reach just before he could react.

“Help!” he yelled, not realizing where he was or what he was doing. “Help! I’m being attacked!”

Oh, yes, oh, yes, he was! As he tried to roll over on his stomach and rise to all fours, I thumped him again on his back, giving him another swipe of my four sets of sharp needles. He somehow got to his feet and headed toward the sliding door leading out to the water-place; but, not watching where he was going, he crashed right into the glass, and then sprawled outside as it broke, tumbling down the concrete steps. I had the satisfaction of hearing a bone crack.

“Help!” he screamed again and again. He was still moaning and shaking and bleeding when the outside human-creatures appeared in their round-legged vehicles with all the flashy lights.

None of them could understand what had happened to the poor man, who had suffered many injuries in his pursuit of the irrational.

“Thank God for all our dogs!” my male human-creature said to one of the outside-humans. “Their barking alerted us to the intruder.”

“They must have chased him right outside,” one outside human-thing said. “Then he panicked. We call him the Highlands Cat Burglar, because his modus operandi is to sneak in and out of houses surreptitiously, stealing only those small items that he can easily peddle elsewhere. You were very lucky, folks.”

This conversation was quickly becoming boring to a higher-level being, and so I quietly snuck back up the stairs and curled up on the end of my humans’ still-warm bed.

I was sound alseep when my two human-creatures and the three doggie-playthings finally returned, making enough noise to stir the dead, and startling the superior being out of his well-earned nap.

“Oh, there you are, dearest Nipper!” the female-creature said. I opened one eye in response. “You were so-o-o lucky that evil man didn’t hurt you. Poor li’l Nippums!”

She began rubbing my back, which I most certainly deserved. I purred at her in response.

And yes, yes, she was very lucky that I’d performed my duty that day, saving their lives once again. I sighed with contentment.

For I am Nipper, son of Tigereyes, grandson of Sharpclaw, of the lineage of Longfang—and no one masters me.

To the memory of Nipper, who shared eighteen years of his long life with us and with our daughter, much to our delight and joy.