Feathers fur and fins part 2.

When I moved out of home, to move in with the man of my dreams, (well so I thought at the time).

I moved into a great little apartment in East Fremantle, it was on the 6^th floor, right in the corner of the block of units, so our front door was not near any ones walk ways.

This was our first home away from home. With river views, a great balcony and rent that was so low it was practically free.

But the one thing that disturbed our little perfect life was small, black and adorable, with big yellow eyes and an attitude to match.

And how we met this little fire cracker was sad, sad that people could be that cruel, but also joyous as this little darling joined our family.

We were taking out the garbage, down to the car park to dump it into the big cromlin bin when my then boyfriend heard a strange noise upon opening the lid. We threw in the rubbish bag and heard the feint noise again. Intrigued, AJ decided it was worth further inspection, so he jumped in, and started to rummage around in the refuse.

I watched intently, and slowly he stood up back into my line of sight, holding a brown cardboard box. it was taped securely shut with duck tape.

I looked at him, curious as to why he seemed intent in opening some ones rubbish.

AJ handed the  box to me and I reluctantly took it, it was heavy, and seemed to be unevenly weighted.

AJ climbed back out of the bin and stood and watched me slowly rip at the tape and open the box,

I pulled the flap open and saw the biggest pair of yellow scared eyes looking up at me.

She squeaked at me, her little voice nearly gone from overuse and fear. My heart broke; she was so small and looked so helpless. Slowly I pulled the flaps of the box open further to see that some cruel individual had bound her legs together with that same duck tape. So tight she couldn’t stand. She struggled feebly in an attempt to seek freedom, but just fell around in the bottom of the box.

AJ took the box as I held her little body in my hands, her black fur all sticky and wet with her sweat from her struggles. Slowly I wrapped her under my coat and took her up to our apartment, hoping no one in the building saw me, as there were strict rules at our new home with the river views. “No pets”

After a wash in warm water and a session with the scissors to remove the duck tape bindings, I toweled her off in the lounge room.

She was a beautiful little kitten, no more than 10 weeks of age. Pitch black with a pushed in little nose and the biggest yellow eyes Id ever seen. Im sure she was part chinchilla and part Persian, she was a longhair and seemed slightly on the small side for her age.

She sat there on the lounge room floor, grooming herself, and looking at me warily. Her trust in us humans had been shaken, and it took two days for her to voluntarily jump into my lap and purr at me. I named her Ebony, for the blackness of her coat and the darkness that had brought her to us.

I was sitting on the balcony one afternoon, watching her chase a piece of string when AJ came to me and said “we can’t keep her, you know that”

I looked up at him, and didn’t answer, for I knew he was right.

“What are we going to do?” he said tickling her belly and smiling at her response as she kicked and bit at his hand.

I sighed, and then as if all of a sudden it just all seemed to make sense it came to me.

“We are going to have to move!”

And we did.