We have two black sisters, five years old, one of them a polydactyl mitten-kitten--that's Sibyl. She is BIG, not fat, weighs almost 14 lbs. Her sister, Spooky, weighs in at about 10. Sibyl is a sweetheart, Spooky extremely shy. Both were feral kittens, adopted from a rescuer after a car ran over their mother. They are sturdy, apple-head cats, looking a bit like Puss'N'Boots in their broad, short-legged build. Sibyl likes to run up and down the basement stairs playing with her favorite ball, wailing like an opera singer the entire time. Spooky doesn't have much to say.
Grace is about 1 year old, also a feral kitten--abandoned in a tree, mother probably taken by a coyote or fox. She is a gray tabby with short, flannel-like fur, with black striping on dark gray: very striking. She weighs about 8 pounds, wedge-headed--the lean, long-legged and high-speed model. Grace joined us to help fill the void of a beloved chocolate point Siamese--Noel--who died last year at the age of 23.
Grace totally dominates and badgers the older, larger cats--go figure.
She has such speed, energy and aggression that she completely unnerves the other two and has since she arrived as a barely-weaned (from the rescuer's bottle) kitten. Also, she doesn't meow, ever, but trills and chirps musically: when she's in pursuit of Sibyl or Spooky, she crows like a tiny rooster. She knocks her water over so she can slide around in it. Maybe those things freak them out, too.
I tell my wife Grace is the kitten who fell from the sky. I've lived with cats for more than 50 years, and Grace is definitely unusual. We wonder if she has some exotic breed in her ancestry.
Dost thou prate, rogue?
-Cassio
Real things always push back.
-William James
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