Kuting

Oh my goodness, there is a newborn kitten in the house!

My sister and I got home from a cousin's birthday party and headed up the stairs and straight to Mom's room to let her know we were back. As we lounged on her bed and told her how the party went, I noticed a repeated meowing sound. It's normal to hear cats outside, but usually, you can tell that they're coming from a distance. This one sounded like it was just a room away. Also, it sounded like a kitten; its meow was so tinny and high-pitched. I didn't think a kitten could meow so loud that we'd be able to hear it from far away, so I swore it was just nearby, perhaps on the small balcony outside Mom's room. I asked them if they heard it, but they simply said yes like it was nothing out of the ordinary. So, I went back to my room and worked on some essays.

About two hours later, I stepped out of my room to use the toilet and to get a glass of water. I heard the meowing again, and it sounded even closer this time, almost like it was a mere foot or two away from me. I decided to go into Mom's room to check if she and my sister found this weird at all, or if they still thought it was normal. I entered the room to find them both just staring in the direction of the meowing, perplexed frowns combined with horrified looks on their faces. They looked up when they saw me, and my sister said, "I think there's a cat in my room. I left the window open."

I went back into the hallway to investigate. Sure enough, the meowing instantly sounded louder, and it did seem to come from the direction of my sister's room. But the sound did not seem to come from behind a wall. In fact, it seemed to come from... under the wooden shelf in the hallway between my room and my sister's room? I peered under the shelf, at a safe distance. It was hard to make out anything at first; the shadow of the base of the shelf made it hard to see much. But as my eyes made sense of the lines and shapes, I saw... shredded paper... an open shoebox, the cover lying just beside it... and... wait. A moving tail. Orange-tan and white fur. A furry little mouse-sized thing clawing at the shoebox. Oh. My. Goodness. It was a little tiny baby kitten!

I rushed back into Mom's room and told them that it wasn't in my sister's room; it was in the hallway, under the shelf! And it wasn't a cat; it was a little tiny baby kitten the size of a mouse! They followed me out of the room cautiously, careful not to step too close to the shelf. They looked suspiciously toward the bottom of the shelf but made no move to bend down and peer under it. "Look!" I encouraged them. "It's there!" My sister did, but she barely saw the kitten before rushing back into Mom's room. My Mom looked a little longer before calmly walking back into her room. I gave the kitten another look before following them into Mom's room.

"How the heck did it get there?!" I don't know who said it first--and I don't know who repeated it the most number of times. But that question bugged the hell out of us. A number of half-thought-out possibilities came up, but none of them really seemed plausible to us. Perhaps it got in through an open window--but how could a little tiny kitten that couldn't even find its way out from under the shelf have gotten up to the second floor all by itself and leapt into a window? Perhaps its mother brought it there--but where was its mother?

The thought of a mother cat suddenly made me recall an event earlier during the day: As I stepped out of my room to tell my sister we were leaving for the party, the cover of a shoebox by the shelf outside my room tipped over and fell. I was instantly confused. Did I knock it over when I opened the door? I couldn't have; my bedroom door swings inward. For that matter, since when was there a shoebox cover by the shelf? And why just the cover? And then, all of a sudden, the idea that there might be a mother cat involved solidified in my mind. A theory began to take shape, and I could almost see it happening.

While we were out (Mom must've left the house too), our househelp must've left some doors and windows open. A mother cat, lips clamped on the nape of its kitten's neck, calmly entered the house, went up the stairs, and found the best spot to make a home for its young. Spotting some shoeboxes on a nearby shoerack, the mother cat gently put down its kitten by the shelf and nudged it underneath before heading to the shoerack to get some materials for its baby's new home. As it was finishing the job of transporting said materials, I must've opened the door to my room, which made it quickly drop the shoebox cover and hide under the shelf with its baby. I guess it hid out until we all left the house, or at least until we all were back in our rooms, before it went back out to finish the job. And then, at some point, it must've gone off in search of food. Before it could return, however, all the doors and windows had been shut, and it was locked out. And now, we have a poor hungry little newborn kitten, all alone with no one to turn to. It may still be blind too; it won't leave its spot under the shelf even though the way out is clear, and it keeps clawing at the shoebox.

I want to feed the poor thing, or take it out from under the shelf and bring it outside where its mother can find it. Or maybe I could even just put it into the shoebox, together with some rags and a small container of milk. But Mom told me not to touch it because its mother might come back and attack me. So I suppose we'll just have to wait till the morning, when we can either open the doors and windows and wait for MommaCat to come back for her baby, or get someone else to scoop out the little kitty and bring it outside, where it can reunite with its mother. I just hope it'll last until then. Poor little kitty. :( I hope it wisens up and gets some sleep to conserve its energy. The last thing I wanna wake up to tomorrow morning is a dead newborn kitten outside my room. I guess we'll see what happenes tomorrow.

(Speaking of newborns, Grace and Conrad [well, just Grace, technically] gave birth already! I want to visit, especially because--I just realized--they're my first friends to have a baby!)