The food continued to appear – night after night. Like magic! And the creatures kept peering out at them from the kitchen window when they came to eat in the back courtyard at dusk, and making funny ‘ssssss’ing noises. She’d reverse away and hiss back fiercely! The two-legged creatures were very strange. But putting up with their weirdness was a small price to pay for the fast food wagon that she and her son thought was the most delicious invention ever.

She knew, from the more educated of her species on the feral cat network, that these creatures were called humans. The odd cat that she came into contact with had told her to beware of them. They were not often to be trusted. Many horrible stories did the rounds about how nasty they could be to the homeless. Some, however, did seem to be kind. In fact, many like her lived lives of luxury in their homes.

Never in her short life had she been in any kind of contact with any of these strange beings. She lived mostly alone with her son in the bush, hunting, scratching around for food, and generally being on high alert most of the time – hiding from all the dangers that lurked – dangers from predators, snakes, big birds that swooped down from the skies and could grab a huge bull monkey for dinner, humans and the nasty illegal traps that so many of them set up in the bush to catch the buck and other wildlife that roamed the area.

As far as she could tell, the humans they had hooked up with seemed fairly decent. At this early stage in their relationship, she was only interested in the food – a regular source of nourishment for her and her son. As long as the food kept coming, they’d hang around.