Mousetrap

Growing up, I had a three-legged cat named Mousetrap. I wasn’t the one who named him, obviously, as he had been around for as long as I could remember. I barely even recall a time when he had all four legs. My early memory has always been sort of spotty, so I only have a brief moment where I can clearly see him jumping from the top of the bookcase and landing softly on four gray paws, then the very next memory his front right leg was missing.

When I would ask about why Mousetrap had his leg removed, I was always told the wretched old woman across the street poisoned some food and fed it to him because he would stroll into her yard. She hated cats and Mousetrap liked taking naps in her flowers and ultimately crushed them.  

The old woman rarely went outside. As far as anyone knew, she lived with her middle-aged daughter, who served as her caretaker. The daughter could always be seen headed out shopping or going to and from work. Once in a while you may have seen her painfully helping the old woman into the passenger side of the car to either go to an appointment or maybe run an errand. Besides that, the old woman was usually just spotted in the mornings watering her crushed flowers.

We really did try to make Mousetrap an indoor kitty. We gave him a collar with his name on it, we stocked up on wet food and made sure he had plenty of toys. But he always found a way to sneak outside to cross the road and lay in her flowers.

Well, one late summer day, Mousetrap didn’t come home. My parents called for him and the sun had just about set when they finally closed the front door. This made me sick. We couldn’t just leave Mousetrap outside all night in the dark! Who knew what kind of horrible monstrosities a three-legged cat could face in the run-down back roads of Hattiesburg, Mississippi? I was around nine or ten when I made it my personal mission to rescue Mousetrap. I went to the kitchen and grabbed the old, heavy flashlight from the junk drawer. I told my dad that I was going outside to bring the cat home. He didn’t object too much, but he did tell me to only stay in our yard and to not cross the road.

So, I played the part for a little while until I was sure Dad wasn’t watching me from the windows anymore, and then I darted through the side yard and crossed the road. It was exhilarating and terrifying. For the first time in my life I was breaking the rules. I just knew I needed to find Mousetrap before she did, or else he would lose another leg. Or worse. 

This side of the road was brighter because it had the stream of the streetlight. This made me feel just a little better but my heart still slammed in my chest. I poked around the prickly rose bushes and overgrown grass that would make my bare legs itch. I kept whispering his name with an angry hiss, growing more scared and irritated with each passing second. What a stupid cat… how could he keep coming over to this house after she had poisoned him the first time? Didn’t he know that he wasn’t wanted over here? Didn’t he know how much we loved him? I could feel the tears burning the corners of my eyes. My palms were sweating and my hands hurt from gripping the metal flashlight so tightly. The humidity was so high and I felt like I was drowning. I kept having to stop every few steps to claw at my itching legs. I was miserable and so frightened. I wasn’t a very good cat hero. 

Then the smell hit me. I knew that smell, even at that age. It’s a smell that becomes imprinted in your brain after experiencing death. I’ve seen kittens die and even a couple of beloved dogs. The smell was definitely familiar… but different. Stronger.

I knew I was going to find him. I felt it in the pit of my stomach. He was going to be mutilated or curled up in a little helpless ball and I would have to carry him home in the darkness. I was already trying to figure out how I was going to carry him and the flashlight at the same time, rationalizing if it was worth getting in trouble by going back home to get my dad to bring him back for me. The tears were falling fully at this point. It was only a matter of time before I would -

Meow. There he was - with all three legs, just lazing proudly in the old woman’s flowers on the other side of her house. He was alive and okay! He looked up at me as if he were smirking, completely amused that I was sobbing and whispering how much I loved and hated him. I scooped him up underneath my arm and jogged back to my house. I told my dad he was sleeping in the woods on the other side of the fence in the backyard. He never knew any different.

Oh, the smell. A few months later, my street was lined with cop cars, ambulances, and even a couple of fire trucks. It turns out the old woman had died several weeks before the night that Mousetrap went missing. Her daughter never notified the authorities and the body just continued to lay on the floor in the bedroom where she had died of what was later revealed to be a heart attack. To add insult to injury, she had apparently also broken her right arm when she had fallen. The daughter continued to collect the old woman’s social security checks until the neighbor next door to them finally called the police when they noticed the woman no longer went outside to water the flowers.