Midnight mystery

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Back in the spring, we had a spell of really warm weather - hot in fact. We had to have the windows open at night otherwise it was too hot to sleep. Then, very suddenly, the weather went back to being cool, much more normal for the time of year. One night when it was cooler, I was lying in bed about midnight when I heard a thump. Being too lazy and comfortable, I didn’t get up to investigate - I listened out for any other noises, and when I heard nothing further I thought it was most likely something falling off Little One’s bed, as she likes to sleep with all her cuddly animals in bed with her, plus a pile of books under her pillow! Next morning though, when I got up, I found that something had knocked a plant pot off the landing windowsill, leaving broken crockery and compost all over the stairs. At first I blamed my partner, as he had got up early to go for a run. But no, it wasn’t him, it was already there when he went out and he hadn’t vacuumed up the mess so as not to disturb the rest of us. We concluded it must have been the source of the noise in the middle of the night, and we couldn't think what had caused it. The plant wasn’t a top-heavy or trailing variety, so there was no reason why it should suddenly just topple of its own accord. We started to wonder if we had an intruder hiding somewhere, and my partner, who is totally paranoid about rats, started investigating all nooks and crannies, just in case, but nothing was found. Then two nights later, my partner got up to go to the bathroom at 2:30 am and, as he opened the door, he almost fell over a black cat on the landing, which rubbed against his legs. Since it was really dark and he didn’t have his glasses on (without which he can’t even make out his own feet) it was lucky the cat gave a loud ‘miaow’ otherwise he would have totally freaked out thinking it was a giant rodent! Anyway it followed him down the stairs and he let it out and off it went somewhere, never to be seen again. We can only assume it must have climbed in through one of our bedroom windows a few days before when it was really warm and we had the windows open at night, but since then it had become a lot cooler and we had shut them again so it hadn’t been able to get out. Probably it had jumped up to the windowsill in the night, hoping to find the window open - but that window is a non-opening one in any case. Goodness knows where it had been for the few days in between, we hadn't seen it at all! The next day we looked everywhere in case there was any sign or smell of cat but found nothing. When we told Little One we’d solved the mystery, she told us that several days earlier she had seen a black cat going in through one of the roof windows of our neighbours’ house, and assumed they had a new cat - but they don’t, and didn’t know anything about a black one. I guess it just makes a habit of climbing in through people's windows! The strange thing is that we had never seen it before, and haven’t seen it since either. It doesn’t belong to any of our neighbours, and isn’t one of the four or five that regularly ‘do the rounds’. Maybe black cats really are magic ; ) All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2020.