--Laini Taylor
Yeah, well, Pollux wasn't gazing down all that coolly this morning.
I woke up about 5:30. Here in the northern latitudes, not long past the solstice, it was already light. A cat -- Pollux -- was prowling restlessly about my bedroom, thinking deep cat thoughts. Or maybe no thoughts at all.
He glanced over at the room's front window, a small, Gothic affair better suited for a church than a bedroom. The window is usually just a decorative item, letting a small amount of additional light in through the stained glass. In summer, however, when days are hot and nights are cooler, I tend to leave it open. To my two cats -- with me only since the end of last summer -- its open status apparently served as a novelty in this otherwise predictable househould.
Pollux stared at the window for a few moments, and then tightened his muscles ready to leap. Other, earlier cats had also often jumped up onto the window sill, surveying the front yard of what they considered their estate. Still, there was the fear in my mind that he would misjudge his leap and soar off the second floor of the house.
I underestimated his feline instincts. He jumped. He teetered a bit, surprised at the void beneath his feet. And then he settled himself with confidence.
As can be seen in the photo, the window is separated by a short gap from a very steep portion of the shingled roof, a small gable roof that covers the entrance to the house. One prior cat, the late lamented Loki, dared as a small kitten to make the leap onto the roof. After some coaxing, and forcing myself to lean precariously out the window, I coaxed Loki to approach my hand and pulled him back inside to safety.
My memory of the event made me a bit nervous, but Pollux seemed settled on the window sill. I looked away. When I looked back, Pollux had vanished. Outside the window, I heard a meow of surprise. There he was, slightly below my level, hanging onto the roof. Cats have claws; he was in far less danger of sliding off the edge than I would have been.
He scampered up to the top of the small gable roof, and sat on its summit. His meows became more plaintive. I enticed him down closer to the window. He didn't get close enough for me to catch him, and I wasn't confident enough of my balance to reach out far enough even if he had. Also, he isn't a small kitten; he isn't huge, but he weighs ten pounds.
I considered the possibilities. From the other side of the small gable roof, it is quite possible to climb up onto the main portion of the roof, and then to move from the front of the house to the back. At the back of the house, there's a hedge near the roof line that he might be able to climb down.
But Pollux showed no interest in exploring that non-obvious possibility. He was interested in getting down, not climbing higher.
No doubt waking the neighbors, I dragged a ladder out of the garage and propped it against the side of the house. Just as I feared. The ladder wasn't long enough to reach the roof from ground level. I tried bridging the gap between window and cat with various articles, none of which came close to being successful. My attempts only persuaded Pollux of what he had long suspected -- that I had no idea what I was doing. They served only in convincing him, in fact, that I was totally useless as his protector.
I sensed despair in his feline eyes.
I decided to go outside again and survey the situation. For lack of any other idea, other than wanting to go back to bed at what was now 6 a.m.
I opened the front door, and there on the porch sat Pollux. Less than a couple of minutes after I last saw him out my window, stranded on the roof.
[I had to interrupt writing this adventure to rescue a bird -- alive and as yet uninjured -- that Pollux had seen fit to bring into the house in his mouth. Never a dull moment with that cat.]
How did he get down from the roof . Pollux wasn't talking, and I haven't the slightest idea. Unless he jumped some twenty feet from the roof to the ground, avoiding the porch, the driveway, and other concrete surfaces. He seemed unperturbed, and happy to accept my congratulations.
But the cat remained inscrutable.
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