Miss Orange & Her Four Lost Kittens

The first time I saw Miss Orange I was having my meal at the Thai Muslim eating stall sometime last year. She was wandering, meowing and begging for food. Luckily, I had cat biscuits with me that fateful day. I walked toward her with the biscuits but she went hiding under a car. So, I left the biscuit there, and after a minute or two, out she crawled to eat it. She was a young cat.

A couple of months later, I found her pregnant. If possible, for pregnant felines, I would try to include canned food or boiled fish in their diet. Then she went disappeared one fine day. I thought she had ‘migrated’, until I saw her again in February 2009 at the new commercial area opposite the apartment looking for food at a ‘mamak’ restaurant. She had given birth, but I had no idea where she hid her babies.

During one of my daily feeding rounds, I caught her leaving the staircase of an unoccupied office building. I went to inspect the place as my instinct told me that the babies were hidden there. And, true enough, I saw a litter of four wonderful kittens, about four to six weeks old, snuggling close to each other. Their furs were almost identical to Miss Orange. Their eyes were still blue indicating they were not weaned yet. At such tender age, they were already taught to be aware of their surroundings, as they hissed at me and ran into hiding as soon as they saw me.

A week or two after 21 February 2009, the date I took this picture, was the last time I saw the kittens. I could be wrong but I was confident that the kittens were packed and thrown away as I remembered seeing a cleaner with black rubbish bags, brooms and dust-pan cleaning that stretch of the unoccupied building. I was so disheartened to find the kittens gone the following day, and I felt terribly sorry for Miss Orange. She cried rather loudly the moment she saw me, as if to tell me of her lost babies.

She is close to two months pregnant now. Yes, she is pregnant again! As she is very close to her friend, Miss Brown, she spends a lot of time together with her. It is a matter of time she will give birth to a litter of kittens. I hope she will be able to keep them save from harm. Anyway, she looks happy to see me, and eats her food. However, these days, she would not let me go without having her body caressed and her head patted.