Gandolf (standard:Inspirational stories, 1801 words)
Author: GXD	Added: Aug 04 2007	Views/Reads: 3521/2311	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Innocent and playful as a kitten, Gandolf learned how to love life with a passion, until...

GANDOLF 

People fear uneven teeth with good reason.  The worst fear of primitive
humans was the bite of a snake, a lion, a bear or a wildcat.  All have 
fangs.  Even the fangs of a little cat can strike fear into our hearts 
-- the fangs of Gandolf, the fearless Russian Blue, determined urban 
hunter. 

At this juncture, Gandolf was about twenty weeks into his ninefold life
and had the slender grace of a proud young cat -- more than a kitten, 
but not yet a Tom.  His gray-blue ruff was perfectly trimmed by nature, 
silvery in the sunlight, soft velvet in shadow.  Gandolf's eyes were 
leonine; his nose had a cold tip. 

Gandolf grew up in a forest of chair-legs and half-open closet doors. An
only cat, people smothered him with a barrage of petting; he winced and 
bore it out.  Anyway, lately, it was beginning to feel good.  
Especially around the whiskers and inside each ear. 

Between his jaws, four tiny fangs stood forth, dwarfing the incisors and
bicuspids.  They made him the master of creative aggression.  His 
catnip mouse was intoxicating.  Gandolf became the fearless hunter when 
he captured and killed his first cockroach.  For sport, of course.  One 
sniff convinced him these things should never be eaten.  Fingers were 
his favorite prey.  Unerringly, his fangs would straddle the second 
knuckle of a finger, then hang on for dear life, leaving a set of four 
matched punctures.  His most threatening gesture was to yawn, then snap 
his jaws shut with a little "meow," something like the MGM lion. 

If you tried to cuddle him, Gandolf became quicksilver.  Christina was
the only one he allowed to hoist him up and squeeze him like a doll, 
dress him in a Hawaiian sun hat and draw on two pairs of differently 
colored stockings.  He followed her every movement with his wide, 
innocent eyes, purring with security and contentment -- clearly 
engrossed in trying to learn what was going on.  She hugged him and he 
hugged back.  Gandolf loved Cristina. 

Strings were Gandolf's favorite toys.  Nothing excited him like a piece
of twine or rope.  I once tied a handful of strings to a clothes line 
and watched him from a distance.  He stood upright and batted at the 
first string, then on his hind legs, took a few steps and batted 
progressively at the next, all the way through the line; he pranced 
back, meowing proudly.  Gandolf would follow anything with strings 
attached -- to the ends of the earth.  Once, he shimmied up a six-year 
old who was holding on desperately to a box kite.  Full of confidence, 
Gandolf stepped out on the taut kite string.  He got about ten feet up 
the string before he realized where he was; then let out a plaintive 
cry of disbelief, lost his cool, swung over beneath the string and 
dangled helplessly in mid-air from all twenty claws until someone came 
to the rescue. 

Two older cats, old enough to be Gandolf's great-great grandmothers,
avoided him like the plague.  He interrupted their dreams, pouncing on 
one tail or another, nibbled at their hind legs, swatted at their ears, 
burrowed in their bellies for milk, until they nipped at him.  Then he 
would back off, lick some imaginary dirt off the white bib on his chest 
and run off to chase some string. 

The squirrel changed all that. 

Gandolf was up his usual tree, where he nestled in the crotch, watching.
 Suddenly, a coarse, grey, furry creature with beady eyes was beside 
him.  It was fully as big as he was, with an enormous bushy tail. The 
creature smelled gamy, tainted, corrupt, like decaying acorns, and it 
made sharp, sudden movements.  Gandolf sprung to a crouch and began 
whipping his tail from side to side.  His fur stood erect with terror. 
With a hiss, he lunged. 

The poor squirrel dove for the ground, with Gandolf in his wake.  In two
seconds, Gandolf was on top of the squirrel, but it fled up a silvery 
tree.  Gandolf scampered up behind, but by now the squirrel was out on 
a limb.  The kitten took a great deep breath, pounced onto the limb and 
let out a shriek: "Meeee-ooooo-www!"  The squirrel leaped for a 
neighboring limb. 



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