How the Kracker Cats came to be, part 12: Looking pregnant, Kaboodle ventures into the snow - boy! Were we fooled!

Kaboodle in the snow, belly looking big. Was she pregnant?

Kaboodle had grown well, and had filled out nicely.

A little too nicely, Rye thought.

"I think Kaboodle is pregnant," he announced one day.

It did seem that she was carrying a little excess weight around her mid-section.

I picked her up, and prodded her belly with my finger tips.

"I don't feel anything moving in there."

"I think she's pregnant, Dad," Rye insisted "look at her."

We had planned to have her fixed. Now I tried to picture the kittens she might deliver. Well, if she did, it wouldn't be so bad. We could keep the prettiest one - maybe it would look just like her. We would have it from the moment of its birth and that would make our relationship special. We would give the rest away. Then we would get Kaboodle fixed.

Perhaps being pregnant could explain some of her strange behavior.

In early October, Kaboodle greeted the first real snow with disbelief, and wonder. She sat by the sliding glass door, staring up at the large, gently fluttering flakes. We let her onto the porch. At first, she swatted at the flakes, attempting to grab and bite them. Soon overwhelmed, she just sat and watched. The next morning, the snow was piled up one foot deep. Kaboodle plunged off the front porch into the driveway, then panicked as she became engulfed in powder. She struggled to the car, then hid beneath it. Ten minutes passed, and I could not coax her out. Finally, I reached under the car, grabbed Kaboodle by the nape of the neck, hauled her out and brought her into the house.

This is the spool in which I had once made a house for her. 

Later, the boys shoveled the driveway. Enough cars had passed by to leave some well-packed tire ruts. Kaboodle ventured outside and disappeared About 15 minutes later, I opened the door and looked outside. I could not see her. Fifteen minutes later, I spotted her running down the street through one of the ruts. She turned into the driveway, dashing for the porch. There, she lifted one paw at a time, shook it it, and bit it. Snow was caked on her fur. She was not happy.

As the winter deepened, Kaboodle lost the freedom to roam the outdoors at will. She began to pace restlessly about the house. She attacked hands and feet. She climbed into sacks and boxes, and tore things apart.

One day, I climbed into the Running Dog, punched the starter, the propeller began to sping and the Dog and I took off once again to the Far North. "Be sure and take Kaboodle in and get her shots," I had advised Sunflower just before takeoff. "If she's not pregnant, see about getting her fixed."

"I'll do it tomorrow," she promised.

It took the Dog and I two days to work our way through the weather to our destination, 700 air miles away. I found a phone and called Sunflower.

Kaboodle - the snow cat.

"We took Kaboodle to the vet today, to get a shot, and a checkup." Sunflower told me over the phone, "and guess what?"

"What?" I was tired, and in no mood for guessing games.

"Kaboodle is a.......... boy!"

"Oh. Did you find out if he's pregnant?"

A sudden scream tore out of the phone.

"That cat just attacked my legs!" Sunflower explained. She had already made arrangments to have him neutered.

Tryskuit came on the phone.

She spoke of how they had gone sledding at Hatcher Pass, and how she had ran into a car in the parking lot. I chewed her out for that. "It's okay, Dad," she said, "the car was parked, it wasn't moving."

"Yea, but it could have been," I told her. "Don't you slide into a parking lot or roadway, ever."

As she was telling me about the clothes she had purchased on a recent trip to Anchorage, and as I was wondering where the money had come from, Tryskuit suddenly screamed.

"The cat just attacked my leg," she exclaimed.

Fire got on the phone, to tell me about a school project he was excited about. Twice, he stopped to scream. Kaboodle had attacked his legs.

It happened this way with each of my children. They got on the phone, began to tell me something, then screamed when Kaboodle attacked their legs.

Somehow, Kaboodle knew that his attacks should be directed at whoever happened to be talking on the phone.

We didn't know - perhaps because we were all so polite.