Gemma’s most awful look is reserved for the humans. This is when her eyebrows are bunched tight together, her eyes are at their narrowest, and her stare is at its most gimeleted. This look means ‘if you were smaller, I would eat you’. Her top lip even curls a little bit. The humans don’t realise the significance of the look and think Gemma has indigestion, which she would get if she ate smaller versions of the humans as they are very dirty creatures that only wash once a day. More of this in time.
I was in the towel and purring, because this is good attention, not like bad attention when someone throws you across a room at a vet when they can’t afford the vet’s bill. I look at Gemma and receive what I later appreciate is a Sneer Level 4 and I have mixed emotions. I did what I always do in these situations and slept on it. It was a short sleep, only for about eight hours, in a lovely, soft, snuggly bed that was round, like me when I sleep. What a coincidence. My bed is in a different room from Gemma’s. Her bed is round like mine, but she sleeps with her paws tucked under her, like a loaf of bread. She says this is in protest, but never tells me what she’s protesting about. She sleeps during the day mostly, though I have noticed she does curl up in a ball when she thinks no one is around, with the humans ‘at work’ and me in the library playing with the photocopier and reading any books I find lying around. What a hypocrite she is.
Julian Worker Fiction Writing 