Chapter Text
Bonnet had gone out looking for adventure, and here was adventure, staring him right in the whiskers.
The portly orange cat smiled at the dog in front of him, hoping pleasant conversation might save his hide. “Hello, friend, pleasant afternoon, isn’t it? Nice that it’s no longer raining…”
The dog’s growling only increased and Bonnet decided to cut his losses and depart the conversation earlier than etiquette might originally dictate. “Well, best be getting off you see, much to do. You have a lovely rest of your day, I hope.” And with that, he turned tail and started walking away slowly, tail held high.
“Err, Cap’n,” mewed Buttons softly from the other side of the fence. “Yer s’posed to git away fast, that doggie looks mighty angry.”
“Nonsense, Buttons,” replied Bonnet, pleased to be hearing his new “street” name. “A proper street cat never shows fear.”
The growling sound behind him increased and Buttons lept to the top of the fence. “D’you reckon a proper street cat be a dead one, then?”
Bonnet spared a glance backwards and saw that the dog had not been placated by their earlier, pleasant conversation, and instead was charging right towards him, teeth bared, violence in its roar.
“Not lovely!” Bonnet screamed, as he raced and jumped and scrabbled to be ahead of the angered dog. “Not a lovely way to spend the day!”
He managed to get up onto the fencetop at the last possible second, the dog’s sharp teeth closing where his tail had been just a mousewhisker behind. The two cats scurried away, Buttons the Scottish fold leading the way, Bonnet having admitted defeat for this moment anyway.
“Doesn’t make sense that it would want to attack,” Bonnet murmered to himself. “I was perfectly nice. Some dogs just want to attack nice cats? That doesn’t make sense. That’s twoleg behaviour, that is.”
“Cap’n, I’ve been thinkin’,” Buttons started, and braced himself for the orange cat’s inevitable interruption.
“Yes, Buttons, please share, you know how I do value your feedback.”
“What I don’t understand is, why don’t ye return to your family? Go back to the ease of the kittypet life.” Buttons stopped on the fence corner and curled his tail around him, and Bonnet realized that the other cat had led him to the corner near Mary’s house, his old home from just a few days ago, and where he still occasionally went to get food from. Mary left it out, you see, and getting scraps from the garbage was more difficult than Bonnet had originally anticipated.
The orange cat thought about it, tail swishing. He knew Buttons was asking the question honestly; after all, with his particularities with comfort, and being polite in the face of adventure, and still going to his old twoleg nest to eat kittypet food. No wonder Buttons thought he lacked street cat conviction; he’d been living with a paw in two worlds!
No more. Bonnet squared his little shoulders, got onto all fours, and looked Buttons straight in the eye. “I don’t want the ease of a kittypet life,” he meowed solemnly, deadly serious. “That ease was smothering me as soon as I was born into it. No. I am meant for the more dangerous life, Buttons. I am meant for adventure. I am meant for the street.”