Cat’s eyes (a cat’s eye view)
By Oskar Allen (age 11)

Dusk. I had just been let out. I sniffed the air for the first kill of the night but nothing was around yet. I went round into the front garden over the fence and onto the noisy high street. I loved the perpetual buzz of a Saturday night, well I probably liked the left over food more than the buzz but still, the buzz came with the food.

The street lights splashing dull yellow light on the street, the neon lights of all the nightclubs dazzling people (and cats) as they walk past. I sniffed the air again. This time I smelled chips. I followed my nose. It was quite easy to follow my nose when it smelled chips. Finally I found it - a bag of freshly dropped chips. Actually it wasn’t chips I was after - it was the jumbo cod at the bottom of the bag.

After my jumbo cod jumbo feast I jumped onto a bench and watched the cars go by. I had been on the bench for about half an hour when a man sat on the bench too. I meowed pathetically. The man stroked me and I purred. That was the way to get what you wanted in the city. After the man had gone, I got off the bench and crossed the road. There was much less traffic now because all the people who wanted to go to the nightclubs and restaurants were already there, just parked cars and noisy nightclubs.

I amused myself for two hours sleeping on the road. When I woke up I was in the middle of the last rush of the night, people going home after their night out. It passes very quickly, the last rush, and after it everything goes quiet. The neon lights of the nightclubs turn off, the street lamps seem to splash even duller light onto the street and very occasionally cars go by. I walked down the road and onto an island in the middle of a roundabout. This was were I would catch my first kill. I crawled about in the vegetation. I saw a rat and I ducked into pouncing position, then I ran after it.

I spent all my time until dawn doing that. I liked dawn the best: cars start to come more often, the sun starts to shine, morning shops start to open and more people come out of their houses and walk up and down the street. I walked back to my house and meowed at the door. The door opened. I went in, had my breakfast and went to sleep.