Double-Crossing Felines

This is the story of two missing cats and the families that loved them.

When my family lived on Long Island, NY, we took annual camping trips to Maine. One summer my family adopted a sweet orange tabby kitten from a family in Maine and brought it home to LI. We had Butterscotch for 15 years and all was well.

Then life took a turn for the sad when mom and dad divorced. My sister Caitlin was the only child left at home at the time and she and mom couldn't keep Butterscotch where they were moving. So they gave him to good friends of mom's and Caitlin's about 25 minutes away from our old house.

A couple of weeks later mom's friend, Hilda, from the old neighborhood, called to tell mom that she had seen Butterscotch in her backyard and wandering around the cul-de-sac a couple of times. Mom said this couldn't be so, because Butterscotch now lived half an hour away. But Hilda insisted it was Butterscotch. She also told mom that she had been talking to the Fudge Family, that lived behind our old house, and they were claiming that it was their cat, Harley.

So mom and Caitlin drove over to the old house to investigate and they spoke to the Fudge Family. Mom told Mrs. Fudge that her friend Hilda had told her that our cat had been hanging around the Fudge house. Mrs. Fudge said that no, the only cat at her house was their cat, Harley, whom they had had for about 5 years now. This went back and forth for a minute, and then mom saw the cat, and it was definitely Butterscotch. Mrs. Fudge saw him and called to him and said, "Come here, Harley!" And he came over to say hello. So mom said, "No, that's our Butterscotch." But Mrs. Fudge said, "No, it's our Harley."

And then Mrs. Fudge stopped and thought a minute and said that come to think of it, about two weeks before that, Harley had run away for about a week! So mom and Mrs. Fudge started adding up both stories, and comparing all the times our Butterscotch and their Harley had run away for 2 or 3 days at a time. And if you haven't figured it out by now, BUTTERSCOTCH WAS HARLEY!! Talk about feeling used!

He lived as a double agent, posing as Butterscotch at our house, and getting fed plenty of OUR food and sleeping in OUR beds, and then when he got bored with us, he would head across the back fence to live a few days as Harley, and sleep in THEIR beds. He did this for at least 5 years!

Later, when mom was explaining to her friend who had adopted Butterscotch that she wouldn't be returning him, seeing as though he had a double-agent family and all, her friend told her that when she was driving Butterscotch to her house a couple of weeks prior, he had jumped on her lap and watched every turn out the window on the way to her house. Apparently while they were driving, he was making other plans...