Dear Bess-Bess,

How are you doing old friend? I trust the Green BMW is posh as ever, and you have a belly of those little fish you hoard and rarely share with me. I haven’t had a gecko in almost a month now. I could really go for a long, chewy one.

Well, my sailing adventure has started in earnest. I sailed overnight! In fact, I sailed over eight nights, 1,000 miles west to a place that smells and sounds entirely different than Malaysia. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Last I saw you, we were snacking on the patio in Langkawi on the roof when Andrew and Leslie came and lured me into their crate again. I have so much to tell you!

First, once they got me back to Sonrisa, Leslie presented me with a collar and tag. Me! With a collar and tag. Can you imagine it? It wasn't any tag, though. Made of copper, and shaped like a heart with the pattern of the world etched into the metal, it was perfect for a Sealion like me. On the back, was my name “Kitty” and a phone number with which someone who found me could contact Andrew and Leslie to drag me home if I go missing.

“Do you like it, Kitty? You’re an Oddgodfrey, now. It’s to remind you of your Oddheart!” Leslie holds it out to me, and I sniff around the edge of the heart. I place my paw atop her hand and shove it downward toward the floor.

“Mroooohhhh." I am no pet. I am bandit, the roof cat. A sea lion. A wild thing. I do not want or need a collar and tag. You're going to make me fat. (We all know cats with collars and tags eventually get fat.)

Ignoring me, Leslie clips the break away collar around my neck but to my surprise, the weight and feel of the tag is strangely pleasant. The soft heaviness of loving and being loved.

...maybe...

I scamper around the boat, to test the feel as I jump from ledge to ledge. It doesn’t seem to impede my movements, and you know what? Dang! I look good. I look really good! Bess, you should have seen it. Leslie chatters on about how she found it in New Orleans, made by an artist who owns a shop called Adorn and Conquer where everything is hand made. She said she saw it and knew it was perfect for me.

It was beautiful, and clearly, I was very loved. Within just a few days, the copper began to patina in the salt breeze, and the etching around the land pattern on my globe began to carry a hint of green. Its the kind of thing that only gets better with age.

I was so happy!

…but it was only a few days later that disaster struck.

I don’t know how to explain myself, except to say - I panicked. All this change! Andrew, always insisting I must be bored! I’m not bored, I’m relaxed. I’m snoozing! That is what a cat does. Haven't you ever heard of a cat-nap?

The truth is, I think Andrew and Leslie were still mourning and fretting over the loss of Steel Sapphire’s boat kitty, Dixie, the one who didn’t like me very much at all when last we met. She has gone missing, no one knows where she is. Did she fall off her boat? Seems unlikely, but the day after Christmas , Pete and Jen woke up to find her gone.

Anyway, just a few days into my return to Sonrisa, Andrew looks at me stretched from nose to tail, staring off into space in a stupor of relaxation.. “Kitty? Are you bored?"

I peel one eye half open and roll my green eyeball toward his face. Bored? “Mrroooww....Merp!"

“Well, you won't be bored long! Swimming lessons start tomorrow!"

Swimming lessons! I clambor to my feet, place my two front paws in front of me and tip back, stretching and opening my mouth for a befang-ed yawn. All cats know how to swim. I don't need swimming lessons. I circle around on the salon bench and resettle myself. “Mrow." That settles that. No.

Or at least, so I thought, but the next morning the high pitched beep, the clatter of chain, and the chug of that infernal dragon that Leslie insists is Sonrisa’s “purr” and everything starts to wobble and slosh again. Oh here we go, I thought and climbed up into my sleeping shelf and tried to brace myself for the misery of hours with the dragon. A half of a day later, Sonrisa falls silent and Andrew and Leslie bustle around with changing the coverings they use over their weird, furless bodies. Then, splash! I hear them go over the side of Sonrisa and play in the giant rain puddle outside. I guess all humans can swim, too? At least my two humans can. I nap.

All is right in my world, until...

As the sun gets low in the sky, I could feel the evening breeze on my whiskers. I sigh happy-like until I can feel Andrew’s big face just inches from mine. I peek an eye open. “Kitty! Do you want an adventure?" He asks me in that voice that tells me, he wants an adventure. I roll my eyes.

I’d really rather sleep.

“Lets go for an adventure! You can chase hermit crabs and learn to swim from the comfort of the beach. Want to chase hermit crabs?” He brings out that infernal cage, and tries to coax me into it. I turn around and put my butt in his face, but he is not dissuaded. “Come on, Kitty, come on. In you go.” He puts my two front feet into the cage and I go, reluctantly. We climb into the little boat they call Grin, and Leslie starts paddling toward shore.

Wait, where are we going?

Usually, when we go on these adventures, we paddle around and then return to Sonrisa. It’s only as we get closer to the beach that the thought occurs to me...are they putting me ashore and leaving me here? What the hell? It was just last week that they picked me up after leaving me on the roof with you for two whole full moons. I pace inside my crate and tuck my nose into the furthest rear corner.

We get to the beach, and these two clowns pull my crate out of the boat and set me on the beach. “Come on, Kitty! Come play with me." Andrew is standing with his ankles in the waves, bending over tapping his hands on his knees. I scowl. “Mrrooww.” I stay put, he keeps up his act.

I sigh and start toward the door. I have two paws in the sand, when I look over my shoulder at Leslie sitting next to me. The sun is still out, eagles are soaring in the trees above us, and blood pulses through my ears. I have to get to cover!

“Andrew! She looks like she is going to bolt.”

I’m going to bolt!

“Andrew! She is bolting!”

I’m bolting!

I run, I squat low as I go and slink under the nearest bramble.

“Kitty! No! Come back!” Leslie says as she crawls on her hands and knees through the sand toward me. I feel...hunted! I look over my shoulder at her and scurry further into the jungle. “Andrew! She’s running away! Oh no!” I can hear the sadness and worry in Leslie’s voice. I’m in the shade of the jungle now, I sit on my haunches and look out through the vines. The rushing blood in my ears slows and now I can hear Andrew and Leslie calling to me.

“Kitty! Come back, please come back. We are sorry, let’s go back to Sonrisa.”

Sonrisa, yeah. I really want to go back to Sonrisa. I call back at them, and they respond. Okay, I’m just over reacting. I decided to climb down, I hesitantly step down this rock and reach the sand to scratch around a little bit when Leslie grabs me and picks me up!

HEY! What are you doing!?

I growl a warning growl, but she ignores me, and Andrew slips something over my head. Its a trap! They have tried to make me wear this thing before, and I HATE IT. They call it a harness.

What did I do?

Well. In a flash, my pupils dilated, then squeezed into slits. I opened my jowls and heaved a cat-scream that will echo in my people’s memories for decades to come - a discordant wail containing all the torment, rage, and indication I felt. I swung my claws with all the strength and speed I had inside me, reaching all 20 of those gleaming razor edge apparatus into space to take purchase on any flesh I could make purchase upon. Andrew fought me, he tried, but his big thumb ended up next to my mouth and so I chomped down…hard.

“Yahooowwwwllll!” He cries, and I can feel in this moment I have the upper paw. I wriggle and thrash until he drops me into the sand where I grab that harness with both front paws and throw it off my neck . I spring into the jungle and climb, climb, climb. Trees and vines swinging as I crash through any wall of leaves, bramble, and wall of fire ant standing in my way.

Before my eyes come clear, I’m all the way up in the sky perched in a tree branch looking down through the bramble and tangle of vines and bushes, and what must be snakes everywhere. I try to collect my breathing, I squat down and open my eyes wide. My ears radar in circles and my whiskers tense:

Where am I? Am I safe? Snakes? Snakes???? SNAKES!?

I confirm my immediate whereabouts do not offer a sense of impending doom, and stretch my back foot toward my face to give a spot that feels a bit scratched a little lick to soothe the sting. And, then, I feel it. The collar and tag are gone. I bend my neck to lick my chest. I scratch behind my ear and the back of my neck with my claw. Nothing. I turn a circle in place and look all around me, but no.

My beautiful, Sealion-Oddheart-Well-Loved-Kitty collar is gone.

To be continued….