The Revelation of a Mighty Huntress

Cammie’s personality continues to evolve, more so than do the others’. Perhaps it is more accurate to write that her personality continues to reveal itself. Josie, Renn and Tucker have long since opened up their characters - well, Tucker was always pretty much an open book - and, though they change, as we all do, Cammie had farther to go in that direction, and so her changes are more apparent.

In the old house, the princess would bring to the bedroom, usually at night, a small, furry toy mouse. She does that as well in the apartment but has refined the activity. She seems to have chosen the yellow and white mouse as her favourite prey and, once captured, she carries it to the bedroom. More than that, she often climbs with it to the top of the taller cat-tree, though I have found it on the floor just as frequently.

But, after I had discovered she was doing this, Cammie added a new feature: she calls out in victory at her conquest of the mouse. Normally a quiet animal - except when she is disturbed by her roommates or an intruder-cat outside a window - she will now give a wailing screech when she has made her latest kill. Perhaps she was inspired by Renn and Tucker. They both periodically sing their songs; the big boy’s is a haunting tenor sound, while the roly poly one's is a loopy vocal trot that sounds like it should accompany the running of a cartoon horse with legs of different lengths. But the boys give their cries while simply wandering about. They don’t seem to have a specific purpose to them.

Cammie’s cry is a hoarse combination of arthritic walrus and crazed recluse who lives in the crumbling house at the end of the lane. Despite the metaphor, it is her signal of triumph, an announcement that she has once again defeated her fuzzy foe and brought him back to her lair. I always know now when she has completed her hunt. She has, fortunately, refrained from adding the sound when she stalks the night.

Every day seems to bring a variation to the cats’ characters. Their personalities appear fixed but they do shift a little with time, just as ours do; whether the traits displayed are new or simply newly shown, they reveal more about the animal. After a long while, we can see that they have altered, become different, yet have remained the same in many ways. This is the paradox of the advanced and intelligent animal: Cammie has demonstrated that she is a mighty huntress - yet she remains my princess.