He’s walking me now. I glumly remember talking to him about my plans to buy him a collar and leash and walk him. Little did I know he could understand me.

“Isn’t this nice, Mittens?” he asks me, knowing full well I can’t respond with my cat mouth.

I yowl unhappily anyway. I just want my human body and life back.

He got me the kind of collar that comes off easily if I tug, just as I would have for him. He acts exactly like me, except there’s a certain condescendingness to his words that I hope I never had.

But anyway, the collar means I can get away if I catch the right moment.

“Your cat is so cute! What’s its name?” asks a woman in a red coat, bending down to pet me.

Being called ‘it’ is insulting, not to mention having a woman younger than me pat me on the head, but I tolerate it, waiting for my chance.

The woman picks me up and I feel the slack on the leash.

Now!

I jump out of her arms and make a dash for it, but I’ve barely gone a yard when a two hands grab me around the middle, hard.

“Let’s not make a spectacle now, Mittens.” Mittens whispers in my ear, and remarks louder to the woman, “He must have seen a squirrel.”

She laughs.

“My cats always chase squirrels.”

My ears go back as she plants a kiss on my head.

She says her goodbyes and walks off, and Mittens laughs.

I sulk all the way home and he laughs at me some more.