Her name was Bim. She was the female of two kittens I got during a time of bad trouble. The male, Bo, was a large Maine Coone Cat, and he could fetch, like a dog.
When I had to get rid of Bo, Bim came into her own. For one thing, she never grew up. She stayed small, like a little "catlet," and she loved to drink from a running tap. She had false eyelashes; her markings around her eyes made her look like some sort of Disneyfied fish.
One night, while I was studying for my TESOL exams, I went to bed exhausted, forgetting that I had left a soft pretzel in the oven. Bim kept bugging me as I tried to sleep, and I, to my shame, kept shooting her with a water pistol because I wanted to sleep.
Finally I smelt the burning pretzel. She had been trying to tell me that I needed to get up and turn off the oven.
She used to sleep like a round, furry button right by my stomach. That kept me warm in my chilly apartment, when we couldn't afford the heat.
Bim was a good cat.
