My life was not sunshine and roses growing up, but it wasn’t always a suck and there were many bright times and hilarious or awesome experiences. I need to start recording them so I never forget and can share with my kids.
This is the story of my sister’s cat Soccer Ball and the mockingbird.
First a little information: the mockingbird is the state bird of Florida. It’s a loud and brazen little bird whose raucous calls become the sound of impending doom from the skies during nesting season. My parents always had nests in their front yard and there were times we’d enter and leave through the back door to avoid attack. You couldn’t even go through the garage because the birds could fly in there and raise hell until they were chased out. Those birds would terrorize the neighborhood for weeks until their babies fledged and their nests were empty.
My sister rescued Soccer from a dumpster when she was 12-ish. She was this stunted and starving kitten who was so pitiful that even my stepmom (who was allergic and hated cats) couldn’t refuse to bring her home. Soccer was originally named Oreo because she had black sides and a white back and belly but as she grew, she didn’t really grow much in size except outward and eventually evolved into a soccer ball, hence the rename. It would probably be a good time to point out that Soccer was also a Manx cat, a rumpy to be exact, so she had absolutely zero tail. No nub, no stump, no flap, nothing, which fully lent itself to her soccer ball-like appearance. She was a pretty great kitty and really special, super affectionate and such a love.
Before our family relocated to the beach, we’d lived in a very rural area of Florida. Soccer had free reign of the world and was a solid indoor/outdoor cat. Moving to the suburbs at the beach, she maintained that status and had a kitty door to allow her to roam in and out as she wished. By the time this story occurs, she was a much older kitty and was not as spry or active as she once was, but one thing she never stopped was hunting. She was always catching lizards and bringing them indoors to her family to show us how to hunt and feed ourselves.
One day I was visiting, I’d been long grown and gone by this point, but I came home from time to time to visit my sisters. We were hanging out in the living room when Soccer came into the house. She was making this very odd, muffled meow. It was loudly insistent, but at the same time it sounded like she couldn’t open her mouth and we were all terrified because we thought she was hurt. As she came into the living room, my sister and I clustered around her trying to see what was wrong. She sat down in front of us, gave one more muffled MURRRPH (seriously, that’s what it sounded like) before she opened her mouth.
It was like watching a snake unhinge it’s jaws; there are no laws of physics that can describe what we saw. Her mouth opened an unfathomably enormous amount, almost cartoon like, and out tumbled a mockingbird onto the tile floor. There was a fraction of a moment where peace and unity prevailed as all parties took in the situation before all hell abruptly broke loose. The bird took flight with a raucous shriek of indignity, Soccer went into Teach Humans to Hunt overdrive, and my sister and I both screamed and collectively lost our shit.
The bird started flying in panicked circles around the living room, Soccer started chasing the bird, my sister continued shrieking, and I (still screaming as well) eventually gathered myself enough to close off the room and directed my frantic sister to open the back door. Eventually, we managed to chase the bird out the back door with our flailing arms and high-pitched battle cries while Soccer Ball ineffectively attempted to continue her hunting lesson. Quiet descended upon the house and Soccer prowled the living room for a moment before she fell into a full sulk after confirming that yet another prey had been released and her humans remained unlearned in the ways of the hunt
That wasn’t the last bird she brought into the house. By the time she died, the screens in that room had multiple holes pecked through from birds attempting to escape after she’d released them into the house. It was her new party trick and since we were obviously too slow or dumb to catch lizards, she must have assumed that a larger prey would be easier for her humans to catch.
Her efforts didn’t go unnoticed or unpaid in the eyes of the birds, not at all, and they held a lifelong grudge. During nesting season, if you were brave or foolhardy enough to get close, you’d see tufts of black and white fur lining the nearby mockingbird nests. Those birds would dive bomb Soccer during and snatch the fur right off her back for insulating material and also to act as a warning to keep her away from them and their fledglings. She couldn’t lounge in her sunny patch on the front walk or show her face in the front yard during nesting season or she’d become piebald and tattered from the attacks. Those birds gave as good as they got during nesting time and they gave no quarter.
