Summer, 2006 We don't know her real name, but we named her Minnie from "Minnie the Moocher." She's always mooching for food. See, Minnie is always hungry, and when we first met her last year, we weren't even sure she wasn't a stray until we realized that though skinny, she wasn't starving, was pretty clean and later on, showed up with a new flea collar---too tight, I loosened it to make more comfortable. We later learned she lived two doors down, belonging to a markedly unfriendly woman who asked that we didn't feed her wet food because this young and healthy cat was supposedly on a "special diet." She also insisted, when my husband informed her that the cat is always crying and begging for food at all hours of the night, that Minnie had a "curfew." Minnie is out all night and all day, as we sometimes sit outside at four in the morning; if Minnie has a curfew at all, then it must be five minutes in duration. We believe the woman is a liar, embarassed at having a hungry, neglected cat roaming the neighborhood. The winters in Vermont are brutally cold, and Minnie's imaginary "curfew" lasts year long. The cat is always at our house, she is always outside. There is not one ounce of fat on her---she begs for food because she is hungry. (We can plainly see both the front and back of her owner's house; no cat food is visible at any time). I love Minnie. She sits on my lap and purrs and sleeps after I feed her and she walks on my shoulders, rubbing her face against my hair after she eats. Then she sleeps contentedly on our laps or at our feet. She can get annoying, as she doesn't often leave the property and is sometimes under my husband's feet when he's working, and when you don't feed her right away she'll cry until you do...but I love her and have become very protective of her. And I admit to a deep, viseral anger for the woman who neglects her. After my friend told me a story about a Fisher Cat, an animal who attacked and almost killed her cat, I looked up Fishers on the 'net. They make a haunting noise that is unmistakeable: it sounds like a cross between the howl of a cat and a long drawn out shriek from a baby. People wrote that when you hear it once, you never forget it. Tonight, my husband and I were on the back porch drinking coffee and we heard a long, mournful wail that made our hair stand up on end. I jumped up and told him I thought it might be a Fisher. Suddenly I panicked. "Minnie!" I screamed, and he got up and ran to the end of the porch. Right after that, another, horrible noise: a terrified, almost gutteral scream from a cat. My husband said he saw Minnie laying near a tree. Not moving. He also saw the Fisher nearby; he remembered the picture of the long snout and the black fur I showed him from the web. He quickly turned the bright porch light on, and it lit up the Fisher in a spotlight, who then scuttled away. Minnie was stretched out on her back, clearly dead, and I screamed and moaned and went into a hysterical crying fit, half screaming. Suddenly, Minnie got up and bounded up on the porch, clearly scared and upset, but fine and unharmed. It seems she had played dead, doing it so well she even convinced us. I grabbed Minnie in my arms and ran with her through the house and took her out front, where I held her and fed her and cried from relief and anger. My husband marched over to the neighor's house and told her there was a Fisher in the area, and that her cat had almost died tonight. She stared at him as if he were crazy, saying nothing. Then he got angry and said, "if you want a dead cat, keep letting your cat out at night." And stomped away. So this is our sweet Minnie, taken a few days ago.