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Hi everybody,
It's me, Charlie the Cat.
My Mum has been busy and keeps saying I have been lazy. Here we are now, both of us, she is typing and I am thinking and washing myself. Thinking is my hobby, and I can read my Mum's thoughts and she always knows what is on my mind.
For you to know my story, let me tell about how it all began.
I was a tiny kitten when I was taken from my biological mother and brought to a strange home many thousand kilometres from my home in Kamchatka. The people there were celebrating New Year's Day. I decided to climb a shiny tree, and broke strange fruit growing on it. Then I heard a fair-haired woman say how silly of grown up sons to give such awful kittens with sharp teeth and crooked tails as New Year presents. I guess the New Year present was me.
I did my best to make friends with everybody, but it took some time before we became friends with that woman. My new Mum used to sigh and a couple of times I saw tears in her eyes, and then she mentioned another cat's name "Lyusya" and she said she missed her and that Lyusya had been the best cat in the whole world. I know that some time before my arrival to this city Lyusya was sent to the country-side house and then left it forever and got lost. I guess she was too old.
Well, I have my little ways and habits. As a kid I liked hunting and chasing my new Mum and several times I was a success and managed to catch her arms - I imagined they were snakes. I bit them and felt very proud - I am a born hunter, but my new Mum didn't understand it. I heard people say that cats like me catch snakes and fish in the nature. I even hunted her arms when she was sleeping, but she definitely didn't like my idea and locked the door before going to bed.
My second hobby is travelling and discovering new things. As soon as I find myself out of doors I escape and wander, and then hide somewhere in the dark cellar. It's fun watching my Mum followed by a crowd of other cats looking for me, and asking everybody if they had seen a beautiful black cat Charlie by name. She even addressed unknown cats asking them to tell me how she needs him (me) and that she loves him (me) and wants him (me) to come back home.
I know she tells the truth because when I jump out of the dark and come up to the open window with my loud cheerful mewing, she is always happy to see me, and hugs me and helps me take a shower and feeds me and calls me "kitten" and "kid". I sleep nearby on her favoruite armchair and she never locks the door. I know how silly it is to bite the hand that feeds me so I almost stopped doing it. I am fond of sport and like to catch flies, butterflies, small balls and other things instead.
Mum tells everybody that I can smile in my sleep and that when I make a "RRR" sound in my sleep she wakes me up. But I don't want to disappoint her because in my sleep I am still a hunter. Why I smile - it's a puzzle for me too.
I often wake her up at about three o'clock just to let her know that I am a wild cat and it's time to go hunting. But she doesn't like it and so I feel rather lonely when I jump and run around the room until Mum throws a slipper (I still don't know why she does it almost every night) and then I go back to my armachair to think about Mum's strange habits and then fall asleep to wake them up in the morning and see that they've added some fresh cat's food and water into my cup. When Dad does morning exercises I join him and it's one of my favorite passtimes. I don't know why Mum finds it funny and laughs at us calling us names like "sportsmen" and "champions".
I like it when they all leave for work at last and I enjoy sleeping alone with nobody to disturb me till the time when Dad comes back home in the evening (I don't care when Mum comes back). But when he comes back from work, I always perform like a dog and meet Dad near the door and try to sound like a dog making loud noise. I would like to bark, but it's a difficult foreign language, and I need to work hard at it. He brushes me and I feel proud when my Dad or Sergey (the one who brought me to this house) call me "doggy", "Charlie-the-dog" so I'll keep working at my dog's character.
Well, that's all for now. Attached are several photos of myself. They are a little bit outdated, as now I am much bigger and look more stout, but it is only because when my Mum has stress or works too much she drinks too much coffee, and I always make her a company. She likes my company in the kitchen, and as I don't drink coffee, I eat cat's food instead, and sometimes I have to eat too often.
But I am still in good shape and can jump very high to catch a sweets cover or a small ball. This is my favourite game to plays with Lyonya or Vladik - the youngest members of the family after me. They sometimes call me "kangaroo" and say that my back legs are much longer than my front legs, that's why I can jump so high. I don't want to be a kangaroo, so I ignore it.
Write soon.
Your distant friend from Russia,
Charlie - the cat - or - the dog, as you like it.
PS My Mum says Hi to you all
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Lessons with Charlie:
Proverbs and idioms about cats
When the cat is away, the mice will play.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Don't make yourself a mouse, or the cat will eat you.
To let the cat out of the bag
a fat cat
a copy cat
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