Teddy's Tail Part II
After a few minutes of letting what we were seeing before us sink in, my buddy said to me,
"Um, I think it may be best if you let me go first, cause I really don't think you want to come across Skooter in this situation by accident."
As usual, he was right and I couldn't speak so I just nodded in agreement and I followed as he lead the way to the second floor. I was almost certain though, that we'd find Skooter up on the 3rd floor Master Bedroom, crouched behind the bed, as that was his favorite hiding place. As my buddy lead, we were both amazed how the fire had devoured just about everything and what was left behind was just the chared remnants of a life that once was. Surprisingly, I was ok emotionally speaking, just heavy hearted with guilt that I couldn't save Skooter.
After we assesed the toll on the 2nd floor, my buddy once again lead the way to the third and final floor, which I was dreading at what we were about to find. Up we went, careful to not touch anything, less it color us the same charcoal color as everything else. The stentch of burnt everything was pretty overwhelming, causing us to frequently cough and cover our mouths & noses with our shirts, trying to filter a little fresh air into our lungs.
He made it to the Master Bedroom, as I pensively waited on the stairs for him to either give me the ok to enter or if I had better wait. After a thorough search of the Master Bedroom, he surprisingly said,
"Dude, he's not here, I bet he made it out somehow."
At that, my heart swelled with the thought that he may be ok and I bounded through the doorway, quickly making my way over to the scorched headboard to verify for myself that he wasn't crouched & lifeless hiding behind it, but my buddy was correct, no Skooter to be found. But how could this be, where was he then? As I scratched my head in thought, my buddy asked me,
"did you hear that?"
"um, hear what?"
"listen, there it is again, that faint meow, hear it?"
he asked. Huh, how could this be?
The only other place that we hadn't searched was the tiny bathroom that opens up from the bedroom. I had removed the door long ago and replaced it with a beaded curtain, cause it was such a tiny room, when you opened the door, it took up half the space of the room. The beaded curtain was in chard crumbles on the floor, leaving the bathroom wide open. Mind you, this house was built in 1893, so its a very old & historic house & had an actual claw-foot tub there in the "Master" bath. When they added the plumbing for the tub, they had cut a large hole in the floor under the tub to allow for the pipes to be ran up from the floor below, but they had cut the hole more than three times the needed size, leaving a large gap around the small pipe that ran through it.
As we both crowded into the tiny bathroom, looking & listening for the faint meow sound, I finally got on my hands and knees and bent down to look under the tub, cause there just wasn't anywhere else to look. Low and behold, I see what looks like a peice of shaggy carpet sticking up through this hole under the tub, pressed up tightly against the pipe. Thinking it was carpet and now charcoal colored I went to pull it out of the hole, thinking maybe Skooter had somehow gotten in between the floors and was trapped there. As I went to pull the shag carpet from the hole, I immediatly heard a faint hissing sound and quickly discovered there was something hard inside the shag carpet. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks,
"Oh My God!"
I exclaimed loudly in disbelief
"Doug, its Skooter, I've got him by the tail, he's stuck in the hole under the tub and he's alive!"
What the hell was he doing with his head and most of his body stuck down this hole? The only thing we could surmise, was that he found the hole and was trying to escape but got stuck and couldn't go any further. Being that he was stuck between floors, their must have been enough fresh air trapped for him to breath and ultimatley, allowing him to actually live through the fire.
Once I realized it was him, I took care pulling him out, as before, thinking it was just shaggy carpet, I was trying to just brutily tear it out of the way. Skooter was understandably really scared and shaken up, his entire coat, which was usually a beautiful shimery light silver color with darker points was now totally black with soot. I was so overjoyed, but it was tempered with worry at the same time, seeing as he was covered in this toxic soot, and cats continually clean themselves by licking their fur, I quickly realized finding him alive was one thing, but keeping him alive and hopefully healthy was a totally different thing, and we had to act fast.
As I said, he was extremely scared and pissed, even trying to scratch and bite me, so I quickly grabbed a towel and rapped him rather tightly in it, so that he couldn't move nor lick himself, and let me tell you, he was none too happy about this.
I quickly called the vet & groomer which were both at the same location inside PetsMart, and explained that I didn't have an appointment, but that we had an emergency fire and needed to get Skooter in to be seen and groomed as soon as possible. Both were very kind and understanding and told me to bring him right over and that they would get him taken care of immediately and that if I wanted, they could keep him overnight for a few days for observation just to be on the safe side. I thanked them for their understanding and proceeded to foolishly tell them,
"as long as he checks out ok, I should be able to bring him home tonight." Then the receptionist kindly reminded me of a fact that had yet to hit home 'pun intended'
"Didn't you say that the fire made your home uninhabitable? Where will you take him?" She asked.
That was the first time that it hit me and I realized that I was faced with the fact that, for the first time in my life, I was now ............................ homeless .
And all my possesions were gone, I literally had nothing, but the clothes on my back, my cat, my chinchilla & my car, everything else that I had worked so hard for, a lifetime of things aquired, all gone in a matter of minutes.
When I came to this realization, it shook me to my core. I stammered a bit and humbly proceeded,
"uh, yeah, right, I hadn't thought of that, thank you, I'd really appreciate it if you could keep him for a few days while I work things out."
"No problem at all, just be careful getting here and we'll see you both soon." she kindly said.