A Ginger cat with lighter stripes is perfectly difficult to spot in the autumn foliage. Butters has taken a liking to the large piles of leaves I’ve made clearing the back lawn, but this does take the cake. 60ft up in the oak my great granddad planted when he was a boy near the end of a thinning branch sits Butters wailing into the swaying wind.

Butter is freaking out. Thankfully, Dave from next door heard him when he went out for a smoke. Sucks to be missing the game for her but I’m not gonna leave her up there. The ladder may be a little short, but it’ll get me up in there.

He lays the old metal ladder against the giant tree; it clangs like a can down a well.

“Be careful, James!” yelled softly from the patio doors.

“Yes, Jan, I’m being careful,” he replied loudly before muttering, “be a lot safer if you’d put some shoes on and hold this ladder.” The ladder creaks against the tree, bending slightly and digging an inch into the earth below.

“Bloody cat,” he says, making his way up the ladder.

“What?” Jan yells.

“Nothing!”

He reaches the top of his ladder thirty feet short and grabs at several nearby branches, testing their strength. He pushes and pulls each around him with some force before putting a thumbs up to Jan. Jan was in the living room getting her dressing gown to wrap around herself. James lifted himself into the branches and started scaling. The branches sat a few feet apart at this height, so he made good progress getting fifty feet up before the branch got smaller and closer together. James paused, looking for a way through,

“Everything okay?” Jan yelled from the doorway. James attempted to force his way up, pulling on a branch that cracked when he applied force. James shakes his head and says,

“I’m coming down.”

“But your so close,” Jan replies, slipping on her shoes and jogging out to the bottom of the garden.

“Call out to her; you’re so close.” James looks up to where he thinks Butters is and says,

“Here kitty kitty kitty, come here, Butters, I’m right here, come here.” he waits for a second and whistles a little. Butters replies with a panicked screech like her last calls of distress.

“I can’t see her from here, and I can’t go any further up. Could you get a hold of the ladder?”

Jan nods and gets a firm hold on the ladder as James comes down.

He immediately takes a look at the tree from further away. Butter hasn’t moved and is gripping on for dear life. He starts looking around the bottom of the tree and the long hedge at the border of their garden.

“What are you doing?” Jan asks.

“Looking for something to lob up there.”

“You’ll hit her!” Jan snaps.

“No, I won’t. I’m just gonna get her away from the edge,” he replies, finding a broken bit of fencing only a foot long. Jan stares through the back of his skull as he tests the weight,

“Don’t you dare!”

“Got a better idea?” asks James, spinning the piece in his hand.

“Yeah, I do,” she says, storming off towards the ladder. She begins to scale the tree taking the same route James did.

“We’ve already tried that,” James shouts.

“No, you tried it and failed.”

Jan scales the tree quickly, Butters still screeching out for help. She reaches the smaller branches and spreads her weight across four or more at a time. Each foot steps on at least two at a time while she slides her smaller frame through the gaps. James looks on from below. Jan moves up through a small opening onto a branch she can perch on around the sixty-foot mark. She scans around where the noise where Butters should be but can’t spot her.

“To your left, eight or so feet”, James yells. Jan’s narrowed vision lands on Butters facing outwards, yelling down at James.

Jan pushes her torso out along the branch using her knees and feet to hook around the branches around her. After a foot out, the branches begin to sag, and Butters screeching hits a new noise level. The neighbours to their right and left watch the navy blue dressing gown high up in the tree. Jan uses one hand to pull herself forward, and one remains outstretched.

“Butters, come here, baby,” she says calmly, only to be met with a hiss and Butters panicking more as the branch bows. Jan continues slowly to push herself out, now dangling over a sixty-foot drop at a thirty-degree angle. She gets to within a foot of Butters before stretching out in a snapping movement. She grabs the fur on Butters lower back and pulls quickly towards herself.

Butters loses her balance with this yanking force; with her front two claws coming loose and her back two digging in more, she is pulled into a vertical standing position. Jan pulled a small clump of hair out before losing her grip. Butter stood upright majestically in the wind in a moment of stillness that lasted less than a second. Butters span towards Jan, and Jan locked both her hands around Butters chest. They closed their eyes as the branch beneath them audibly cracked. Butters did her best to run past Jan and out of her grasp, but Jan managed to hang on with one arm slamming Butters into her shoulder as her claws went deep into the dressing gown. Jan used her free hand to grab onto the closest branch and tightened her legs grips. Their fall was brief, only a half foot down, but fear flowed through their veins. Jan looked down, where she saw James’ arms out just in case they fell. she almost laughed as she backed up the branch towards the trunk.

“Who are you planning on catching?” she yelled with a giggle as she got her hand on the trunk. She got a better hold on Butters and shoved her halve in her dressing gown, holding her tight under her arm. Butters screeching stopped now, and Jan started making her way down. She moved a lot slower but eventually got down the ladder into James’ arms.

“You scared me half to death,” he said, kissing Jan. “And so did you, little miss,” he added, patting Butters exposed head. Jan laughed and took another kiss before putting Butters on solid ground.

Butters took this opportunity to run four feet away, then double back on herself and dart five feet back up the tree. Luckily James grabbed her and pulled her off the trunk.

“That’s it. You’re a house cat now.”

Jan laughed, and they carried her inside. James shut the door and put some food down for Butters.

“Stop. She had dinner earlier. She’ll get fat.” Jan said,

“Stress burns a lot of calories. She’ll be fine.” said James.

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