A Christmas Ghost Story

Christmas is traditionally a time for ghost stories - I never really understood why.

We are home at the moment - the boat is iced in and under several inches of snow - she's not going anywhere in a hurry.

Ever since our cats were kittens, they have enjoyed climbing up inside our business desk in our lounge.

They climb up past the printer and get behind the three drawers that we have.

They then usually push out one or two of the smaller letter drawers from behind as they pass down or for a big finale, push the larger bottom drawer out, with them sitting in the bottom of it as it extends.
This then then enables them to go round for a second go.

As they have grown and got physically larger, it has become more difficult for them to do this, although not impossible as they are keen to prove occasionally.

Last night, we were watching TV (well the first mate was; I was watching the inside of my eyelids).

Suddenly, the first mate observed the top drawer nudge and then slowly come out about 6". The second draw nudged a bit and also came out.

The drawer slides are quite stiff - they don't run on bearings or runners and use wood to wood contact.

It looked just like a bit of "cat on drawer" action.

The male cat was asleep on his beanbag on the opposite side of the lounge.

The female cat was nowhere to be seen.

She waited for the big drawer to open, expecting to see the smug looking she-feline sitting there.

Nothing more happened. The big drawer stayed firmly shut.
She verbally encouraged the cat to get herself out of there, otherwise she would have to get up out of her seat and rescue her.

Nothing happened.

Irritated, she got up, walked across the room and opened the big drawer to get the cat out.

Our Tomcat even went across with her and curiously sniffed at the open drawers.

You guessed it - there was no cat inside - the desk was empty - all she saw were the usual letters, books, letter opener, pencils, etc.

After a quick search, she found our queen asleep in the bedroom upstairs.

I missed the whole thing, but it doesn't surprise me. We've had other instances over the years, usually around the first mate.

Just out of interest, the drawers were no more than 2-3m away from the first mate and in clear visual sight at all times.