THE CATS HAVE DISAPPEARED

It wasn't sudden.What didn't happen was,one fine april evening as the sun smiled down thruogh the trees,Amy stepped out into the backyard to discover that,each of the 13 stray cats who usually fringed the compound walls of her neighbours' home, creating a scene as they sat,stood,meowed, licked and touched up their hairdo;all perched as though posing for a photoshoot as they awaited their daily meal of boiled rice and leftover fish,had disappeared without a trace. 

It was gradual.A cat at a time. 

Amy noticed it only when,one evening as she sat reading a paperback novel reclining on a chair placed under the cool shade of the trees,she heard a meow.She glanced up.Her eyes settled on a snow-white cat crossing the grassy yard. 

Amy looks around and realises that something is amiss.She can't remember the last time she saw the cats on the wall.Was it last week?Or was it the week before that?Or even longer? 

Where did they go? 

At the moment,Amy doesn't know that 10 yards away from where she sits,deep in the undergrowth,lies the answer.Two coiled sacks of neurotoxin,ready for the pump. 

Seven days later,Amy joined the cats. 

Amy Andrews,18,died of multiple snakebites on 24th April 2011.