First, he insisted on calling her Lupe, which made her sound like his cleaning lady. Her name was Cupcake, as was clearly printed on the tag on her collar. If he couldn’t read that and put two and two together, her new owner was clearly an idiot.

Second, he purchased the discount litter that sent dust into her nose whenever she scratched, making her sneeze. So her new owner was an idiot, and a cheapass.

Third, he spent half an hour crawling around on his hands and knees and calling her fake name, when it should have been quite apparent that she wanted to have a moment by herself at the back of the closet to just deal with the fact that her new owner was, to put it nicely, a moronic illiterate cheapskate.

Then… just when she was beginning to get used to his idiosyncrasies, like the way he insisted on scratching behind her ears when she jumped on his bed in the morning (and okay, she had to admit that did feel good) and the way he talked to her about his day at Kinnetik as if she could actually talk back… just when she was getting used to these things… maybe even liking these things… he left her. Dumped her off on some neighbour while he went gallivanting to the snowbelt with Emmett.

She spent the entire first day in a snit.

By the second day she decided that Mrs. Lebowitz’s home made cat treats smelled entirely too tempting, and really, it wasn’t the neighbour’s fault that her owner was an ass, and it would be an insult to Mrs. Lebowitz not to at least try the treats.

On the third day, she came up with her master plan. She gorged on her breakfast, then purred prettily and rubbed against Mrs. Lebowitz for more. Then she spent a good hour working Ted’s favourite opera CD out of its place on the shelf. When it hit the floor and the disc popped out, she regarded it for a moment before carefully depositing her regurgitated dinner on the shiny silver disc.

Her tail was held high as she walked back to her favourite fuzzy pillow.

Ted needed to learn that there were some things that just weren’t done.

And Lupe -- god, she still hated that name -- missed her daily ear rubs.