The Great Orange Hunter

Sushi recently wrote that Odin "might strike one as a fey little fairy" (Raspberry World, Sept 10). I don't know what could possibly make her think that. I certainly never gave that impression.

Okay, maybe I did. And maybe Odin does like his lace pillows and his tiaras, but that doesn't mean he's not a manly cat. He is, in fact, quite the impressive hunter. He did spend his formative years in Central Pennsylvania, after all, where the first day of buck season is a state holiday.

Often his hunting manifests itself in harmless games of fetch, in which he'll endlessly bring YellowMouse to me for just one more toss.

But at other times his sport takes on a more diabolical nature. Do you remember reading "The Most Dangerous Game" in junior high? The one with the madman on the island who trapped shipwrecked sailors and then hunted them in a bizarre game of cat and mouse? Odin is a little like that sometimes (what with actually being a cat and all).

Like the story's madman, Odin will sometimes relieve his ennui by setting up poor unsuspecting prey for his own amusement. I'll watch him trot into the room with a stuffed mouse, which he will carefully place in position. He backs off, changes his demeanor, and then nonchalantly walks by pretending he doesn't see the mouse. He innocently strolls along, whistling to himself, seemingly oblivious to the mouse, but headed right for it. Casualties Tension mounts. Then the critical moment: his back foot steps on the mouse, he feigns surprise, and in a flash turns from happy-go-lucky pedestrian to enraged demon from hell.

YellowMouse, being Odin's second-best friend, is spared the full brunt of his awesome wrath. But the other toys--like these little Ultrasuede mice that the package proclaims are made of "wear resistant material"--are fair game. He kicks and claws them, swallows their tails, and finally, once they've been rendered defenseless, he delivers the death blow: a swift crunch on the back of the neck. After they've given up the ghost, he completes the decapitation and disembowels them. This is graphically illustrated by the mouse carcass in the foreground. "Who would have thought the old mouse had so much stuffing in him?"

It's all very impressive. When the deed is finally done, Odin lies panting for a moment, waiting for the testosterone rush to subside, and then picks up his kill and neatly deposits it in his food bowl.

An indoor cat who is afraid of the great outdoors, Odin is less impressive when it comes to live prey. He does hunt bugs, but this is a more sedate sport. Like curling. He watches and waits until he smacks them down with a decisive blow of the paw . He then picks up his paw, calmly examines it, and licks delicately, eyes shut as he savors the piquant flavor.

Perhaps Odin would do better with this bat His only run-in with a real live mammal was the bat who found its way into my old house. I spent a heart-stopping 2 hours frantically--and ineffectually--chasing the grotesque flying rat with a newspaper and tennis racket.

Odin assisted my efforts by climbing on the dining room table and making a series of balletic leaps in the general direction of the bat. With each jump, he joyfully extended his front legs skyward and then performed a three-quarter spin. The end result was less pest extermination and more modern dance.

Fed up with the two of us, the bat eventually flew out the back door, unscathed but with a great story to tell his friends back at the belfry.