Theodora Tuxedo wasn’t the only feline to arrive and stay with Eugene’s family at Block 223. Firstborn, a son Satu (also a tuxedo but in white mess dress), would plop out with a mewl into Stepdad’s pyjama pants one early Sunday morning, with tortoiseshell Dua and calico Tiga to follow.

There’s a lot to learn if you’re a kitten: how to use your whiskers, how to know when a rat is a rat (and when it isn’t) and how to accept the tail you’ve been born with. Loving her life now as an indoor cat, shunning her past life as a stray, Theodora can’t understand the kittens’ eagerness to venture back “outdoors” into the community.

Along with Theodora’s (and Zigzag’s) unexpected offspring, The Community Cat Chronicles 2 – New Kittens on the Block delightfully shares imagined stories of real residents, both two legged and four, around the housing estates of Avenue 1.

© 2021 by Lachlan J. Madsen and Eleanor Nilsson. Published in paper format in Singapore by Marshall Cavendish International Asia, recorded by Storyside 2022.