出气筒小黄
Gingerlet, the Pushover
说起打哈欠，我想起我对家里那只猫下的“毒手”。每次他打哈欠，只要我在附近转悠，总归忍不住把一根手指探进他张得大大的嘴里。Speaking of yawning, I am reminded of what I used to do to my cat. Whenever my cat yawned, if I was around, I would stick a finger in his wide-open mouth. For me, the temptation was simply too great to resist. 他也是个爱享乐的主儿，打哈欠时，自然紧闭双眼（否则打得不够畅快），因此我的小动作，他是看不见的，直到嘴巴再次合拢时，舌尖顶着我的手指了，才吓一跳，忙不迭地用毛茸茸的舌头把我手指拱出去。You see, when he was performing a big yawn, he would invariably shut his eyes（that's a must if you want to have a sinfully decadent oxygen boost）, which meant he couldn't see what I was doing, until he closed his mouth again and felt my finger in it. Startled, he would try to get my finger out of his mouth with frantic, reflexive pushes of his furry tongue.
后来，他就尽量不在我身边打哈欠了。偶尔，刚张开嘴，突然若有所悟，赶紧合上，幽幽地走开了。能把打了一半的哈欠煞住，也是一种了不起的功夫啊！As a result of that, my cat stopped yawning in my vicinity. Occasionally, he would catch himself as he was about to open his mouth, think for a second, decide to abort yawning and walk away. No mean feat that was.
看官可能会说：“啧啧，多可怜的猫咪！”‘Poor cat!’you might lament.
其实，他之所以可怜，不光因为摊上个以骚扰他为乐的小主人。In fact, this cat friend of mine evokes pity not just because he had the misfortune of being a mischievous boy's pet. 他的狗伙伴“黑狮”最初对他也不太友善。虽然我们本来没指望他俩擦出什么火花四溅的兄弟情，但猫咪初来乍到，黑狮二话不说就动用了“灭火器”，还是让我们大跌眼镜。His canine housemate, Heishi (Black Lion), wasn't exactly a doting big brother to him at the beginning either. Although we hadn't expected them to get on with each other like a house on fire, the use of a ‘water cannon’ by Heishi on the first day was the last thing we had expected. 罪过罪过，差点忘了，我家的猫叫小黄。您猜对了，黄色狸花猫是也。By the way, my cat had a very common name: Xiaohuang（Little Yellow）. He was, you guessed it, a ginger tabby.（I shall call him Gingerlet in this book. Just to be fair to Heishi, I shall also give him a European name in the context of this book. From now on, his name shall be Leo-noir.）
黑狮比小黄的资格老。可他连自己的“窝”都没有，更不用说正儿八经的“狗屋”了。他平时就趴在某个角落里打盹或歇息，天冷了，才领到一个蒲团，垫在身下。Leonoir had joined our family before Gingerlet did. Leonoir did not have a ‘nest’ of his own, still less a ‘kennel’. He would sleep or lounge in a corner inside the house, unless it was too cold, in which case he had a cushion to sleep on. 那个年代“宠物狗”的标配大致如此，它们充其量只能在主人跟前讨些欢心，就物质条件而言，“宠”字实在谈不上，因为主人的生活一般来说也相当艰苦。That seems to be the standard setup for ‘pet’ dogs（underdogs, more like）in those days when their human owners were by and large living a fairly spartan, if not needy, life. Pets might get some ‘petting’, but hardly any pampering. 更何况，在当时的中国，家养的小动物除了陪伴主人外，往往还各自肩负着自己“养家糊口”的重任。In fact, besides keeping their owners company, most of the small domestic animals were also expected to perform certain practical functions that established their raison d'être. 譬如，猫可以抓老鼠或把它们吓跑（当地方言叫“辟鼠”），狗可以给主人看家，鸡和鸭呢？它们可以下蛋，贴补家用。For example, cats could catch or deter rats; dogs could guard their owners' property. Chickens and ducks? Their eggs could be sold to supplement the family income.（这也情有可原，因为宠物在其它动物眼里很可能属于富贵阶级、特权阶层，沐浴在人类的青睐和保护中，既然地位高贵、养尊处优，自然责任重大，不容推卸。What with their elevated status in the human world vis-à-vis their peers in the wild, their enjoyment of human affection and protection and their entitlement to sundry other privileges in the comfort of a home, it stands to reason - and to the logic of noblesse oblige - that pets had to hold up their end of the bargain by contributing to their owners' well-being, one way or another.）而猫咪似乎是当时人们唯一的宠爱对象，也许是因为它们柔，抱着舒服，它们弱，能勾起人类的保护欲，它们的嬉戏，能激发人类的童趣。所以，人类跟猫狗玩耍的方式和态度也不同：对狗比较“粗暴”，对猫则比较轻柔。Any semblance of mollycoddling, however, tended to go to cats, possibly because they were more cuddly, their apparent vulnerability appealed to the protective instinct of human beings and/or their ludic ways tickled them in exactly the right place. Rough-and-tumble was reserved for dogs; cats were typically handled with kid gloves. 小黄到我家后，我爸就用一个旧“饭焐子”，在里面铺上软布，给小黄做了一个很舒服的窝。That is why after Gingerlet was welcomed into our family, my father made a very ‘cosy’ bed out of an old rice cooker ‘cosy’ by lining it with soft fabrics.
黑狮觉得这个小不点儿刚进家门就如此受宠，太不像话，羡慕嫉妒恨顿时涌上心头。That was just too much for Leonoir. He felt overslaughed. He seethed with envy, jealousy and resentment, in that order.
黑狮毫不掩饰自己的情绪，没等到第二天，就给小黄来了一个下马威。Leonoir made no attempt to disguise his feelings. He did something nasty to put Gingerlet in his place on the very first day. 起初他只是在小黄的窝边嗅来嗅去，我以为他只是好奇，没太在意，谁知一不留神，他突然跳进新窝，边踩踏边快速转圈。我看见了，一边呵斥一边一个箭步冲过去，但为时晚矣！就在我赶到前，他已经以迅雷不及掩耳之势，在小黄的新居里撒了一泡尿，撒丫子跑了！I noticed he was sniffing round Gingerlet's bed and thought he was just being curious, no cause for alarm. When I wasn't looking his way, he jumped into the nest all of a sudden and ran in circles while stomping on the ‘bedding’. I saw what he was doing, yelled at him and sprinted across the room. But it was too late: By the time I got there, he had peed, at an impressive speed, into Gingerlet's new bed and skedaddled!
