This is my darling little cat, tibby. She's no longer little I suppose, but I always remember her as the weak and forlorn little kitten tied by the neck with a rafia string to the pipe on the second floor of our 4-storey shophouse. She was so pitiful, not even daring to meow, but just standing there shaking in fear next to the pipe. Whoever tied her there had cruelly kept the string short so she could not even sit. My heart was lost to her the moment I saw her teary eyes and shivering legs. Untying her, we took her home with us to our 3-room flat on the 4th floor, cleaned her up and warmed some milk from the fridge for her. We were not even sure what cats ate then, but as she lapped the milk and gained strength steadily, we relaxed our gaze on her and thought further of what to do for her. We would have wanted to bring her to the vet's for a check-up in case of any diseases, but night had fallen fast and we weren't sure where the nearest vet was.

That night, we placed her in a cardboard box lined with a towel gently, wandering if she would understand the box was meant for her. She circled the inside of the box slowly, looked at us through half-slit eyes for approval before lying down finally to rest the night.

Tibby was really a sweet kitten. She was always very loyal to us in her affections and would come towards us all the time. She was also very intelligent and would know instintively that some behaviour was wrong. Whenever we rumble,"Mmm!" to instruct her not to do certain things, she would stop and lower head to apologise for her behaviour. Sometimes, we would spank her with a ladle if she was wilfully jumping on furniture or dirtying the floor with her kitty litter rebelliously. She would slink away most times, but within the minute, if we were to call her name, she would come out crouching on the ground and inch towards us, in remorse yet obedience to the call.

That was what made Tibby so special. Not all cats are like that. We were later to learn from books that Tibby is an American Shorthair, tabby cat. Her species are known for their affection towards human and friendly temperaments. No wonder she was always making her presence around us, unlike other species of cats who would independently strut their own ways. In fact, Tibby functions more like a dog and was more like a watch cat than a lazy, self-centred one. See the photograph of her with Don? She was screening the environment outside the door for suspicious looking people, and Don could not help quickly posing with her for the shot! Ingenious, haha!

Tibby was a wonderful pest killer and still is everywhere she went. She rid our 3-room flat of all cockroaches living or passing by and I lived happily ever after. When we first moved in, there was already a family of four elderly roaches I unmercifully killed under the stove. Their children no doubt had scattered in fear, and I had occasionally had to make my territory clear to them with much screaming and beating about the rooms. But ever since Tibby came to be part of the household, I honestly never saw another cockroach in our flat, at least, not alive. Occasionally, there might be remnants of some carnage, a leg here, a wing there, but never any live whole ones.

You see, we used to also see many cockroaches that would mistakenly crawl into our flat in a state of stupor, no doubt in a daze from over-eating. There was a huge hawker centre downstairs, and it was there that the cockroaches lived like kings and queens, holding feasts everyday on the abundance of crumbs from the hawkers. But they would never live to see another day if ever they creeped into our 3-room flat. If they could only read, I would surely help them out by sticking a sign up that says,"Beware of cat. Trespassers would be eaten alive."

Three years later, we moved to the 24th floor of a new block of flats and that was so cool! There were no cockroaches to start with and the rubbish chutes were structured outside the flats. So we had none climbing up regularly to enter our domain. I did remember there was an occasional one or two that did trespassed. I suspected they came from the rubbish chute and crawled in to our flat through the kitchen window, which was about 1 metre away from the chute, although really, I must take my hat off to these determined creatures. I mean, climbing 24 floors up must be like climbing Mount Everest to them. Where did they get all that energy? Perhaps they camped at each floor daily, and made their way up after 24 days of steel iron determination. Anyway, their end was a rather tragic one. Tibby had them performing for her endlessly like a king would have his court jester. She let them die a slow and painful death as she insisted to play with them for as long as they could last. You must understand she must have been pretty bored since moving to such a cleaned out place compared to our previous flat that provided her endless, exciting pursuits. The 3-room flat was like her amusement park!

Well, I must say she is now returning to her days of thunder as Savannah is a haven for cockroaches. Exactly the same, big, brown, juicy ones from Singapore. Actually, the ones in Singapore are of the species: American Cockroach. So guess what? They're natives here in Savannah, and move in swarms as opposed to those in Singapore, that are usually at most 3 or 4 feeding together. The ones here are really in swarms of at least 10. Their families are big and healthy, with generations to boast. I daren't step out of the house by nightfall as I know what lays outside. It's really a frightful sight.

Ray, my landlord, told me to get used to them as they are very much a part of life in Savannah. I could not close my mouth when he said that to me, tongue-in-cheek. He also continued to tell me facetiously that ever since he had an encounter in Mexico where a Mexican cockroach he sprayed some shaving cream on screeched to its death, he had never found those in America challenging. I felt ill as I imagined the Mexican species with its hideous screams. Somehow, I couldn't see myself surviving a face-to-face encounter with such kind. There were no happy endings for me in my imaginations of such an episode. I could only look to Tibby for comfort. Suddenly, having her with us in Savannah bore another meaning for us, apart from our affections for her.

And yes, Tibby has already busied herself with nightly heavy patrols to the bathroom. The wooden window sill cracks that we sealed up were no longer providing a route for the cockroaches to come in, but the bathroom wooden panels still had many crevices for them to sneak a peek. Still, after I showed Tibby one in the bathroom a week ago, she seemed to have awakened from her bored-to-death, belly-up poses in our room and gone back to her nocturnal hunting spirit. Every night, she goes out for her snack in the bathroom. Whenever I see her come back licking her lips, I actually do want to show approval of her actions by petting her or giving her a good rub on the belly, but the thought of her wolfing down one of those creatures and possibly having splattered some juice around her mouth stops me in action.

Perhaps my best way of showing approval would be really to feed her with more catfood, although she probably wouldn't need those with all her midnight snacks. Or should I say, heavy suppers? Oh Tibby, my dearest Tibby!