I’m sure it’s plotting something.

Look at it— look at its smug face, the talons on its feet, its beady eyes— and when it landed on the bird feeder this morning (as I was answering the call of nature on the Human’s landscaping, but no matter) I knew in my heart of hearts that bird was, is, and always will be no good.

Thus, it was decided. I dug a hole in the mulch, buried the products of my… ordeal… and scratched the birch tree.

Just once.

If there’s one thing I know about blue jays, slippery buggers, it’s that they’re wilier than they look. I owe a good-sized notch in my ear to blue jay talons— well, that’s what I tell the feral cat when she comes around from time to time. I’m not necessarily sure if it’s true.

I place my paws on the banister and hoist my bulk onto the Human’s patio, sweeping a rose bush with the tip of my tail. The bird is blissfully ignorant of my approach— I have, as of this morning, freed my collar of that blasted bell— so I coil my hind legs up like springs and launch from the deck of the patio in an arc of fury to the bird feeder.

The blue jay barely has time to blink as I swipe it with my paw, biting its neck… as I plummet into the rosebushes, which sting through my fur and elicit a strangled meow from my mouthful of blue feathers.

The blue jay is dead, but I am disgraced. Yowling, I rocket from the bushes to the dog door to present the Human with the corpse of her failed assassin.

“Oh my LORD! Zorro, you horrible little tuxedo cat— that poor blue jay!”