Cassandra's one dumb redhead!

Gd Ch Chattan Cassandra ("Flea") is a very beautiful, but very dumb, broad. Burmese are supposed to be intelligent cats, but apparently Flea has not been informed of this fact. Having lived inside for all of her seven months of existence, I took pity on her and let her out on this beautiful Spring day. She had spent hours sitting on the sill chasing birds through the window of her imagination. I put her out with three of my other cats and watched them having a wonderful time playing "chasey" on the lawn, rolling about in the sunshine and longingly watching the birds, mainly thrushes, in the many trees in the yard. Things went very quiet and I assumed that they were all asleep in some snug nest they'd made, just for that purpose, in the hay stack. I went out to bring in the washing at 6 p.m. and all of them, minus Flea, ran up to me to be fed and locked up for the night. I put them all away and folded up the washing. Then I went out to get Flea. I could hear her raucous cry which seemed to be coming from under the house. I called her, but still she didn't come. A cold dread seized me as I realised that her cry was coming from far above my head. I looked up and there she was right at the top of a fifty-five feet tall sycamore tree, high in the uppermost small and flimsy new growth.
My heart fell like a stone into the pit of my stomach. How could I get her down? The trunk of the tree was huge and smooth with no footholds and the branch nearest to the ground was at least 2.5 meters above my head. She was crouching there looking down and calling to me. As I watched, horrified, she lost her hold and fell through the thick foliage onto the next branch. Luckily I had not clipped her claws recently, so she was able to get another grip before falling any further. I raced inside to get my nine year old daughter, Stephanie, with the intention of giving her a bunk up into the tree in the hope that she could get high enough to reach Flea and help her down. Stephanie was not a great tree climber and the height and the smooth, slippery trunk overwhelmed her. Flea had come down only so far and then retreated to the top as I helped Stephanie out of the tree.
I went back inside and brought Charlie out. She loves climbing trees, so I put her up as high into the tree as I could reach and asked her to help Flea down. Charlie scooted up to Flea and they had a long conversation in Burmese which I could not understand. Then a thrush flew into the tree and they were off after it right up to the top again! After some time of playing tag, Charlie came to the lowest fork and shinned down the rest of the way backwards with her front legs wrapped around the smooth branch hanging on like a koala, then dropped the last two meters safely to the ground.
As I watched, I realised what the problem was. Flea, having never climbed before, would only come to the last safe fork forwards. She did not realise that she had to turn around and come down the rest of the way backwards. I called and called to her, but she would come no further. By now it was 7:30 p.m. and I was becoming concerned.
I heard voices and, by looking over the fence, I saw two men who were complete strangers to me having a conversation on the footpath about fifty meters away. I called to them and asked if they could help. I explained that we lived alone (stoopid!) and had no ladder and we could not reach Flea. The younger of the two willingly agreed to help, but could not get much closer than I had. We held out a large broom to her, but she would not take the hint. He left, continuing on his way to a meeting.
There was one last thing I could think of to do, but I felt very sheepish about doing it. I rang the local Country Fire Authority and explained my predicament to the man who answered. To say he was amused would be doing him an injustice, but he managed to control his mirth. It was 8 p.m. by now and Flea was very distressed. About fifteen minutes later I saw the huge shiny red fire truck coming up the driveway, lights flashing. I went out to meet it and two firemen with twinkling, mischievous eyes got out of the truck - in full uniform. I wanted to die! One of them, Ron, said he would "survey the scene". The other one, Roy, stood back with a grin splitting his face saying that they had a 60 ft. ladder at their disposal. Ron donned a hard hat and a pair of leather gloves and climbed up into the tree far above my head. Flea, seeing her rescue close at hand, climbed down to him. Rotten cat! Ron carried her safely to the ground. As we stood around laughing about the dangerous calls that the CFA answers, a group of people from the local branch walked into the yard. They had heard about my call over the CB radio hook-up and had come to watch the fun. After many thank-yous and the promise of a voluntary contribution from me, they all left in high humour.
Flea was by now back inside the house, but I couldn't find her for over an hour. Dratted cat! Needless to say, her only day of freedom will also be her last! She doesn't know, either, that she made the front page of the local newspaper. It could have been worse, I suppose. There is an ancient monkey puzzle tree, over 100ft. tall, in the front yard. I noticed Ron and Roy eyeing it with trepidation as they drove away.