Slick fur brushes against her leg in a swooping motion, like a bundle of fur has been attached to it temporarily. She looks down only to see a blur cross her eyes that doesn’t have a definite shape. Out of peripheral vision, the blur is seen rounding a corner. She follows the blur in curiosity, only to find out that the blur is in fact a cat.

Rhiannon McCleery, a sophomore at SHS, was 3 years of age when she was viciously bitten on the hand by her grandmother’s cat. Walking up confidently to pet the cat, it came to bite. She finally realized there was only one solution to this newfound war, fighting back in the same way. She has decided that she’s grown up a little bit since then.

“I’ve learned to pet the cat before, or to let it smell me before,” McCleery said.

Three year old McCleery decided the only thing to do was to bite the cat back. The cat landed one last attack in the form of a bite before deciding to turn tail and flee.

Crying, McCleery ran to her dad wailing the tale of her woes to her father. Mr. McCleery responded by telling 3 year old McCleery to not bite anymore cats. Approximately three weeks past the event, the cat died.

“For the longest time I thought that I had killed the cat,” McCleery said.

Now she realizes that she didn’t actually kill the cat. McCleery is fine with cats now. She might be trying to be a little more careful not to get bitten first in the first place, such as not sticking fingers underneath a feline’s nose. McCleery hasn’t felt the compulsion to bite another cat since the incident.

McCleery can laugh about the incident with little embarrassment.