“Animals like crows and black cats are not ominous at all; it is the men’s superstitious mind which is the inauspicious one.”

Mehmet Murat Ild

All it takes is one. Your first cat will change your life.

And so it was for me with Blackjack. I’d had a _^SMALL experience rescuing and rehoming three kittens in university, but they were never going to stay and I never had the heart- squeezing desire to keep them, I knew they’d have good homes with my friends. But this cat was different.

Blackjack padded into my life one evening back in June 2012 while I was sat at a cafe in Dibba, Fujairah, UAE, a tiny little town in the middle of a valley, with a beautiful coastline, full of beachfront hotels but not much else.

This scrawny little black kitten came scampering up on to the cafe “terrace” (read bare concrete with plastic tables and chairs) clearly looking for a bit of affection. My friend Mohamed immediately went over to the mini-mart opposite to get the poor mite some wet food, while I sat and entertained him, making sure he didn’t disappear. He wolfed down two packets of wet food in no time at all, had a little play and then fell asleep on my legs.

When the waitress came over with the bill, she saw the little guy asleep on me and started animatedly talking to Mohamed in Arabic. I couldn’t understand anything except for one word which Mohamed kept repeating while waving his hand and smiling – “La! La, la la, la!” – No.

When the waitress left, I immediately asked Mohamed what she had been saying. At first, he refused to tell me – he knew what would happen. Eventually, after pressing him, he told me that the waitress had said that “this one doesn’t have a mum”.

That was it. I was taking him.

Mohamed tried (although, not very hard) to stop me from doing it (“Leanne, we live in a hotel.” “Well, actually, I don’t anymore.” “Ok, but you don’t have a job anymore either.” “Well, that part is true.”) but there was no reasoning with me. I simply wasn’t going to leave him there.

On the way home we went to the superstore, where we got the little guy some more food, litter and a litter box. I then had to sneak him in to the house without my parents realising he was there. They had to get up early the next day to drive over to Dubai, so I knew they’d already be in bed, I just had to hope really hard that he wasn’t going to be a crier. I needn’t have worried – with a full belly and in a warm, safe place, he passed out immediately in the bottom drawer of my dresser and slept soundly until the next morning.

The next day, when I woke up, my parents had already left and I immediately set about trying to find a solution. I knew I couldn’t keep him because my mum was, and always had been, terrified of cats. I had to find him somewhere to go. I googled all morning, phoning every place I could find – of which there were very few. One place actually told me to just put him back where I had found him and maybe his mum will find him again. Eventually, I found an animal rescue place in Ras Al-Khaimah, which was about an hour’s drive away, who said they could take him.

I talk to Mohamed about it and he agreed to take me there, but we had to wait a few days because of his shifts at work. In the meantime, my parents came home and I will be completely open and up front about this now (since I have told them already anyway) – I was not completely honest about how the kitten came to be in the house. I told them I saw him sitting for several hours under a tree in the empty space outside of the house and saw no sign of a mum. My parents are not cold, unfeeling people and they would never see an orphan back on the street, so they agreed that he could stay for a few days since I’d already found a place for him to go.

In those few days, “little man”, as he was then known, made himself very comfortable. One day, I even came down to breakfast to find my mum spoon feeding him because she wasn’t happy with how much food he’d eaten.

When the time to take him to the shelter finally arrived, the journey wasn’t an easy one. We got lost in Ras Al-Khaimah, caught up in the middle of rush hour and unfortunately were involved in a VERY slow-speed traffic incident with a lorry that didn’t see Mohamed’s car. We got to the shelter very late, Mohamed with a pink road fine in his wallet, but the staff were very hospitable and understanding. They told us that the vet would check him over tomorrow, but also warned us that there was a high probability that he would be put to sleep if space became an issue. Since he was about 4 weeks old, he had to go into a cage by himself, and if a mum with kittens came in, he would be on the top of the list to go.

I was devastated. I cried all the way home.

The next day, I called the shelter as soon as they opened. I spoke to the vet who said the kitten was healthy enough, but then he put me through to the shelter manager to talk about the space situation. Unfortunately, the manager confirmed the worst – Little Man would be at the top of the list to be put to sleep if space became an issue.

I was distraught. I’m an emotional mess anyway but this really hit me.

What surprised me even more was the fact that my mum actually teared up and my dad said, almost immediately, “Go back and get him. I can’t have him killed just because of space.”

That was all I needed. I phoned Mohamed but he didn’t answer because he was asleep after a night shift. I was in agony, I text him several times and rang a few more times like a crazy person, until he eventually called me back. He was clearly still half asleep but he agreed to take me back to pick him up. I don’t know what I did to deserve a friend like him in my life, but the world could definitely do with a few more Mohameds! Back on the phone to the shelter, they were happy for me to go and get him but warned me that they had given the kitten a fungal shampoo which had caused him to lose “some fur”.

This time, the trip went smoothly, but the previously fluffy kitten now looked like a sphinx cat with a mohican, I kid you not. I have no idea what shampoo they use but he was almost naked! But at least he was safe and with a new name – Blackjack, after my favourite childhood sweets.

At home, the deal was that I would find him a better place when we moved home to Dubai a couple of days later, which I was happy to agree to at the time, but that never actually materialised. Then, one day a few weeks later, while in a shopping centre, my dad picked out a cat scratching post from a pet shop and brought it over to me while I was sat on a bench and said “Do you realise what this means? We’re keeping the cat!”