Timmy lived on a quiet little walk street near the beach.  He was a Russian blue/gray cat, who was sleek and beautiful.  He was smart and inquisitive!  He was curious, and wonderful.  His life was perfect.  Except for one thing; he was missing his hind leg.  Therefore, he awas often referred to as ‘Timmy the Tripod’.  He was a sweet kitty boy who loved his family and his handicap didn’t seem to really bother him that much.  He lived with a nice family, there were two little boys named Robert and Ryan who just loved him and Mrs. Mommy who fed him, too!

He loved to go out the kitty door, over the fence and through the neighbor’s yard to the walkstreet where he would sit quietly and groom himself.  Sometimes, he would watch the mocking birds go from tree to tree and think, if only I could jump, I could get them!  The mocking birds called to him, taunted to him, caw-caaahhh, caw-caahhh, come catch us, come catch us.  But, he could not, because he had only one hind leg and therefore he could not jump or climb trees to catch them.  There was no problem though because Timmy had all the cat food a kitty boy could want, no worries and a happy family with two little boys who LOVED him!  He also had a brother named Tommy, who had all four of his legs.  Timmy was also beloved by the neighbors and everyone knew him.  He often scooted down the walkstreet on his three legs, running ever-so-slightly crooked because it was hard to run in a straight line with only three legs.  He sort of ran sideways like a crabbie!  Timmy would play with Tommy all the day, look at the birds and take naps.

One day, Timmy the Tripod got an idea, he decided it would be fun to try to take things out the neighbor’s patios.  Each neighbor had a beautiful patio that faced the walk street, filled with beautiful plants and flowers.  It was quite a beautiful scene.  Many neighbors left things out in their patios such as beach towels, bathing suits, hats and gardening gloves.  Timmy, feeling somewhat naughty one day, decided to see if he could carry some items home with him.  So, he picked out one particularly pretty house, there was a beautiful Mommy and her beautiful daughter who lived there.  He often would sit and look at this house and thought these people to be very special indeed.  One day, the Mommy, Amy, was gardening in her garden.   She had planted tomatoes and was attending to them.  She got a phone call and put down her gardening gloves and ran inside to get the phone.  Timmy saw his chance.  He ran into her patio, grabbed a glove with his mouth and dragged it down the street, through the hole in the fence and into his yard.  Then, he continued to drag it into the house, through the cat door and left it on the floor.  He was exhausted by the time he finally got the glove him. Mrs. Mommy came home and saw this glove and thanked him profusely.  “Timmy the Tripod, you make my heart sing. You are so kind to think of your mother all the time, and in fact, I have lost a glove myself, how did you know I needed another one”.  Well, this made Timmy VERY happy and he decided that night, when all the neighbors were sleeping, to go out to the street and search out more gardening gloves.

The next morning, Mrs. Mommy came down the stairs to a whole room full of gardening gloves.  Big manly ones, little small flowery ones. Leather ones, and patterned gloves of all kinds.   There must have been 10 gloves in the room.  Mrs. Mommy was thrilled but also a little alarmed!  What was she do with all these gloves?  All the neighbors would come out of the beautiful beach houses and not be able to garden in the beautiful yards.  Well, Mrs. Mommy knew what to do.  She would make a box that said, “Timmy the Tripods: Returns” and put it in the middle of the street with all the gloves in it so that the neighbors could get their gloves back.  Timmy’s family thought this a great idea, however, some of the neighbors didn’t like that Timmy was taking things from their patios.

Then, the next night came, Timmy thought he would wait til the neighbors were asleep and then run out the street, through the hole in the fence and see what he could find.  Well, the neighbors left out a bunch of items that Timmy thought would be good to collect. As a matter of fact, Timmy was thinking of himself these days as a collector, of sorts.  So, Timmy first set his sights on a sweet yellow baby’s bonnet.  He grabbed it and took off.  Got it!  Go back for more, thought Timmy.  Off he went to collect, yes, a ladies bikini top!  Oh my!  The beautiful lady, Amy, had left her bathing suit top out.  Timmy liked it, it was pink with a flowery pattern on it.   So, being the collector that he was, he took it.  Off down the street, through the yard, through the hole in the fence……oh, it’s stuck, thought Timmy.  Rats!  Timmy pulled and pulled but to no avail.  He could not get that darn bikini top through the hole in the fence because it was stuck on the other side on a nail…..Pull, pull, pull…..but, it wouldn’t come through.  He mewed for his brother Tommy.  Tom came and pulled the nail out with his paw and at last, Timmy had the bikini top.  He thought Mrs. Mommy might look quite good in this top and since she had been feeding him particularly great cans of kitty feast lately, she should have it!

Well, what did Mrs. Mommy and Robert and Ryan see when they woke up?  A whole room filled with things Timmy the tripod had been collecting from the street.  A bikini top, a baby bonnet, toy cars and baby dolls, more gardening gloves, some shorts, a pair of flip flops, and beach toys.  Wow, Timmy must have been up all night long ‘stealing’ items from the walk street.  Wow!  Mrs. Mommy was shocked.    Now, the box of returned items was overflowing!  This pattern went on and on, each night, Mrs. Mommy, Robert and Ryan would find items on the floor that Timmy had taken from the walk street.  Each day, Mrs. Mommy would return the items.  Now, the neighbors were stopping by all the time.  ‘Have you seen my gardening glove?’  ‘How about my bathing suit?’  “Any idea where my daughter’s baby dolly is?’  It went on and on.  And, Timmy was tired, he slept most of the day, but then seemed just to want to head back out to the street at night, hunting for new items.

Mrs.  Mommy decided to talk with Timmy the tripod.   This wasn’t right, Timmy needed to stop!  These items didn’t belong to him.  Plus, Mrs. Mommy worried for Timmy that this must be a lot of work for his three little legs.  He must be exhausted.  Well, Timmy promised Mrs. that he would stop, but somehow, he just couldn’t altogether.