Chapter 7

The Principal was a dragon, not the usual big, scaly thing with wings, which go around with smoke dribbling from their noses. Well, okay, some smoke from the nostrils, but at heart, she was all huge and scaly.

Rumour had it that she was from some interior village, which had always bred strong, capable women. Apparently the farmer’s there needed a wife who'd think nothing of beating a wolf to death with her apron when she went out to get some firewood. The lady was quite good-looking in an expansive kind of way; she was a fine figure of typical Indian womanhood. This meant she was approximately two womanhoods from anywhere else. The student body referred to her as the wicked witch of the west, and if not anything else her cat was ample certification of witchery.

She did not need a broom, the cat was enough.

I had been telling you of the dog clans east of the wicked witch, that is of the hostels and the clans were enough to send the average man, policeman or dogcatcher gibbering with insanity. Well, when the princi’s tomcat came out for his stroll, our dogs patrolled the borders of the territory ready for World War III.

The name of the cat was Sammy, and he was one of the Principal’s blind spots. While intellectually even the Principal would concede that he was indeed a fat, cunning, evil-smelling multiple rapist, she nevertheless instinctively pictured him as the small fluffy kitten he had been decades before. The fact that he had once chased a female wolf up a tree and seriously surprised a she-buffalo who had been innocently foraging for grass didn't stop her from worrying that something bad might happen to him.

To the principal, he was still the cute little kitten that chased balls of wool around the floor. To the rest of the world he was an enormous tomcat, a parcel of incredibly indestructive life forces in a skin that looked less like a fur than a piece of bread that had been left in a damp place for a fortnight. Sammy as a matter of feline pride would attempt to fight or rape absolutely anything, up to and including an eight-wheeler truck. Ferocious dogs would whine and hide under the stairs when Sammy sauntered down the street. Jackals kept away from the college. Wolves made a detour. Tiger’s kept in touch via jungle roar-telegraph, on the belief that it was better to have such a kin on their side than against them.

Sammy was hell with a tail on four legs and possibly the only cat who could snigger in purr and it was generally considered by everyone else in the college that the only thing that might slow Sammy down was a direct meteorite strike.