Here is the version of the story that I submitted, called "They Talk"
The smell of mint wafted in from the garden, intermingling with catnip.
I really should have thought better. I left Mr Bubbles and the other cats inside. I locked up. I managed to catch the Ackersons before they went on holiday for three weeks. Who could have thought that the shabby little tabby would push a chair against the doorknob and lock me out?
Over the day, marooned in my own backyard, I had studied the situation. The cats were mostly gathered in the living room. Once or twice a violent argument had broken out as to who got the beanbag but Mr Bubbles always won.
I scanned the back door for the fiftieth time, noting that the telephone was still off the hook. At least, I thought, combined with the reek of unchanged kitty litter in the laundry, that meant they still couldn't grasp things. Opposable thumbs should have been an overwhelming advantage, but I had no winning moves. Short of walking all the way back to the Ackersons' place and stealing a pickaxe, of course. There were no open windows, no secret doors – there was nothing I could exploit.
The cat door.
I felt like a bolt of lightning had hit me – the day I forgot my keys and slid in through the cat flap. Reinvigorated, as well as humiliated it didn't occur to me earlier, I rushed to the laundry door.
***
Hopelessness returned. I would never fit both arms through that hole again, let alone my whole body. While I stood by the door, a rustling caught my ear, and before I knew it I was staring down at a toothy face. A black, Burmese claw was held at my throat, the others digging into my T-shirt. It was Dobby, another of the cats.
'Who goes there?' he hissed, like English was disgusting for him to speak. I grabbed him at the waist and ripped him away, trying not to scream in pain. I waited for him to stop struggling.
'Why are you outside?'
'Mr Bubbles eats all the food,' he spat. 'Challenge him too much and it's out the cat flap, and they've blocked it with a box.'
The only box I could think of was the unpacked books, one that I could easily move with one hand.
'Even with you we all got fed,' the cat growled, 'I'd give anything for that again.'
'I can get you back in,' I said, 'if you move the chair away from the door.'
Dobby growled again. 'Deal.'
Mr Bubbles owed me a long time in his kitty cage.
