Riki-Tiki-Tavi was a mongoose in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, and he now lives on our roof.

[Read Audrey's account of this on her blog.]

At 1:00 am Audrey and Mallory, her friend, came down from their sleeping quarters in the attic to wake me up and explain there was someone on the roof.

Sure enough, there was something heavy walking on the roof, but not quite as heavy as a person. I opened an attic window and everything went silent.

Wondering if mischief was afoot, I went downstairs and surveyed the street to find what looked like a cat prowling beneath a parked car. It came out into the light and was clearly not a cat. My best guess, based on what I could find this morning, is that it might be a mongoose. A weasel is too small for what I saw, and a wolverine is too big. The above link to a yellow mongoose looks exactly like what I saw, only yellow mongooses don’t live in Europe.

There have been rumors around the neighborhood that some sort of wild animal had been raising havoc on the rooftops during the night over the last few years. Now we know those rumors are true!

  Category: General