And then there were three.

Within five minutes after Dan set the trap for Slinky, I got the call at work.

"I got one. But it's not Slinky. It's that other grey kitten."

That other grey kitten? The one that just started hanging out in the neighborhood, sleeping underneath the Hondas on the curb? We'd seen him before; he'd started sneaking Slinky's food a few weeks prior. We'd leave some star-shaped crunchies on an upturned green Tupperware lid for Slinky, as always, and there he'd be: a little furtive, a little ragged, but not afraid of much.

"Not sure what to do about this one," Dan says over the phone. "He's scared, really scared, and doesn't know what's happening. I put him in the small carrier."

We discuss the pros and cons of what to do with the new kitten for about five minutes. Then we decide to socialize him along with the rest of Slinky's brood. He's around the same age, with the same attributes: very hungry, very scared, a little scruffy, and needing a home. So we decide to take him in, in the hopes we can socialize him and find him a home. What's one more, right?

After all, he took the bait.

He's a little different, though, in that he's a bit of a fighter. Our guess is that he could have been someone's tumbly 6-week-old kitten set out for the night too soon, spooked by neighborhood dogs and cars and pre-Fourth fireworks. More likely, his mother was a feral cat like Slinky, but perhaps not as lucky. Whatever the case, this kitten is bold, bold, bold, and hisses at every turn.

All we know about this kitten is that he's scrappy, lunging at your hand when you unhook the front of the cheap plastic carrier. He spits in your face when you coo, "Hey little kitty, hey new little kitty," through the plastic grill. He watches you with his big eyes, growling kittenishly, but still growling. Dan's right. This one is a little different.

After work, I call our nice feral cat expert. She says that this new kitten is probably terrified, and encourages us to wrap him in a "kitty burrito": meaning, take the kitten and wrap him swaddling-style in a towel or blanket. "You've got to force your affections on this one," she says. Dan and I take her advice, and get the new kitten out of the carrier with surprisingly minimal struggling and hissing. We wrap him in a beach towel, and stroke his ears.

"Do you hear that?" Dan asks.

He's purring already, swaddled in the towel on the porch tile.