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Two of my parents' three cats hate Simon.

I knew the transition would be a bit of a sticky wicket: Cats don't live together in the wild; only under the dominion of humans do they coexist peaceably in the same household, and the introduction of another feline triggers a certain irruption of the natural proclivities of the species.

I worry about my boy; he's not much of a fighter, and rather shy, though intensely curious, and when he lived with my parents before becoming well and truly my cat, he spent most of his time hiding in the basement. As I didn't want him reverting to old patterns, I fixed him up in my room with his food, water and litterbox, telling him, as I carried him upstairs, "This is your new safe place."

And it has worked. He doesn't much like being shut up in my room, so I started letting him out, a little bit at a time, worried that too much stress would cause his bladder to back up like a clogged drain and put him back in the hospital -- with me jobless. So he'd make little excursions downstairs, scout out the scene, and head back to the safety of his mommy's room when he'd had his fill.

The only trouble is that those excursions tended to end in stonewalls of hissing, growling and spitting from the other cats. I'd watch his bewildered expression and feel horrible for him -- here he just wants to get along, mind his own business, and sit in windowsills in the same room as I, and the other cats were having none of it.

At first I thought it was just Maggie. She's little and black-and-white and cute, but she turns into this huge ball of growling fluff whenever Simon pokes his face around a corner. But no; it's Greubie (a/k/a Alex) too. He's old and decrepit, and even though he and Simon used to get along, ever since I came home he's been hissing and spitting every time Simon walks into the room.

My poor kitty, I thought, over and over...until I witnessed a few things that reminded me what I'd forgotten about my Sweet Boy: He's a complete and utter brat. After his first puzzled reaction, and after several more trips downstairs amongst the other felines resulted in the same hostility, his ears tipped forward at a devilish angle, and he started deliberately pissing the other cats off. Maggie's tail would shrink a little and she'd turn away, and instantly Simon was pouncing on her, causing the tail to balloon out again; Greubie would stalk past, having finished his hiss, and Simon would bowl him sideways. And the more upset the others grew, the more I could see Simon's whiskers standing straight out in what amounts to a cat laughing his head off in glee.

I know the feeling -- I've had people dislike me for no discernable reason in the past, and once I gave up on amicable relations, I started antagonizing for the sheer puckish delight of seeing them madder. If Simon could talk, I'd hear him say, You don't want to like me? Okay; I'll have fun making you HATE me.

He also flaunts my favor. Yesterday I walked into the middle of a wall of puffy tails growling Simon to a standstill in the dining room when he wanted past them into the kitchen, and I bent down and petted Simon and shooed the others away. He looked up at me, then toward the others, and then, kitty hips swinging saucily, he sauntered around them with his tail waving. I could practically see him sticking out his tongue at them: What are you gonna do now, suckahs? My mom's got my back.

I watched him in the pure gut-warming delight of a person recognizing something even more kindred in a loved one than theretofore realized, and said, fondly, "You are such a punk."

So in this baiting, devil-may-care way, Simon has therefore begun winning himself a place closer to the top of the household hierarchy than he possessed before; the other cats don't know what to do with him, and have started cautiously leaving him alone.

Then this morning I heard the horrible coughing strangled snarls of a cat fight taking place in my room, and I tore up the stairs in a panic (Alex has all his claws; Simon doesn't) to find Greubie squeezed into a corner raising hell while Simon held him at bay. "You guys stop it," I shouted, and Greubie scooted under the dresser where Simon followed, clawless paws boxing Greubie in the face. More terrible gutteral squalls followed, and, outraged (what the hell was Alex doing invading Simon's territory?), I reached underneath, dragged Greubie out, set him in the hall, and shut the door.

But aside from a few tufts of missing hair, Simon looked fine. I guess he's more of a fighter than I realized. Ever since he's been jaunting all over the house as he pleases, terrorizing the others with ambushes and launched assaults from the tops of cabinets, then bouncing over to brush against my shins.

My baby is King Pin of the party. He's a beautiful, sleek, bedeviling snot. (Whose urinary tract seems to be in working order.)

I couldn't be prouder.