http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/207078.html

(picture at link)

Kitten rescued after four days trapped in car's underbelly
By DONALD BRADLEY
The Kansas City Star

Robert Clark didn't own a cat.
So where were those "meows" coming from?

At one time, the Grandview man pleaded with a crew of Firestone mechanics,
"Guys, I'm not crazy. I'm telling you . there's a cat in this car somewhere.
I hear it. I don't care how long it takes. you have to find it."

Finally, after nearly giving up, they did. Or, when they took off the front
bumper, maybe the cat just jumped out on its own. A little black kitten,
just a few weeks old. Skinny, dirty, hungry, dehydrated and ready to fight.

Bumper - as he since has been named - had spent four hot days in the
underbelly and engine compartment of a 2004 Chrysler Pacifica.

But by Thursday, he was shiny clean with a full belly while frolicking in
the cool of Wayside Waifs.

"I don't know how he survived the heat of summer, let alone the heat of the
engine," Jenny Brown, spokeswoman for the south Kansas City animal shelter,
said as Bumper snuggled in her arms.

"He's still a little skittish. But he's getting used to people."

Clark, an investigator with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights, called
Grandview animal control about 4:30 p.m. Monday and told a supervisor that a
cat was in his car, but he couldn't find it. He thinks it got in there last
Friday when he was stopped at a light and a cat jumped out of a nearby woman's
arms and ran under his car.

He didn't know if it was still there when the light turned green.

"So I drove off real slow and was glad I didn't hear that . thump," Clark
said

Later at home, his wife told him a cat was in the garage.

He looked, but found nothing. Over the weekend, he drove to church, went
shopping and even traveled on the freeway. Several times, he thought he
heard the phantom cat.

On Monday, after arriving home from his job downtown, he heard it again.
That's when he called animal control.

"I was scared to drive the car," Clark said. "I didn't want to hurt this cat
that I thought was in my car."

So two animal-control officers visited.

"We crawled all over that thing and we didn't find anything," said Tom
Weber, a supervisor for Grandview Neighborhood Services.

The next step was to put the car on a lift at Firestone Tire & Service
Center in Grandview. An inspection found no cat - and at that time no one
had heard one.

"Those guys probably thought we were crazy, too," said Lynn Livingston, an
animal-control officer.

But as a mechanic was lowering the car . "Meow!"

Four more mechanics hustled over.

"They jumped in and started taking this off and that off," Livingston said.

But still no cat.

"There's only so many places a cat can hide up in a car," service manager
Brandon Thorpe said.

That's when they took off the bumper and the cat jumped out, hissing mad.
They think he spent some time in the battery compartment.

Firestone didn't charge Clark for the search and rescue.

"But we sold him a new air filter," Thorpe said.

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For adoption
For information about animal adoption - including Bumper - call Wayside
Waifs at 816-761-8151. The shelter is at 3901 Martha Truman Road.