Cats, of course, are nocturnal animals. Of the six hours each days when they're not asleep (yes, they relish a round eighteen hours of sleep in each twenty-four), cats prefer to spend their time roaming, prowling, hunting by night. Owen, our cat, is no exception. By day he sprawls, sawing wood on the couch, a bed, or, often enough, my desk.

By night, he's abroad, checking yard, barn, and sheep shed for mice, and often leaving a headless corpse on the back porch to show his prowess.

In cold weather, though, Owen stays indoors overnight. This means he does his prowling there. We've learned to lock him in the downstairs, with Blue to keep him company. He and the dog get along fine; they greet us side by side each morning, both ready for breakfast.

We restrict Owen to downstairs not only because he prowls by night, but because he is an extraordinarily heavy-footed cat. A model of catly virtue in every other way, Owen often reminds me of an old quip by a "New Yorker" writer who, waking with a fierce hangover, whined about the cat "stamping around the apartment."

When Owen runs up the staircase, he sounds less like a ten-pound cat than a ninety-pound centipede. And if he jumps off a piece for furniture by night, he produces something as jarring as artillery hit. So locking him downstairs makes for much better sleep for us.

Which is not the case for the couple cited in this column's rejected title. Bill and Pam Deane, valued Fly Creekers, are being tyrannized-yes, terrorized each night by Pumpkin, a.k.a. Punky. A neutered male about two years old, Punky is causing them major sleep deprivation.

Both Deanes have wonderfully centered temperaments. Bill, a specialist in long-term health care programs, is quiet, good-humored, endlessly patient in explaining the options of various policies and programs. (Check with him if you're weighing the question.) Pam, our Town of Otsego clerk, is widely admired for her laconic wit and for her skill in transmuting opaque Board discussions into statesmanlike minutes.

But these two worthies, so in control of their lives and professions, live with a cat out of control. Punky rules. And not just by day. For Punky shares the Deanes' bedroom by night.

"He spends most of the night," says Pam, "wrapped around my head. I push him over toward Bill, but he comes right back." Bad enough to have to sleep with a fur helmet, but Punky also roams the room by night. Once, says, Pam, he dragged them out of sleep by leaping onto the sewing machine, and from there onto the top of a six-foot armoire.

There he sprawled and went back to sleep, as finally did his roommates. But an hour or so later, he awoke, stretched luxuriously, rolled-and fell off the armoire.

In falling, Punky refuted all truisms about cats landing on their feet. He dropped the six feet and landed flat on his side with a resounding boom that evidently would have done Owen proud. Sleep was slow returning to both Deanes.

But worst nights were to come. A week or so later, Punky detatched himself from Pam's head and started along a regular course around the room's perimeter: up onto a dressing table, then a leap onto the hamper top, then onto a chair.

But that night the hamper top was open, and (disproving that other truism about cats' night vision), Punky described an arc that end with him in the bottom of the hamper, and with its top falling shut behind him.

Some time later, Pam sat bolt upright to the sound of repeated knocking. She squinted at the clock: two AM. She shook Bill. "Wake up! You've got to go to the door! Somebody's trying to get in!"

Bill had groggily lurched to his feet before both realized the banging was coming from right in the room, and from the hamper. Punky, presumably using his head, was trying unsuccessfully to raise the hamper's lid.

You'd think that would have been enough to make the Deanes exile the cat from the bedroom. But they are tender-hearted souls, both of them, and so invited on themselves a climactic incident.

On still another night, both Deanes were deep into sleep-steady breathing, rapid eye movement, the works. Suddenly the room's silence exploded into sound. It was a human voice shouting, "WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU?"

Both Deanes sat straight up, shocked, trying to clear their heads. The angry shout continued. "WHERE ARE YOU? I'VE BEEN CALLING YOU FOR HOURS!"

Pam pushed Bill towards the edge of the bed. "Get up! Quick! Someone's broken into the house!" As Bill struggled to his feet, the voice shouted again, still more impatiently, "WHERE ARE YOU?"

By then, Pam had recognized the voice. It was her sister's. And she had pinpointed its source. It was the answering machine. Punky, in his prowling, had walked across it and pushed down "Play."

Please, friends, Bill and Pam need their sleep! When you see these good people, help save them from themselves. Tell them to put that cat in the basement. Or else bed down there themselves.

Jim Atwell lives in and views life from Fly Creek.