EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — A basement remodeling project left Jany Chumas with one unsettling question after the drywalling was all done — where's the cat?

Mary Poppins, Chumas' pet cat, was nowhere to be found after the workers installed drywall in a room Jan. 2.

Chumas said the cat is "the sweetest little thing but quite shy," so she assumed at first that she had run away.

As more time passed, she suspected the 7-pound cat could be trapped, and she and her daughter searched the basement.

"I called her — 'Here, kitty, kitty' — and I could hear this faint, weak meow coming from behind the walls where they had just drywalled," Chumas said.

She called the Eau Claire Fire Department — about five days after the remodeling.

First they cut a small hole in the drywall near where Chumas heard the cat's cries, but they found only insulation. Later they cut into the ceiling and Chumas called into the hole. Soon a weak, hungry, tired and dusty Mary Poppins "came tumbling out of the ceiling," Chumas said.

Some food and water put Mary Poppins on the road to recovery.