Maybe it's just me... but I thought friends don't hide from friends?
One of my cats is ill - the old one. We don't know what's wrong with him, when we came home from the holidays we couldn't find him anywhere, eventually we found him curled up under the hedge and trembling and he wouldn't come out when called. He's weak and he won't eat and he just spends all the time curled up somewhere and sleeping. He's so weak he often can't even stand.
In other cat news, we gave a bath to one of the other cats (Attila), he was really dirty so we had to. He kept trying to squirm away during the whole bath but was actually quite well-behaved... didn't try to scratch or bite, etc. Now he's outside in the garden, sitting in the sun and washing himself, trying to look dignified but failing miserably.