One morning, after a very stormy night, we arrived at school. Five members of my family piled out of the van and made a beeline for the door to get out of the wet, wind, and cold. I, as usual, was left behind trying to balance piles of graded papers, a laptop, and my overloaded book bag, while not spilling one drop of my precious coffee. As I plopped out of the van, I heard a pitiful noise. It sounded like a cat. I looked around the puddle-strewn parking lot and saw nothing. The pathetic wailing grew louder. I began walking and looking around the parking lot, still balancing all my junk and trying not to spill my coffee or step in a puddle. The sound seemed to be coming from high up in a tree. I couldn’t get to the base of it because of all of the deep puddles, but I did get a glimpse of the soaking wet, half-grown cat trying to come down out of a treetop where it had evidently sought refuge during the deluge the night before.
I went back inside and informed my adventuresome nine-year-old. He appeared a few minutes later with a wonderfully sweet, tame, wet cat in his arms. The cat was wrapped up in clean rags and purred emphatically. It seemed very appreciative and grateful.
It stayed in his arms when school started. It crawled onto his back during our morning devotions. It walked around the rooms during classes. It slept on a backpack during English. Our whole family loved the cat, so we brought it home. Grateful, thankful animals make wonderful pets.
