Treasure: Rae's Story

Treasure

I wake up slowly in a beam of sunshine. Wonderful, warm sunshine. I stretch luxuriously and slowly. My gray fur rubs against the carpet. I am a cat. Those humans that I live with call me Buttons. My name is really Alexis. But, you can’t tell humans anything. They aren’t smart enough to understand cat or any animal languages. I personally understand 762 different dialects and can speak 551.

Before I am fully awake I wonder what I should do next. Should I go hunting? Go find my humans and try to communicate with them? Or play with my sparkly ball?

I come fully awake at that thought and remember. My ball, my favorite, most prized possession had disappeared. I blame the smallest human. He of the sticky fingers and lack of personal boundaries. His is not one of the dialects that I am able to speak or understand.

Now I lay here in the beam of too bright, hated light and wonder where my ball could possibly be. I haven’t seen it in HOURS. At least three of them. This is the longest three hours of my existence. And it is the reason I went to sleep in the first place. What is the point of being awake without my precious wonderful ball?

Maybe you have seen it? I’ll describe it for you. It is the size of a baby bird. It is pink and green. It has sparkly yellow stripes with blue feathers. It is the most beautiful ball you’ve ever seen. It’s no wonder someone stole it. It must be worth a fortune to hose humans. Don’t the things that sparkle cost the most to them?

I can’t take it! I don’t know what I will do without my ball! How can I go on living? OK Alexis pull yourself together. First things first, get out of the sun. That dratted sunlight is so annoying. I drag myself listlessly into the food area. The humans call it the kitchen. They are sitting at the table eating what they call dinner. I cry mournfully so that maybe one of them will find my ball. The woman human that I have heard called Rae gets up from the table. “Oh are you hungry?” she says. She opens a can of cat food and dumps it into my bowl. The bowl that says Buttons on the side. The bowl that I hate with every fiber of my being right now. I turn up my nose and stalk haughtily away. How can those idiot humans think of eating at a time like this? Don’t they know I am in the midst of a crisis? It’s just like a human to only think of themselves.

I stalk down the hallway to the small human’s room. I think the woman human calls him Logan. He calls himself something that sounds like Bumblebee. Those humans are insane. Maybe they go around changing the names of everything. I mean look what they did to me! Buttons, honestly what kind of a name is that?

I start poking around the small ones room because I know my ball must be here somewhere. Where else could it have possibly gone? He was always touching my stuff. Like those plastic cars he plays with. Doesn’t he know those are mine? He obviously does not understand the cat hierarchy system. Stupid humans.

I try to jump up on the windowsill to see if my ball is outside but there is all kinds of junk up there. Why did these people insist on cluttering up a perfectly good sleeping area? They insisted that they had to sleep in these things called beds. And they tried to make me sleep in one as well. I must admit it was soft and warm but I do not believe in limiting myself to only one sleeping space.

I jump up to the small bit of open space on the windowsill and bat all of that junk onto the floor. I look out the window but all I see are more people. Ugh they are everywhere.

Suddenly, I hear the man human yell, “Buttons! Why is this in my shoe?” I run down the hall to see what he has. It is my ball! I remember now. I put it in the shoe to keep it safe.

I wind myself around and around Roger’s ankles out of sheer joy. I love that Roger man so much. I run to the kitchen to show Rae and Logan that I  found my ball! I bat it to Logan and giggling he rolls it back to me. We play like that for a long time. After we are done I eat my food out of my beautiful bowl. Then I go and sleep in my soft, warm, wonderful bed. It is positioned perfectly in a patch of sunlight. I have the best humans.