Allie Cats Lucky Christmas

by Jennifer Landers
Christmas Tree For Me

Allie jumped out of the garbage can and scrambled away as she heard the garbage trucks arriving. She ran all the way back to her secret place just on the edge of the woods in her neighborhood. The broken water pipe that stayed completely dry except in the worst storms was home to her and her daughter Dixie.

Dixie poked her head from behind the bushes, "Mom, did you find anything?" Allie sighed inwardly. This was no life for her daughter, but what was she to do? You can't make people adopt you, they have to want to. Allie used to dream of being a house cat but years and years of living had taught her that not all people were nice and some of them could very well cost her her life. So she had grown used to the fact that she was born in the wild and would die there. Her daughter on the other hand, she had high hopes for. She wanted her to have a family, to sit on a table inside a warm home to watch the snow they had every year around Christmas, not sit shivering in a concrete tube to view it.

"No Dixie, the trucks came too soon this time. We will need to wait until they are gone and I'll go back. If we had not gone so far away from home chasing that mole last night we would have woke up long before the trucks came."

Dixie looked ashamed. Her mother had warned her not to chase the moles, they just weren't worth it. It seems as if the entire earth was just one huge series of mole tunnels. They could stay under there without surfacing their entire lives if they wanted to. "I'm sorry Mom."

"It's okay, a lesson learned." You are going to need them, Allie thought. What was she to do? She wasn't a young cat by any means. She was 7 years old in human years and that by itself was a miracle in itself. Rarely did feral cats live longer than 2 years. She had seen so many die. All of her litter mates, her own mother, so many more. Allie could only assume that in the near future it would be her turn to die too. All she cared about was that she spared her daughter that pain. She had watched her mother die after being hit by a car. Although the car running over her mother was very traumatic, it was the next few moments she spent with her mother laying in the street that scarred her. Dixie would be spared that injustice at all cost. Barely a year old, Dixie still managed to retain a positive outlook.

"That's right Mom, lesson learned. I won't mess with those ole' moles again!" She jumped up and nuzzled her mother, purring, happy to see her mom return safely, that was enough to make any cat happy, she thought.

"Hey! What's this??" Allie found herself immediately being hoisted into the air. She seen Dixie scramble for cover back to the concrete drain pipe. Allie may be feral, but she wasn't truly wild. Although her spine was stiff she tried to remain calm and not scratch and hiss as she had seen some of her friends do and she had seen that it had gotten some of her friends killed, or even worse, seen them hauled off to the pound. "Ewww, it stinks! This cat needs a bath."

"Sarah Jane! You know you can't take that cat home, Mom will never let you have it." Her brother David piped in. Allie felt a hand creep up her back, this is the part where she knew she would be grabbed by the nape of her neck and tormented in one way or another and hopefully not to death. Instead, the hand stopped on the back of her neck, she tensed, ready to spring. The hand settled itself on her nape and began to stroke. Involuntarily Allie began to purr. She watched as Dixie crept out from the pipe, she hissed a warning to her to return to her hiding place, but as usual, Dixie didn't listen.

"Ohhh! There is another one!" Sarah exclaimed. David sat down on the ground and laughed at his little sister. There was no way Mom was letting one cat stay, much less two. "Well, I'm taking them home. David, grab the smaller one for me please?" David grabbed Dixie while she was still rooted to the spot, she had never heard her Mom purr. He held her comfortingly and when Sarah wasn't as near she noticed he would croon to her. Poor kitty he kept saying. Are you cold? We will get you some warm milk when we get home, just around the corner now and we are home. When she glanced over her Mom looked worried, but not as worried as she had seen her before around humans. She felt safe with these people too. She did not know why. Children were usually the first ones to torture them for fun.

As Sarah and David walked into their home their mother was standing at the stove. Before she even had turned her head she could smell something horrid. As she turned and seen both of her children, each standing with a ragged cat in their arms, something inside her broke. She had had cats, dogs, lizards and all sorts of other pets when she was a child. She never realized until this very moment how important it is for children, to let them help, let them rescue, let them have a being they can be responsible for. These ragged looking beast wouldn't have been her first choice in pets for them, but she would have never bought one anyway, she would have always rescued one the many nearby in the local pound.

"Now Sarah Jane! Why are there two cats in my house?" She knew she had to protest, although her heart had already warmed at this duo her children held. The older, obviously the mother to the smaller cat, was obviously in terror, but was extending her trust the best she could. The younger seemed to act as if David had been with her since the moment she was born. She just gazed up at him. Her tough little son, the one who had done a lot of taking care of her since their father had died in a car accident the year before. Now he would never ask she knew, but she could see in his eyes that he wanted to keep this little cat, but already knew it was a foregone conclusion that they couldn't.

"So, David?" She said, with a twinkle in her eyes. "What are you going to name your Christmas present?"

David's eyes grew as round as saucers. "You would let me keep her? What about Sarah's? Its old Mom. What if...?" He left off without saying. He wanted to ask her what if this cat died? He loved his little sister and knew how hard it was on her during Dads passing.

"Well then if that does happen, as it does with all things at some point, we will deal with it then. I thought we were kind of pros at it by now." She smiled, a weak one, but for her sons sake.

"True I suppose." David smiled. "Come on Sarah, lets clean these cats up!"

The next morning, Christmas eve, Allie woke up under the couch, she still wasn't full of trust. She still didn't know for sure if her dream had actually come true for her and her daughter, or if it would soon end in a trip to the pound for them both. But for the moment, she was content. As she crawled out from under the couch she scanned the room for Dixie.

As her eyes lit upon Dixie, a single tear fell from her eye, slowly dispersing when it hit her whiskers. Dixie, sitting atop a pillow one of the children had placed there for her on a table, was gazing out of the window, watching their regularly schedule Christmas Eve snow, from a comfortable perch, inside a warm home.

If you find a great way to keep cats out of Christmas Trees, please let us know at http://www.christmastreeforme.com

Article submitted Monday, August 02, 2010 & read 204 times.

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» left by Jennifer Stewart (1 year 263 days ago.)

I'm soooo glad this story has a warm and fuzzy happy ending!
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