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North Warren Central High School






I had always hated going to the balloon festival. Mom and Dad would haul
my sisters and I out of bed and four AM. They wouldn't even dress us or feed us,
just let us remain asleep, and dad would sling me and Merry over each shoulder
and Mom would support rachel as she stumbled bleary and squint-eyed but insistent
on her status as eldest and therefore the most independent, intelligent, and capable, out to the car.

There was no sun yet, only the anemic gray haze that come sbefore dawn, which I
would perceive through my oversized little sockets as I wordlessly stared, limp and stoic,
flopping up and down with my father's every pounding step. The air would be cold and
very wet. It cut through the fiberglass-like fabric of my pajamas. My skin stuck to the
plastic footies at the bottom.

Into the truck. Dad had an old ford- it was even old then. in years to come the
engine would get noisier, the rust spots would grow into holes, and the worn out patches
of upholstery would become gaping tears from which the stuffing, this absolutely
fascinating multi-colored foam, could easily be coaxed by our mischevious little fingers.
The truck had one seat in the front-a large cushy bench surfaced with mottled red-black
vinyl which smelled of salt and left red prints on your skin.

If you pulled down hard on the black lever on the side, the back of the seat folded
down to allow you, provided you were an undersized six-year-old, to clamber into the
back of the cab. The back seat of a truck, especially this one, always seemed to me to be
something the dealer threw on in order to jack up the vehicle's value a little. Obviously he
hadn't tried to ride back there, especially at four-thirty AM on a chilly fall morning.
The hard, flat, narrow seat would must likely be dusty and covered with dirt, since this was
where dad usually threw his tools or boots while he was working. He'd clear the area off
as best he could and Mom would put out coats back there nad try to make us comfortable.
Gingerly the two little angels were placed on their nest. My younger sister and I would be
too dazed to complain, we'd just crawl around like puppies, get situated, and go back to
conversation with them about what makes leaves change color, or why horses wear shoes
or some other deep subjct which ten year olds could care less about. Me and Merry
listened, huddled together as we bounced over the rough road to the Northway.

It wouldn't be long before our trip became pretty uncomfortable. I was being
smothered, drowning in a sea of family outerwear, encumbered by my delirious
four yeat old sister, pennedinto a claustrophobic area never intended for human
occupancy, tired, hungry, and plagued by the staticky oldies station my parents loved to
sing along to. I wa sjust about to let loose and break into whining in full steam when I
heard it. So softly, so tiny, a weak, helpless, debilitated little. . ."mew"
No. that couldn't possibly have been a ... no.
"mew"
Impossible. There must be something wrong with the car.
"mew"
It's the seats. Everytime Mom shifts around you hear a...
"mew"
Finally, I brought this matter to the attention of my family.
"Mom, do you hear that?" "What, honey?" "That-that, um, squeaky sound." "Oh that's just the seat, see? When I shift my seat goes...."she
wiggled her seat to demonstrate.
Nothing.
..."mew" "See Mom, hear that? The squeaky sound? It's not your seat. It's
something else."
..."mew"
Now my Mom turned to Dad."Chris, it's a cat."
She was right. The mewing got progressively worse as we got off the highway
and entered stop-and-go traffic, increasing to a bloodcurdling screech as Mom
opened her door, and finally ending as Dad liberated the little creature from its
entrapment.

It wasn't a cat. It was a kitten.just a barn cat really. I'll never be able to explain
it, but somehow this little animal had wedged itself into the doorway of the truck,and
gotten trapped when the door was slammed back in Chestertown. It had been stuck
in tha tdoor for almost an hour.

My Dad, unmoved by such things as farmers usually are, carried the animal off
and gently laid it in the back of the truck. It rolled its round little eyesand stared up at me,
as I struggled to climb back there and see it. I forgot what the poor thing looked like, just
that it was surprisingly intact for what it had been through. A beautiful, sweet looking
creature stretched out in its side. Its body appeared to be smooth and clean, disguisng
the wreckage and pain that I knew even then that its little frame must have gone through.

My Mom told us that everything was going to be alright, that the vet's office
wasn't open now, but we could take the cat to get fixed as soon as we could. She had
always said I had a way with animals, and now she told me I could help this beast
until it saw a doctor.

I knew it wasn't going to happen. The cat was dying. But, to make my Mom feel
better, I took on the case. Like so many doctors of failing patients, all I could do was sit
with the animal, gently petting her head, and hoping she would make it after all. I wanted
to save that cat, but I couldn't.

And so I lost my first case. It's okay, it happens all the time, right? It's funny to
think it, but I actually thought htat at the time. I really did.We got rid of the cat's body
somehow and got on with the day, just as planned. No crying or any of that nonsense. I
went ahead and had a miserable time at the balloon fest, minus one cat.