Went out for a walk this morning and ran into a kitten on the road that meowed at us. At that moment I wanted to say, let’s take it home — listen to how pitiful it sounds. We kept walking, got to the end of the road, turned around, and it was still there meowing. My mom said if we took it home, Grandma would start yelling. I said let’s take it home, it’s not like we can’t afford to feed it. Then we moved fast.
Carried the cat all the way back. Watching it meow nonstop in my hands, I was dying of anxiety, so I sped up. I figured the cat must be uncomfortable being held in my hands, and I wanted to get home as fast as possible to feed it. Its texture is different from the two we already have — it’s fancier — so we named it Little Flower.
Finally home.
My mom gave Little Flower a bath while Old Bai watched from the side, tail fur all puffed out, in full battle-ready mode. It looked really nervous.
Thankfully, after the bath, Old Bai and it spent ages greeting each other, sniffing each other several times too. Both were a bit scared, but at least they didn’t fight. Eventually they accepted each other — live and let live.
Little Black was a different story. Little Black had been sleeping on top of the cabinet that morning, and woke up to a strange Little Flower. I thought Little Black would push it around, but who knew — Little Black was terrified of it. The moment it saw Little Flower it started yowling, which scared Little Flower into bolting, and Little Flower bolting scared Little Black even more. After that Little Black didn’t dare come out to eat.
Little Flower ate a ton of cat food like a starving ghost reincarnated, which reminded me of how wind and Little Black acted when they first arrived.
Little Flower barely knows the room, wandering everywhere, sniffing scents and feeling textures — a lot like wind when it first arrived. Actually, Little Flower is a size bigger than wind was back then. It also jumped up onto the bookshelf to lie down after a while, as if it were wind’s childhood.
The funniest thing: it was bouncing around and suddenly bonked into the TV screen. Wahaha — just like wind used to. At first they can’t quite tell reflective surfaces and transparent ones apart from the real thing.
Right now Little Flower has found an empty corner behind the computer to sleep in. Little Black finally dared come over and sneak a few peeks at it, then, finding no danger, went up to sleep on its own.
Grandma was pretty happy to see Little Flower too. Actually, over the past two weeks, Grandma had run into this cat several times when she went out to buy the newspaper. Every time, it would yell at her too, but Grandma figured there were already two at home, and bringing a third would be a hassle, so she never picked it up. Today we brought it home, and when Grandma saw it she even said: “Oh, little cat, haven’t seen you in days!”