The Kittens

Fifteen years ago when my daughter, Michele and her cousins, Jamie and Tessa were nine years old, they decided that they wanted kittens to play with at their grandparent’s house. Now all they had to do was decide where to get them, how to get them to Grandma’s and all this without anybody knowing that a pregnant cat didn’t just show up at Grandma’s and have a litter of kittens in the barn.
The first part of their plan came together when Jamie’s mother and younger sister, along with Jamie and Tessa were visiting at my house. Since we live in a rural area, there are farms around with an overabundance of outdoor cats and kittens. Tessa and a neighbor girl had already asked at a neighboring farm whether they could take kittens from the farm to their Grandma’s house. They told the farmer that it was okay with Grandma and the farmer told them to take as many as they wanted. During the visit, my youngest daughter and Jamie’s sister were playing together in the house. The older girls were outside playing and asked to go next door to a friend’s house. Instead of going there, they sneaked off through the fields to the farmer’s house on the next road. They took a box with a lid that they had cut holes in for the kittens to breathe. Next, they gathered as many of the kittens as they could, put them in the box and returned to my house without anyone knowing that they had not been at their friend’s house.
Now, how were they going to get these kittens to Grandma’s house? Oh yes, they had that planned out too. Tessa lived down the road from Grandma’s, in the house with the barn. Michele, Jamie and Tessa would have a sleepover at Tessa’s house. After getting approval from all of their parents, they gathered up clothes and sleeping bags to take to Tessa’s house. My sister and I decided that we would both go to Grandma’s to drop the girls off. The girls decided they would all ride together in my sister’s car and I would follow with the younger girls in my car. While they were putting all of their “stuff” in my sister’s trunk; in went the box containing the kittens.
Upon arrival, my sister stopped at Tessa’s house so the girls could unload their “stuff”, and then they would come up to Grandma’s. After they unloaded the car, they took the kittens to the barn and hid them. Finally arriving at Grandma’s, they burst into the house, all excited and talking at once. They had “found” five kittens (Frisky, Dice, Cappuccino, Coffee and Simba) in the barn without a mother. The girls decided to take care of them since they had “lost” their mother. Grandma went to look at these kittens, took one look and knew something was amiss. The kittens were all different colors and sizes and couldn’t possibly be from the same litter, but the girls were so excited that nobody said anything about this and the girls raised the kittens.
Fifteen years later, three of the five “kittens”, Frisky, Dice and Cappuccino are still living. They all lived to be over twelve years old, were spayed, taken to the vets, and always had food and a warm place to sleep in the barn. Frisky disappeared when she was about five years old and returned when she was fourteen with a serious eye infection. My niece, Jamie took Frisky to the veterinarian; and we worked long and hard to get her eye healed. She was not allowed to be around any other cats while she was ill; so Jamie asked if Frisky could stay in my sunroom. I agreed, and Jamie and Michele gave her medication, fed her and played with her. She needed more though; she was so sick and her hair was falling out, so I started holding her and letting her in the house with me. I think it was a turning point for her. She became very attached to me, and now lives in my house. You would never know she was an outside cat, that had disappeared for ten years or that she was so sick that I thought she was going to die. She has actually turned out to be my “kitty”.