Gingerbread

Hello guys. Here's a story I just wrote. :) This is based on my cats, actually. I changed their names and brought out the most obvious aspects of their personalities. It is fiction, though. Not a true story. But Gingerbread's circumstances are based on what she (the real cat she is representing) actually went through, though the ending is totally different in real life. Well, just wanted to let you all know that. Enjoy.

Gingerbread

   The corners of Gingerbread’s mouth drew up into a smile as she padded out of the woods, a rabbit dangling from her mouth. She was exceedingly proud of her catch, and couldn’t wait to show it off to her brother, Boots.

   Gingerbread and Boots lived with their mother, Mouse, in an old barn on a large piece of land including woods, a creek and a little house where a family of humans lived. The humans took good care of the cats. Each day they set out three little bowls of dry cat food and fresh water; one for each cat. There were three little children, two girls and a boy. Boots didn’t care for the attention, but Gingerbread craved it. There was one girl, with long blond hair, who adored the cats. She would step outside nearly every day and call for Gingerbread--whom she lovingly called Ginger. Gingerbread would race to the little girl from the barn where she always took an afternoon nap. She would let Ginger sit on her lap, and Ginger would purr and knead her paws.

   “Boots! Look at this!” Gingerbread dropped the rabbit at Boots’ paws.

   “Good catch! Can I have some?” Boots meowed, his mouth watering already.

   Lately the cat food had not been set out as consistently. Boots and Ginger were all grown up now, so they had started hunting for their mother, who was unable to catch anything for herself because her belly had grown quite large and she was not as limber as she used to be.

   Now the littermates crouched down to enjoy the meal. When they were finished, Gingerbread licked her lips and picked up the remaining meat to bring to her mother. Inside the barn, Mouse was crouched stiffly on a beam high above the floor.

   “Mother, what are you doing up there?” Boots meowed.

   Gingerbread dropped the meat. “Is something wrong?”

   “They let Spoiled and Spunky out again.” Mouse hissed.

   Spoiled and Spunky were the housecats; they had just arrived a little over a month ago. Spunky was lazy and not much of a threat, but Spoiled was territorial and believed the whole yard was hers--well, hers and her brother Spunky’s--alone. She didn’t like other cats leaving scent marks on the bushes, eating the dry cat food, or even napping on the best rocks. If she spotted any other cat on her land, she would not hesitate to attack. And although Gingerbread was a good fighter, so was Spoiled. If the two cats were left alone, they would fight to the death.

   But Mouse would never allow it. She loved her kittens fiercely, and would protect them with her last life, if it came down to that. She forbid Gingerbread to fight Spoiled.

   Gingerbread loved her mother with all her heart, so she obeyed.

  Spoiled was stalking a shrew through the barn. Gingerbread and Boots had hidden themselves beneath a floorboard, so as not to provoke a fight. Ginger watched as Spoiled caught sight of her mother. Both cats’ hackles raised and a growl sounded deep in Mouse’s throat. Spoiled hesitated before abandoning the shrew she had been stalking to take a step toward Mouse. Hissing, she unsheathed her claws and sprang at Ginger’s mother.

  Ginger watched helplessly as the cats fought. Spoiled’s ear had been torn, and Mouse’s coat was dripping with blood from scratches along her flank.

   Mouse began to back away submissively, and Spoiled hissed once for good measure before running away to torment some other poor creature.

   Boots and Gingerbread crawled out of their hiding place and went to their mother, who was breathing heavily and had staggered to the hay where she lay down and began to lick her scratches.

   “Are you alright?” Ginger meowed, rubbing her head against her mother’s.

   “Just a few scratches.”

   “But you don’t look so well.”

   Mouse sighed. “The kittens are coming soon.”

   Kittens? Ginger thought. So that was why Mouse’s belly was so large!

   Gingerbread should have been happy for her mother. But she wasn’t. She didn’t want things to change.

    A week later, the kittens had arrived. They were small, squirmy, and soft, and they used up all of Mouse’s attention. She spent every moment with them.

   For the first few weeks, Ginger made an effort to give her mother some space. But surely one little visit wouldn’t hurt anything, would it? Ginger thought on a day when she was feeling especially lonely.
   She went to her mother’s nest. “Mom? I--”

   “Gingerbread,” Mouse meowed. “There comes a time when a mother has to let her kittens go.”

   “What-what do you mean?” Ginger stammered.

   “I love you, Ginger, and I always will. But I have to let you go.”

   “I don’t understand.”

   Mouse growled. “Go, Ginger. Don’t come here again.”

   Ginger’s tail droops, and she tripped on her paws as she stumbled outside. She looked back once.

   Mouse’s face softened. “Good luck.”

   Ginger felt utterly abandoned. She was upset and her stomach was growling, too, so she went to her food bowl to get something to eat.

   Boots was there. He shifted his paws and averted his eyes. Ginger knew that he had been to seen Mouse, also.

   “Ginger, I’m leaving.”

   “You can’t, Boots!” Ginger wailed. “You’re all I have left.”

   She wished fervently that things would go back to the way they were. She wanted to be able to roam her yard freely, without worrying about an encounter with Spoiled. She wanted to wrestle with Boots. She wanted her mother to care about her.

   “I can’t stay here any longer.”

   “But what about Spunky? He’ll be devastated if you leave.”

   Spunky and Boots were good friends. When Boots wasn’t with Ginger, he was always with Spunky.

   Boots waved his tail. “Spunky will be fine.”

   “What about me? I need you, Boots.” Ginger pleaded.

   Boots entwined his tail with hers. “You will always be my littermate, Gingerbread. But we’re not kittens anymore. We need to make our own lives.”

   Before she could truly comprehend what was happening, Boots had left.

   For two days, Ginger didn’t eat. Her eyes were downcast. Her tail drooped. Not even the little girl, whom she loved so dearly, cared about her anymore. The girl would skip outside, smiling and singing, and go straight to the kittens. She cooed to them, cuddled them, and let them sit on her lap and bat at her hair.

   One day, tired of watching, Ginger crept closer to the girl and the kittens. Starved for attention, she meowed pitifully. The girl paused from dragging a stick in the mud for the kittens to chase, and patted Gingerbread roughly on the head. She gestured to her lap, but there wasn’t enough room for Ginger there.

   Eventually, the kittens were sent away to new homes; all but a little brown one named Cloud. Hope flared in Ginger’s chest. Would the girl start loving Ginger again?

   She didn’t. The little girl spend all her time with Cloud.

   Gingerbread was crushed with disappointment. She didn’t know what to do, but she was sure of one thing: this place was no longer her home.

   “We’re not kittens anymore. We need to make our own lives.” she remembered her brother saying.

   She took one last look at the barn where she had been raised, the house where the little girl lived, and the grassy field where she and Boots had always played. And then Ginger ran away from the property and toward her new life.

   Boots’ words flashed through her mind on a loop as she sprinted through the weeds alongside the creek. I’m going to make my own life, she thought. I don’t need to rely on anyone else.