The First Tigon

• Telia Wade, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2007

It was a picture perfect afternoon on the Asian plain, when a sleek healthy mature tigress gave birth to a scruffy ball of orange fluff, which was me. I was named after my father ‘Sunny’.
I was exhausted so I snuggled into Mum and slept all night long. It felt like no time at all before I opened my eyes to see the beautiful land around me. I had heard my mother’s voice many times, but this was a new experience, now I could see her and she looked just like me. Our coats were burnt orange with pitch black stripes running up and down.
Mother had told me many times that once I could walk and see that I would have to join the other tiger cubs at school, so I knew that the day had come for me to prepare myself for this thing called school. The next morning I woke up and looked around, I felt mum pushing me, so I jumped up and followed her. We were on our way to school.
When I got to school I saw other tiger cubs and lion cubs too. We were all here to learn the same thing. A beautiful girl caught my eye, she wasn’t a tiger but I did not care, all I wanted to know was her name.
When school started we learnt how to kill our pray with Miss Leo. She showed us with a toy she found, it was so cool and I learnt it as fast as you can say “tigers eat meat”.
The girls name was Indigo and we became friends. She didn’t have any stripes but she was beautiful. Her coat was golden and her eyes were green. We became the very best of friends.
The time came for us to go to high school which meant time to leave and find hunting grounds of our own. It was sad to leave mum and indigo but I knew that there was a new dawn up ahead.
I had earned my new hunting grounds but I was lonely. I wondered what Indigo was doing. One wonderful day, I met Indigo again. At first I didn’t know that it was her because we were competing for the same prey. But as soon as our eyes met, I knew that it was my best friend and I was happy again.
Indigo stayed with me in our new hunting grounds. I ended up marrying her. Mum said she was so proud of me.
We were a strange couple and the other animals use to laugh at us. But we didn’t care we had each other and we were happy.
It wasn’t long before Indigo had a baby girl cub and we named her Lucy. She did not look like me or indigo but still she was beautiful. She had a fluffy golden yellow coat with one bright orange stripe down her back. We were so proud of Lucy; she was the very first Tigon!