Splat

• Luke Goodall, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2018

There was a cat on Wilconson Avenue called Tabitha. She was fat and was a dark shade of orange with a black striped back. She had a bright pink nose and six long black whiskers. Tabitha had sharp teeth and claws, and was famous for using them to chase off dogs.
She hated dogs. There were rumours that she had killed fifty dogs and was planning to kill more. Tabitha always had a smug smile on her face, which irritated all dogs. She always liked to eat out on a tree in the local park. And she always threw bones on the ground near any dogs who came close. This made most dogs stay away, fearing that the bones were dog bones.
Tabitha always climbed into trees when she saw any dogs approaching except on Mondays.
Mondays were a completely different story. On this specific day, Tabitha would allow a dog to chase her at 8:00 in the morning.
Today, the dog in question was called Jessie. Jessie was a black and white border collie and he was new to the neighbourhood. He had never heard the rumours about Tabitha. Jessie began to chase Tabitha. They went round and round a group of trees when Tabitha tripped on a patch of loose dirt. Tabitha got up dazed and saw the border collie. Jessie growled, preparing to lunge forward…
Vroom!
A shiny red car whizzed past carrying eight cats.
“Right on time” Tabitha thought.
Jessie noticed Mrs Jones driving the car and ran after it, completely ignoring Tabitha. He barked at it loudly and Mrs Jones noticed Jessie. Mrs Jones headed for the freeway as per usual. This is how she avoided the dogs chasing her car.
She sped up, whizzing through the traffic and trying to lose Jessie and get onto the freeway. Before long she was there. Driving 100 kilometres per hour. With other cars. And Jessie in pursuit.
Meanwhile, Tabitha had gotten up after falling over and was glad that Mrs Jones had shown up. She would have not lasted much longer.
Jessie was faring much worse. He was now struggling to keep up with the car and trying not to get hit by other cars. He was tiring. He knew that he was in terrible danger. Maybe chasing this car was not a good idea.
CRASH!!!
Jessie was hit. Hard.
“Noooooo!” the driver cried.
The driver stopped the car and hopped out, gingerly holding Jessie’s body. He put her in the passenger seat beside him and began to drive after Mrs Jones and her cats.
The moral of the story is if you are a dog, do not chase cars onto a freeway. And beware of cunning cats who plan on being chased on specific days knowing that Mrs Jones will come save them.
Now Tabitha will be known to have killed fifty one dogs as the driver drove Jessie frantically to the vet.
But no one noticed the twitching tail of Jessie….