Through A Cat’s Eyes

• Elise Gavan, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2022

The cold wind blew through my fur. I spotted a small possum scurrying across the road to find food. I chased after it for a while. Once I caught up to it, I needed to find out where I was. I searched around until I came to a large, warm object. There was a small opening at the front which I climbed into to get to the warmest part. I slept in the space overnight. When I woke up, there was a loud rumbling from where I was asleep. The road started passing fast so I began to meow as loud as possible. The shaking and moving started to slow down until it came to a stop. The shelter's roof began to lift and something was lifting it. It was a human! My mum said to stay away from them because they would take you away and separate you from your family. It was horrible. The human started to pick me up, so I started biting and scratching so they would put me down. Afterwards, they put me down in a cage. It was massive and I was so frightened. It took me inside the place I was trying to sleep in, then the cage started shaking everywhere. It felt like an earthquake and there was nothing I could do. Eventually, it stopped.
I was in this place that was new and different, it was all very different to what I was used to. A bunch of humans came together around me, I was so spooked. They picked me up, started hugging me, and then put me back in the cage. This time, there was milk and food in it with me. After I ate, they let me roam around in the new environment.
Later, a new human picked me up and put me back in my cage. It took me to another large, moving, metal house. Inside it were new, smaller humans, but I didn’t get to see that much of them because they put a big, warm covering over the cage. Now and then, the humans would lift the cover a bit, so a bit of light came in. All the time when the house was moving, I was meowing so that they would let me out. I gave up and fell asleep when I realised that they weren’t going to let me out.
When I woke up, the metal house had stopped moving. I started to be lifted, and then the cage began moving up and down. After a few seconds, the covering was lifted off the cage and one human was looking down at me. It opened the cage for me and there was this big strange room, so I ran off to hide. After some time, I was let out to explore the whole house, but I had to be careful because there was another cat who was older and bigger than me. We live together now but we are not friends.