Never Follow A Black Cat

• Katherine Robinson, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2008

I’m Georgia and I’m here to tell you about an interesting event. It started when we had Miss Jane as our relief gym teacher.

That day we were using the balancing beam, and the whole class was walking on the beam, when out of nowhere I slipped. My feet where dangling, I was barley hanging on. It was hard to grip Lauren and Nikki’s (my best friend’s) sweaty hands and I didn’t want to fall two metres onto the mats. As we were struggling, I noticed Miss Jane was fixing a scary yet mysterious stare on us. Our hands slipped and we fell screaming.
“You girls have true friendship, and it will be tested throughout your lives.” “That was weird,” said Lauren referring to what Miss Jane just said. Then the bell rang; it was time to go home.

As we headed down a creepy ally, we heard footsteps. It was so quiet, I could even hear the change in Lauren’s breathing pattern, she became quite anxious. Out of the shadows appeared a skinny masked figure which grabbed Nikki. The kidnapper put a cloth over Nikki’s mouth. She fell unconscious instantly, and then the perpetrator ran off with Nikki. We followed the kidnapper into the dense bush, the kidnapper then disappeared into an abandoned fortress. We ran in, full of courage to find Nikki locked up in a cell. “Nikki, where’s the kidnapper?” I asked. “The kidnapper, she turned into a cat. The cat has a key on its collar and you have to get it before sun down, or this place disappears forever, along with me. ” Nikki explained in shaky voice.
“I see the cat. She’s outside!” shouted Lauren. We ran outside but the cat was no where in sight, until it jumped out and crossed our path! The cat kept running and to our surprise it ran across a rotten log over a ditch of mud. No surprise here; Lauren and I slipped and fell into the mud! “We’re cursed!” Lauren screamed. As for the cat, it was just sitting there enjoying the show. We chased that devil; through thorns, a river and up trees, but luck wasn’t on our side!
The cat had led us to an enormous ditch, and it wasn’t just mud at the bottom, instead there was death. The cat ran across the old unstable bridge to the safety of the other side. After minutes of arguing, I said finally “it’s up to me.” My legs where shaking, but that didn’t stop me.
I felt great when I reached the other side unharmed. The black cat was quietly waiting for me; I slowly approached and took the key. I noticed a mark of a moon on it’s back. We returned to Nikki, she was now safe.

Time had passed and it was Friday again. In class Miss Jane was assisting a student. Then I saw something that I thought I would never see again; a tattoo of a moon on Miss Jane’s back.