Elizabeth Jane Morgan

My kittens, Jenny and Cannoli, are about four months old. Jenny is a black cat when yellow eyes, while Cannoli has a white underbelly, chest, and legs, while his top half is a grayish-brown horseshoe pattern. They are both extremely active and athletic, especially Jenny. When surprised, she’s been known to jump a foot in the air. Cannoli, meanwhile, loves trying to steal food off the table, so we’ve taken to closing them both off in my room when we eat. They don’t seem to mind, as long as I give them treats to keep them occupied.

A few days ago, I opened the door after we finished dinner. Cannoli came running out, like usual, looking for any remaining food he could steal. I didn’t see Jenny, but I wasn’t too worried. My room is connected to a hallway and you can only see a tiny strip of the bedroom from the hallway door. Since I had to go help my brother wash dishes, I shrugged it off, thinking she was just further in the room.

We finished the dishes and I headed into my room. I found Jenny clinging to the side of my bed, my laundry hamper sitting next to her on the floor. It’s one of those collapsible mesh kinds. I’ve had it since college. Usually, I leave the laundry hamper across the room, so I figured Jenny and Cannoli must have been playing and knocked it toward the bed. That’s when I noticed the hamper’s strap. It was tangled and twisted around Jenny’s middle. She couldn’t get out on her own.

Picking up Jenny and the hamper, I hurried into the living room, where my parents were watching tv. We tried to untangle her, but she was well and truly stuck. We decided to cut the strap. As long as Jenny was free, I didn’t care about losing that strap. Jenny, meanwhile, have been flailing her paws, in a desperate attempt to free herself. She scratched both me and my mom. While I held Jenny steady, my mom cut her loose. The poor kitten was shaking. I returned the hamper to my room, while Cannoli comforted her. When I checked on Jenny again, she was happily eating. Apparently, she had forgotten about the laundry hamper. She was free now and that was all that mattered. It was time to return to her normal kitten routine, starting with a snack.

Never a dull moment.

After rescuing Jenny the kitten last month, we tried to introduce her to our adult cat, Rufus. This didn’t work out too well. Rufus is a senior cat and he doesn’t want to be bothered by a boisterous little kitten like Jenny. So, what were we to do? Jenny needed a playmate and it certainly wasn’t going to be Rufus. My parents and I decided to adopt another kitten, around Jenny’s age, so the two could play with each other.

We weren’t entirely sure how this would work out. Rufus already didn’t like Jenny. How would he react to another ball of energy? My parents headed down to the local animal shelter and talked to a very nice lady, who agreed that Jenny should have a playmate. If the two kittens were focused on each other, they would be less likely to bother Rufus.

I got off work later that same day and we all headed down to the animal shelter. We asked about two cats my parents had seen earlier in the day. They had both been adopted. I then saw a beautiful little kitten named Cannoli and I asked if I could hold him. The volunteer opened the door to where Cannoli was sleeping. He seemed confused for a moment over why a strange human was holding him, before clinging to the collar of my shirt. He started to purr. I think he was pleading with me to take him home. We decided right there and then to adopt him.

We got home with Cannoli and introduced him to Jenny. She was very interested. There was a bit of hissing, but once the two were face-to-face, they did what came naturally to kittens. They started to play. They must have spent a good two hours chasing each other, before they finally feel asleep. I love how, even though they knew nothing about each other, their first inclination was to play. They both just wanted a friend and Rufus can have the peace and quiet he deserves.

I am a cat person. I’ve known this since I was thirteen and raised five orphan kittens in my bedroom. Last month, I sadly lost my dear cat Fred. I’m still devastated by his lost, but I recently got a new kitten, one who desperately needed my help. I’ve been working at a local grocery store for the past two months as a cashier. I learned on Saturday that a stray cat was living out by the shopping carts. I live in the desert and temperatures can get up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. I couldn’t just leave the kitten there. I decided to trap the cat.

It took a few days, but we were ready on Monday night. My mom and brother had picked up a “Have a Heart” trap from the local animal shelter and they, along with my dad, met me in front of the grocery store after we had closed and I had finished my shift. We set up the trap and waited. After a hour and a half, we admitted defeat. We just couldn’t see the black cat in the dark. The next morning, my mom and I returned to the store. It was my day off and I was willing to wait as long as I had to. I reset the trap and retreated out of the shopping cart area. That kitten must have gone in and out of that trap at least four times, before we caught it. The cat hissed once, but otherwise, didn’t make a sound.

Once we got the cat home, we had to decide what to do with it. My mom had talked to a very nice woman who ran a feral cat program and we borrowed a large dog crate from her, so the kitten could live there, instead of the trap. The woman told us repeatedly that this process will take two or three months and that we would have to be patient. We agreed, ready to do whatever it took to help the cat.

I woke up Wednesday morning and checked on the cat. It had now been twenty-four hours since we caught it. To my surprise, the kitten wasn’t cowering, but playing! The kitten is a ball of energy, who loves to play. This cat didn’t seem to be feral. My mom and I talked to a vet on the morning I wrote this. The vet told us the kitten is a girl and confirmed what we already believed. She isn’t a feral cat, but a stray who was probably born in a house, but now has no owner. The kitten has no microchip, so it was decided that we’re going to keep her.

After going through various name ideas, I settled on the name Jenny, after a book called Jenny and the Cat Club by Esther Averill. Originally published in 1944, it’s a really sweet story of a black cat named Jenny, who discovers her talent and joins a group of cats, also with special talents. The talents range from reading to singing to dancing on their hind legs.

As for my new little kitten, Jenny, I think she’s going to fit into my house just fine. We all love her already and she stares back at us with her great, yellow eyes, thanking us for rescuing her from the shopping carts. My oldest brother says that cats and dogs find their people. This certainly is true for Jenny.

When I first became a writer, one of the first pieces of advice I got was “write about what you know.” Since I know my family, I thought I should base half my characters off of them. All I would have to do was change their names slightly and give them the same personalities. Simple, right? It turns out it’s harder than you may think.

Creating a character from scratch means that you decide everything, from their personality to their appearance. If you have a specific plan for the character, like they need to be a snobbish aristocrat, you just write them as such. You don’t have to worry about a real person’s reactions. But, if you want to base the snobbish aristocrat on someone you know in real life, you have to tread carefully. This could no only cause hurt feelings, but it also limits creativity.

As an example, in my earliest draft of Silver Rose, I wanted to throw my brother in as a rival to my main character. He was supposed to be better at magic than her and flaunt it a bit, but I didn’t want to hurt my brother’s feelings. He’s actually quite protective of me in real life and wouldn’t flaunt being better than me. (Maybe at video games). With this in mind, I started to write the rival as kinder and, frankly, more generic. There was no rivalry anymore, no substance to the character. I was writing him as “nice” so I wouldn’t offend anyone. It was rather boring.

I stopped trying to base characters off of real people and I think my writing improved. I was no longer constricted by real people’s personalities. I could create brand new personalities for my characters, make them act how I wanted them to act, and see how they grew as characters. My imagination was my guide, which in my opinion, is a fiction author’s greatest tool during the writing process. Without it, I never would have finished Silver Rose.

Earlier this month, my brother and I were on our normal walk around the neighborhood. We go every morning and evening. On this particular occasion, we rounded a corner and my brother said, “Is that smoke?” Looking up, I could see smoke curling over the top of a house. At first we thought it might be a barbecue, but by the time we made it to the front of the house, we could see that the side of the house was burning.

After quickly checking the street name, we called the fire department. As we waited, more people arrived and started calling the fire department as well. One man, who was out walking his dog, knew the people who lived in the house and rushed to help. He grabbed a hose and started spraying the fire with water. My brother and I stood back, watching for the fire trucks. A police officer arrived to look over the scene, followed by five or six fire trucks.

From what I understand, the fire started in the garage, because there are now holes in the roof and there’s a debris strewn car in the driveway. I don’t know all the details about what happened, I’m just happy nobody was hurt.

On March 15th, my brother and I were at the supermarket. We’d barely stepped into the store, when a voice announced over the PA system that everyone should have cash ready. The credit card readers apparently weren’t working at the self-checkout. We thought nothing of this, grabbed our groceries, and headed for the checkout.
It was pure chaos. We started in the self-checkout line, which reached halfway down an aisle. Only one of the four self-checkouts was working and, as we stood there, that one was closed down too. Everyone in our line was shifted to the next one regular checkout. As we exited the aisle, we saw that every single checkout was packed with people. We were squeezed in like sardines. Nobody wanted to give up their spot.
My brother and I glanced at each other, but we figured that it wouldn’t take too long to reach the cashier. We waited and waited and waited. The line wasn’t moving. We started grumbling that the person talking to the cashier probably didn’t have her cash out or that she was arguing with the cashier, trying to insist that the broken card reader should take her card.
We heard another announcement about having your cash ready and still we didn’t move. Eventually, the woman at the front of the line walked off to return her groceries, since she couldn’t buy them. We stepped forward, hopeful that the line would get moving. But, nothing happened. The cashier started to explain something to the next person in line, but made no move to start scanning items. The mother and child right in front of us shook their heads and left.
We were finally close enough to hear what was going on. Out of the six or seven cash registers open, only two were working. Our poor cashier was telling people that in order to buy their items, we either had to wait for her register to start working again, which would probably take a while, or go to the back of one of the working lines.
My brother and I decided to leave. We had been standing in line for about half-an-hour and we were tired. My brother described the lines as “like Disneyland, but without the ride that comes at the end. Definitely not worth it.”
We returned our items and headed home. We called our mom and told her the situation. None of us went back to the market for about two days. We never learned what happened with the cash registers. All I know is that they’re working again, two weeks later and I’m very grateful for that.