Ginger

     This is story I entered for a writing contest when I was in fourth grade. The story couldn't be longer than five hundred words. I won 3rd place out of one hundred-sixty contestants.

Ginger

by

 Mikaela

    One bright, sunny morning, a small girl named Piper and her cat Ginger were sitting outside overlooking a beautiful lake in their backyard. Though the lake was not big, it was special to the girl and her cat.

     Piper was a thin, ten year-old girl with thick red hair. Her cat Ginger was a chubby, orange tabby with a puffy tail. “Let’s go inside Ginger, I have to get ready for school.” Piper said. They then got up and went into their purple house.

      Minutes later, Piper waved to her cat out the open school bus window and called “Good-bye Ginger! Be a good kitty.” Ginger turned around to go back home, but before she could move, everything went black.

. . .

      When Piper got home from school that afternoon, she noticed that Ginger was missing.  She spent the next half hour searching frantically for her cat. “Mom, I can’t find her! I think she got lost in the subdivision after I left for school!” Piper cried sadly. Her mom noticed the worried look on her daughter’s face and said “Calm down Sweetie, I’m sure Ginger just wanted to visit the park or something. She loves to go there. Why don’t we stop by and see if we can find her, okay?” Piper wiped some tears from her blue eyes onto her shirt sleeve and replied “Okay, but do you think we can find her?” “Of course we can,” her mom replied.

. . .

      “MEEOOWW,” Ginger was tumbling all over the place. She was in a damp cage inside a truck and she could barely see. The truck started to move. Ginger closed her eyes shut and tried to pretend it was all a horrible dream. Thankfully, the truck soon stopped. Ginger waited a few seconds before the truck door was finally opened by a strange man. He lifted the cage out of the smelly truck and carried Ginger into a building.

      Soon Ginger and the man were in a different room. This one smelled funnier than the truck and it had about a dozen cats of all different shapes and sizes in it. The man let Ginger out of the cage and left the room.

     “Where am I?” Ginger asked the other cats and kittens. “You’re at the West View Cat Shelter,” a gray cat with one white paw replied sweetly. “Hmm…That means I’m close to my home!” Ginger exclaimed.

 “Wow, you sure are lucky,” mewed the little cat. “I wish I had a home.”

     Ginger looked around the cat hair-infested room. Wait. Something caught her eye--it was a window that was just a wee bit open! Ginger hurried through the small crowd of cats, trying not to bump into any of them. She leaped onto the windowsill and tried to fit through the crack but she was too chubby from all the tuna fish Piper fed her. The friendly gray cat helped push her out and wished her good luck. Finally, Ginger was soon moving in the direction of the park.

     When Ginger got there, she thought she should take a rest. She saw a green bench nearby and decided to lay there. On her way over to the bench she heard a familiar voice say “Mom, I still don’t see her. She could be anywhere right now!”  Ginger mewed with joy, for the speaker was Piper!

     Soon Ginger was in Piper’s warm and loving arms again. “You’re here! I’ve been worried sick looking for you,” Piper cried. Then the happy little family went to get ice cream to celebrate.

    As Piper licked her ice cream cone, she said she thought that Ginger needed a new friend. Everyone thought it was a great idea—including Ginger. So after they finished the delicious ice cream, they went to the West View Animal Shelter. While there Piper saw a cute gray kitty with one white paw and exclaimed “I want that one!”

     On the way home the family agreed to name their new cat Luna. Pretty soon Ginger and Luna were great companions. They went to the park together, ate tuna fish together and even slept together. They were destined to be the best of friends forever and ever.

  

THE END.