She was waiting for me when I got there, patiently sitting in the shade on the covered porch, partially hidden behind a cluster of orange lilies. Somehow she knew exactly when I’d be there, as if she had a watch hidden somewhere in the fur of her paw and could calculate how long it’d take me to walk from the school to her house. However she knew, she was always on time.
“Hi, Woody,” I called out to her. She stood and meowed hello as I approached, hopping down the porch step and into the sunlight where her jet-black fur shimmered in the light. She meowed again.
I put my backpack on the porch and sat down to pet her. She pressed into my hand and closed her eyes as I scratched her head. “I’m happy to see you, too.” And I was. Seeing Woody was the highlight of my day, and after school I bragged to my friends about my responsibility to check in on her. “I’m not going straight home after school,” I told them as we walked. They had looked at me wide-eyed, as if I had just said a handful of cuss words. “I have to feed my friends’ cat while they’re gone. They asked me to.”
My friends and neighbors, a couple named Martha and Del, were away for a week attending an art show, and although their two travel-loving Jack Russell Terriers would pile enthusiastically into the couple’s van, Woody prefered to stay behind and hold down the fort. It was up to me to make sure she was fed every day, and I didn’t take the task lightly. It made me feel important and trusted to take care of Woody, of whom I had become a big fan. I adored cats, and I loved Woody’s black fur, her friendly personality, and how she gave me attention by asking for pets. It seemed my own cat was always running the opposite direction.
“Oh Woody, you are such a pretty kitty.” I touched her ears one by one and pondered how each was rounded at the tip instead of pointed like most cats’ ears. Martha said it was result of an unfortunate case of frostbite. I didn’t full grasp the concept, but knowing that the tips of her ears had frozen and fallen off made me feel sorry for her. Still, her rounded ears gave her a unique appearance and I loved her all the more for it.
After a particularly insistent meow, I promptly stood from the porch and rounded the house to where Woody’s food was kept on a small concrete stoop that gave access to a second entrance to the house. Woody followed me at a trot, not wanting to miss out on even a second of lunch time. I poured her kibble gently into her bowl and she immediately went to work scarfing it down.
“Looks like you need water, too,” I said when I looked at her nearly empty water dish. Circling the stoop, I turned on the water hose and refilled the bowl. Woody continued to feast on her lunch as I stroked her fur from head to tail. “I should probably get going,” I said. I retrieved my backpack from the front porch and made my way home.