Mostly about family

Hunting has been very productive for Girl Cat.  Not so good for the small critters, Camelia pondered the perplexity.  "Girl Cat," Camelia started with that 'this-is-gonna-be-a-deep one-voice. The cat blinked, pretending to be more deeply ASLEEP than present.  "She's gonna talk anyway," the cat knew it to be true.

Camelia continued in that earnest voice.  "You know, if you hunt 'em you should eat 'em."  The half bodies of baby bunnies and birds lay in Girl Cat's tiny courtyard, an almost-graveyard.  The place was also unavoidable anyway you looked. "I'm a cat.  I'm an outdoor, mostly wild cat." 

"I know," the girl said.  The cat said, "You needed somebody.  You needed family.  You got me."  "I know," the girl said.  Girl Cat said very gently, "Better be careful what you wish for."   

Camelia was quiet for a long time, doing that thinking thing you does.  "I got my wish," she said and swooped the cat onto her lap.  Girl Cat licked Camelia's hand.  "Me, too."

Camelia and Girl Cat

"Sometimes I wish, and sometimes I hope." The two might mean different things I'm not sure. The girl was content to watch the sun warming up her cat. The cat was content to bathe with shadows. It had been too long since sun and shadows kept the two company. The day was quiet except for the ocassional small planes that buzzed the sky with their propelling noises.

"Once I thought that buzz was a bird too big to eat, so of course I figured it was big enough to eat me." Girl Cat was a funny but very practical sort and the thinking she thought out loud were usually the kind that made Camelia laugh or at least smile broadly.

"Is that why you always twist that twisty jump thing when we're out walking on the trails, birds bigger than you could eat sounds?"

"A cat my size just can't be too careful. That nine-lives myth you humans love to bat around. We're not immortal or even multiple-liveables. We're cats, and that's that."

Girl Cat was not only practical she was glib. She reserved her conversations for Camelia, and then mostly napped and dreamed of trail-walks and tasty nibbles of things small enough to eat. Wishes? Don't know. Do cats make wishes?

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It was wet. "Carry me,"  Girl Cat looked up at Camelia.  "Okay, I know this is our amends walk." 
"Better?"  The soft hood and shoulder of the girl's jacket was home.  She nestled.  Locked in the car over night, Girl Cat was armed and alarmed, ready for defiance.  "We really didn't know you were in there.  You didn't say a thing."  Silence. 

Misty rain scented the forest with the delicious smells that turn a nose in all directions.  Girl Cat was doing that turny-twisty thing with her tiny black nose.  Leaning over the top of Camelia's curved arm she finally dropped from it and ran ahead.  Forgiven.

Walking and whistling was another favorite pasttime for the two girls.  Things were always better on the trails.  The newly moved cedar babies were settling in nicely.  "You could have been on that planting trip ..."  Camelia caught herself.  Stopped mid-sentence.  No need to rub salt in that newly mended offense. 

"I do like that whistling.  But sometimes, I think you're a bird and it startles me."  "You wouldn't consider eating me?"  It was a rhetorical question.  "Too big," Girl Cat said through a grin indistinguishable through her whiskers.  The smell of spring was nearly overwhelming.  So much coming to life.  The bracken snakey heads had already begun to crowd the trails.  "I like them at this age,"  Girl Cat stopped to sniff.  "Don't like 'em after they're taller."  Camelia chimed in, "They made you and me sick if we tried to eat 'em tall."  "Defense."  Girl Cat added wisely.  Camelia walked ahead, taking the lead and whistling that whistly thing she did when she lost herself on the trails.  Thinking so the girl could not hear Girl Cat purred, "I like her."

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