A lucky Encounter

The alarm buzzed and I immediately rolled over and mashed the snooze button. Eyes half open, I lie there and tried to mentally motivate myself for another day of school. From the living room, I could hear a weather man announcing the current 65 degrees, and that today had promised to be sunny and gorgeous. When I finally woke up, I vowed to put an end to his gorgeous and sunny career for being so traitors. One look out my window showed a tor-rential downpour, and a vail of fog prevented me from seeing the house across the street. It turned out that my idiot younger brother Mark was listening to a radio station streaming online from San Diego. In a few days, he and some friends were flying there for a summer camp session. After showering and dressing, I joined Mom and Mark for a quick breakfast, then gath-ered my book bag and headed out the door. My breath hung in the air as I walked to my car in Ankle-deep water. The three mile drive to school is usually a cinch, but this was the first time Id driven in this kind of weather since I got my license. I turned on the radio to calm my nerves, but that had little affect because the real weather man warned of a flash flood and low visibility. I continued driving down the road at a turtle’s pace. I cursed school in-wardly and wished I could be granted an A for my troubles. A brief silence separated the traffic and hourly news report as I approached a red light, and that’s when I heard it. It was an indistinct able sound at first, but as the light turned green and I was about to press on the gas, there it was again. It sounded like some muffled cry. Someone must have been in distress. I considered moving on, thinking someone was playing around, but the further I drove the closer I got to the sound. Now, there was more than one cry, tiny, forlorn screeches that pierced the morning showers. Curiosity had gotten the better of me, although Mom would later say with a smile that it was just a perfect excuse for me to play hooky. I had to pull over and investigate. I sat on the hood of my car for a moment and listened. The sound was coming from just up ahead and to my left. I knew a storm drain was located nearby, and sure enough, I no-ticed something floating in a pool of murky water gathering near it. I ran to the object and found a wicker basket covered with a towel, holding a litter of adorable kittens. My heart hammered in my chest. I was caught between waves of sadness and anger that anyone would want to do something like this. I picked up the dripping, mewing basket and went back to my car. I remembered I had packed a few blankets in my trunk because my boyfriend and I had gone to see a drive-in movie last weekend. I spread one blanket on the seat, put the basket on top and buckled in the five little ones for the ride home. I made sure to give them each a pet before covering the basket with a second blanket, then turned the car around. By the time I got home I was crying. I could barely make out my front door behind a cur-tain of tears as I brought the basket into the house. Mark looked up from his X-Box and gasped. “What the heck?” “Where’s Mom,” I demanded. “She’s in the backyard working on her garden. What are you doing? What is that?” Mark ran to me and yanked off the first blanket. He whistled softly as he gazed down at the huddling lumps of fur. “I found them abandoned by the storm drain,” I said, but he barely heard me as he ran to the back door and threw it open. He returned with Mom in a soaked green sweatshirt and matching pair of sweats. The kittens were mewing loudly now. “The poor little things,” Mom said. She took the basket from me and headed for the bathroom. I followed her and began to tell the story of how they were found. She removed each kitten and wrapped them in towels from the warming shelf. Soon the counter was an assembly line of squirming balls of fabric. “Shouldn’t we get them some food? They look awfully hungry.” Mom unwrapped each one and inspected them carefully. “No, honey. These are far too young to be eating food. They’ve been taken from their mother way too soon. They need to be bottle fed.” “Want me to go to the store and get some milk?” Mom shook her head. “I’ll take care of it. You need to get to school.” “But… but someone needs to stay here and watch them.” “Yes, your brother Mark will look after them. You can help when you’re done with school. I’ll drive you there.” She called for Mark to watch the kittens. He shot an icy glare my way as he carried them to the couch. I sat sulking in the back seat. Mom got me to school only a few minutes late. She tried to reassure me that the kittens would be fine, but I couldn’t stop worrying about them. My heart especially went out to the smallest kitten of the bunch. When I found the basket, he was the only one who managed to barely lift is little head up to meet my gaze. I’d never seen such a desperate, lonely look before and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I found it hard to concentrate on assignments that day. Even the teachers and my friends were concerned about me, but I just kept my head down and spoke to no one. When I got home I begged my mom to show me how to bottle feed the kittens. I caught on quickly and took on full responsibility of their care. It was agreed upon that I would try to find loving homes for the kittens. I had three months to do this or else I’d have to send them to a shelter. I didn’t even want to give them away, let alone send them to a shelter where they might not receive proper care, but it had to be done. I posted ads online and through-out the neighborhood, although inwardly hoping no one would come. As time went on I began to understand each cat’s particular habits. The larger cats took a few days to come around, but they eventually developed enormous appetites. I struggled to find ways of identifying them. I wanted to name them all but was afraid I’d get too at-tached, but it was far too late when it came to the runt of the litter. I considered naming him Socks, because he was a black and white kitten with what looked like socks around his an-kles, but I began to hate the name each time I heard myself say it. I was also worried be-cause he was only taking in a few drops of milk at a time. He was the most affectionate of the bunch, as the others preferred to keep more to themselves. He loved to snuggle with me constantly, his purrs often lulling me to sleep. One day I came home from school having had a bad day. I had been struggling with de-pression since we moved to the new city, and I couldn’t seem to make any friends. A new girl came to school, and I tried to talk to her, but she had no interest and wouldn’t even look at me. As soon as I walked into my room, Little One must have heard my footsteps because his big blue eyes looked up from the window seat where he was sunbathing. He meowed softly and I couldn’t help but smile. I ran to him and gathered him up in my arms. The spar-kle in his eyes was irresistible. “I’ve got it,” I said while stroking his soft fur. “I’ve got a name for you. I shall call thee lucky! It’s only because I’m so lucky to have you in my life.” Lucky was of course a bit of a challenge when it came to potty training as well, but he eventually caught on. As people began to trickle in to view the kittens, I noticed how Lucky seemed to be overlooked. Although I didn’t want to lose him, I didn’t like that people weren’t appreciating how beautiful he was. I began to worry that we might not find him a home. The deadline was approaching soon, and I couldn’t bare the thought of him being sent to a shel-ter. I’d ask Mom if we could keep Lucky, and I kept getting short responses like, “I don’t know”, and “We’ll see.” She tried convincing me to keep posting ads to find him a home be-cause I’d be going to college soon. The summer storms cleared and left autumn winds in their wake. Lucky was eating more, but people still didn’t seem to want him. His siblings all found loving homes, and my senior year became the busiest ever. I was surprisingly voted to be on the yearbook com-mittee, which required me staying a while after school. The family was annoyed with me because four months have gone by and Lucky still wasn’t given a home. Besides, he was used to me coming home at a certain time, and when I didn’t, he’d meow incessantly. This was the case one Friday afternoon in late October. “Your cat won’t shut up,” Mark grumbled as I walked through the door. I went to my bedroom, put my backpack down, and that was the last thing I remember until I woke up sometime later in the hospital. I woke up to someone calling my name. When the fog cleared, I realized it was Mom. My head and body ached profusely, and I felt the worst fatigue I’d ever felt in my life. “M… Mom? What happened?” “Shh, it’s all right dear.” She ran her fingers through my hair. “You had a seizure of some kind. I don’t know how it happened, but the doctors are doing tests. Everything’s going to be fine.” “A seizure? But… how? I’m healthy, so why did this happen?” “We don’t know yet, honey. You can thank your Lucky though. It was because of him that we found you.” She paused to take a swig from her water bottle. “He suddenly came bolting down the hall meowing loudly. We kept trying to calm him down, thinking he proba-bly heard a noise and was scared. He refused to listen and wouldn’t let us touch him. He just kept running around the room meowing. It wasn’t until Mark started heading down the hall to come get you that he began to settle down. He followed him to your room, and that’s when Mark saw you convulsing on the floor. Lucky just sat on your chest and meowed even more because you didn’t wake up. All I could do was call an ambulance.” “You mean… Lucky saved me?” Mom nodded and told me not to worry and to just get some rest. I ended up going home the next day with a prescription. Apparently I had another sei-zure during my stay there, so the doctors told Mom I’d be taking this medicine for a long while at least. What I hated most however was that I had to lose my driver’s license because of the seizures. Mark tried to cheer me up and say when he got his car, he’d drive me wher-ever I wanted to go, but I didn’t care. It was even harder for me to accept when I graduated and began taking classes at a local community college. At least Mom allowed me to keep Lucky. In fact, as he grew and our bond became stronger, he began to understand changes happening in my body prior to a seizure occurring. When he sensed a seizure coming on, he would deliberately misbehave in a way that got someone’s attention until I was in a safe place. A neighbor suggested that I should have Lucky certified so that he could be with me at all times. The first day of college dawned as rainy as the day I found Lucky. Mom pulled up to the campus, and I strapped on my cat carrier, grabbed my backpack and got out. Mom opened the window a crack. “Good luck on your first day, and be careful.” She gestured to the carrier and smiled. “Take care of her, Lucky.” The window clicked shut and I watched her drive away. “Well, how about we go to class, sound good buddy?” Lucky lifted his head and meowed in reply. I hugged the carrier close, and together we splashed through the school grounds to safety.