Misha

I am Misha, a Mountain Lion, when you look at me many turn away, scared as maybe I would jump at you baring my teeth for my own pleasure. Right now I live in a small pack slowly decreasing from humans. We don’t want to hurt each other, but we both get scared, causing both species to attack. I’m not even a year old and still have seen many humans get killed and kill our pack. Mom says to stay away from the pack that hunts and gets food for us. Our population is rapidly decreasing, we need help and as you can probably guess, we're not getting it. 

I scroll through my phone looking for any new information about the Mountain Lions, none, next my computer, and then the tablet. I’m not getting anywhere with this. 

“Nora!, Breakfast, NOW!” I sighed, put my tablet away, grabbed my phone and rushed downstairs to see why my dad couldn’t have waited. 

“Nora, you’ve got to stop worrying about animals that have absolutely nothing to do with us, you are spending money and time on Mountain Lion protection” 

“Dad, It is concerning us! Mountain Lions were never this territorial or vicious” I raised my hands to quote vicious. He dropped his head into his hands and sighed, an action my mom used to do before she died, or just a stressful action. So yes, I went the extra mile and brought my mom into this.

“Mom would have believed in me! You would’ve too, if it was-”

“ENOUGH!” His voice boomed making me cringe followed by “ I’m sorry Nora, I know I haven’t been supportive of you, and I’m sorry I haven’t been a good dad”  

I couldn’t believe my ears, he was apologizing? Wow, this was big. Was he crying? OMG that is not normal. 

“Dad? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought mom into this, I just-” 

“You know what, Nora, you’re right, your mom would have wanted you to do this, and from now on, I will be the most supportive dad I can be.” 

Oh poop, now the waterworks come, the floodgates open and I downright sob into the couch. After about a good half hour of crying, we get up and finally eat breakfast. 

“You know, your mom also had a heart for animals” He said through slurps of his coffee. I beamed proud of my mom and myself. 

“Dad…? I love you…” I think I just gave him another excuse to start crying. But, he blinked and smiled, really showing the wrinkles and reminded me that he had gone through pain too when mom died 

“I love you too Nora, now go get dressed, we have some Mountain Lions to save!”

It’s hunting day! Mom and Zena went out about an hour ago to find some food. I hope it's a deer. Many deer or large animals give us strength for hunting, or just messing around. Mom and Zena got a few rabbits, then decided to go back out, and got a couple birds. Once I ate my full I walked out and laid down on the plateau on top of our cave. The sky sparkled as the clouds slowly drifted past the moon and the many stars, it was beautiful, and lulled me to sleep. 

A crunching sound to my left woke me up, it hadn’t even been 2 hours since I fell asleep and here I was alone. Outside of the cave. Surrounded by whatever had just made that sound. I jolted upright, swung my head around and bared my teeth okay, yes, I did bear my teeth, but it was for self defense!  My thoughts were a tornado just touching down. 

I heard voices, telling me that it was a group of humans, which scared me even more. The voices grew louder as I backed up to the edge of the plateau. 

“Over here!” a gruff voice yelled, and a gunshot rang out through the forest. Did I wait to see what happened next? Heck no, I ran right into the forest, not stopping till I was far from the cave. Little did know that I was standing in front of a house, a HOUSE, where people lived! Oh crap, I was done for. I started pacing back and forth, having nowhere to go, back in the forest I would be killed. UGH! After a while, I figured no one would be coming, so I just sat down and went back to sleep. 

Mom always had a passion for wild animals, she always wanted to help them and spread awareness, now since Dad is out of his depression, we can finally help the main animal here in California that gets a bad reputation for protecting themselves: Mountain Lions. My fingers danced across the keys as I finished my report for science, following that I went downstairs, ate a snack and took the garbage out. Opening the lid, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned, and it was a mountain lion laying down, blood dripping from a wound in her leg. 

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh” I whispered to myself and eased closer to the large kitten, she was panting loudly with pain. No one can see her. I thought to myself, I slowly backed up and then ran into the house grabbing a ribeye steak, a cloth, and some medical supplies. I was no doctor but had watched many youtube videos, that's enough, right? I sat down next to her and whispered gentle words as I set the steak down by her mouth and then started cleaning the wound. It took around an hour for me to get the bullet out (it wasn’t that deep) and wrapped her leg. Surprisingly, she didn’t try to bite me once. I took that as a success and draped a blanket over her. After weighing both options in my head about leaving her here or trying to call my dad and take her to the animal hospital. I knew that the hospital would just kill her. So I texted my dad 

-Something happened… his response came like a millisecond later

-What? What happened? Are you alright? 

-Yes, but don’t freak when I say I removed a bullet from a mountain lion’s leg. 

-Nora, quit joking

-I’m not!  I quickly took a picture and realized, it didn’t matter anymore… 

She was dead. Tears rolled down my cheeks and landed in her fur. I hit send and waited for my dad to come home. After he came home, we had a small memorial service, and named her Misha, for my mom. Then called animal control and took her away. All the while I had sobbed into my dad.