Lily Alex
We were at home alone. My brother Victor and me.
We played for a while, then felt bored. We glanced at our cat, Mandy.
"Let's pretend she is a seal," Victor suggested suddenly. I liked this idea, and we went towards the cat.
Mandy gazed at us. The cat realized our plans. Very slowly Mandy went backward. That animal wanted to be a cat, not a seal. We could understand Mandy's feelings, but we needed to have a seal.
"Catch her!" I screamed and jumped, but the cat ran away and I collided with Victor. We both fell down and hit our heads. We sat up, and looked around, but the cat had disappeared.
"She's here!" Victor exclaimed and rushed under the bed. "Yes! She's here! Help me get her!"
I took a mop, and got under the bed also. I did not see Mandy. However, I was moving the stick of the mop, trying to drive the cat out. I was under the bed for a long time. It was dark here, and there was a lot of dust. I started sneezing.
Suddenly I noted that Victor was not here either, and I got out.
"She's under the bed!" my brother repeated.
"Go ahead!" I suggest. "I won't go down anymore. No way!"
"I was there longer than you!"
"Great! You can go again!" I sighed, and suggested: "Let's take a toy seal? It's much easy."
"It's boring!" Victor objected. "We should find Mandy."
We started our search again.
And we saw Mandy. The cat was sitting at the table, and looked at us very attentively.
We ran to Mandy, and the cat got away. Mandy jumped up on the top of our old wardrobe. It was very high; Mandy found a perfect place to hide. We uttered a cry of disappointment.
"It's okay," Victor said, thought for a while. "Let's pretend, she is a penguin. Penguins live on mountains..."
"Yes!" I was so excited with this new suggestion. I ran to the kitchen.
I took a big basin, and filled it up with a cold water. I took all the ice-cubes from the freezer that I could find, and added them to the basin. It became very heavy, and I could barely handle it. I carried the basin into the room, and put it next to the wardrobe.
"Let's drive her down!" I took a deep breath. "Penguins love to jump into the water!"
"Seals love it too..." Victor was thinking. "Let's pretend she is a seal."
"No," I liked these funny looking birds. "She's a penguin!"
We started to argue with each other. Victor pushed me, as I did the same.
We had forgotten about the reason for our fight, but the loud "Mew!" got us back to our plans. The cat looked down at us from the top of the wardrobe. Mandy did not like disorder.
"Let's drive her down!" Victor did not specify what Mandy was supposed to be this time.
We started screaming and whistling. Well, I can not whistle, but I yelled as loud as I could. The cat went into hiding. We could not see Mandy anymore.
"Smart penguin," I commented. Victor glanced at me, but said nothing.
"Let's throw something," I suggested. "May be she'll get scared?"
We threw a pillow. The cat did not jump down. Then we threw more three pillows, and mother's coat, then our coats, and then all clothes that we could find in the room, a lot of books, and some other stuff. But Mandy did not show up.
"Are you sure, she's out here?" finally Victor wondered. I shrugged my shoulders.
"I didn't see her jumping down. So, she should be there."
We threw a few books again, but it was no sign from the cat. We waited for a while, then moved a table close to wardrobe. We took a chair, and put it on the table. Victor climbed up, but he could not reach the top of the wardrobe. Then we added a suitcase, and I climbed up too. To our surprise, there was no the cat up there.
Suddenly somebody entered the room. We tried to look back, and both fell down.
I did not see where Victor landed. I went straight into the basin.
It was awful. I can't believe how anyone could like jumping into cold water. Probably penguins... Or seals. But not people. My teeth were chattering, and I was trembling. The water splashed around me, and I struggled to get out of the basin. I toppled it over, and crawled out on all fours.
I saw our mom. She was clutching her head.
"My God!" she gasped. "What's going on? I left you here for only one hour, and what have you done?!"
We did not know that to say. We saw our cat next to our mom. Mandy rubbed itself against mom's legs, and purred. How and when did it get down? We never figured out.
*****
Victor and I were cleaning the room. Mandy was walking around. The cat looked at us with triumph. It was clearly saying: "Now you will learn that I am a cat, not a penguin. And not a seal either!"
And Mandy was right.
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Lily's Story List And Biography