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Emily

There is a midnight-black cat that lives in the attic in the orphanage.

All the girls that sleep in my dormitory say that it used to be a witches cat, but it gave up and now it lives alone. The boys in the other room dare each other to go up into the attic and touch it, but they always get scratched, and they say they didn't see anything. The maids in the orphanage try to scare it away, put it out forever, but it never does, and, like the boys, they say they didn't see the cat or anything. It was just pitch black.

Life in the orphanage is pleasant. Except for the busy working sounds at night of the adults and older kids downstairs doing the dishes from the dinner of last nights meal.

Then, one night, during the witching hour of 3 am, while all the other girls were sleeping, and I was the only one left awake...

It came.

From the attic, I mean.

It came... to me.

The wandering creature came through the door of the girls' room, and it lept up onto my bed. I pretended to be asleep, but strangely, I knew the cat knew that I was awake, because it sat down, right next to my face, and stared at me. I heard it purring slightly, taking my face in.

I was a normal girl. Only twelve-years of age, except I've always had a feeling I was different. I suppose everyone feels like that, but for me, I had this feeling I wasn't supposed to be here in an orphanage. My skinny body, my golden locks, my dark green eyes, my freckles, that felt right. But where I was, it felt wrong.

Suddenly, I heard a voice. It was a boy's voice. I looked up at the door, to see if any boys had come in. but no, that wasn't the case.

It was just me and this cat. Alone. Just us. It was like I was transported inside a fantasy novel because the weirdest thought popped into my head.

Did the cat just talk to me?

-

The black Cat

It's funny how some humans interact one way, and some another. I've met the boys downstairs, they were... an interesting bunch. They were very useful objects to sharpening my claws on, but they didn't stay still and sit there like I thought tough boys would, they each cried while they got their fair share of claw scratchings and then before I could finish the last one-off, three particular humans you'll meet, later on, dismantled my fun with a few hits to the bum from a broomstick end. Oh, how it hurt like ever.

But they haven't scared me off for good.

I now live in a completely lucky spot which I never would have found if they hadn't chased me out the door, up the stairs, through a few holes in the old cracking walls, out the window, round a bend and into a bush. The peculiar thing about this bush is a few dogs a while back dug a hole behind it and scratched at the dirt until they made a tunnel going straight to the orphanage's food room full of the most amazing smells I'd ever smelt in my whole life.

Before venturing out of the kitchen, since I'd only been to the boys' room and the attic, I stayed, just a few seconds, in here because I just have to have a bit to eat sometime.

I take a few crumbs from leftover garlic bread that they're probably serving about now to the children that live here. I also lick up a bit of batter from the leftover pizza dough from last night and then move out the door to the first girls' dormitory. While they are eating I may as well snuggle up on their freshly made beds and just dip my entire face into a feathery pillow.

Before I can get there though, I hear a rumbling sound.

It's not just rumbling... it's also mumbling.

A stampede of children running down the stairs to dinner. Okay, I was almost right, they're going to have dinner now, not a few seconds ago. I dodge out of the way and hide in a crack in the wall just before they turn the bend of the stairway down to the ground floor. I may as well go up to the attic and let my food settle there if there are still going to be a few lingering girls in their bedroom. So I take the back route, I call it: The less noisy staircase because no one takes that way down. It's filled with spiders and cobwebs everywhere your walk. But not for me! I'm obviously shorter than the humans so I don't mind it.

I get up into the old crumbly attic and find some catmint has grown through the hole in the wall next to my bed. Mmmmm, delicious! I pad over to the distinguished smell of my favourite food. I'd call that: Dessert! While I munch on the leaf stems of dessert I think of how I will ever survive this life, being a cat, in human society, of children, and lunch- I gulp, ladies.

I wake up a few hours later and find out I've slept a bit longer than I intended too. It's not as comfortable here as it is on a human's bed. I'm sure the girls would understand if they woke up with a cat snuggling up to their face. So I walk down and out to the corridor where I find a janitor busily doing whatever janitors do. I slip past him while he listens to music in his earplugs and makes my way to the girls' room.

How it's so quiet in here, good enough for cat sleeping conditions. So I jump on the first bed I see which just happens to be the bed of the most soundless sleeping girl I've ever heard. She doesn't even snore. But for some reason she moves a lot, it's like an earthquake! So I try the next bed, snores.

The next bed, wriggling. The next one, wait, what? I can't even see her, wait, oh, she's at the bottom of her bed huddled in her blanket. I try the final bed and-

Perfect! She's not even moving or making a single sound. I huddle up to her and introduce myself to be polite,

"Hi there."