I slowly open my eyes.  Muffin is slapping my face once again.  Meow, meow! (Wake up, this is no time to sleep!).  I’m not sleeping Muffin.  Oh, my poor head, what happened?  Meow, meow!  Right, that truck ran us off the road, now I remember.  Hey, where’s Lydia?  Is she okay Muffin?  Meow!  What do you mean she disappeared?  Meow, meow!  You were thrown out the open window and Lydia came and woke you up.  Meow, meow!  Then you saw me and came running over here.  Meow!  You turned to see if Lydia was coming too but she was gone?  Meow?  No, that doesn’t mean she’s a ghost.

It does mean she ran away though.  But why?  Meow!  What do you mean, that’s a good idea, let’s run away too?  I sure would like to know who was driving that truck.  Meow!  What, it was John?  Are you positive?  Meow, meow!! (Who can forget that scary man!!).  Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.  Meow? (Like perhaps getting home?).  No, we’re close to the house, let’s get over there quickly.  And stop sighing like that!  Meow? (Is there another way to sigh?).  Hey, wait a minute, what’s wrong with your paw?  Meow. It was hurt when you were thrown out the window?  Let me take a look.  Good, it’s not broken at least.  Here, you sit on my shoulder.

Off we walked.  It took us about 20 minutes to get back to the house.  Okay Muffin, when we go inside I want you to hide right away.  Meow. (I’m good at hiding.).  I whisper some instructions to her.  Meow. (Okay.).  I figured John would show up soon when he saw we were not killed in the accident.  Muffin and I went in the back door and Muffin took off to hide right away.  I went to try and find Lydia.  Hmm, not downstairs in her kitchen.  I went up to the third floor next, but still no sign of her anywhere.  Was I wrong?  Maybe she didn’t come back here after all.

Hmm, what’s this?  Blood, and fresh too.  Okay, she has a different spot to hide.  I open and close the top dresser drawer.  Part of the wall opens and there was Lydia with a terrified look on her face.  She was somewhat relieved to see it was me.  But how did you find me?, she asks.  Your hand is bleeding and you left a bit of blood on the dresser drawer.  I figured you would be scared enough to make a mistake.  Now, explain.  What is there to explain?  I saw it was John driving that truck so I ran in case he came back.  So you left Muffin and I behind to get killed?

No!  I saw you didn’t look badly hurt so I went over and woke up Muffin, I figured she would get you out of there quickly.  Thanks so much, you could have done the same thing.  But I was just too scared, I wanted to get out of there!  Do you have a first aid kit? Yes, in the other room.  I took her in there, cleaned and bandaged her hand.  That seemed to calm her down.  Okay, now we go down to the living room and wait for John to show up.  What?  I’m not going down there!  Oh yes you are and I grabbed her arm quickly as she tried to run.  I practically had to drag her down the stairs.  Now you sit in that big armchair, I said to Lydia.  And?, she asked.  And we wait.

To be continued…

Steve and Muffin.

© 2020 Steve McLeod.