Last January, we posted the first-ever Bobbledy Books writing prompt. We gave kids the illustration below, and asked them to tell us the story that came to mind.
The next week, we published the kids’ stories. They are wonderful, and you can read them here.
But one kid was not ready to share her story the next week. She needed a little more time to work on it. But work on it she did, and when she was done, she sent it our way. I am delighted to share it with you now. (And I hope you will realize that there’s no deadline for sending us stories you write or pictures you draw in response to our prompt. Send them whenever you like, and we’ll do our best to post them.)
And now, with no further mumbling on from me, a story from Kit:
Oh, shucks, one other thing. If you don’t know, it might help you to know that the word “feral” means “in a wild state” or “resembling a wild animal.”
Ok, that’s really it. How about a round of applause for Kit!
Feral
By Kit Holdren
The cat’s name is Paisley. It’s a picture of Paisley before she got adopted and there’s a robot that says ‘cat’ to let people know there’s a cat there that needs to be adopted. And Paisley’s a feral so this cat’s a feral too and Paisley is considered a feral for a long time until Sara comes in the barn with Tom because there’s a sign that says “free ferals” and they come in the barn to look for which one they want and Sara looks at Paisley and there’s a collar around her neck with a tag that says “this feral cat has a cold so she really needs someone to take her home.” She got a cold because her mama got a cold.
She got a cold so Sara said “Tom, we should get this cat because she needs a home, she’s a feral.” And Tom said “okay, that cat is a very pretty cat” so Sara picked Paisley up and they went home and Sara looked in a book and she was looking in a book with cat names only for girl cats ‘cuz also the tag said she was a girl feral, because Paisley’s siblings were all her brothers, were all just boys, so she was the only girl in the litter and there were five other cats in the litter besides just Paisley and they were all just boys. And Sara was looking for names that stared with P and she found Paisley and she said “Paisley, that’s it” and Paisley went into the kitchen and meowed at the frigerator door. She smelled fish, milk, crunchy stars, and wet food, and she meowed at the frigerator door and Tom opened the door and gave her some milk and Tom gave her some tuna and then some crunchy stars and then some wet food. Paisley was having the milk when the tuna came along and Paisley moved to the tuna and she was enjoying her tuna when the crunchy stars came along and she was enjoying the crunchy stars when the wet food came along and she moved on to the wet food.
And when she had eaten her breakfast, Sara carried her to the bathtub and set her in. She washed Paisley, shampooed Paisley, sponged Paisley, and dried Paisley off, and put powder on Paisley, and then perfume, and then she went out to the store while Tom took care of Paisley, and she bought cat food, paper towels for Paisley to throw up in, a flower girl dress, flower girl shoes, a flower girl wig, a flower girl tiara, a flower girl bow that was a clip to pin on to Paisley’s tag because the tag was off the collar now so she wanted a bow to pin the tag on and it worked, and Paisley looked like a flower girl and Paisley walked really slowly down the hallway because she was practicing being a flower girl and she looked in the mirror and said “I’m a fancy cat” and then came back to Sara and curled up on the couch by Sara while she was knitting and went to sleep. Sara knitted Paisley a winter outfit cuz the very next day it would be winter cuz that was the last day of autumn. After she finished knitting that she made Paisley a Halloween costume cuz the day after that, the next day would be Halloween.
The reason why they went to the barn was to get some eggs and milk.
The robot was buyed in outer space since the last person went there. They worked at the farm so they took it back to the farm cuz they thought it was cool cuz the words would change all the time and they would change sizes all the time. It picked the hay to feed to the horses. All it did was do that, and have words on its screen, is all the robot had.
In the yellow door there’s cat toys in there, and words for the cats to read or make into stories. Paisley would play with the cat toys every day she was at the barn, and so there were only two other girls other than Paisley, there was Paisley’s mama and Paisley’s sister Boo Radley. Paisley and Boo Radley were adopted at the same time, and Paisley loves Sara and hates Tom, and Boo Radley loves Tom and hates Sara, so Paisley doesn’t like Tom at all and Boo Radley doesn’t like Sara at all.
With the words in the robot’s chest Paisley and Boo Radley wrote all the stories in the world, all the stories Kit and Hattie have read at least, but stories other people have read, Paisley and Boo Radley did not write. All the stories Hattie has read have been written by Boo Radley and all the stories Kit has read have been written by Paisley. Paisley liked to write stories because Paisley had a lot of things in her brain that she had in mind for a story, and that’s the same with Boo Radley.
There are also pictures to go with the stories in the robot and Paisley wrote the stories but then Boo Radley made the pictures for them. The robots don’t write stories, they just have stories inside of them. Robots don’t know anything, robots are dumb.
The cats liked to write stories using the words inside the robots, and the pictures too. When Paisley finished her first story she said nothing, she just went over to Sara and purred and purred and purred, and for Halloween Paisley’s costume was a cat costume because she didn’t even need a costume then, and Sara had dressed up as a witch so she made Paisley be a black cat, to be the witch’s cat, and Paisley’s things from Halloween were crunchy stars and tuna and Paisley loved that, and a pair of earrings, gloves, tattoos of tuna and crunchy stars and wet food and milk, and a cat’s notebook and claw polish and Boo Radley had to be a witch cat too and Tom was a witch too and the fastest two were Paisley and Boo Radley and the slowest two were Sara and Tom ,and Boo Radley got the same things as Paisley (Paisley and Boo Radley are sisters) and the night after Halloween a little girl and her mother came in the barn cuz the little girl wanted to adopt Boo Radley and the little girl called “kitty, come here please” and the little girl said “where’s that cat?” and the mama said “sweetie, someone might have adopted her, let’s just choose a boy kitten, okay? But her daughter didn’t want a boy cat so she chose a boy cat herself and then they went home and the little girl’s bed time was at 6:30, really early.
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What a remarkable writer Kit is. What a remarkable story she wrote. I, who make a career out of writing, find myself inspired by her bold imagination, her unpredictable narrative choices, and her wonderful way of constructing sentences. Thank you, Kit, for sharing your story with us. I hope that there will be many more to come!