Forgotten?

In the beginning a puppy is born. To begin with my mom, a golden retriever, got together with a flne young male golden retriever. Through this relationship I was created. Of course she had me and eleven other puppies. They were named Joey, Meagan, Zoey, Goldy, Lucky, Werner, Lily, Liby, Carter, Abbey, Isabelle, and me, Jippin. The people that owned us were illegally breeding and selling animals. The ones that did not get sold were put to sleep. My mother was fed poorly, which means me and my siblings ate sour milk every day. A few days after the litter was born, Werner died of malnutrition. That was when my mother's eye's started to open. Tears fell freely; she was sick of living in crowded spaces. She was sick of watching puppies die right in front of her eyes. She had to stop this somehow. The question was, how?

       She was in such a rush to be free that she started clawing at the cage, trying desperately to break out. It was such a nightmare! We were in dog jail! When the owner saw her feeble attempt to break free, he shocked her. Mom fainted and fell on Lucky. A few seconds later mom quickly got up and stared at Lucky. She lightly pushed her paw on Lucky's stomach, searching for life, praying that she had not caused another death. A silent pause filled the room ... the joyful sound of a living puppy begging for food put everyone at ease again. Mom quickly lay down and the hungry puppies started to dig in to the sour milk.

     The next day mom was lying on her side barely breathing and she couldn't move. Lily nibbled her ear to wake her, but mom didn't budge. She snuggled up against mamma's bony cheeks, and momma lightly licked her face. Then all of my sisters and brothers piled on mom and started to lick her with a lot of affection. Mom felt a lot happier that day! I was not joining my sibling's love fest with my sweet mom. Mom noticed, picked me up, and snuggled on me too. She was definitely happy to have such good puppies!

     That night two rowdy boys were skateboarding past our cage. They didn't notice us until mom screamed for help. To the human ear, she barked really loud. Then one of them asked, "I wonder what that was?" He turned around, got off his skateboard, and peeked through the cage. "Hey dude! Look at this! It's a golden retriever ... she doesn't look so good man! What have they done to her? And look, she has puppies ... there are .. one ... two . .three ... wow there are a lot of them!" exclaimed the first boy, "Let's break them out, and feed them, and take care of them!" he said in a panic.

     "What about the owners? Wouldn't they get mad?

     "They won’t ever find out! And besides, look at all those other dogs they will have to worry about! They will just forget!"

     "I really don't think so!" said the other boy, skeptically.

     "Come on, it’s time to do something risky for once! Please?" the first boy begged. "Ok, but just this once!" the second boy said nervously.

     "Deal... and you will never regret anything we did!"

     The two boys pulled out their pocketknife and cut the cage open. One of them scooped up the puppies while the other boy took care of our mom. They started to skate board down the road. Someone spotted them and told the illegal owners.

     "Hurry up! They're after us." They both sped up. The boy that was holding the others and me was going too fast. He dropped Lily, Carter, Abbey, Lucky, and me.  We had been left, forgotten in the middle of the street. Lily began to yelp. Mom heard her call and sprung out of the boy's arms. She raced towards us and dragged us out of the road and into safety. Lucky was still left helpless in the middle of the road. A car was speeding directly towards Lucky. Mom sprinted in front of the car, grabbed Lucky, and threw him to safety. There was no time left. The car tried to stop but it hit my mom. Lily walked up to mom and nibbled her ear, but mom didn't reply as she had before. Lily lay beside mom and snuggled against her, but mom did not lick her gently like she used to. Lily started to panic and yelped. Me and the others joined her sadness. I began to miss mom a lot; she was what had kept us alive.

     We wandered the streets for hours looking for someone to help us. We were in the middle of nowhere! There was a long road before us, and a few houses on the sides. We were so hungry, and our throats were sore from yelping. Soon someone, instead of hearing us, saw us. To him we looked like a big ball of blond fur on the side of the road.

     The Driver, Tom, said to his wife, "I'm going to check out that ball of fur on the road!" "You must be seeing things honey! Remember yesterday? You saw a giant turkey pecking on the wall!" She said with a hearty laugh. The man ignored her and continued his journey through the street. She looked out the window with frustration and yelled out, "Are you going crazy or something? First you buy this ugly house in the middle of nowhere, now you’re walking into the street at midnight... what will the neighbors think?"

     Tom trudged forward. When he returned to the car with the group of us snuggled in his arms his wife, Betty, exclaimed, "Oh my goodness. What is that?"

     "I told you that I saw something! I was telling the truth!"

     "No one can ever tell if you’er telling the truth or not!" She snapped back shaking her head like she was in a dream. The man laughed at her in an evil way.

     "Look how cute and helpless they are! Let’s take them home and take care of them!" she said. She looked at her doubtful husband and pleaded further, "It can be our children's Christmas presents, this is all free!"

     After a long pause, Tom replied, "All right, we'll keep them!"

     Betty kissed him on the cheek, smiled, and then happily clapped her hands together. Our new owners put us into a box, with a warm blanket and fed us powdered milk every other hour that night. Betty was so excited and stayed up with us telling us stories, and other stuff. I was more interested in the milk. Betty gave us soothing rubs on the back and praised us and we experienced the life of kings and queens that night. For a moment I had forgotten about mom .. She had provided us as much as she could give, including her life. I have always missed the other half of the family wherever they might be, but life where we are is a lot better now than it has ever been.

By Katie

Imagine School at Evening Star, 5^th grade