Jun 13 2010
False Alarm
The same afternoon Rob put the flyers up at the store and the post office, I had a call from a woman who said she’d seen June.
My heart leaped.
“Where?” I asked excitedly.
“In the long grass by the field where the bull is.”
“Near the store?”
“Yes.”
Now, the store is more than five miles away, and June has never been known to venture as far as Mark’s house, but I raced to the car and jounced down the driveway like a bat out of hell. I made it to the field in record time. Shaking a bag of treats (and shaking), I called for June through all the long grass, to the bull’s curiosity and that of drivers-by, but to no avail.
I saw a cat run down a side road and chased it, only to discover it was the wrong cat.
I went to the two houses across the road from the field. No-one was home at one, and at the other, an elderly lady answered the door. She was sympathetic and asked what June looked like, since there was a black cat with white paws (the one I had chased) and a multi-colored one who were often seen around there.
My heart fell as I realized that the caller had seen that cat, not June.
I gave the lady my name and number just in case, and drove slowly home, checking the ditches.
A couple of days later, another woman called just to say she was sorry and was keeping an eye out for June. Like many locals, she had tales of cats who went missing for a month, five months, a year, and turned up one day as if nothing had happened.
As I hung up the phone, I thought how nice it is to live in a small town, where a total stranger will call you up just to try and make you feel better. I remembered when I lived in Oakland and had left the keys in my car door in the driveway. An African-American gentleman had noticed this on his way to church and came to the front door to tell me. When I answered the door, he had his hands up before I said a word.
One Response to “False Alarm”
**hugs**
I hope June-bug still comes home and really is on an adventure. I can’t think of anything else to say. Just know I’m thinking about you, and am sending piles of hugs and love.