Tara – Part 2

16 Mar 2011 1 Comment

by Sonali Joshi-Bhatt in Uncategorized Tags: Characters of the story - Tara and Snowy

Writer’s note (read warning): This is NOT the concluding part! If you can, please wait until tomorrow to read this along with the concluding part

The story below is continued from here.

One night when Tara was deep asleep, she heard some strange sounds coming from outside her house. It sounded like Snowy but that was overshadowed by some other sound and within the next few minutes, she heard another slightly different sound in the backdrop. By the time Tara could come out of her sleep and understand what was happening, there was dead silence. Tara did not quite understand what had happened. It might have been a dream, she thought.

She was about to go back to sleep when she heard her parents’ voice. Tara now knew that it was not her dream and the sounds that she heard in the last few minutes were real. She got up and went to them to ask if something was wrong. Her parents were distraught but asked her to go back to sleep and assured her that everything was fine. Tara did not find their answer convincing but went back to sleep. She tossed and turned on her bed thinking about those sounds and wondering what must have happened outside.

It was seven in the morning when Tara woke up and realized fairly quickly that she did not get a full night’s sleep. She wanted to sleep more and turned to her side when she suddenly recalled last night’s incident. She immediately sprang up from her bed and rushed outside to fetch Snowy.

In her usual way, Tara called out Snowy’s name but there was no response. Tara called out her name again but Snowy did not come. Tara was looking pensive now and began to frantically search for Snowy and the kittens. She turned around to see one of the kittens playing behind the bush. She immediately breathed a sigh of relief. But as soon as she went up to the kitten, Tara saw Snowy laying on the ground a few steps from there. There were blood marks on her, the sight of which horrified Tara and she shouted in tears….. ‘Snowy’.

Snowy slowly turned her head towards Tara and meowed so low that even Tara could not hear it. Just minutes ago, Tara was almost frozen when she saw Snowy on the ground. Within a fraction of seconds, so many unpleasant thoughts flashed in her mind. But as soon as she saw Snowy moving, Tara ran towards her and relaxed a bit but it quickly dawned upon her that the other two kittens were missing! What happened to them? Where are they? Did the dogs take them away?

Tara caressed Snowy, told her that she would be back in a few minutes and immediately got up to look for the kittens. As soon as Tara turned around, she saw them at a distance, playing with each other oblivious to the agony that their mother Snowy and Tara were going through. Tara immediately attended to Snowy and cleaned her bloody fur and examined her body to see if there were any serious injuries. Fortunately, there was none except for a small cut on her front paw that left Snowy temporarily limp.

“The kittens don’t understand the pain that Snowy is going through but I know it,” Tara uttered to herself. Tara knew that the kittens were still too young to understand all this and she thoughtfully looked at them while they basked and played in the sunshine. That evening, Tara asked her parents if she could get Snowy and her kittens inside the house at night so that they were safe but her parents refused it. They told her that by bringing them inside, she would only stop them from becoming self-reliant and strong. “Animals know how to defend themselves!” Tara’s dad told her. “Moreover, the neighbors have already complained to us about your cats on several occasions. We somehow calmed them down and you want them to bring in? They will make it a very big issue! You know that cats are a taboo here!” Tara just couldn’t understand how her dad could be so apathetic and found it useless to argue with him.

Snowy’s injury made it difficult for her to hunt for food and so Tara began her old ploy of hiding food and getting it to her adopted fur family. All these months, Tara always thought that her parents did not know anything about this. Children often think that they can keep some secrets from parents but they don’t realize that their parents actually let them keep some secrets.

Tara did not realize that her mom had been buying some extra milk from the day Snowy got injured. Being a mother, she knew the pain that Snowy was going through. Tara’s mom wanted to help in some way but that was the least she could do. Ironically, Tara always thought that her mother never cared for Snowy and the kittens.

Tara never realized that just like she was worried about Snowy and her kittens, her parents were worried about Tara and her adopted family. She also never realized that her parents were once kids and they have gone through childhood and other phases of life much before Tara had gone through and will go through in the coming years.

Tara continued to be a care-giver to Snowy and her family. But that night’s incident and the sight of the dead kitten a few days ago continued to haunt Tara. She started spending more time with Snowy and helped her in getting back to normal as quickly as possible. At the same time, she was thinking of a plan………..

To be Contd…