Written by: Agraj Rijal - 29004, Grade VI
Posted on: 15 March, 2023
I found myself on the street at night when I was very young. As I slept, a person wearing a mask and a black cloth covering their hair and forehead arrived and began to place all the cats in the area into a large box. Terrified by what I saw, I hid under a nearby dustbin. The next day, I set out on my journey and saw some children playing with empty cans and bottles, but I didn't know what to do or where to go, so I returned to my hiding spot.
Suddenly, I heard some commotion and emerged from under the dustbin to find that the children had thrown the cans and bottles into it. A garbage truck arrived and took the dustbin away, but one person picked me up and placed me on a cloth, which I slept on. He then put me in a large box, which scared me since I had witnessed someone doing the same thing with cats. However, the man let me walk and play, and he taught me how to catch mice and fish. Eventually, I ran away when he wasn't home and stumbled upon a farmhouse.
The farmer who lived there fed me and cared for me as the man had. One day, I discovered some cats locked in a cage in the farmer's room. They told me that the farmer used to let them out to catch mice, but after a while, he only freed them when he spotted mice. That night, I saw an open window and went to investigate. The farmer was sleeping, so I opened the cage, and we all fled through the window. We didn't realize that the farmer had seen us, and he became angry and threw axes and stones at us. Fortunately, we managed to escape. A few days later, we learned that the farmer's house was infested with mice that had eaten all the food and destroyed clothing.
We then began to live on the street and survive by stealing food from shops. And so, we continued living on the street, never forgetting the lessons we learned from the people who cared for us along the way.
