Fuzzy was a lonely brown cat that lived in a big forest near New York City. One day he was very hungry, he didn’t have any food so he searched and searched the big forest to find some food but instead he got lost. He became so tired and hungry.

He was walking down the forest when he saw a black dog. “What are you doing down here?” asked the dog.

“Hi! My name is Fuzzy and I’m lost. I’m hungry, but I’ve got nothing to eat,” replied Fuzzy.

Then the dog said, “I’m Bert, I’m also very hungry, but hey, together we could go to New York City.”

“Where’s that?” said Fuzzy.

“New York is a city not very far from here and there is lots of food there.”

“We could definitely go there. Yeah ! I guess we can,” Fuzzy became excited that the thought of finding some food.

Soon after they started walking, they saw a board “New York City this way”. They went down that road and as they were walking down, they saw another board. It said “New York City five miles”.

“Five miles? That means we are close to New York then,” Fuzzy said excitedly.

But then they suddenly found their path blocked by a big black bear.

“Run!” shouted Bert.

They started running and kept running for a long time before they looked back to see the bear. The bear wasn’t following them anymore.

“Yes! We lost him,” said Fuzzy. When they looked ahead, they could see the lights of New York. As they got closer, they saw plenty of food in the streets and shops. They ate food that they found in the back alley outside a restaurant and then went to take a nap in a deserted alley.

Fuzzy and Bert were now best friends and living on the streets of New York. One day they were walking in the street when they saw a van coming towards them. On the side of the van was written “Animal Control”.

“Run! It’s Animal Control, they are going to catch us,” shouted Bert. They started running but came to the street’s dead end. They had nowhere else to run. A man from the van got down and came towards then with a large net. It threw the net on them and easily picked them up and locked them in the van.

“Oh no! What is going to happen to us now,” said Fuzzy.

“Just keep calm. It’s going to be okay. Let’s see what they do next,” Bert said, trying not to show his own nervousness.

Then suddenly the van stopped moving. The same man came again, picked them up and he took them inside a building. There were many animals inside it in cages. Then the man locked them up in an empty cage. They stayed in the cage as the night grew darker. The cage was so small that they couldn’t sleep or do anything else. Then Bert saw the man was sleeping on a chair really close to them.

“Look!” whispered Bert, “He’s sleeping.”

“So what?” said Fuzzy, not understanding what it had to do with them. Then Bert pointed at the keys to the cage. It was really close to them. Fuzzy tried to get the keys. After a few minutes, he somehow managed to reach it and drag it inside the cage. They opened the cage, ran out of the building as fast as they could and this time they went to another side of the city and lived there peacefully.

Published in Dawn, Young World March 18th, 2017