The Pyle Inside

Our house was chaos. There were four little kids visiting for dinner, and they screamed
and yelled and threw all the money out of Monopoly. They ran around banging into walls and making noise. At one point, the toddler opened the back door and our kitten Leo sprinted outside and into the park behind our house. Dark clouds were forming together for a big storm. Leo did not notice because he was enjoying himself as he chased a terrified mouse. Quickly the storm came, with an enormous loud crack of lightning and many roars of thunder. Leo didn’t know his way home. He found a dry place where he could sit out the storm, a tunnel made in the inside of a rotten log. Lightning bolts hit the flooded ground all around him, and lit up the sky like it was the Fourth of July. The streets were all flooded and the rain would not stop, with rainwater rushing into the storm drains like huge and powerful rivers. Leo did not know how to swim or recognize his way home. His human mom was worried that something bad had happened to him. She feared that lightning had struck him or that he had drowned in the awful flood. The whole neighborhood was looking for him, calling “Leo! Leo, please come home, little kitty!” But no one could see through the storm and no one could find him. Leo climbed up out of the flood and onto the red playground slide. He looked around but couldn’t see past the wall of rain. He decided to stay there, hanging on with his little paws and claws. Finally, a voice he recognized reached Leo’s wet ears. He heard his boy Ted calling his name, and ran toward the voice, through the gushy mud and the rushing flood. He saw Ted calling from the back fence, and came rushing toward him. Leo was teeny and soaked and covered with mud. His owners wrapped him in warm, dry, fluffy towels. Now, every time he hears a loud noise, Leo runs into the basement. But he remembers his adventure being Leo the Lightning Cat.