The Unfortunate Death of Molly’s Kittens
Molly always had this thing with impulses. Sometimes she’d have to sharpen every pencil in the class or stack all the books a certain way. No one could get Molly to stop once she started, not even herself, so we all just waited for her to finish.
It was summer, one week after school let out, and Molly and I were outside playing dolls on her front porch. It was too hot to be alive and I had to wipe my face with my hands nearly every two minutes. The sun was on my nerves.
Molly has an older brother called Tom. He’s cute but Molly says: Don’t bother, he likes boys. I don’t know what she means because he’s always really nice to me.
I wanted to stop playing dolls so bad, but really I just wanted out of the weather, so I was happy when I saw Tom walking towards us. He was sweaty and handsome and carrying a brown cardboard box. I hoped maybe he could convince Molly let us go inside for a while. She never listened to me.
Tom set the box down next to us on the porch and said: Guess what’s inside. The words ‘Filbert’s Candy Company’ were stamped on the box in red ink and the whole think reeked of gasoline.
I knew Molly would be mad the moment her brother sat that stinking thing down in the place she decided would be our ‘salon’. She slammed her doll down and said: I don’t care, just get it out of here, it stinks.
Molly stood and just as she moved to kick the box a small squeak rang out from the inside, then another, then two at once, and before long there was a symphony of tiny shrieks.
Molly dropped to her knees and cried: Kittens!
There were six in total and we fought over which ones we’d claim as ours. We washed the gasoline from off their fur and gave them silly names like Pankat and McKittle. Tom wouldn’t tell us where he found them, only that he rescued them from someone bad.
All the kittens stayed at their house in the garage because my mom said No. I visited the kittens everyday to play with them and feed them and hold them all balled up in my shirt while they slept. We took turns caring for them but Molly loved those kittens most. She spent nearly every moment in the garage with them. She begged her parents to let her sleep out there, begged them until they said yes, and when they relented Molly pitched a tent in the garage and slept there every night for a week. She made a nest next to her and brought the kittens inside the tent to sleep with them. I don’t know what happened exactly but I can imagine it as if I’d seen it with my own eyes though I wish I couldn’t. Molly always had this thing with impulses. She strangled each one of those kittens one by one with her bare hands and she couldn’t stop until she was finished.
Molly was never the same after that. She became both obsessed and terrified by cats. She began collecting kitten inspired everything, books, clothes, posters, notepads, anything kitten that she could find, but Molly could no longer be in the presence of a real cat without completely freaking out. She would scream a scream that could freeze your blood, throw herself onto the floor and hyperventilate. It was very strange for people who did not know her, but really it was strange for us too.
Molly continued her obsession with kittens until Tom brought home a litter of baby bunnies he found in the woods. They were precious and full of life and they were easy to love. Did you know that baby bunnies are also known as ‘kittens’? It’s true but I really wish it wasn’t, because Molly always had this thing with impulses.
