Cats Gone Wild

“Benjamin, your life can change unexpectedly, so make the most out of your life.” That’s what my mom would usually say to me. My mom would always give me advice because that’s the caring mother she was. She would usually tell me that I should enjoy my youth while it lasts because my younger years will pass by quickly. Well I’m just 10 years old, but now I feel like my younger years have passed because everything I did with my mom is now just memories.

I'm sitting on a chair crying because I just found out that my mom passed away 5 minutes ago. I’m sitting in a quiet hospital waiting room with nobody around. The only thing I can hear is myself crying and my dad yelling at the medical receptionist. My dad is slamming his hands on the office countertop scaring the receptionist. I can barely hear anything that my dad is saying and my vision is blurry because of all the tears on my face. I had no idea what to do. Why is all of this happening right now? Why did mom have to go?

My mind is just filled with questions, but then I suddenly snapped out of my state of mind when I heard my dad storming towards me. I look up at my dad when he suddenly grabs my hand and yanks me out of the chair. I wipe my tears away and try to keep up with the pace of my dad as he storms out of the building and into the parking lot. I follow my dad towards his parked car and we both get in with me in the back seat. My dad immediately starts the engine without saying a word to me and off we go out of the parking lot.

We both don’t say anything to each other, mostly because both of us are probably thinking the same thing: “Why did mom leave?”. My mom was always cheerful and she is the reason why I'm always happy to get back home from school. My dad is always cranky and he yells at me all the time, so I usually feel scared every time I go home from school. My mom is the only reason why I feel happy going home. She is exactly the opposite of my dad, she’s always cheerful and her soothing words always calm me, but now she is gone. I see my dad’s angry face in the rearview mirror, the only thing that’s on my mind is how to make my dad happy. I really feel sorry for the loss of mom and the only thing I think about on our trip back home is how I can make my dad forget about his angry feelings and think about something good.

When we finally arrive at our house, my dad immediately storms out of the car. I follow suit and try to keep up with my dad’s pace. When we get to the door, my dad fumbles with his keys and tries to open the door. We finally made it inside a cool and immaculate home. When we get inside, I immediately pass through my dad and to the stairs up to the second floor where my bedroom is. I enter my bedroom and take out my piggy bank that’s in my drawer. I shook my piggy bank, I can hear my full allowance in there. I got a good idea on how I can make my dad happy. I'll spend my allowance on two movie theater tickets to take my dad to the movie theater. It’s a plan I thought of on the spot while my dad was driving and I think watching a movie will help my dad get his mind off of what happened.

I run out of my room and down the stairs to the kitchen where I see my dad sitting at the small wooden kitchen table. There’s 3 empty beer bottles on the table and my dad is just sitting there with his head on the table. “Oh No! Don’t tell me he is drunk!” I thought to myself. I always hate it when my dad gets drunk because he always yells at me every time he drinks. I walked up to him cautiously not trying not to make my dad mad. I shyly showed him my piggy bank and shook it. The sound of coins makes my dad turn his head towards me.

“What the hell do you want!” My dad said in an annoyed tone.

“I want to go to the movie theater.” I replied. My dad just stands up and sighs like he is disappointed in me. “I don’t want to go to the movie theater.” My dad walks away. “I’ve got a better idea than going to the movies.”

When I heard this, I already knew what my dad meant. He's planning to go to the bar. I immediately ran up and hugged my dad’s legs to try to stop him from going to the bar. I can’t believe he wants to go to the bar, everytime I see my dad leave the house to go to the bar, he always comes back home drunk and miserable. Why do adults always go there anyways? I hold my dad’s legs tight so he won’t move. My dad growls at me and he pushes me to the floor. I tried to get back up and stop him again, but then my dad threw a beer bottle at me. I dodged the bottle and luckily it hit the wall and not my face. My dad’s face starts fuming and he yells at me.

“GOD DAMN IT! That’s it! If you grab my leg one more time, I'll kill you!” My dad storms out the door.

I just stood there thinking about the words that my dad just said. Did he really mean those words? I can’t believe what he said. I tried to wipe my tears away, but they just kept on flowing. I lay on the kitchen floor, trying to trick my mind into thinking it’s ok because it is okay. I just need to find a way to make my dad happy, he’s just too angry because mom is gone, that's all. If only there’s a way to make this whole situation better and make my dad happy so he won’t have to leave and go to the bar.

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A new day arises, and I have to go to school today. When I get out of bed, I quickly change into some new clothes. I then go to the bathroom to get washed up and head down the stairs to see that my dad is fast asleep on the recliner in the living room. I try not to wake him up as I tiptoe around to get out of the house. My plan is going to make my dad happy today, and so I plan to do the best I can at school.

I rushed across my neighborhood to the spot where the school bus usually picks me up, but I noticed someone there already. It is unusual to see somebody there, but it looks like another kid waiting for the school bus too. As I get closer to the kid, I notice that the kid is a girl that looks like she’s about my age. She has the messiest yellow hair that I have ever seen from a girl. Usually girls from my class try to look nice, but this girl’s hair looks like she just got out of bed and skipped the mirror before heading out. It’s hard to read her face through her messy hair, but I see that she looks sad. I think that she had a bad morning and that’s why her hair is messy. I can understand that, I felt exactly how she was feeling yesterday after finding out that my mom died. I suddenly see the girl looking in my direction, I get embarrassed and look away. I tried to find the urge to talk to her, but I’m too nervous. To be honest, I hadn't talked to a girl before. I don't know what to say, so I keep my distance from her. I see the school bus coming, and I see the girl standing as she sees the school bus too. As the school bus door opens, I immediately go in and find an empty seat. As I am sitting down, I look to see that the girl is also seated alone, but I don't go up to her. I understand what she is feeling right now, I wonder who she is? She must be new here. I try not to think about her too much as I try to think about how I can make my dad happy during school.

During school, I try the best I can at each of my class assignments. When it was art class, I drew a picture of me, my dad, and my mom as wolves because that’s my favorite animal. I love animals, that’s why I got excited when we were supposed to draw our favorite animals in art class. The girl that was at my bus stop, she is in my art class. The art teacher introduced her in class, her name is Honey Barnes. I think Honey is an interesting and cute name. Her name is exactly how I would describe her. She has yellow eyes and yellow hair that are about the same color of yellow as honey is. She is even wearing a yellow and black striped shirt like a bee. I can only guess that her favorite animal is a hippo based on her appearance. Honey has a seat next to me. Neither me or her made eye contact with each other the whole way through art class until one time when I leaned to take a peak at what she was drawing. I was surprised to see her drawing is of a bee instead of a hippo. Guess my assumption of her favorite animal is wrong. Honey notices me looking at her picture and she smiles at me. I quickly look away in embarrassment and get back to drawing my picture.

After school was over, I hung out with my two best friends, Tom Dunkley and Cedric Coy, at the school’s playground. I want to make Tom and Cedric happy too because they are the only two friends I have. Cedric is my cousin, my mother was a Coy, Stacey Coy, until she married my dad, Josh Uno. I honestly wanted my last name to be Coy instead of Uno, but Uno is still cool though. I don't have a lot of friends in school because I’m shy. The only friend, instead of Cedric, that I hang out with in school is Tom. Tom’s dad and Cedric’s dad know each other, so that’s how we met each other. Me, Tom, and Cedric call ourselves “The Wolf Gang”. The reason why we call ourselves that is because of our love for wolves. We have this group motto: “No wolf works alone”. The motto is kind of cheesy, but we don’t care. Plus, the motto is true, wolves in the wild work together in packs to help the job of killing their prey easier. The Wolf Gang do the same, we imitate the wild wolves’ strategy, even though there’s only the three of us. The Wolf Gang work together to make it easier to “kill their prey” or in this case to defeat our rivals, The Cougars.

The Cougars are our rivals, the leader of The Cougars is Jack Sims aka “Cougar Jack” or “Jackass” as I like to call him. Jack Sims and his two “friends”, Edwin Sharp and Larry Terry, are always beating me and my two friends at everything. I have had enough of The Cougars beating The Wolf Gang at everything, so I try to make plans to help The Wolf Gang become successful. The Wolf Gang are getting beaten by The Cougars in basketball. I gathered Tom and Cedric together at the school playground to discuss how we can defeat The Cougars in basketball.

“Hey Ben, I saw you eyeing that new girl in art class today. You like her don’t you?” Tom said to me before I was able to speak about my plan.

Tom is always a jokester and sometimes he says things that are funny, but other times Tom just makes fun of me. I hate him.

“Oh hey, quit it man! I’m trying to make a plan here on how we can defeat The Cougars and you are just joking around!” I gave Tom a dirty look.

“Hey Ben, are you alright? I know that your mom just died. If you need any help, just ask for it and we’re here for you.” Cedric tells me in a concerning voice.

“I appreciate it, but I’m alright.” I still have a dirty look as Tom stops laughing and starts talking in a serious tone.

“Hey Ben, you know I’m only joking around. If you need anything, just ask us.”

I just sigh. “Listen, both of you, I’m ok. What I’m not ok with is The Cougars always beating us. It’s been two weeks in a row that they have been beating us at basketball and I’m not having it.”

Cedric puts his hand on his forehead. “Oh, give me a break, Ben. Just face the facts. The Cougars are better than us at basketball.”

“Nope, I’m not having it.” I lifted my basketball off the ground. “It’s training time, wolves!”

“Seriously, do we have to do this?” Tom says as both him and Cedric lift their basketballs off the ground.

I point towards the basketball court. “Oh yeah, we’re doing this! Wolves, let's train!” With a few minutes to spare before our basketball match with The Cougars. The Wolf Gang trains shooting hoops before The Cougars arrive.

Meanwhile, With The Cougars:

The Cougars are walking on their way to the basketball court for their match with The Wolf Gang. Suddenly, in the corner of Cougar Jack’s eye he sees a girl standing and watching something. It’s the new girl in class, Honey Barnes, and she is watching The Wolf Gang train for their basketball match and she is enjoying herself. Cougar Jack can’t have that, the eyes of the girls at school should only be on him. He’s the hottest boy in 5th grade. Cougar Jack throws his basketball at Honey to get her attention. Honey doesn’t notice the basketball and gets hit in the face. Honey falls on her back on some wood chips, she is stunned on what happened until she sees The Cougars walking towards her.

“Hey new girl, how about you stop looking at trash and actually watch some skilled athletes do it!” Cougar Jack smirks as he walks up to Honey and lends her his hand.

Suddenly, a random basketball hits Cougar Jack’s head and he falls on the wood chips covering the ground. Edwin and Larry also get hit in the head by two basketballs and they fall to the ground. Honey wondered what happened until she saw The Wolf Gang walk up to her. Benjamin lends his hand to her.

Back to The Wolf Gang:

“Hey, are you alright?” I said to her, lending my hand to her.

At first, Honey just stares at my hand like she doesn’t trust me. I smile at her showing that I’m not going to harm her unlike those pesky Cougars. When she saw my smile, she was still reluctant, but she finally grabbed my hand. I began pulling her up. As if her hair wasn’t messy enough, now her hair is covered with wood chips and even her face is dirty as well. She still looked beautiful though as I stumbled over my words trying to say something else to her.

All of a sudden, I hear The Cougars get back up and it looks like they have recovered from their falls. As if Cougar Jack couldn’t get more ugly, his face and hair are now covered with pieces of wood chips.

“Do you realize you need to put the ball in the hoop, right? Jesus, no wonder you guys suck.”

Despite me hitting Cougar Jack in the face with that basketball, he is still smirking and making jokes. God, would I ever want to get rid of that smirk.

“Same goes to you, Jackass. When you said you love hitting on girls, I never thought you meant that literally.” Despite my payback jab at him, Cougar Jack is still smirking.

“You can say all the trash talk you want, Benjamin, but you will always lose to us.” Cougar Jack and his two companions turn their backs at us.

“Unfortunately, always beating you in basketball is getting too old for me now. Playing with you is a waste of time and I need some actual quality practice.” Cougar Jack and his two companions start walking away.

“See ya later, wolves. You can keep your girlfriend of yours, Benjamin.” Cougar Jack points to Honey. “She’s a worthless freak. She can’t even catch a ball properly, you can have her. She has about the same intelligence as you do.”

Cougar Jack starts laughing as he and his two companions walk away. I was about to run to Cougar Jack and punch him for making fun of Honey, but Tom stopped me from doing so.

“Hey, Tom, let me go!”

Tom finally lets me go after The Cougars are out of sight. I just frown at him and then I look back at Honey to see if she is ok. Honey has that look on her face wondering what’s going on? Honestly, I can’t blame her.

“Don’t listen to Cougar Jack. I don't even know half the words he’s saying.” I reach out my hand so Honey can shake it. “Just stay with us and those 3 jerks will not hurt you.”

Honey looks at my hand with mistrust like she did before, but then surprisingly she smiles back at me and shakes my hand.

“Thank you, I loved seeing you guys play. I think you guys looked great. I don’t know what that kid was talking about.'' This is the first time I heard her say a full sentence. Her voice was smoothing, exactly opposite of what a bee would sound like. When I hear a bee, I want to stay away as far from it as possible, but Honey's voice is a shy, calm voice that makes me want to hear it everyday. I don't know why she doesn’t talk more often.

“Thanks, I don’t think we’re that great, but you’re welcome to play with us, Honey, if you like?” I walk and grab my basketball that I'd thrown at Cougar Jack. Tom and Cedric also grab their basketballs too.

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll be good at it.” Honey said.

I smile and give her the basketball anyways. “You’ll probably be better than us. Here Honey, just aim at the hoop and shoot it.”

Honey shot it and to my surprise she made it from the three point line. Me, Tom, and Cedric have never made it at the three point line today. Man, we must really suck or Honey just made a lucky shot.

I can’t believe it! Me, Tom, and Cedric got brutally owned in H-O-R-S-E by a girl. Honey single-handedly dropped buckets all over us.

“Hey, that was fun! Let’s do that again tomorrow!” Honey said to me as both of us were walking down the street on our way home.

“Honey, have you ever thought of joining the girl’s basketball team?”

Honey looks at me puzzled. “No, why?”

I continue walking. “Never mind.”

I will just try to forget about the humiliation she did to me and my two best friends. We finally made it to my house and this is where I say goodbye to Honey. Lucky for me, she lives in the house next to me. I can’t believe how convenient my life is right now. There’s a new girl in my school and she happens to be living next to me and sits next to me in art class and she’s cute too. Things are looking good so far. Now all that’s left to do is show my dad this picture I drew, and hopefully it will make him happy. I open the door and enter my house, waving goodbye to Honey. The first thing I notice once I enter my house is that the TV is on in the living room. I take a peak in the living room to see my dad sleeping with a beer bottle in his hand. It looks like he is drunk again, he’s been doing that a lot lately.

I decided to wake him up and show him the drawing. “What do you think of my picture, dad? It’s me, mom, and you as wolves.”

My dad just takes a glance at my drawing, but he shoves it away. “It looks stupid.”

My dad then gets up out of his recliner and walks away. I’m heartbroken when my dad says that. I thought I was going to have a chance to make my dad happy today, but I failed again. As I watch my dad leave, I look at the drawing and decide to throw it away in the garbage. I was happy at first when I made a new friend with Honey and I thought this drawing would make my dad happy, but it was a waste of time. I’m still determined though to make my dad happy and I will be successful. I hope in the future that there is going to be some way to make my dad happy.