About 7 years ago I and my family (consisting of my two brothers, my two sisters, and my parents) had recently moved into a new house. We were living in Columbia, Missouri at the time. We had just got a cat which we called Annabelle. Annabelle was a female cat who was average in size and had gold fur with blue eyes. I was 7 years old at the time. After my parents had finished unpacking all the boxes
so they had started painting the bedrooms. By the time they had got to their room they could not decide on a color. They eventually agreed on a shade of maroon for the room and began work right away. My parents had told I and my two brothers Bill and Joe to stay out of their bedroom because we were the youngest and there was a bucket of paint in the middle of the room.
As you might have guessed, I forgot later on and went into my parents’ bedroom. I was holding Annabelle in my arms when my mother told me to leave the room because they were not done painting. I don’t know what went through Annabelle’s mind ,but she tried to get away from me while I was holding her. She jumped out of my grasp and landed in the five-gallon bucket of paint. Annabelle, terrified, immediately jumped out of the bucket and started running through the house covered in paint. My mother freaked out and started chasing Annabelle throughout the house as Annabelle left paint marks all over the carpet and all the way downstairs. When my mother finally caught Annabelle she was in tears because the brand new carpet was stained in so many spots. She immediately went over to the neighbor’s house because our neighbor had 4 cats and 2 dogs. Our neighbor was very worried about the Annabelle’s condition and took care of Annabelle while we cleaned our carpet. We also had some elderly friends named Mr. and Mrs. Owen who came to help us clean the carpet. They brought with them some rubbing alcohol they had which was extremely effective. Everyone except me had to clean the
carpet with the rubbing alcohol. When we were finally done with the carpet we were all relieved that the paint did not leave a very big stain. . After we had finished my mother went over to our neighbor’s house to get Annabelle who and had been cleaned of the
paint. To thank the Owens for helping us so much we took them out to dinner at G&D Steak House.
Over the next two weeks we all began to notice Annabelle’s behavior was different since the incident. Elizabeth, who was 12 at the time, was playing with Annabelle when Annabelle scratched her across the face. Anytime we would pet Annabelle she would hiss at us and I did not know what to think. The last time I remember seeing the cat was behind the massive book shelf because she had run away from me when I tried to pick her up. After a day or two, we realized that Annabelle was missing. I looked high and low but I could not find her no matter how hard I tried. Over the years we would occasionally spot a gold cat in the neighborhood which looked exactly like Annabelle The cat who was obviously a stray and just a little bigger than Annabelle. I thought maybe it was Annabelle since we hadn’t seen her in 4 years
and that maybe she had grown, but my mother told us that she took Annabelle to the animal shelter because of her mean behavior and that she had not told us before because she didn’t want to hurt our feelings. I will always miss Annabelle, but to this day the one
thing that bothers me is that everyone in my family thinks I dropped the can into the paint and that it is all my fault. But Annabelle, wherever she is, knows the real story.