Final: Hard News Story

Seeing Godzilla


My Aunt Kathie loves cats. I think she is the main reason why my entire family loves cats. Ever since I was a little kid I remember going to her house and trying to catch one of her 15 cats. We could spend all day running around outside finding new cats and making it our mission to get that specific one. The variety of cats that were out there gave us inspiration to not stop looking. That was always the highlight of going to Wisconsin and seeing my family.
When we were in 4th grade, we were living with no pets for about a year now. I knew that we had to be getting a new cat soon; we all just missed having a pet. My mom said next time we went to see my aunt Kathie, we could come home with a new cat. So the next weekend we went back to my aunt’s house. It was our mission to find a new friend that could stay home with us. Over and over we searched for the youngest but nicest cat we could find. I remember seeing a group of 7 younger cats, but not kittens, with their mom all packed together in the corner of the empty swimming pool. So we went over there with the mother cat getting mad and we just held our hands out. They all came to us and we ended up playing with all of them. Max and I knew that we had to choose one of these specific cats.
Immediately we ran inside to go tell our mom we found the ones we want to choose out of. She came out to look at them, but they had all ran off. So me and max went searching and searching but couldn’t find them. We stayed inside for the night and decided we could find them better in the day light. So the next morning we went out and sure enough they were all sitting together in the corner of the pool. We got our mom immediately and she made it out in time to see them. I could tell right away we made the right choice, she was playing with one of the cats and she asked us if that could be the one. Without hesitation, Max and I agreed.
Godzilla was one of us now. We already had name picked out for him before we even got to my aunt’s house. Right away we knew that we had made a good choice because on the car ride home he came to sit with everyone of us. It seemed like Godzilla had a plan for the ride. He was so easy to pet and he loved to lay with us, exactly what we wanted.
About a year went on with the new family member and it was all going perfectly. Godzilla loved to play with strings and balls. He would actually spend all day running around trying to get a laser pointer. Nothing slowed him down. Also when we wanted he would simply lay with us and let us pet him all night long. He gave us a lot of good laughs and made many funny pictures that we will always remember. He was our perfect cat.
After about 3 more years everything was going well. He was still our favorite pet of all time and we didn’t give him any less attention as time went on. Over the years he seemed to gain quite a bit of weight. Weighing in about 36 pounds Godzilla was considered to be a massive cat, but it fit his name well. Still loved chasing the little laser pointers and playing in boxes and bags. If we gave him a box he would love it until he ruined it. It would be his castle to sleep in and his cave to hide in. He got more and more interesting and we loved him for that.
In 7th grade we would come home and our cat would be dying to go run around outside. It was a routine to come home and open up our back door and just let him roam around in the woods. He would usually spend about 15 minutes running around and finding small bugs and plants to chew on. I don’t remember when we let him out but I do remember about an hour after where Max and I were confused to where he could have gone. About 3 hours passed by and we decided that we needed to go search for him. We had all of his little toys and were shaking his jar of treats which usually gets him to come in less than a second. Nothing was found and nothing worked. We called it a night and came home without our cat.
For the next week we would go out and look for him but never found anything. About a month passed and we had no idea what to even do. We pretty much stopped trying. Although hope of finding him or him returning was gone, my mom would try to get us all happy by insuring us that we could get a new cat once the season was right for kittens. This wasn’t for another 5 months. We didn’t even want a new cat but it was definitely better then not having one. We would make trips up to my aunt’s house to see if any new kittens were ready. Nothing came early so we knew that it would be a while.
So about 3 months passed since my cat was gone and we didn’t even think about seeing him again. Joe Peterson was over we were playing in the backyard. Just throwing rocks into the lake and other random activities that can be done in woods. In the middle of our conversation Joe cut me off by saying “Dude that looks like a cat. Looks like Godzilla.” I turned around not really sure what he was talking about. I thought I was looking at Godzilla, but I couldn’t even believe it. It was too small, way too small but I had to see it. I immediately told Joe to hold still as I held my hand out for him to check out. He was very slow and didn’t want to get too close, but as he got close to me I could see it was Godzilla by looking at his face. I was so excited and so nervous at the same time, but I had to restrain myself from freaking out. The very second he got close enough to snatch, I did. I squeezed him as he squirmed around but I held him way too tight to let him slip out. I turned around and ran! I ran as fast as I could back to the house to give him food and tell my mom.
I couldn’t believe it was him. This cat left at about 36 pounds and came back at 3.5 pounds. He was just a boney little cat with nappy hair. He had dirt and burs in his fur. We gave him so food that was in our garage. He ate very little but I know that’s all it took to fill him up. Eventually we brought him to the vet so he could get shots and shave all his fur off. Godzilla was back and we couldn’t believe it.
We never let him out again. We had him for another 2 years after that and he gained every single pound back. He was still in love with playing with the strings, chasing laser pointers, and hiding in boxes. Godzilla didn’t change from when he first left, but he gave us a pet to brag about when he came back.