Yesterday morning, there was a crow party in the tree outside my kitchen window. Three birds, very loud and very large, took up branches close together and cawed for a good five minutes. It was a bit bizarre -- I tapped on the window at one point to see if they'd go away, but instead they sort of exuded some crow-disdain my way and kept right on with their conference.
A little while later, my cat went all Lassie-like, and took up a position at the kitchen window, sitting in the sill, meowing his "alarm! alarm!" meow, and pacing over to me (I was fixing coffee at the time). I could hear a mewling coming from outside, and I figured that my cat (his name is Shitz [it's a long story]), was having a conversation with one of the many neighborhood cats, and I looked out the window but couldn't see anything across the street, so I let it go.
Once properly fortified with caffeine and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, we decided to bike to the bookstore. I've been dying to get my hands on another John Hart novel, and had been having a hard time finding one at the bookstores near my house. So we traipsed down the three flights of stairs to the street to grab our bikes and hit the road, but when I was locking the downstairs door, the sound of the mewling came back, closer and more urgent.
I looked up, and saw that there was a cat sitting in the window of my downstairs neighbor. He was meowing, and I thought, "Oh, cute, my neighbor cat is making friends with me through the window!" But no ... he was looking UP and meowing. He wasn't meowing at me, but instead AT THE OHMYGOD ADORABLE TINY KITTEN TRAPPED IN THE TREE NEXT TO THE HOUSE!
A tiny kitten -- a muted calico, I'd guess about three months old -- was hunkered down in a "V" of the tree, about level with the second story windows, mewling her little tiny adorable head off. She did not want to move, but she wanted down.
As soon as Zeke and I noticed the kitten and her predicament, a crowd began to gather. I live in a pretty neighborhood-y neighborhood, and there's that whole thing about Midwesterners and our friendliness. Two women came from the direction of the Co-op (oh it's so nice living pretty much next door to my groceries, I tell you what), and one woman approached me with, "Is that really a KITTEN?! I thought it was a bird! I sounds just like that catbird!"
My downstairs neighbor, investigating why the hell her cat was meowing endlessly out the window, saw us gathered and came out to add her help. Then the second-story neighbor opened her window, and tried to entice the kitten in, but she wasn't having it. We briefly discussed opening a can of wet food, but decided that this kitten wanted to be rescued, not coerced to climb down herself.
I threw off my flip-flops and grabbed the bottom branch of the tree, but I couldn't get the traction I needed to hoist myself up. Thinking tennis shoes would do me better, I grabbed my keys and started to head back into the apartment. But before I got the door unlocked, a helpful passerby on a bike stopped and asked, "Is that really a kitten stuck in a tree? That is so cliche!"
A mother and young boy biking by stopped when they saw the crowd, too. At this point, there were about eight people stopped on the sidewalk, gazing up into the tree.
The helpful passerby took the initiative, scrabbled up the tree, and plucked the kitten from her perch. He handed her in to the second-story neighbor, and soon everyone was out on the sidewalk, gathered around my neighbor who'd brought the kitten down and out of the apartment.
She was tiny. And adorable. I know I've covered that earlier in this entry, but still, ohmygoshsocute.
We decided we should maybe put some signs up, saying we'd found a kitten. I also called the natural pet food store when I used to work, since they run adoption fairs with a local no-kill shelter, to get the name of the shelter contact. In the meantime, the kitten is staying with the first-floor neighbor. (Of course my instinct is to keep the kitten, but with the size of my apartment and the number already in my menagerie, I just can't manage it, sadface.)
But what really surprised me about the whole kitten-in-tree episode was the way a group of strangers came together: individuals noticed a problem, solved the problem (or just stood around watching the problem being solved), and then dispersed upon resolution of the problem. And it made me think about writing. You know, like most things do.
How often, when you're working on your WIP, do you consider the passers-by? If your main character is standing on the sidewalk, looking up, do the people passing him pause to look up, as well? Do any of them stop? Or do the people in your world never notice one another, never notice the kitten in the tree?
It's interesting to think about how a helpful passerby might get your main character out of a corner you didn't intend to write him into. It's interesting to think about how a group of preschool students, right hands on a jump rope, out on a walk with their teacher, might stop to giggle if they notice your main character making faces at them while he waits for a bus.
It's interesting how walk-ons can change both the tone and the direction of your story.
(Oh, and if you're looking to adopt a kitten, drop me a line. They grow on trees around where I live!)
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