I pull my head up off the ground, yawning as I do so. As my stomach stretches, it lets out a loud grumble. Hungry I may be, but my first priority is not food for myself, but for my daughter, Lilli. I wrap the warm blanket I found the other day around Lilli and go out hunting. A few hours later, and I have found nothing. What am I supposed to feed Lilli?
“Mama?” I hear Lilli’s weak voice. You can almost hear the lack of food.
“Yes sweetie? What happened?”
“I’m hungry mama,” she says.
“I know baby. Food is almost ready.” I lie. It sound pretty convincing, but Lilli takes one look at my face and says, “ I wanna help you hunt mama.” And with that, we go off into the woods.
Later, Lilli and I return to our house. Luckily, we found a squirrel. It’ll keep our stomachs down, but I’ll have to go hunting again. Sigh.
At dawn, I walk back to the lake looking for anything that will keep Lilli alive. Nothing. The lake is deserted of fish and there are no animals in the woods. Sigh. Now Lilli and I will die for sure.
As I’m walking back to our house, I get stopped by a freakishly large man in a suit. He picks me up, inspects almost every inch of my body and says, “You’re perfect! Sarah will love you!” The man’s strange device starts ringing and to stop the noise he has to reposition me in his left arm. I take this opportunity to jump out of his arms and run to Lilli. I can’t let this man take us. I don’t know who this Sarah person is, but I know that he will take us to the pound and we will starve and die. Not that we won’t starve and die out here where I can’t even find a simple meal for my daughter and I.
The man with the ringing device, what I’ve decided to call him, follows me to our tiny makeshift cardboard house on the corner of the street. His little machine has finally stopped ringing and he’s chasing me to take Lilli and I to the pound. I will not let him.
Finally, I reach Lilli, who’s sleeping inside our house, and pick me up so gently as to not wake her. I run as fast as I can away from the man with the ringing device, but to no avail, he is gaining speed and closing the distance between us very quickly.
After running for what seems like ages, I finally lose the man with the ringing device. I slow down and set Lilli on the ground beneath us, wet from last night’s rain. She stirs slightly and then opens her eyes.
“Mama. Where are we?” she asks groggily.
“Sweetie there was a man chasing us. He wanted to take us to the pound. But don’t worry, we are safe now.” I answer her truthfully. There is no point in lying to Lilli, since she always catches my lies.
Lilli seems to notice something a little far away, because she stands up and starts walking across the street. Getting up myself, I follow her and make sure no cars hit her on the way. Finally, she stops, right in front of a person facing the other direction. She sits down, and taps the girl on the leg with her head. The girl turns around, looking for the source. When she looks down at us, her expression turns from one of confusion to one of joy and happiness.
“Awwwwww. How cute!” she exclaims, lifting Lilli into her arms. My body tenses a little bit, not sure if I can trust this girl to take care of my daughter.
“Daddy’s going to love you! I’ve always wanted a dog. And now I’ve got two!!” she says excitedly. Setting Lilli down, she motions for us to follow her. Lilli looks at me pleadingly, and with a little hesitation, I nod slightly. We follow the girl wearing a red and yellow dress as she walks back the direction we came from.
I’m a little worried we’re going to run into the man with the ringing device again, but to my luck we don’t. The girl wearing the red and yellow dress stops in a familiar park. She leans down toward us and tells us to stay right where we are and she will be right back.
Lilli lies down on the soft and wet grass wiggling around, trying to get comfortable. As for me, I turn to look in the direction the girl went and see that she is talking to a man who is turned around.
After what seems like ages, the girl starts walking back to us. By this point, Lilli has found Jordan, a new playmate, and they are currently playing with Jordan’s person, who I don’t know the name of.
“Daddy look! I found two dogs! They don’t have nametags on them. Can we keep them?” I hear the girl say, as she approach’s me. I turn around and to my surprise I see the man with the ringing device. Oh no. Now we’re defiantly going to the pound.
“Oh Sarah! These are the two dogs that I had found before as well. I had planned to bring them home with me since you’ve been begging for a dog, and you got good grades this semester. But they ran away before I could do anything.” The man with the ringing device said.
What? He was going to take us home. That means that I ran away from him for nothing? How could I be so stupid?
“So does this mean we can keep them?” Sarah asks.
“Yes it does.” The man with the ringing device replies.
Sarah picks us Lilli, twirls her around for a minute, and finally hugs her tightly. Lilli just snuggles deeper into Sarah’s neck with a huge smile on her face.
As we walk back to Sarah and the man with the ringing device’s house, I remember how just this morning I was searching for food for Lilli, and I, and now I never have to do that again.
Finally, after all these years of searching, we finally have a family.