The Great Adventure

Peewee and Tabitha didn’t understand what had just happened. They were confused. They felt bad because Joyce was crying as she left them and instinctively they knew that they should try and comfort her. But they couldn’t because she floated away without them. And they couldn’t grasp why the whole world was now under water, and why they were left all alone. Surely the Old Man would soon come and put things right. All they had to do was wait.

And so the two animals waited. And they waited. Peewee on the railing and Tabitha in the water. There was nowhere to go because the water was everywhere. Tabitha, being a terrier, didn’t like water. Minutes passed, and then hours, and she became more and more miserable. Her ears and tail drooped. But she knew she had to be patient because the Old Man would come home. He always came home.

The afternoon wore on, and still no sign of the Old Man. Evening came, and nothing. The two animals were getting hungry, and Tabitha was getting very tired because she could not sit or lie down.

Evening turned to night. There were no lights anywhere. It was pitch- black. This didn’t really bother Peewee, who, being a cat, could see perfectly well in the dark. But he could sense that there was something eerie and not right in the quiet and the stillness. Occasionally they would hear bangs in the distance, to which Tabitha would perk up her ears and cock her head, and Peewee would stare intently. The sounds of gunfire were unfamiliar to them. And then it would be quiet again and Tabitha’s ears would droop as she stood wet and motionless and dispirited and Peewee would lay his head on the railing and watch her with concern. But the Old Man would come home and make things right.

The hours wore on and on and on, in a miserable and endless chain. The animals were getting increasingly desperate. Eventually, after what seemed ages, the first pink rays of the approaching dawn emerged. The two beasts, not having eaten in over a day and a half, were now really hungry. Tabitha was so weary she was starting to feel a little weak. And still no Old Man.

The sun finally dawned and with it the realization in the animal’s minds that no one was coming home. As the first shafts of sunlight hit the porch Tabitha became agitated and started to pace back and forth, whining and looking out into the lake that had been the street. Her instinct seemed to be telling her that she could no longer stay and wait if she wanted to survive. She paced and whined and kept going to the edge of the porch, where the stairs were, seemingly trying to pluck up the courage to dive into the water. Peewee watched with interest. Tabitha trod back and forth and back and forth and whimpered and then finally she took the plunge. She stepped off the porch and into the deep water and began to swim away. Peewee’s cat intuition made a split second decision. A perfectly graceful leap brought him on to Tabitha’s back. He landed lightly and only had to use his claws a little bit to hold on. If Tabitha was startled she didn’t let on. She just kept swimming, and slowly, with Peewee stretched out on her back and holding on to her neck, she doggie paddled away from the Old Man’s house. It must have been an odd sight indeed, had there been anyone around to see it.

Whether she chose a direction by instinct or by chance is impossible to know, yet Tabitha seemed certain of which way she wanted to go. She swam and swam. But terriers are not like retrievers, they are not born swimmers. Tabitha barely managed to keep her nose above the water’s surface. She huffed and snorted and tried not to swallow too much of the dirty brown water. Soon her muscles began to ache and then to loose strength. Still she swam on, knowing she had to.

Here and there the animals noticed fallen power lines with their wires tangled all over the place. Something about these made Tabitha’s fur tingle.

Whether this was due to some deep instinct or maybe due to a slight electrical current is hard to say, but it told her to avoid the things. At one point she had to make a wide detour to avoid a fallen power line mixed up with a tree. This only sapped more of her limited strength.

As Tabitha labored along, the animals noticed that the water was getting deeper. The houses were now entirely submerged and just the roofs were visible. They both understood that this wasn’t good.

It wasn’t long before Tabitha could no longer keep going. She had started out on the swim weak and tired but now she was really running out of energy. The situation was critical. Her legs could not paddle anymore. She headed for the nearest house. The lower edge of the roof was only about a foot above the water. As soon as they got there Peewee jumped off her back and on to the dry roof and shook his wet legs. Tabitha attempted to follow him, struggling with her front paws on the wood siding, maybe hoping to grab a hold of the gutter, but it was pointless. A dog isn’t a cat, and climbing is not something dogs can do very well. She tried and tried to scramble on to the roof, but it was no good. Her increasingly desperate exertions were taking their toll and she was fast loosing her ability to stay afloat. She was ready to give up.

Peewee, who had been standing on the edge of the roof meowing loudly as he watched Tabitha’s futile attempts at getting out of the water, stopped suddenly. He stared intently at something behind Tabitha. Tabitha sensed Peewee’s concentration and stopped struggling. She turned around and saw what had caught Peewee’s attention: a tree floating by.

With the last few ounces of strength she had in her, Tabitha swam to the tree. She now had no energy left and she barely managed to put a paw around a large branch and pull herself up.

Peewee became very agitated as he watched Tabitha swim away. He ran back and forth along the edge of the roof. When he saw Tabitha climb on the floating tree he made his decision. He jumped into the water.

Cats might tell you they really hate the water and that they can’t swim, but that isn’t really true. At least the second part isn’t. They do hate the water, but cats can swim quite well when they have to. And before long, both Peewee and Tabitha were perched on the floating tree. Tabitha, dead tired, immediately fell into a deep deep sleep. Peewee, stretched out on a branch, lay down in his John Wayne pose and stood watch.