Happy Birthday Emily!

Emily and Rudy

By

Grandma Baadsgaard

(This is a special story for my granddaughter Emily on her ninth birthday.)

Emily has a cat named Rudy. Or perhaps one ought to say . . . the mighty Rudy has a girl named Emily.


“Mom,” Emily sighed one night as her mother tucked her in bed, “Rudy thinks he is a wild tiger. When I try to pet him, he scratches me. I wish Rudy was a nice kitty.”


“Pets are like people,” her mom answered. They come in all varieties. But every single one has something loveable about them. You just have to keep paying attention and pretty soon you’ll know what that is.


So Emily carefully watched Rudy every day after that.


The next day when Emily said, “Come here!” Rudy pounced out of sight. He was more interested in a cricket in their back yard.


When Emily rode her bike with her friend Maysie, Rudy darted under her bare feet and made her fall off her bike.


When Emily played on the trampoline with Taylor and Dillon, Rudy meowed and meowed until she picked him up. But when Emily tried to jump, Rudy panicked, scratched her cheek and flew off the trampoline.


When she practiced her piano, Rudy rubbed his body fur back and forth on the sliding glass door and looked so lonely Emily just had to let him inside. Then Rudy scratched the couch with his long claws so Emily tried to catch him and put him out again. But Rudy ran into the laundry room, jumped in a basket of nicely folded clean clothes and left a pile of matted cat hair and muddy paw prints all over everything.


Emily started wondering if she would ever find something loveable about Rudy. Then one day, quite unexpectedly, it happened. Emily was outside on her swing set crying. Her grandma had given her a sparkly lady bug pin for her birthday but her younger sisters found it when she was at school and lost it.


Emily was dangling her feet on the swing and rubbing her red eyes when she spied Rudy in the tall grass. He pounced on a grasshopper. Then all of a sudden he leaped straight in the air, did a back flip and plopped up-side-down on the ground.


Emily laughed so hard she forgot why she was sad.


“Oh Rudy,” Emily said with a smile.


“I think I know one thing that is loveable about Rudy,” Emily said as her mother tucked her in bed that night. “He makes me laugh.”