Slice of Life Challenge - Day 12 - Playing Hide-and-Seek

  

 

In case this is your first time reading my slices, here is my focus for the challenge: my fifth graders and I are participating in the Slice of Life Challenge this month, and they're writing memoirs.  I thought I'd do the same kind of writing - memory writing - throughout the challenge.  My new writing idea/goal is to write a younger intermediate book (this changed since I realized I didn't have an early chapter reader "voice") based around a character very much like me, so remembering my childhood stories is very important for that project.  I'm going to be writing around photographs and memorabilia.

 

     I don't remember exactly when or how this cat came into our lives.  I do remember I was the one who named her.  I chose "Purriece," which I realize is a strange name, but she purred all the time.  It seemed to fit at the time. ;-)  She was the only cat I ever had that enjoyed perching on my shoulder as a way to get around.  She'd hang out there as I did my chores outside, my constant companion.  My favorite thing about her, though, was that she played hide-and-seek with me.  Really!

      The stall on the far right of our barn was where all the hay was kept, stacked high up against the left wall, layered into stair steps.  You could climb onto the stacks that way.  There were also feed bins filled with grain for the animals, saddles and bridles hanging on hooks, and a work bench.  It smelled of earth, wood, leather, and hay. Sunlight would stream through cracks in the wood, highlighting dust and hay particles floating in the air, looking like stars.  There were plenty of places to hide behind and between.  I would start, finding a niche in the hay, keeping my head down so she couldn't see me, and Purriece would come looking.  It wouldn't take her long; she'd peer up and over a hay bale, catching me crouched down behind it, and then take off, finding her own place to hide. She was a good hider, but she had her favorite places, so I'd pretend to look and look, talking the whole time.  When I'd spot her, she come out and wait for me to hide again, looking nonchalant when I ran off.  We could follow that routine a couple times before she got bored and climbed up on my shoulder, ready for me to finish what I was doing.  It sounds unbelievable, but it was true!