Pet Day part 4

Mollie was instantly awake. Quick as a flash, she collected the blue cat carrier that she had positioned at the end of her bed to remind her it was Pet Day, and scooped Red into it, despite his mews of protest. She gulped down her Fruity Pebbles cereal, then dashed to the laundry room to throw on her school uniform and print out her secret document. She grabbed her satchel and shoved her secret into it, and then held the cat carrier in the other hand as she sprinted towards the bus.

On the way, she met up with her best friend Lottie. "You brought Red! Is he OK with this?" Lottie questioned. Mollie bent down and peered into the cage.
To her surprise Red was sitting down, his eyelids drooping, as he purred loudly.
"Yeah, I guess he's OK," Mollie giggled.

They arrived at their school (which went by the name Lincoln Primary) and went to the classrooms to drop off Red and finish their Pet Day projects. Mollie had entered a photograph as her project, and Lottie had made an up-cycled sculpture out of rubbish. Mollie's photo was of Red stalking through her Grandpa's veggie patch, his stunning dark red fur standing out amongst the green bell peppers and the yellow squash. He was obviously hunting something at the time because he was in a crouch, staring intently at a butterfly which was perched on Grandpa's prize-winning pumpkin. It really was a beautiful picture.

Lottie's artwork was a weird little poodle dog made out of a few pom-poms, four pipe-cleaners and an egg carton. Above all that, she had painted it white and put a pink hair tie around the neck as a collar. It looked glamourous.

Mollie was so busy blue-tacking her photo to the photo wall and preparing her sand saucer (which was a little group of 'islands' floating in a bowl of water, the islands were the tops of a radish, a carrot and a pineapple, cut off so that the bushy stalks looked like forests growing on each one) that she didn't notice Red was still in his cat carrier beside her.

Suddenly the bell rang to signal the start of lunchtime.

"Mollie!" hissed Lottie, "the cat judging starts in two minutes!!" Mollie squealed and grabbed Red, running out of class sprinted across the asphalt.

Mollie and Red arrived at the Cat Podium just as she saw the judge making her way to Henry-Green Hartley (the class snob) who was with his snooty, fluffy Persian, Sir Algernon Snowy-Paws. She put Red's cat carrier on a table and almost collapsed on the grass.

The judge came up to her, and looked at Red. She smiled, and without saying anything, pinned a shiny blue ribbon on her school shirt. Mollie had come first place for Red. She immediately felt the need to tell the judge about how Grandpa had done the same many years ago. Mollie handed her "secret" document to the judge to read. Last night, she had been typing up Grandpa's story on her laptop so that she could share his facts. The judge looked thoughtful as she scanned the page, then, "wait here," she whispered, and trotted off. Mollie waited anxiously.

The First History Prize In History

The judge came trotting back in her red stilettos, smiling broadly at Mollie.
"I thought your facts were so good, I want to give you this." She grinned. She pinned a purple ribbon next to Mollie's blue one. The writing on it read: The First-Ever History Prize: Mollie Hampton. Lottie came over and hugged her, while Red meowed happily. "I've never seen a prize like that before!" Lottie giggled.

"Grandpa! Tyler! Box, come here, boy! I won! I won!"
"Won what, sis? Prize for loudest screaming?!" yelled Tyler from his room.
Grumbling, Mollie went to find Grandpa.
"Ya see, lass," Grandpa chuckled after he read the gold writing on Mollie's rosette....
"Ma stories aren't boring, are they?"

Jemma