The Story of a Shy Girl

Once upon a time, there was a year-old kitty who had already had a litter of kittens who ended up in a rescue called Project MEOW Philadelphia. She lived in a foster home for quite a few months with other kitties, and two sisters who loved her and took amazing care of her.

Then in early May 2023, two people came to visit those sisters and seemed very interested in this little girl kitty, whose name was Beatrice Pemberton - Beatrice because it was a name someone really liked, and Pemberton because she was found with her kittens on Pemberton Street in West Philadelphia. Beatrice was pretty shy, but she let the two people play the fishing lure game with her, and allowed the lady to get kind of close to give her a treat. Then she went on with her kitty life in her foster home.

Except - two weeks later, her foster mother put her in a carrier (the HORROR) with only her SpiderMan sheet that she loved and then she was in a car, and when they got someplace else and she was let out of the carrier, she was in a house she didn't know, with strange smells, and the two people who had visited weeks before. Beatrice was not happy! She hid and wanted absolutely nothing to do with those two.

But - she could smell and hear other kitties! That seemed like something worth investigating. So even though she still didn't really like the people, she figured out that by letting them see her, she could eventually leave the room and meet those other cats. There were three of them!

One, a stripey orange kitty named Pip, was just so friendly and sweet, and wanted to cuddle with her and sometimes give her a bath, like her mommy kitty had so long ago. Beatrice liked Pip. It turned out that Pip only had three legs, but that never stopped him. It actually made Beatrice think things would be OK, because she only had one eye.

There was also Milo, another orange stripey kitty, who was called The Koodle, but not necessarily for good reasons. She heard Milo called "a brat," and he did seem to do things that got him into trouble a lot. Also, sometimes he peed outside the litter box, and Beatrice knew that you just don't do that. He started out growling at her and chasing her, but then the two people and the other kitties would intervene and he would get in trouble, so he decided to just let her do her thing.

But the BEST other kitty was a really big, really fluffy gray and white cat named Alfie. Alfie also only had three legs, but he almost immediately became Beatrice's very best friend ever. 

Beatrice still didn't want anything to do with the people, but they were nice to her. They fed her, gave her water, made sure she had a clean litterbox, and let her go wherever she wanted in the whole house. One of her most favorite things was to go into the guest bedroom, where the other kitties said the best sunspots were, and where they would sleep on the bed sometimes. Beatrice liked to lounge on the windowsill when the windows were open.

Now, Beatrice knew that her name was not the name she was born with, as all kitties know. But of course she also knew that there was no way people knew kitty cats' true names. The man in the house where she was living kept calling her Esmeralda, which she kind of liked, because she thought it sounded really fancy. And so that became her new name, "Esme" for short. That seemed fine. 

She also noticed that the other kitties seemed to really like the two people. They cuddled with them, and slept with them, and the two people actually turned out to be pretty nice. But Esme decided she still needed to be careful.

One day, the lady in the house was opening a big box and putting something together (don't worry - Esme watched from far away), and then she put it in front of the window that looked out on the garden and said, "That's for you, pretty girl." 

Esme did know that she was the only girl in the house, and everyone told her she was pretty, so it must be for her, right? Her very own place to sleep, look out the window, and observe goings on safely out of reach. She decided she would use it every single day.

Though she also realized that the bed in the guest bedroom that the other kitties told her about was pretty nice too.

So Esme decided she would settle in, because she thinks she might have found her forever family! She is still very cautiously keeping a distance from the man and the lady, though they are nothing but nice to her and tell her they love her all the time, which is nice to hear. And she is letting them get a little bit closer all of the time. 

Alfie and the others keep telling her not to be afraid of them, but she spent too much time on her own with her kittens and no home at all to feel to confident yet. She's hoping she'll get brave enough to be around them more, because the other kitties seem to get lots of pets, kisses, and cuddles, and Esme thinks she would probably like that.

She *is* glad that they are letting her take her own time. In the meanwhile she is enjoying playing with her new siblings, especially goofy Alfie, and watching the birds and squirrels in the garden. She hopes her kittens are having good lives as well. 

Esme has decided it will all work out, and when she worries it won't be, she takes a nap in the kitty bed with her SpiderMan sheet to make sure it's all OK. 

(Who knows, one day she might actually let the lady and/or the man take a photo of her to show people without having to use the zoom-in feature on their phones ...)