Sec 1 English-Xmas HW

A Cat Named Turtle by Ellen Perry Berkely

I didn't grow up with cats. Or with dogs. We once harboured the dalmatian of a vacationing aunt and uncle. If all had gone well, we'd have gotten our own dog.

But all did not go well. My brother refused to clean-up after the dog, and soon we were permanently critter-free. Not that my mother minded. having been scratched by a cat when she was little, she feared anything that moved too quickly on too many legs. My father, a city boy, had no experience with animals and less interest in them.

But I married a cat-lover. In his meagre walk-up flat in New York City, Roy had enjoyed the company of several marvellous felines, one of them a waif from the subway. I listened to his fond recollections in the same way I heard his tales of some other experiences: They were interesting, even compelling, but nothing I thought I'd ever experience myself.

And then we moved to Vermont and found the cats on our land. Or they found us-and it was really their land. They were feral, having lived in the wild for who-knows-how-long. We extended a hand literally and figuratively to newly named Mama Cat, Honey Puss, Herbert and Sylvester, giving them food on the deck, shelter in the carport and veterinary care for the occasional ailment. Now we realized we should have neutered them, too.

We first saw Turtle trotting along behind her mother, in a parade that included several chubby kittens making their way from the blackberry thicket, across the driveway and into the pine trees. She reappeared briefly a year later, unmistakably the same tortoiseshell. The year afterward, she visited often. I named her when I didn't quite like her; she was nervous, pushy, eating Honey Puss's food. Turtle seemed a good name for a tortoiseshell, especially one who didn't yet have my affection.

1. Dictionary check.
2. Summary - Using only paragraphs 1 to 4, write in not more than 50 words a summary on the writer's experience with animals.