A Strange Noise

The Strange Noise

“Wow! Look at those designs!” my mother cried out. Being a boy, I was bored with all those girly stuff my mother was buying for our newborn baby girl. We had been shopping for the past hour and I was starting to feel drowsy- from doing nothing but carrying the newly bought clothing.
“Mum, I will wait for you outside okay? I will be seating at that bench over there.” I declared, pointing to a bench at the side.
After sitting on the bench for over 5 minutes, I looked up and saw my mother still hurrying along in the shop, busy finding more accessories and looked down again, almost falling asleep. Out of the blue, I heard something- a strange, weird sound. What was it? I looked around. No one suspicious. Who? Or rather, what? Everyone just walked past- I do not think they had heard anything. All of a sudden, it happened again- an abnormal sound from… behind me? I braced myself, then slowly turned around, eyes closed to but a tiny hole to see through- I was actually scared! I peeped behind me- it was but some boxes on the floor- and the sound was coming from within!
I did not know what to expect, but clueless as I was, I decided to stop the sound once and for all. It crept me out just hearing the noise. I mustered all my strength, and slowly forced my hand to just reach out- but the hand just would not move-I was too terrified of what might be the conclusion- me eaten up by some sort of a monster inside the box. Okay, maybe I watched too many horror movies. I opened a flap of one of the boxes on top- to see nothing. I threw aside, taking another one. Nope, nothing inside this one either. I walked to the third one and opened a flap, only to notice something orange, when that same sound sounded again.
By now, I was petrified. What was it? Would it be… no, it cannot be. I timidly opened the other flap with an ever-shaking hand.
When I opened it, a sound “Cuckoo!” greeted me warmly, but that was not the thing that was orange. Together with it was a little tabby cat. So cute, but so dirty. It purred loudly- I guess it was relieved someone found it at last. Some irresponsible person must have put the cat here but somehow pitied it and put a bit of water with it, and a cuckoo, but I could see that the cat was quite afraid of the cuckoo. Too bad for it.
“Hey Bruce! Come help me with these cool water bottles!” My mother exclaimed, but after seeing what I was looking at, she stopped in her tracks. “Oh my goodness! What a…” she started off, then stopped abruptly, not knowing what to say.
Having a passion for animals, I inquired wistfully, “Mummy, can we keep it?” However, my mother disagreed, and started to blast a million reasons why we could not into my head. I argued and finally my mother suggested. “How about this? We can go and question everyone if they have a missing cat. If no one wants to keep it, we will. Is that alright?” I agreed. This meant I would definitely get to keep the cat- after all, if the owner wanted it so badly, why would he put the cat here? I was sure I would be able to keep this cat after a day or two at most.
That day, my mother went home elated with all the accessories she needed for the newborn baby, and I went home contentedly with knowledge I would be able to keep a cat, and most importantly, I was able to give the cat a pleasant home.