We were all waiting for somebody to pick us up after school. It was kind of a rainy day and this guy on a bike came right in front of the gate of the school carrying a sack. The sack was suspiciously moving and all the girls start shouting. “Its an animal.” The small door on the side next to the big green gate to let us out was ajar and I instinctively runned to open it and started running after the bike.

“What do you have there?” I shouted. “I was told to throw this cat into the river to drown it.” he said.

Yes. The brown waters of the Mapocho river were just less than a block from the school so that was not uncommon at all.

Without thinking twice I grabbed the sack from his hand and said “I will not allow you to be an assassin.” The guy laughed and said “Then it’s yours”.

I carefully open the sack and the most beautiful black and white tiny creature looked straight into my eyes and meowed. She quickly climbed out of the sac and into my arms.

When my mother arrived to pick me up, I was surrounded by little girls exclaiming “oohs” and “ahs” and trying to pet the tiny kitty.

Everybody was excitedly trying to tell my mother how I rescued the cat. My mother saw the kitty and I saw her smile. She said “We will see what you father says about this.” The little cat slept on my arms all the way home in the bus.

I called her Monona in my mind because that is what she was. Monona means “adorable cute”.

Mother and I gave Monona a warm bath and when my father arrived she was dry and beautiful.

Before my father, who was already frowning, could say anything, my mother said, ” We need to talk” and took him to the living room. I heard her telling him what I had done to rescue the kitty. His reaction was bad, of course. He said “We have told her not to speak to strangers, especially a man on a bike”. My mother then patiently showed him the act of kindness that I had instinctively jumped to do, and slowly he calmed down and gave up. Monona was there to stay.

She was a really smart and loving cat. She learned to run and hang from the door handles to open doors. She particularly preferred to open the kitchen door where her food was.

She also learned that slowly jumping into my father’s lap and purring was a winner. After work, my father usually prepared a drink and sat in the living room to relax. He would happily let her sit in his lap until dinner was ready.

One night when my parents had invited some people to dinner Monona did her favorite trick. There were eight people sitting at the table, including me. (My parents always treated me as a grown up and included me in all their social affairs.) Monona silently came under the table and jumped on my lap. She stayed there for a while, but then I saw everybody at the table jumping up on their seats, causing major rumblings on the table. Monona had run from my lap onto the laps of each of one of the diners causing major reactions.

When they saw the cat proudly jump down from the last lap and seat on the floor away from the table at a spot where all diners could see her, they all start laughing.

It was a happy occasion, in spite of my father cautioning me that next time I should keep Monona in my room. The funny thing is that I had, but she knew how to open the door!

The most terrible tragedy happened when we moved from our apartment in downtown Santiago to the neighborhood of Providencia, near my School. One of my cousins came in his car for us while the truck with the furniture drove our belongings.

I took my cat in my arms and she slept all the way without a meow. When we arrived to the “new” house we had to start distributing the boxes full of stuff, and mother and Tita, my nanny, started telling the movers where to put the furniture. Mother and I climbed the stairs. I had Monona in my arms and let her go upstairs in what was going to be my room. Mother had taken with her the linens and blankets for the beds and placed them all on newspapers on top of the floor of her bedroom. It was a big pile.

The house was “huge”– two floors, three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, big and separated dining room and living room, plus a music room, a well-equipped kitchen and a bedroom and bath for our maid. My parents bedroom had a terrace, and we had a big patio on the back of the house, and a nice garden in front with two orange and one lemon tree that faithfully produced beautiful and juicy lemons at least 4 times a year.

I remember carefully observing that the big main door was kept closed in between the coming and going of the movers bringing the furniture in.

When the move was done, mother and I looked for a chair and sat down. We were very tired. However, as soon as I sat down I remembered Monona and I went up the stairs to open the door of my bedroom. The men had put my bed, night tables, table and chairs there, in the room, but I had been vigilant to see that Monona remained in the closet while they moved things around.

I arrived upstairs and the door of my room was open. I went inside the room and the door of the closet was also open. I started calling Monona but she did not come. I went to my parents rooms, the guest room and the big restroom in the second floor but I did not find my cat.

I, then, without stopping to call Monona, went downstairs and I informed my mother that Monona was not in my room or the second floor. Mother immediately started calling her, too. We searched all the rooms of the house and even the patio and the garden shouting her name.

When my father came home past 6:00pm or so, mother, Tita and I were trying to organize some things and piling boxes, but we were still calling for Monona and told father we could not find her. He also was concerned and helped to call, but nothing.

Tita had prepared a light meal and after we ate, father decided that we needed to go to bed early because next day we had to have it “all done” according to him.

Mother then decided to go upstairs and make the beds. I went with her and Tita came after few minutes. We noticed that the pile of linens and blankets that my mother had placed on top of the newspapers at the feet of the bed were a little disorganized, but we assumed that the movers had stepped on them, or something like that. However, when we started picking up the linens, we saw the pile move. Monona had found the blankets and made herself a nice nest. She had been sleeping there all the time we were desperately looking for her.

We compensated Monona with a big meal.