February 20 - Pumpkin

Four-year-old Melinda was always skittish around animals. Maybe it was because of the rottweiler who lived (and barked loudly) in the apartment next door. Maybe it was because Melinda and her parents, Bill and Vicki, lived in the city and she just wasn't used to animals. Whatever the case, Bill and Vicki were beginning to worry that she would never be comfortable enough with animals to have a pet, and having a pet was definitely an experience they wanted for her (and themselves). So shortly before her 5th birthday, they took her to visit Uncle Phil and Aunt Alice's farm to introduce her to ponies, baby lambs, chicks and the like.
It went well. In the morning they took her to the pen where they kept the sheep. Phil and Alice's 11-year-old son Roy picked up the smallest, cutest baby lamb he could find and carried it over to Melinda and her parents. Following their exaggerated encouragement and modeling, she cautiously pet the sheep and even laughed a bit when the sheep bleated softly.
Next came the chickens. The hens' darting eyes and clucking made her nervous, but she enjoyed the chicks. Roy let her hold one. She gripped it delicately in one hand and pet it with the other, and Bill and Vicki smiled.
After lunch they even managed to get her on the back of a portly Shetland pony named Rufus. She held on tight and concentrated harder than she needed to--Phil led the very gentle Rufus himself while Bill and Vicki flanked/spotted her with studied casualness. But the important thing was that she seemed to be OK with it.
By that time, it was mid-afternoon and they needed to start getting back home. Bill and Vicki talked with Phil and Alice while Melinda and Roy played nearby with the cats who lived in the horse barn.
Vicki went over to tell Melinda it was time to go home. Melinda turned around with one of the cats, a bright orange scamp she was already calling Pumpkin.
"Mom, can we keep her?" Pumpkin squirmed out of her hands and ran into the barn.
Vicki laughed. "Well, um--"
She turned around to look at Bill. A big part of this trip had been to lay the groundwork for getting Melinda comfortable with the idea of having an animal in the house. Bill shrugged and looked at Phil. "Um?"
"It's OK by us," said Alice. "You'd be doing us a favor. We've been looking for homes for them anyway."
"Yeah," said Phil. "The dogs don't get along well with them at all and they're getting to be a bit of a handful as far as taking care of them is concerned. If they don't find homes soon, we're gonna have to, uh, get rid of them." He looked at Bill as if to say, If you know what I mean.
Bill and Vicki looked at each other and then Vicki was about to give Melinda a talk about the responsibility of taking care of a pet, but then there was a small commotion in the barn.
Moments later, Pumpkin came back outside and spit a dead mouse out at Melinda's feet. Roy was elated.
"Aw, cool! Mom, dad, Pumpkin got herself a mouse!"
Bill and Vicki looked over at where Melinda was kneeling and looking at the mouse with what looked like shock. She looked over at her parents, confused, moments away from a meltdown. They stumbled on their words, no idea how to spin this one. Was it time to tell her about how nature worked and gently tell her that sometimes animals eat other animals even though they're cute? When was that lesson supposed to come? Not today, that's all they knew.
Roy kept gushing over Pumpkin. "Wow, you're lucky! Pumpkin's super cute and she's a super good worker! She's gonna keep your house nice and safe!" He picked up Pumpkin and rubbed her belly. "Aren't you, girl! Aren't you!"
He held Pumpkin so that Melinda could pet her, too.
Melinda reached out and gingerly pet Pumpkin's head, and Bill and Vicki could have hugged Roy for how deftly he'd saved the day.
"It's too bad dad says we'll have to kill the rest of the litter, but at least Pumpkin's gonna have a good home."
Melinda looked at her parents in horror.
And that afternoon, Melinda and her parents went home with not only Pumpkin, but also her five brothers and sisters as well.