Lost in the Woods

by jonesie732004 (JoAnne), sammish(Patrick), cl-lcni (Leslie) and cl-crzykat1(Kat)

Once upon a time there was a beautiful, pampered girl kitty named Precious. She was smoke gray with long hair and her owners took her with them everywhere they went; camping, car rides, etc. They had decided to take a trip to the Colorado Rockies and camp there. When they arrived where they decided to make camp, they let Precious roam the campsite area knowing she would not wander off. On the day they decided to leave, being busy loading their things in the car, they weren't keeping an eye on Precious and Precious, spotting a beautiful butterfly had followed it farther and farther away from the campsite. When it was time to leave, they couldn't find Precious anywhere. They called and called and searched, but Precious by this time was too far away to hear them. After searching for hours they frantically made some phone calls and told everyone they would be home later than planned.  They continued to search the area, to no avail.  Precious, by now, had wandered about 2 miles down the road, ending up at the game warden's house.  The game warden saw Precious and knew immediately what must have happened.  "Those people think they can just come up here and drop these beautiful babies off!  Don't they worry about what might happen?"  His wife came out to join him and they fed Precious and petted her.  Precious looked up at the couple and suddenly realized that these were not her humans!  She meowed loudly and leaped off the porch into the grass. The game warden and his wife tried to catch Precious, but they weren't quick enough. Precious ran and ran becoming more and more lost and even farther away from her humans. Meanwhile as devastated and terror-stricken as her humans were, they knew they could not stay where they were any longer. The man had to be back at work the next day. As heart-broken as they were they packed up their car and left for home.

Precious stopped running after awhile, and looking around realized she didn't know how to get back to her humans, and, it was getting dark.As darkness slowly descended on the forest, Precious was beginning to feel very frightened.  "What are all those strange noises I hear", she thought and then climbed to nearest tree just to be safe. As she looked down, she saw a family of skunks walk by.  She never saw anything like that before, the looked like black cats with white stripes on their backs.  "Oh dear", she thought, "They smell awful. But maybe they can help me”.  Her voice quivering she meowed: "Hello, my name's Precious and I am lost, I don't know how to get back to my humans".  Momma skunk looked up and saw precious huddled on a branch of a large tree, "Precious, what a cute name" she said.  "But we're skunks and humans don't really like us very much" she told Precious.  "You see, I was camping with my humans and I started to follow a butterfly and I couldn't find my way back to our camping site" she explained to the momma skunk.   "Well, come on with us Precious", Momma skunk said, "we know where the humans camp, we can help you find your way back."

Precious felt so much better as she hopped down from her branch and followed momma skunk and her six little ones to the camp sites. Precious could smell her humans, but they were no where to be found. She sat down and began to cry mournfully, but mama skunk said, "Don’t worry; you can stay with us for awhile." So they all wandered back into the forest and Precious was so sad and scared. Just as they approached the campsite, Precious heard her humans talking and took off running at a fast clip to the spot they had been!  When she arrived, they weren't there!  Wait, she could hear them talking... Where were they?  She rounded the bend and there they were in their vehicle slowly cruising past all the bushes and wait!  She could hear them calling her!  MEOW!!  MEOW!!  I am here, don't leave!  She ran right up next to the vehicle!  The man slammed on the brakes as she ran right in front of the vehicle!  He was now in panic mode as well as the rest of the family, for they feared she had run underneath their tires.  Slowly the man opened the door and in jumped Precious, meowing and purring loudly.  They were so happy to see her, they didn't notice that her newfound friends had followed her and were now climbing up into the vehicle!  Just as Precious was settling down in between them, they saw her new friends and looked at each other and screamed! 

“Huh!  Wha….”  Precious realized that she was just dreaming about her humans finding her at the last possible moment, when Momma skunk invited her to come stay with her and her family for a while.  Momma skunk knew how sad Precious was feeling and knew that Precious could smell her humans because she could smell them too. "Come on, Precious," Momma skunk said, "You can stay with us and we will go to visit Wise Old Owl who lives nearby, he'll be able to give us some advice on how you can get home again."  So Precious continued to stay with the Skunk family, she learned to eat grubs, worms and bugs, as she trotted along with the Skunk family, her tail high in the air, because she felt loved and cared for by this wonderful smelly family.  She played with the little skunks, and thought, "Hmm, they are pretty much like little kittens."  At night time she would curl up comfortably with the Skunk family and was cozy and warm.  In fact she didn't even notice the smell anymore. 

After a couple of days, Momma skunk said; "Precious, we really love you and wish you could stay with us for ever, but we know that you are feeling sad because you are not with your humans".  It's time for us to visit Wise Old Owl who lives in the forest.  Precious knew that Wise Old Owl would give her some great advice, but she also knew that sometimes owls eat kitties, not that owls are mean or anything, it’s just the way owls are.  Momma skunk instinctively knew that Precious was frightened about talking to Wise Old Owl.  "My dear Precious," she said, "don't worry, we will talk to Wise Old Owl when he has finished hunting, and you will be very safe."  So very early in the morning when Wise Old Owl had finished hunting they went to his tree, where he could always be found.  

"Wise Old Owl" Momma skunk began. "We have found this lost kitty here in the forest and she can't find her humans, can you, in your great wisdom, help us?" 
"Well, of course, I can" said Wise Old Owl, "here's what you will need to do....."
Wise Old Owl told Precious that every couple of days she should go back to the camp that her humans had been at because surely one day they would be back looking for her. This sounded like good advice to the skunks and to Precious. So every couple of days back they would go to check out the campsite. Sometimes other humans were there and they would throw rocks and other debris at them to chase them away. After all, who liked skunks?! Precious always hid in the bushes so none of these humans ever saw her. After several of times of the rock throwing, yelling episodes, Momma skunk said to Precious; "Precious, dear, this is getting too dangerous for my little ones, skunks are not as fast as cats, and one day one of my little kits are going to get hurt...I think we will have to find another way to find your humans."   Poor Precious was feeling so bad because she missed her humans and now she was putting the baby skunks in danger.   Just as she was about to scurry away from those mean humans with the skunk family, she noticed something under a little brush... She ran over to see what it was.  
"Momma skunk, over hear, hurry" Precious mewed, "this looks like a picture of me", as she held up the piece of paper in her paws.  But alas, no one could read what the paper said, all they saw was the picture of Precious... and a good likeness it was.  "I know" Momma skunk said, "Humans can read, lets take this over to the ranger station."  "Good idea" everyone chorused, even the baby skunks. 

"Momma skunk" Precious said in a frightened voice, "I am afraid of most humans.  You saw how those humans back at the campsite threw stuff at us... My humans aren't like that; they are so kind a gentle to every animal."  "What about that ranger", Precious continued, "I was there once and he tried to catch me, so I ran away from him."  
"Oh, Precious, my dear kitty," Momma skunk said in her motherly voice, "you never have to worry about our ranger.  He is a kind and gentle man; he loves all of the animals here in the park.  Last winter we had an epidemic of some kind, some animals frothed at the mouth and behaved very strangely, why, some of them even died.  Ranger Ed, fed all the animals some meat with a medicine inside that protected us from this horrible disease" Momma skunk explained.  "In fact when he sees me and my babies he always feeds us... so let's take that paper over to Ranger and see if he can read it."

Precious felt a lot better after Momma skunk explained how kind and gentle Ranger Ed was and scurried along with Momma skunk and her babies to the ranger station. 
Precious and Momma skunk made it to the ranger station and Ranger Ed was there, eating his lunch under a shady tree.  Precious was excited but scared.  She had the paper in her mouth as she carefully went over to Ranger Ed.  As she approached Ranger Ed, he got up and Precious was really scared now and dropped the paper and ran under a bush!  Ranger Ed picked up the paper and read it.  Then he called, "Precious, is that you?  Come out, I won't hurt you."

Precious look out from under the bush.  Momma skunk told her it was OK.  Precious came out.  Ranger Ed knelt down calling Precious over to him.  Precious went over to Ranger Ed.  Ranger Ed petted her and said, "It is you!  I will call your family right now and we'll get you home soon."

When Precious' family got the call from Ranger Ed they were ecstatic.  Ranger Ed arranged for Precious to be picked up by her mommy.  Things happened so fast that Precious didn't have time to tell all of her new friends good-bye and thank you, but they knew as animals know these things.

Precious was reunited with her family and was so happy that she ate, drank and slept for days on end and vowed never to get too far from her family again.

The End.