The little cat sat down and started to wash right in the middle of the footpath. She was washing off grains of sand and other dirt from her paw when suddenly one of the wheels of a large baby carriage hit her right on her thin side. The baby squeaked loudly and jumped to the side, but was immediately hit by a woman’s boot.
Probably the girl did not find another way to remove the obstacle from the road. After that, she, along with the carriage, as if nothing had happened, went on. She was completely indifferent to the fate of this little lump, which interfered with her simply by his presence.
Blackie remained sitting where it had been thrown from the blow. If she hadn’t been so thin, she might not have paid attention to the kick, but the little girl never knew what it meant to eat her fill. She calmed down, lay down on the asphalt heated by the sun, and did not move.
Blackie was neither hurt nor offended. In her life, she had not seen anything good from people and simply did not know that it was different. She was unaware that kittens can love and enjoy their presence, that they have delicious food and clean bedding. And that a person with his own hands can not offend, but caress animals – she could not imagine this even in her wildest dreams.
Perhaps someone would have picked up Blackie if they had seen it. But the tiny cat girl looked more like a dirty piece of fur and was almost invisible among the drying autumn grass.
Surprisingly, it was the blind grandmother Anya, who was prescribed by doctors to take daily walks, who discovered Blackie. An elderly woman obediently went for a walk along different routes every day, tapping with Nordic walking sticks.
Blackie lay in the same place without moving and would have remained unnoticed if not for the fly that had landed on her ear. The little girl did not react to anything, and only slightly shook her head. But the fly turned out to be persistent and did not want to leave the cozy area, which forced Blackie to twitch its ear a little harder. It was this movement that the elderly woman saw. A piece of dirty fur turned out to be a kitten, which looked so unhappy that Grandma Anya’s heart trembled.
Suddenly, an elderly woman heard someone calling: “Anna Vasilyevna!” By her first name and patronymic, as a rule, only former students called her. And indeed, raising her head, the woman saw that Nikolai was standing in front of her. But how much has he changed?
During his school years, he was one of the worst slobs – an incorrigible bully and a loser. Now, in front of Anna Vasilyevna stood a well-groomed, well-dressed man. In thin-rimmed glasses, he even seemed intelligent, and the former teacher would never have recognized him if he had not approached first. They talked for a long time – about the school, about life, about classmates. All this time, Nikolai looked with curiosity at Blackie, who was sitting in the arms of Grandma Anya.
– Did you get a cat? he finally asked.
– Nikolai, it’s too late for me to start cats. She will outlive me, what will happen to her then?
– What are you, Anna Vasilievna! You will live to be a hundred years old! Nikolai encouraged the teacher.
– Thank you, Nikolai, but life has its own plans.
Nikolai looked at Blackie. The kitten did not cause him absolutely any emotions, but from something he suddenly wanted to show himself in front of the teacher from the best side.
– Let me take your kitty! Nikolai suggested unexpectedly.
Grandma Anya was very glad to pass Blackie into safe, as it seemed to her, hands. She thanked Nikolai and went toward the house. The former student stood and looked after her, wondering how much the teacher had aged – after all, at school she seemed almost immortal.
Then the man went to his big beautiful car, but, suddenly, he remembered something and stopped. He released the kitten onto the lawn, wiped his hands with a napkin, got behind the wheel, and instantly forgot about the meeting with the teacher.
Blackie no longer reacted to changing faces, hands, and surroundings. She seemed to herself a little rag, which was thrown back and forth like unnecessary garbage. The little girl lay down, resigned to fate, when she suddenly heard the voice of Anna Vasilievna above her: “After all, she knew! How to look into the water! Well, people don’t change, whatever you say.”
The teacher remembered how fickle, boastful, and sometimes even mean Nikolai used to be at school, and imperceptibly stopped aside. From there, she sadly saw how her former student threw the kitten onto the lawn and sped away on his own business.
As if in a beautiful dream, a cup of fragrant fresh broth appeared in front of Blackie, in which finely chopped pieces of meat floated. Her stomach was cramping from hunger, and she, forgetting about everything in the world, pounced on food. Wanting to drink everything to the last drop, the little girl dipped her head into the bowl so that only the tips of her ears protruded from there. Having eaten her fill, she suddenly felt a surge of strength and a thirst for life.
Blackie was no longer an unnecessary rag. Gradually she became a real cat, full of energy and love of life.
