Fraidy Cat Meets Lazy Bones

By Liz Kollar

In Grandmom’s house there were many toy animals. They were all very pretty, very soft and very cuddly. However, one stood out from all the rest because he was softer than all the others and also very new as he had just arrived on Christmas day.

Grandmom gave him a very strange name. She called him Lazybones because he would sit under the organ bench and not move all day long. Lazybones was the color of honey and he had two dark brown button eyes over which his fur would fall so that sometimes you couldn’t see his eyes at all. He also had soft brown paws, very long floppy ears and a fluffy tail. What a beautiful puppy! Lazybones was so cute and huggable and cuddly that he was very hard to resist indeed.

Now, in Grandmom’s house there lived a very fat cat who wasn’t a toy at all. Her name was Smokie but Grandmom would laugh and call her Fraidy Cat instead.

Fraidy Cat liked to lie on her back on the living room rug and stare at the ceiling. She felt comfortable that way. She would hold her two front legs straight up in the air and bend her little white paws over until they pointed down at her tummy. Then, she would stretch her hind legs out just as far as she could until the pink skin of her belly would show right through her fluffy white fur. She looked very relaxed and comfy in this position but she always kept one eye slightly open so that she could watch everything very carefully. Of course, you know, this was because she was such a little fraidy cat.

She would stare at the table and the big blue couch; she would look at Grandpop reading in his chair, and she would purr deep in her throat as she watched Grandmom doing her knitting. My what a good little cat she pretended to be!

One day, while she was busy pretending to be asleep on her back with her one eye closed, her other eye wandered over to the big organ in the corner of the room and the bench that stood in front of it. She had really never bothered to look there before. To her surprise, she saw a fluffy, honey colored puppy watching her from under the bench. It was Lazybones, and because he was so quiet, she had never noticed him before.

Fraidy Cat’s little heart went FLIP-FLOP-FLIP. Her closed eye opened wide in astonishment and her fur seemed to stand on end. Who was this strange creature watching her from under the organ bench with its shiny brown button eyes?

In an instant, Fraidy Cat was on her feet and running as fast as she ever could, right past Grandmom doing her knitting and right past Grandpop sitting in his big chair. She didn’t stop running until she was safely hidden in the closet out in the hall. The closet was the best place to hide and she often went there to sit on Grandpop’s big rubber boots leaning against each other on the floor beneath the raincoats and heavy jackets.

Little by little she crept c a r e f u l l y back to the door and she peeked out ever so s l o w l y with her two big yellow eyes to see if the creature was gone. But, there he was again, a strange fluffy thing that seemed to be watching her. Oh, how fast her poor heart beat. She hissed and growled with all her might to frighten him away. She opened her big yellow eyes as wide as she could to give him a BIG scare, but he just wouldn’t go away.

"Come back, Fraidy Cat," said Grandmom. "Lazybones can’t hurt you. He’s just a little stuffed toy."

"Come back," said Grandpop putting down his newspaper. "Lazybones is just a toy puppy. He won’t hurt you."

A toy puppy dog! Fraidy Cat hung her head in shame. How could a little stuffed animal have frightened her? Whatever would she do now? She felt so silly for running away.

Fraidy Cat was very good at pretending and so she decided to pretend she had only been playing a game. She fluffed up her tail; she licked her little white paws and looked at Lazybones very carefully with her two big eyes. Grandmom and Grandpop had been right; there was nothing to be afraid of.

Acting very demure and nonchalant, she slowly tiptoed back into the room but even though she didn’t seem to be afraid anymore, she took a very l o n g time to get there. First, she peeked at Lazybones from behind the plants in the hallway. Then, she peered from under Grandpop’s big chair. Finally, she reached the middle of the room and quietly rolled onto her back with her front legs sticking straight up in the air and her little white paws bent over, and her hind legs stretched out just as far as they could go.

Purring ever so slightly, she closed one eye and pretended to be asleep. The other eye, however, remained wide open as she watched Lazybones carefully just in case he wasn’t a toy after all, and all the while, Lazybones just lay there under the organ bench staring right back at Fraidy Cat with her two big brown button eyes.

And do you know what? Fraidy Cat finally closed both her eyes and fell fast asleep.

The end

©2003 Liz Kollar