What She Will Become by Susan Thistlethwaite

Author:Susan Thistlethwaite [Thistlethwaite, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781666700831
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2021-06-08T17:01:23+00:00

20

Wednesday, February 1, 1961

“What is that smell?” Miss Bea thought, and she put her nose up and pricked her ears as she and Alex ran on a path by a tall fence. They were on a new run that so far had just been on sidewalks along regular streets. But now there was a dirt path with a few frozen puddles and this fence on one side with trees and bushes inside it. The smell got stronger and stronger. Miss Bea had never smelled anything like it. She was on a lead, but she pulled as close to the fence as she could. It was a heady mix of poo and pee and rotting grass and, she tensed, fur. Some kind of animal fur. She took a deeper sniff. Not squirrels. Something else. And then she froze. A huge roar, a deafening roar struck her ears so hard it was painful.

Miss Bea was terrified and so she reared up on her hind paws and barked her fiercest bark.

“It’s okay, Bea,” Alex said soothingly, patting Bea and easing her back on to all four paws. Then she pulled a little on the lead to start them running again. “It’s okay,” Alex said as they loped along. “That was a lion. It’s like a big cat. We’re just running by the zoo to get to Rock Creek Park. We’ll be away from here in a moment.”

“A cat? A cat made that noise?” Miss Bea thought with shock, and a vision of a giant cat leaping out from behind the fence spurred her to run faster.

They quickly crossed another street and turned into a park with a graveled path running along a rock-strewn stream.

It was peaceful. The air was cold and clear. Evergreens whispered in the slight breeze, shedding a little more of the snow on their needles. Tall trees raised their bare arms and they looked black against the rose-colored light of dawn.

“Now this is a run,” Miss Bea sighed in contentment, the monster cat all but forgotten. If she could have known it, Alex was thinking the same.

A few roads ran through the park as well, Bea saw when the path they had been following came up to a two-lane road. There was only one car in the distance, so they ran across the street and on to a field dotted with some boulders.

Suddenly, there was another roar, but this was not a big cat. A car engine roared as it sped up behind them. There was a thud. Alex and Miss Bea both realized with horror that the car had jumped the curb and was chasing them in the field.

“Run, Bea, run!” Alex yelled. She dropped the lead, knowing Bea could get away faster than she could.

Alex had glanced behind her when she’d first heard the car engine roar and then scream as it accelerated. She thought she would never get the image out of her mind of the four, glaring headlights and the big, black bulge in the center of the car’s hood bearing down on them.

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