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I laid the old, leather-bound book down on the small, round coffee table that sat beside the soft blue lounge chair I had in my room. I had to read this for school, and since it was Saturday, I had nothing better to do but to read a book.
My blue-point Siamese cat, Shadow, pushed open the door and trotted in. He meowed and started purring before he was halfway across the room. I could remember the day I had got him. Boy was it a sad day…
Dad was leaving for work. I was only seven years old at the time. I pleaded with him not to go. I kept telling him that something was wrong, that I could sense something was going to happen. But maybe it was just the dream I had the night before, the one of dad on a ship with a sail sailing away, that was spooking me. I didn’t want him to go, but he didn’t listen to me. He left with his briefcase, waved as he went out the door, but then vanished without a trace. I heard a sucking sound, but there was no other sound after that died away.
That night, when Dad didn’t return, I burst out crying. I couldn’t possibly believe I was now fatherless and that my mom was husbandless. I felt like nothing in the world would ever be able to comfort me again.
But then…I heard a tapping sound on my window. I stopped crying and looked up. There sitting at my window, was a blue-point Siamese. Of course, I didn’t know much about cats then, since I was still a little kid. But was thinking when I saw him that he was one beautiful cat.
As I sat there looking at him in the late afternoon, dark clouds heavy with rain decided to dump their loads. The cat was quickly soaked to the skin. I rushed to the window and opened it. The cat jumped inside and shook itself. But I noticed that it was still damp.
My childhood logic told me to go get a towel and dry him off, so I did. I tiptoed into the hall, and went over to the linen closet. I opened it and reached for one of the big towels. I was careful to take one off the top so the rest wouldn’t come toppling down. I then took the towel to the cat and dried him. Then I wrapped him in a warm blanket of mine. I felt him shiver, so I decided to take him down to Mom.
That was how I met Shadow. Mom allowed me to keep him for the sake of trying to keep my mind off of Dad. But I never stopped thinking about him, even after I forgot his face.
Shadow jumped up onto my lap and curled into a ball. I stroked his white fur and then his blue tipped ears before picking up the book and opening it. It was strange that my history teacher had given me this instead of what everybody else got. But at least I didn’t have to write the essays everyone else had to.
Shadow’s purring was really loud as I began to read. But what surprised me was that the first page was taken up by a letter.
Dear Reader, I know that you may be looking at this page quizzically, but it is necessary. What you are going to read will unlock a whole new world to you, one full of many dangers and perils. Read at your own risk.
Read at my own risk? Huh, it sounded interesting. Whenever a book started that way, I had to read it, no matter what. So I spent the rest of the afternoon reading it. Even after I went to bed, I continued to read it. I couldn’t take my eyes from the page. But at three in the morning, I finally had to stop and go to bed before I crashed.
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So that's a whole chapter! How should I slow it down? Shouls I move the reading of the book to the next chapter?
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