The Bucket Brigade

by Mewsette

Serafina was tired and cold. This would be the second winter she'd spent between the restaurant and the alley, where the giant food buckets were lined up. Dumpsters, they were called, by young men who carried white buckets of food out the back door every night and dumped them in. Serafina and the colony of cats she lived with would be waiting. Often a few scraps were dropped, and sometimes one kind-hearted man who knew about the cats would empty his bucket into a large flat box on the ground for them. So sometimes the cats got a good meal and sometimes not.

Besides Serafina, there was Mick, who had fathered her kittens that past spring, Sadie, a pitifully thin mostly black cat who never felt well, a few other adults, and several half-grown kits, among them the two of Serafina's which had lived. Over a dozen, and all of them feral from birth except for Serafina. She'd had a home once, and been with humans when she was younger. But she could never convince any of the colony cats that humans could be trusted, especially not Mick, who was fierce and wild as a bobcat. In fact, she wasn't so sure herself anymore.

Serafina had lovely long fur in shades of grey, tan and white, and did her best to keep herself well groomed in her sad circumstances. Her humans had moved away and left her when she was half grown. She'd gotten lost inside the walls of the house when the movers took the clothes dryer away from its hole, and they couldn't find her. The next day, when she'd found her way outside, they were gone. And eventually she had found the group, this colony she lived with. They called themselves the bucket brigade.

The pickings were slim at the dumpsters that night. Not many humans had been to the restaurant, and the one with the flat box didn't come out. It was beginning to snow lightly, and several of the cats came to snuggle near her. She was a favorite in the colony, because of her sweet nature, and the others naturally gravitated to her. Here came her own straggly grey kits, mewing. Lie next to me and go to sleep, she told them with a look. Maybe we'll have more tomorrow. And soon she was dreaming of the first time she'd seen snow, out the window of her home.

Things had been strange there, with packing boxes piled all over, but the humans had stayed home that day and had a wonderful feast they called Thanksgiving. Afterwards, she'd been given a whole plateful of turkey scraps and crackly skin and gravy. Oh, heaven! And that was her last memory of that home.

The colony was in luck. The next night, many carfuls of humans had come and gone, and the cats were waiting hopefully at the dumpsters to see if the one young man came out. He did! A tall girl in the same kind of apron was with him. She was new. He was telling her about the cats who came there for food. He had two flat boxes, and both humans carried buckets! And oh, it smelled wonderful! In fact, thought Serafina, her eyes widening, it smelled just like the Thanksgiving feast she remembered!

Pitiful little Sadie and her own kits approached eagerly with her, while Mick and the others hung back, waiting for the humans to leave. The boxes on the ground were filled with heaps of wonderful food! Turkey, dressing, gravy, bread, potatoes, oh! what a feast! Serafina dug right in the minute they turned to go in, and she didn't even hear the tall girl gasp and say, "That's the most beautiful cat I ever saw!" or the young man shush her. All of the cats ate their fill and then ate some more. They'd never had such a wonderful meal. Oh, how the contentment of full stomachs made them feel warmer! They drifted off to find sleeping places, one by one, so grateful for their Thanksgiving. But Serafina sat there by herself. She wasn't sure why, she just didn't feel like going away.

She licked one more drop of gravy from a box corner, and looked up. The tall girl was stooping by the door, saying, "Here, kitty, here pretty thing, here kitty." Serafina turned to look over her shoulder and saw Mick's yellow eyes flashing a warning to her from the darkness. No, he was saying. No! She looked for her own kits. They stood near Mick. They were nearly grown, they were his too. She turned back toward the girl. Her heart was pounding.

The girl held out her hand. "I need a kitty. Do you need a person?" she asked. Oh, Serafina remembered warm hands from long ago. She so wanted to feel them stroking her again. She stared at the girl's hand and walked toward it. Then the hand was gently rubbing her head and stroking her cold back. And before she knew it, she was being carried inside in warm arms.

Serafina never forgot the bucket brigade. She didn't even know that the young man took little Sadie home with him a few days later, or that her own kits were soon coaxed into being taken home by other kind humans. But she spent the rest of her life having Thanksgiving every day.