Sherbert is our newest addition to the family. We call him Sherbert the Fairy Kitten because my nine year-old daughter and I are convinced that the Tooth Fairy sent him to us.A few months ago I awoke to the sound of tapping on my front door. Tap, tap, tap. At first I tried to ignore it since it was only about 5 in the morning. I figured that if anyone was rude enough to try to wake me up at that horrible time of day then they were not someone I wished to have in my home. A few minutes later though, there it went again. Tap, tap, tap. “Ugh” I thought. Curiosity got to me by then so I peeked out the front window but no one was there. “Hmmm” came to mind at that point, “maybe something interesting is going on out there” so I peeked out the front door peek-hole but still I could see no one. So I did the only thing a now wide-awake curious person could do. I opened the door. Sitting at the stoop was a scraggly and dirty little orange kitten. He looked at me just long enough to say “about time!” marched straight to the kitchen, found Lambert’s food dish and water bowl, helped himself then sauntered to my daughter’s bedroom where he jumped in bed with her and curled up into a bundle of blissful purrs.
Who was I to argue with a performance like that? My curiosity satisfied, I went back to sleep. My daughter Arin woke me up later holding a very content fuzzy prize in her arms. “Mom! Mom! Look what woke me up! It was purring right next to my head so loud it woke me up! I am going to call him Sherbert!” She was beaming. Arin had been wanting a kitten of her own for a long time. Lambert had been his ‘Mommy’s’ boy for fourteen years and although he politely tolerated Arin, he was not ‘hers’ and I had spent the last couple of years explaining to Arin that until we moved into a larger apartment there simply was not enough room for two cats. Sherbert had his own ideas though.
After a cup of coffee amidst Arin’s giggles, ohhhs and ahhhs, I proceeded to give Sherbert a good look-over. He appeared healthy and fairly well fed but was full of fleas, ear mites and reeked of automobile oil. Considering his friendliness and his seeming gratefulness to be inside a home amongst humans I concluded that he came from a home somewhere but apparently had been lost for quite some time. His fur was soiled so we washed him with a damp cloth until all but a couple of stubborn oil stains were left. “Can we keep him Mom? Pleeeeease”!? “First” I told her, we need to take him to the vet to make sure he is healthy, we don’t want to take a chance of subjecting Lambert to any kitty diseases. Then we should find out if he belongs to someone”.
Sherbert impressed the vet that very day with his health, vitality and good looks (despite the remaining oil stains). He got a couple of shots, had his ears cleaned out and we brought him, and his ear mite and de-worming medicines home. I was hesitant about posting a “found kitten” poster for two reasons, first because Arin had already fallen in love with him (so did I) and second because I thought that if he had been living with someone they certainly had not been taking care of him and it would break my heart to return him to a possible irresponsible home. So I announced to Arin that we would keep him UNLESS we saw a lost kitten poster for him.
That done, now there was only the matter of the mysterious knocking on the door the morning of his arrival. That mystery was “solved” the next morning when Arin searched under her pillow to see what the Tooth Fairy had left her in exchange for her tooth that came out the night before. In addition to the usual silver dollar that the Tooth Fairy always leaves Arin there was a tiny little note written in a tiny little flowery hand. It read:
Arin,I see that Sherbert found his way to you and that
he is as happy with you as I knew he would be!
Good job picking up on his name! Oh, and nice tooth!Mimi the Tooth Fairy
PROLOGUE: There have been no posters around our neighborhood looking for Sherbert. He has become quite popular with my friends as the Fairy Kitten and is regularly being requested to send magic fairy dust to them to help their sick or injured pets (and themselves!). Also, he has been a marvelous inspiration to me as an artist and I have created fun images of him both digitally and on canvas. He now has two online stores of CafePress products with prints of him as ‘Sherbert the Fairy Kitten’.
Copyright © D. Rene Creasy
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