Chapter 3. Okra (the cat)
An excerpt from There’s a Mouse in the House!
Janelle M. Hooper, Jacob N. Studebaker, illustrations by Sherri Bails
There’s a Mouse in the House! Amazon Kindle
Jamaica, a little green parrot, plans lunch with Jupiter, the big black crow in the front yard…
Okra got his name when he was a kitten and Sally dropped a piece of deep-fried okra on the floor. He’d snatched it and took off running before Sally could pick it up. He thought it was a piece of fish. When he’d bitten through the crust there was no fish inside. Just something slimy and green. What a nasty surprise!
Jamaica could have told him if he’d been there but he was in Sally’s office at the time. Jamaica didn’t know what Okra would do without him. Sometimes, getting that cat through the day was a fulltime job. And sleep! Okra would sleep all day if he didn’t have Jamaica to call to him. Sometimes, he slept so soundly that Jamaica would have to fly over and bite his tail to wake him up. Once, he bit his ear, but he found out that waking up a big cat was a lot more fun if he wasn’t so close to the cat’s biting end. Jamaica knew that Okra hadn’t meant to frighten him but a cat was not a bird. He’d learned that much since he came to live with Sally.
Mostly, Okra ignored Jamaica’s attempts to make friends with Jupiter. As long as they stayed out of his bowl whatever they did was all right with him. This lunch thing that Jamaica kept talking about was going to be a big disaster. Broccoli and seeds? For lunch? What was that crazy green bird thinking?
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There’s a Mouse in the House!
Your toddler will love it!
Janelle Meraz Hooper Is an indie writer who writes in several genres (She wrote the traveling play, Geronimo. Life on the Reservation!). Stop by her book site to see all of her books. Paperback, Kindle.
