Pipoca tugs at the sheet pinned to the clothesline, but the wind snatches the fabric right out of her little paws and twists it around the wire fence. Then, a thin meow slices through the storm, so sharp that Pipoca's ears shoot straight up all on their own.
Pipoca finds the kitten curled up under an upside-down plastic bucket, tiny claws clutching the rim. The wind shoves a glass bottle skittering across the ground: thud, thud, thud.
Pipoca scrambles up a tall wooden stump, digging her front paws into the slippery moss, and lets out the biggest howl her little throat can hold — WOOO! WOOO! WOOO! — three times.
The kitten stops meowing. His tiny black eyes pop open, like two little shiny coins glowing in the rain, and he stretches his neck out, nice and slow, toward the stump.
The kitten bolts the wrong way, straight for the open cistern, and Pipoca dives in front of him, four little paws planted in the mud, a tiny cream-white speck right in the middle of the storm.
The rain stops for just one second — a silence so sudden it's almost unbelievable — and in that hush, Pipoca's little voice rings out clear and bright: "HERE! Jump over here!" The kitten blinks, fast, twice.
He looks at the cistern, looks at Pipoca, and lets himself fall into her arms. Back inside the doghouse, the kitten whimpers at the far end, curled up on an old broom that's his bed now.
Pipoca sits at the doorway, little drops still dripping from her nose, her tail giving a soft tap against the wood. The kitten rests his tiny chin on Pipoca's paw; the tail taps again.
