When I was three, my parents went to a Toys R Us store, seeking to get me the best birthday present I would ever get. They could have went to any Toys R Us store and picked any present, but no, they picked a robotic dog, a robotic dog that would change everything… Duh duh duhhhhh!

When they brought it home and I opened it, I was overcome with joy. I had always wanted a dog! (Even though it was a robot, I honestly couldn’t tell the difference.) I begged my parents to help me turn it on, and when they did, my happiness slipped away. It didn’t turn on. It just sat there glitching, while I sat there crying. My parents took the dog into our closet, never to be seen again. Or at least that’s how I wish it went.

Because of those events, my family and I became cat people!!! We got five (alive) cats named Marmalade, Marble, Salty, BB, and Jinky. One day after I had come home from school, I realized I forgot to check on the cats. I raced up the stairs and into our cat room. I pushed by the doorway to count my cats.

“Okay, there’s Marbles’s here so is Jinky, BB, and Salty. Great, all four,” I said. Then, I stopped. “Don’t I have five cats.” I looked around. “Marmalade? Marmalade, where are you?”

I looked around my whole house, but there was no Marmalade.

Suddenly, I heard beeping behind me, while I was checking my parents’ bedroom. I spun around quickly, but there was nothing there. Over the next couple days, I did everything to find Marmalade, from missing posters to screaming “Marmalade” everywhere I went, which got me a lot of weird looks because most people thought I was screaming for jam. But things got weirder. Every other day, a cat would go missing, bringing more posters and more pain and more of those weird beeping sounds.

***

On the last day, I raced home from school. Only one cat was left, Jinky, my favorite. I ran up stairs as fast as one could, and I pulled the cat door open. It was empty. Jinky was gone. My heart froze. This can’t be happening. Then suddenly, I started to hear the beeping noise getting louder and louder, interrupting me from my thoughts. I looked to both of my sides, What is that?

“Jinky, is that you?” I asked.

Then I saw it. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. Our closet was open. I slowly turned around, and there was my robo dog… very much alive.