Unexpected Friends

“Ow!” Josh yelled. “Mom, Mimi scratched my arm again!”  Mimi is our cat. She doesn’t like my little brother. She hisses at him and when he gets too close she scratches him.
         “Come here so I can clean you up,” Mom said. Josh walked in the kitchen to Mom. She washed his arm and put a band aid on it.
         “You’re such a baby,” I said, petting Mimi as she moseyed out of the living room. “If you didn’t kick and scare her all the time, she wouldn’t scratch you.” 
         “I didn’t do anything to her,” Josh said as he left the kitchen and came into the living room. “She just attacked me. I’m going to go play with Henry. He’s not going to hurt me.”
         “Ewww, I can’t believe you are going to play with that rat.”
         “Henry is not a rat, he’s a Gerbil.”

“They’re both rodents, same difference,” I said. Josh stomped off down the hall. As I sat down on the couch Josh ran back into the living room.
         “Gabby, what did you do with Henry?” he asked frantically. “He’s not in his cage. He was there this morning.”
         “I didn’t touch your rat, why are you asking me?”
         “You take my stuff all the time.”
         “Well I didn’t take Henry. You probably forgot to close the lid and he got out,” I told my brother. “Let’s look for him. He has to be in the house somewhere.”
         We checked Josh’s bedroom first, but Henry was nowhere to be found. Next we checked the bathroom and my room and still couldn’t find Henry.
         “I’m going to check Mimi for Henry breath,” Josh said.
         ““Mimi wouldn’t stoop so low. She has better taste than gerbil,” I said. We looked around the house for Mimi and couldn’t find her. We then went to the garage where Mimi sleeps.
I got there first and saw Mimi sleeping in her bed, but I noticed something was wrong. Mimi is all white and there was a big brown spot on her belly. As I got closer I realized what the spot was.
         “Josh, you will never believe this,” I said. “Guess who’s in Mimi’s bed with her.”
         “Henry?” my brother asked.
         “Yeah! Mimi is curled up around him.”
         “I never would’ve thought that they would be friends,” Josh said. “I’m sorry Gabby for blaming you.”
         “It’s okay,” I said. I helped Josh wrangle Henry away from Mimi and put him in his cage.