My mother eyed me with suspicion. I dared not look at her. Knowing that I was late from school five days in a row, I could not offer an acceptable explanation. However, realizing she had little choice but to accept my explanation that I had extra curricular activities every day and arrived home after 5 p.m., she told me that dinner was in the refrigerator and to warm it up in the microwave oven. She had to rush for her night work at the local clinic.

After our dad passed away in an accident, my mother became the only breadwinner. I was the eldest among the four siblings (兄弟姊妹) and it fell upon my shoulder to ensure that they would become responsible adults. Aside from helping Mother with the housework, I regularly coached them in their studies. Thankfully, never once did I have to raise my voice or force them to complete their homework. But all of us missed Dad deeply, who was a model father and husband. Mom had never recovered from the tragic incident.

However, she managed to pull through to raise us and secured a job at the clinic. It was very tough on someone like her who had never worked before in her life. But money was scarce and there were five mouths to feed. We stopped dining out and had our meals mostly at home. We basically lived from hand to mouth. That’s when it dawned on me that I had to do my part for the family. I knew Mother would not agree but I threw caution out of the window and managed to get a part-time job at a fast food restaurant. I worked three hours a day and managed to bring home money so that my siblings and I could go out for occasional movies or meals.

I was sure Mother suspected something wrong. But she could not quite point the figure to the source of her suspicion. However, I was awfully guilty and had to constantly reassure (宽慰) myself that contributing financially to the family was the least I could do to lessen my mother’s burden.

One day, while serving the customers, I was surprised to see Mother leading my siblings in.

I walked over to see Mother was already crying.

Toby the cat was in a small cardboard box marked “free kittens” when Daisy met him and took him home. And from that moment on, he loved boxes.

He slept in hatboxes, gift boxes and takeout food boxes. He slept in Daisy’s sock drawer, if she left it open. When he was a kitten, the size of a small loaf of bread, he had slept in shoeboxes. But he grew and grew, and now he was a lot bigger than a loaf of bread. When he tried to sleep in a shoebox, his furry stomach hung over the sides.

Toby didn’t just sit in boxes, though. Sometimes he sat in flowerpots, or laundry baskets.

Daisy had a beautiful dollhouse for her birthday, a dark green three-story house with lots of furniture. Daisy loved it. So did Toby. He liked to push the furniture out of all the rooms and sit in the bedroom on the second floor.

One day Daisy came home from school, and she couldn’t find Toby. He wasn’t in the dollhouse, or her sock drawer, even though she’d forgotten to close it.

“Mom, Dad!” Daisy wailed. “Toby is gone!”

Daisy’s mom looked in the attic. There were boxes and dust bunnies, and even a mouse that had escaped Toby’s notice, but no Toby.

Daisy’s dad looked in the kitchen cabinets. There were pots and pans, and cans of soup, but no Toby.

Suddenly—“I found him!” Daisy cried.

The big cat was inside her mom’s new glass vase, and he didn’t look happy at all. Daisy tipped the vase over gently and tried to pull him out, but Toby just howled.

“We’ll have to break the vase to get him out!” Daisy cried.

Now her mom didn’t look happy. It was a beautiful vase.

“No,” said her dad. “If we break it, the glass pieces might hurt Toby. Maybe we can put butter on the inside of the vase and slide him out, like the time you got that ring stuck on your finger.”

Immediately, Daisy fetched some butter.

Soon they were at the vet's office.