Image: Virginia Frances Sterret
There was one thing the girl had learned in recent times and it was you could trust animals far more than you could humans. Well the cat was debatable. So long as it was fed it seemed to like you.
She had long loved to walk in the forest behind her house and on those walks she had befriended many of the creatures living there.
There had been a time when she discovered a deer had been shot and nearby was its fawn, bewildered and afraid. She took the fawn home and bottle fed it and as it grew the two became inseparable.
At the same time, she had to endure the pretentiousness of her parents. Society wannabes. They had money and they travelled. They came home with evidence of their travels. Their visit to Italy had resulted in the stain-glass window and their recent journey to Japan was the gaudy wall hanging.
On each visit her parents had promised her a surprise but the ‘surprise’ was often something they placed in the house for themselves. Her father wanted her to come on their next sojourn to Australia but the girl saw it as a long way to look at vast open spaces. If they included visits to the local flora and fauna she’d be willing to go. But she knew they had no interest in local culture but rather what they could bring home to prove their worldliness.
They disproved of her caring for the deer as it now was. Her father made mention of venison as a tasty dish and this horrified her and made her resolve even stronger to protect her deer.
Today was going to be a long day. Her parents had told her to get rid of the deer as it belonged in the forest. She had tried several times aware of the need to provide a safe refuge but each time her father’s plan to hunt in the forest had thwarted her wish to let the deer go.
She would continue to protect it.
Written for: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/microfiction-challenge-27-rescue/
Morpethroad 