Pumas in Kansas

                             
                                      ESL Group Story Writing Class January 23 2011                      
                                                     
Last summer, my car broke down during a cross-country trip from New York to California. I’m not sure exactly where I was when it broke down because my GPS and cell phone stopped working when my car stopped moving.

I do know that I was somewhere in the state of Kansas because I passed the Missouri/Kansas state-border-crossing sign about an hour before the breakdown.

I was starting to search for a gas station. I got out of my broken car and started to walk quickly. While I was walking I saw a sign. “Gas about 3 Miles” was written on the sign.

When I finally arrived at the gas station, I was really very tired and thirsty. An old man saw me and asked, “Hey stranger, how can I help you?”

I said, “I need help! My car is broken.” But in my mind I thought "I hope he can help me and I hope he doesn’t do bad things to me."

He just told me that he had tools and can repair my car, so I needed to get into his car, he said. I warned him not to do any bad things to me because I have a GPS and " if I disappear, the police will find me," I said.

 He turned to me with a puzzled look on his face and said, "Why would you think that I'll do bad things to you?" Then he winked and added, "I think you watch too many horror films, stranger."

So I reluctantly got into his car and pointed in the direction where we needed to go to get my car. As we neared my car, I noticed that something dark was moving inside of it.

A kind of wild animal was looking through the window of my car and it was a wild puma. But it was just a baby puma, it wasn’t an adult. Maybe it was looking for its mother. 

The man said, “Hey dude, don’t worry, I have a gun. I can shoot it.” But I shouted, “OMG, are you crazy? It’s just a baby!” But the man didn’t stop and said, “We can be so rich dude. We can sell it to the zoo.”

I told him, “First, you need to help me repair my car. Then you can catch the baby puma.” So he repaired my car and I got into it and drove away as fast as I could. As I drove away, I watched him just standing there, watching me.

I noticed that the puma was standing beside him and the man was stroking the puma's head. Just before my car turned a bend, I saw the man kneel down next to the puma. He appeared to be whispering something into its ear. Then I lost sight of them.

I drove on for another hour or so, not seeing anything or anyone along the way. Finally, I came to a small, dusty town in the middle of nowhere. I was still very thirsty, so I decided to park my car at the edge of town and walk the few blocks to what looked like a coffee shop.

As I entered the coffee shop, a tiny bell above the door rang, and everyone in the coffee shop turned and stared at me.

I said, "Hi all. Can I have a cup of black coffee, please?" The guy who was standing behind the counter answered, “Yes. But first I need to ask you something.

Do you know this man?” He was holding a picture in his hands when he was asking, and the guy in the picture was that old, short man who disappeared suddenly with the baby puma.
And the word written under the photograph was “WANTED.”

I didn't know what to say because I was afraid. And I tried to say that I didn't know him, but It was very difficult, because I loved animals and also, I didn't want to lie. So I tried in another way tell him that I knew the person.

I said, "I don't know him, but I've seen him. He was at a gas station a few miles from here. There was a baby puma with him."  Everyone in the coffee shop stopped talking and stopped eating and looked at me again.
So I leaned over and whispered in the man's ear "First he wanted to shoot the puma, and then he wanted to sell it to a zoo."

The man jumped out from behind the counter, grabbed me by my neck, and shouted "There is no gas station within 500 miles of this town! You're lying! Where is he? Where is he?"

But I said, “No, there is a station over there. Come with me, I’m gonna show it to you.”
The guy said, “OK, Oh man you are awesome. We’ve been looking for this man for the past 2 years. He’s a big animal smuggler. Please take us to that gas station you mentioned.”

We went there, and the station was there! And I heard a crying puma roaring, but nobody was there. I looked at the door where the sound of puma came from. The door was locked. We broke it down all together and saw lots of wild animals inside cages. And the little puma was there too.

At first I thought that maybe we should call 911 but then I thought that by the time the police arrived, it would be too late. So we decided to save the animals first and worry about catching the man later.
The mother of the little puma was in the cage and they found each other. In the end, everybody was happy and all the animals were freed.
The End

PARTICIPANTS:
Alianaluz Rivera (T)
ejje Xaris (CR)
oo Broono