(Bella, on high alert, like usual)
We had been away for the weekend, and about an hour after we got back, I noticed I hadn't seen Bella. I started looking for her. Eventually, the whole family joined in. We looked everywhere -- under beds, in closets, upstairs, downstairs, behind the couch, etc. Finally, Kathy said, "Uh oh," and pulled back the curtain of a window that Bella likes to sleep on the sill of. The screen was partially popped out. Right in the corner where Bella likes to sleep. I immediately started crying. This caused the kids to cling to me, sobbing in fear. The four of us were a mess. Kathy sucked in a deep breath, and stuck her head out the window to look at the ground below, anticipating a mangled Bella carcass. "Oh thank god. She's not there," Kathy said. We all let out a sigh of relief, and moved our search party outside. In the wet grass, in the dark, with flashlights.
After about 20 minutes of crawling around in the wet grass looking under hedges, Kathy finally located Bella underneath a hedge, about 5 feet from where she would have landed when she fell out the window. She was cowering against the house, on high alert. I was poised to grab her as Kathy nudged her out from under the hedge with a baseball bat. She suddenly shot past me like an arrow, and bounded off into the darkness. The kids and I began bawling with renewed vigor. "SHE'S GOING TO DIE OUT HERE! SHE'LL GET HIT BY A CAR!" I wailed. "WHERE IS BELLA? WHAT IF SOMETHING EATS HER?" the kids wept. "Don't worry, we'll find her," the only rational person replied.
