Storytelling for Week 3: The Best of Friends

Pussie and Doggie were best friends and always together. School was coming to an end for the semester and winter break was upon them. Neither of them enjoyed the bitter cold, so they often spent their time snuggled indoors under cozy blankets with cups of hot chocolate warming their hands. Their happiness came to an end though.

A cup of hot chocolate.
Image Information: Hot Chocolate by David Monniaux (2006). Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Doggie's parents had lost their jobs and without money to put food on the table, they chose to move away to stay with family until their lives could be stable again. It was heartbreaking for both Pussie and Doggie, whose friendship was strained by the distance. It became too much to handle and Pussie proposed a separation and the two friends stopped talking altogether. 

Sad and alone, far from home, Doggie found himself constantly in fights, being bullied and picked on. His family could not understand where this melancholy came from and failed to offer him support. He made the wrong friends and often wondered if he would ever be happy again. It was hard for him to be without Pussie, because he had gotten so used to spending his time with her.

On the other hand, Pussie was very happy with new friends and everything she could want. It did not take her long at all to stop thinking about Doggie, only ever at the back of her mind. She was becoming popular at school and the attention was all she needed.

A few months later, Doggie’s family decided to return to their hometown once his parents were re-employed. He was more than excited to return to Pussie, whom he had not heard from in a very long time. He wondered how she was doing and what they would do now that he could come back.

However, Pussie was not the same person he remembered leaving. She was rude and prissy now, her new friends and rising popularity having changed her. She was not at all the girl he had loved so dearly. She would not even look at him, the reminder of her former life. It was clear that they could never be friends again, because they simply were not who they used to be.

Many times Doggie tried to approach her, but she always turned him away. The teachers pitied him and told him to let go. Time and situations change people and Doggie had to come to terms with that, so he went to school every day and tried not to look her way again.

Author’s Note: I had a hard time retelling this week’s story! I decided to use The Quarrel of the Cat and Dog and retell the story from a human point of view. In the original, Doggie and Pussie are best friends but part ways. When Doggie stumbles upon Pussie’s home, she is infuriated and the owner realizes they can never be friends. I used the animals’ names from the story and put them in a high-school setting to show how time and certain situations can make even the best of friends the worst of enemies.

Bibliography: “The Quarrel of the Cat and Dog.” Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends by Gertrude Landa (1919). Web Source: The Quarrel of the Cat and Dog.