"Hey Olivia. Did I tell you the ghost story that surounds this house?" Adam said as he put down his corn on the cob.
"No." Olivia shook her head and took a bite of her corn.
"Ah! Corn juice just sprayed in my eye!" They all laughed so hard Burt fell off the table.
"Anyway.." Adam whipped a tear from his eye. "About the story." Everyone stopped laughing and put their full attention on Adam.
"You know that black tom cat outside?"
"The one that hangs out with Odie?" Olivia asked.
"Yep. That cat it one of Odie's kittens. Before Odie was fixed, she had FOUR litters of cats. The fourth one was the biggest of them all. There were six kittens. I do believe they were....." Adam looked up in thought and began to count the names off his fingers.
"Misty, Cow, Toothless, Bella, Sherbet, and Patches. The black one is Toothless. Now, in that litter, there were TWO runts. Sherbet and Patches. But of the two, Patches was the smallest. The previous owners cared for Patches the most, because she never got fed by Odie unlike the others. They would pin Odie DOWN in order for her to have enough food to live." Adam stopped for a minute, then continued.
"One day, they released Sherbet was gone. They searched through the night, but couldn't find him. They released that sometimes the mother cat will abandon the runt if it's causing her to not care for the stronger ones. But Odie released she had taken the wrong runt, because the next day, Sherbet was right back with the others. But when they left on a trip for three days, and came back, Patches was gone."
Adam looked down.
"Their kids told them that one time, while they were sleeping, they woke up to the sound of a knock on they door. They got up, but nobody was there. When they got back into bed, they herd a small cry in their rooms. They searched, but found nothing."
Adam looked up.
"The other kittens grew up and all disappeared eventually, because there are cioties up here. Only Odie and Toothless were smart enough to survive. But they don't know how Patches died. She could have starved, or suffered hypothermia. That cat didn't stand a chance. She was smaller than a hamster. "
Adam frowned, then turned to Olivia.
"They say you can still hear her in the night, whaling for someone to love her."