Carmine was not happy. A few months ago, Mr and Mrs. Roth had taken in a stranger - a kitten - and that was the end of her peace and quiet. "That thing," she would call her, refusing to acknowledge that she, Lucy, that is, was even a cat like herself. Lucy had, in fact, been trouble from the very beginning. She was very brash and un-catlike, which had probably saved her. When Mr. And Mrs. Roth first saw her, trying to chase down moths and crickets on the front porch to eat, she was so small and skinny, she hardly looked like a cat at all. "Poor thing!" Mrs. Roth said. "I'll put some food out for her on the back porch," Mr. Roth said. "Maybe we can find who she belongs to."

But Lucy, as they finally named her, obviously didn't belong to anyone. At least, not before she adopted the Roths. You see, once she had some food to eat, she started looking at the Roth's house. Up, she jumped onto the window sill on the front porch, where she could see into the Dining Room. It looked like a place where there was plenty to eat, and a nice cozy fireplace to curl up in front of. And she thought and thought about how nice it would be to have enough to eat, and then curl up in front of a nice, warm fire. Then she went to the back door, climbed up the screen and looked in the kitchen. There was another fireplace, even bigger than the first! And for the first time, she saw Carmen, their cat, and thought how nice it would be to have someone to play with, who wasn't interested in eating her, like the local dogs! "Oh, my!" she thought to herself! "This is surely where I want to live!"

And live there, she did. When Mrs. Roth came out in the morning, she was there, on the front porch to greet her. "Good morning, Mrs. Roth," she would purr. "How nice to see you today! Would you like to have a little breakfast with me?" Mrs. Roth would give her some cat food, although she seldom joined her, except for a little morning coffee, perhaps. And, in the evening, when Mr. Roth came out on the back porch, she would softly mew, "Good evening Mr. Roth! I hope you had a good day! Would you like to join me for a little dinner?" Mr. Roth seldom ate with her, but he would stay and share a little conversation about their respective days.

The long and short of it all was that, soon enough, Lucy was inside the house. And, although there was plenty of food, Lucy was never sure whether she would get enough, so, I am afraid to say, she was somewhat piggish and uncatlike in her manners; for cats are always somewhat diffident when it comes to food, and like to seem fussy about what they eat. Not Lucy. She was a ferocious eater. In fact, when she was done with her food, sit next to Carmine, in case Carmine left a little in her dish! Poor Carmine - if she didn't want to go hungry, she had to eat every morsel right away, or it would be gone in an instant!

Then there was the water dish - everyone knows that cats don't like water, and are even careful when they drink, not to get any on their beautiful whiskers. Apparently, no one had taught Lucy this; for every time she went to take a drink, she had to stick her paw in it first, delighting in the ripples it made in her bowl, and splashing it all over the place! Sometimes she would tip her bowl right over, just to watch the water creep across the floor! Needless to say, Mrs. Roth wasn't too happy about this either!

And Lucy didn't know how to play nicely at all! Carmen loved to lounge in a sunbeam in the morning after her breakfast, while she let it digest, but Lucy made this impossible. No sooner had Carmine finished her breakfast than Lucy would pounce on her, knocking Carmine right over! Carmine would hiss and spit, and tell her "Get out! Go away!" But Lucy seemed to feel it was all part of a game. Poor Carmine would lay on her back, after getting knocked over, and Lucy would jump right on top of her! Carmine would hiss and hit at her, but she wasn't a street fighter - she was just a house cat. All she wanted was just a little peace! Soon she would give out, and then, wham! Lucy would strike, biting her right on the belly, sending Carmine scurrying off to hide somewhere where Lucy couldn't find her.

It was no wonder Carmine didn't like Lucy. And who could blame her? It got so that any time Lucy came near, Carmine scowled at her and hissed, "You just stay away from me." Sometimes Lucy did. Sometimes she didn't.

Christmas came. The Roths decorated the house - decorations that Lucy evidently thought were toys meant for her, for she took each one of them down as soon as she could, to play with, so that when the Roths came down the stairs in the morning they found them strewn across the floor. The put up a Christmas tree, and soon Lucy was in the tree, her face poking out from among the branches. No ribbon was safe from Lucy; soon both the ribbons and packages they were on were in shreds. Lucy seemed quite happy. No one else was. It was Christmas Eve, and the house, usually decorated so gaily and prettily, looked like a truck had been driven through it.

Carmine had quite enough. On Christmas Eve, she was walking through the Living Room and there, under the tree, was Lucy, tearing apart the seams of a Teddy Bear that was to be a gift for the Roth's grand-nephew. "Stop that!" she screamed at Lucy. "What's that matter with you? You are ruining Christmas! Why don't you leave and let us be? We were happy until you came here!"

Lucy was stunned. She had been very happy, and assumed that everyone else was too. And something else she didn't understand. "What's Christmas?" She said. Now it was Carmine's turn to be astonished. "Why it's when Mary had Jesus - her baby. He was born in a stable. Didn't you know?"

"I had a mother," Lucy said thoughtfully. Then she started to cry softly. "Until the dogs killed her. Then I was on my own. I was so scared and hungry." She stopped crying. "Until you and the Roths gave me a home. It feels so good to have food - sometimes I still worry that it will run out." "Run out?" Carmine wondered. She had never even thought of the food running out. She just knew it would always be there.

Lucy went on. "I'm glad he had a place to be born. I was born under an old truck, but we couldn't stay there. It was cold at night, and the dogs could get to you there. I kept trying to find places to stay, but I never found a place that was warm and safe, until you let me stay here." Well, Carmine had never thought much about that, either. She had always had a place to stay. She had even tried to get outside - it seemed far more interesting that being in the house. Sometimes she would make it, and have what she called, a "little adventure" before the Roths would catch her and bring her back home.

Lucy was thinking - something Carmine didn't even know she could do. Her thoughts were deep, and there was a brief silence. "Did Jesus have any friends?" she finally asked. "Good friends like you?" That struck Carmine hard. She never thought of herself as a friend - and certainly not to Lucy. "He had some, at least for a while," Carmine said. "Though, when he got into trouble, they left him." "I'm glad that you are my friend," Lucy said softly. "You are my ONLY friend."

Well, it wasn't exactly what Carmine wanted - to be the only friend of this troublesome little kitten. But as she thought about it, she finally concluded that someone had to be her friend. Someone had to teach her how to be a cat - a proper cat. And, perhaps, someday, when Lucy grew up, they might lie together in the sunbeams, like good friends do, when they are cats. She thought of the baby Jesus and his mother, and the difficulties they had, and about how God had sent him because people didn't know how to behave like they should - like proper people, the way God intended them to be. Yet he loved them still, just the same. And she had just about resolved to love this little kitten, just like Jesus did, when, "WHAM!" Lucy had seen Carmine pondering silently, her thoughts obviously somewhere far off. And the urge hit her. First her tail began to twitch, then her rear end, then her whole body. Until finally, like a spring, she uncoiled, and hit Carmine with the full force of her body, knocking her right off her feet and half way across the floor. Then Lucy was off like a shot - off to chase other imaginary playmates in the shadows of the stairs.

And stunned, sprawled all across the Living Room floor, all Carmine could do was watch, and think to herself, "I hope she grows up soon!"