The Would-Be-Killer-Turned-Sex-Changing Tree

Meet Ferdinand.

She's a regular around our place, a spirited little thing, always causing some kind of ruckus. Ferdinand's mother doesn't make her brush her teeth, or make her bed, and apparently she does let her eat candy and stay up very late, every night. Ferdinand speaks several languages and has traveled all over the world. She is five.

Mostly, Ferdinand is pretty well behaved, and very brave, like the time she nearly lost an eye. She didn't even cry after the surgery when we told her she would never again have eyelashes on her left eye. Poor little thing. But she hardly seems self-conscious about it at all now. There are, however, times when I am inclined to think that perhaps our Ferdinand is a bit of an exaggerator.

We ate dinner on the porch tonight, just the girls and I. (Steve was still at work.) When I had finished, I set my plate on the railing, sighed and leaned back to stare at the huge tulip tree that sits right behind our house.

"I love our tree," I said, feeling peaceful and content.

"Ferdinand told me that tree ate one of her cats once," Matilda announced mater-of-factly.

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, it was a cute little boy kitten, orange with white spots. See that circle up there?"

She pointed to knot about twenty feet up the trunk.

"Uh-huh."

"That's the mouth."

I absorbed this information, "Ferd said that, huh?"

"Yeah, and then after it ate it, the tree farted it out the bottom and it wasn't a boy cat anymore it was a girl cat and she was brown with white stripes." Again with the nonchalance.

"It was a girl cat?"

"After it got farted out." She shruged, "that's what Ferd said."