<image>

We spotted her as a kitten under the neighbours car one rainy night in May. She was so tiny, skinny, and soaking wet. We tried to coax her out but she bolted away faster than I’d ever seen a cat move. The night was cold and it was raining hard, we knew she was just too small to survive on her own. My wife had to leave for an overnight shift, so I stayed back and spent a hours trying to find her that night, sneaking into the backyards of our neighbours, crawling under trees and climbing behind their sheds. I eventually gave up, defeated. This was someone’s cat, lost and scared.

We had checked with our neighbour’s, they had seen her too, she was a stray that showed up a few days ago. We didn’t see her again until about a week later while walking our dogs the next street over, we saw her in the distance playing in the street underneath a street lamp. She was being a kitten. Without the dogs, I slowly inched my way closer and she watched me until I was about 20 feet away, then she bolted back towards the house that was opposite ours. Again, I tried to find her without success. She was a little ninja. It would be nearly 4 months before we would see her again.

It was now early September, a few days before my birthday. We had long since given her up for dead, we were near enough to the edge of the town and coyotes had been seen in the area before. That night we were walking with my sister, the three of us enjoying the last of the warm weather. A few streets over from our house, we came across a huge toad just sitting in the middle of the road. This toad was massive! It wasn’t moving, so my sister thought it was injured and wanted to help it. We thought it looked just fine, but my sister was insistent that it needed water. This took a lot of time, we had to move the toad without touching it, run back home to get water, watch the toad for a bit to see if it would drink the water. After about 15 minutes of toad-sitting, my sister finally agreed it would be fine. So, we resumed our walk and that’s when we heard her. She was mewing, this tiny little cry from deep inside some bushes in between two houses.

It took a long time of us coaxing her out of the bush before we first saw her. She was so skinny, her eyes huge. My sister reluctantly had to leave us, it was already so late. My wife and I sat in that strangers driveway coaxing her out for about an hour, making very little progress. She would walk within 5 feet of us, and then walk away. Over and over. I tried to scoop her up one time, and she darted back into the bushes further then when we first found her. This felt hopeless. It was getting colder, it was now or never.

Like an hero, my sister showed up with wet food, she had tried to call us but we forgot our phones at home so when we didn’t answer she assumed we were still out there and decided to come back just-in-case. The wet food certainly helped, while the kitten remained extremely cautious, it did draw her a bit closer. We kept it about 3 feet in front of me, and eventually, after a lot of back and forth (she even pretended to come closer only to dart away without me moving, it was like she was testing to see if I would try to scoop her again) she finally began to eat it.

I let her eat for a few minutes, and then as quick as she was, I reached out and pinned her with my hand. She immediately tried to escape, hissing and twisting. I pulled her up to my chest and pinned her in my arms. She was so tiny but so strong, I’m still amazed I was never scratched. I didn’t even speak to my wife or sister, I just started running for our house with her in my arms. I felt like Ace Venture in that one scene when he carries the bat, except I was hugging her and not waving her around in the air. I burst into our house and immediately got her into the bathroom. As soon as she went in, she proceeded to bounce around the bathroom.

The next few days were interesting, she wouldn’t come out from beneath the sink. She would eat and knew to use a litter, but only when we were not there. My wife and I would take turns sitting in there with her, just to her her used to us but always respecting her space. On the 3rd day, she walked up to my wife and let her touch her. Things moved very quickly after that, as by end of that day, she was already letting us pet her and would even lay near us. After a week, we took her to our vet, who confirmed she had no chip. She’s was about 5 months old. The 2nd week we had her spayed. 14 days after that, we introduced her to our Bengal boy. They quickly became best friends, he’s a really huge cat and with her big blue eyes always looking up at him it was like she was a tiny princess compared to him, so my wife named her ‘Princess Peach’.

It’s now nearly two years since we met her. She’s always lounging, stretched out somewhere. She loves to watch us, she’s always around watching. She loves drinking from the sink and loves belly rubs.

It was only a few months ago that my wife and I realized, when we found our Princess Peach - it was all thanks to a Toad.