It was Wednesday night and I was ready to sleep. However, before I went to bed, I helped mum in the kitchen.

Mum always boiled milk, in a steel pot, at night so that it would cool down by the morning and be used for tea. So, as usual, after mum boiled the milk, she covered it and we retired for the night to our rooms.

The next morning, we woke up to find the kitchen floor messed up, with an empty milk pot lying on one side. I became frightened as scary thoughts of thieves breaking into the house crept inside my head. However, my family and I agreed that it could not be thieves, since it would be foolish to think that they would just drink milk instead of steal valuable things.

The next suspect on the list was a cat. However, after investigating the doors and windows, we realised that we never left anything open at night, so there was no chance of a cat intruding too!

The disappearance of the milk became a daily routine for us. Eventually, it became unbearable to spend every day without drinking milk. Thus, it was important for us to see who or what was behind this.

Mum and I came up with a plan. We hid ourselves behind the curtains at night, instead of going to our bedrooms, and waited eagerly for the culprit to be caught.

Baba went to sleep early, because he had to go to work. Mum and I stayed awake the entire night. After a couple of hours, I heard the sound of a door opening from my right side. I immediately looked there, but didn’t see anyone. Mum and I remained as still as a statue.

A white furry cat tiptoed into the kitchen through the door. Her tiny head moved from right to left. After this, five little furry balls followed. She jumped and spilled the milk on the floor. The kittens drank all the milk thirstily. We were so surprised by the visitors that our jaws dropped down.

When mum jumped out of the curtains, she scared the cat away. Even though we discovered the culprits, we still had a question in our minds: how did the cat find its way into the house? However, this too was solved when mum saw the cat go through the small slide door beside the store.

I took two kittens in my arms and stroked their heads. The cat eventually came back too. My mum and I decided to adopt these cats. In the morning, when Baba woke up, we told the entire story to him, and he gave a hearty laugh at the end. Finally, the mystery of vanishing milk was solved.

Published in Dawn, Young World, December 31st, 2022