Polly's Pet

"Polly's Pet" was one of my favorite books when I was little, and I remember my grandma reading it to me (this was before I could read). It is amazing how illustrations you see as a child seem so huge and real, like you might slip into them if you look at them long enough. The story is about an unhappy cat. His owner, Polly, dresses him up in baby clothes. He hates it, but he never tells her to stop dressing him up because he knows that it makes her happy. He lets resentment build and build until he finally runs away to go skiing and ice skating and doesn't tell her where he is. However, after a while, he realizes how lonely he feels, even though he gets to do everything he wants to do. One page, I remember, always made me cry as a child (below). The story has a happy ending, but there is a lot of truth to Polly and me and our greatest fears and sorrows; it is strange how stories can reach something in us and speak for something we can't quite say. Even more so that it comes from a children's book.