Animal Tales – October 2019

63

to a surprised stop when she heard water splashing

loudly, though. Yesterday, the gator had barely wanted

to swim at all. She shook off her concern and turned

the corner to find not one, but two gators swimming

around the enclosure.

“What happened? Who’s the other gator?” she

asked her mom.

“Well, I called the ranger who brought us Daisy, and

he told me that he’d rescued two gators that day. The

rescue center across the way answered his call first,

but they were only able to take one of the animals. So

Daisy ended up here without her friend.”

“How’d she get here?”

“I called the other center last night and explained

the situation. It sounded like they had a pretty grumpy

gator over there, too. So I told them we had enough

room here for both animals and that I’d be happy to

come pick up Daisy’s friend.”

“This is awesome, Mom! I can’t believe we actually

reunited Daisy with ... hey, what’s her friend’s name?”

“That might be the best part. They’d taken to calling

her Rain.”

“OMG, I have to FaceTime Rayna. She’s never

going to believe this story. Please, Mom!”

“Of course, kiddo.”

Katie was excited that she finally had something fun

to tell her best friend. For weeks, she’d been a downer

on the phone, with nothing fun to share. That day,

things were different.

“Ahh, look at them swimming in unison like that,”

Rayna squealed as she watched them through her

phone screen. “They’re so cute!”

“I didn’t even tell you the best part. Guess what that

one’s name is ...”

The girls went back and forth for an hour, catching

up, before Rayna gave Katie some great news. “My

mom said we can come visit during fall break.”

“Yesss! How did you convince her?”

“I just told her the truth: You can’t separate BFFs for

this long.”

Katie looked back at the happy gators and agreed.

“You’re so right.”