Ms Cavendish, an elegant Siamese, was the new primary-level teacher at the Cheeseland Academy of Inter-Species Learning. It’s the first day back after summer break.

Ms Cavendish: Welcome everyone to our first day of school. My name is Ms. Cavendish, and I’ll be your teacher this year. I thought that a good way to introduce ourselves would be to go around the room and tell everyone one thing that you did this summer. Would anyone like to start?

Sally Squirrel: Ooh, me! My brother Hal got into a fight with the cat next door. There was so much hissing and chittering that my mom had to throw water on them to break it up.

Ms Cavendish: Oh my! Is everyone okay?

Sally: Yes. But my mom said that they aren’t allowed to play in the bird bath anymore.

Ralph Raccoon: We went on a trip to the mountains to visit some relatives this summer.

Ms. Cavendish: Oh, that sounds lovely.

Ralph: We had a great time. And I learned something new.

Ms Cavendish: What did you learn?

Ralph: That humans are really weird. Some of them think that we are adorable and others think that we are full of diseases. One lady saw me and my sister playing chase, running after each other. She started yelling at someone to get a gun because we had to be diseased to be running around like that.

Ms Cavendish: That must have been terrifying. What happened?

Ralph: Another lady came out, but she didn’t have a gun. She said, “Myrtle, you’re crazy. Can’t you see that they’re little raccoons having fun?” Then she made the other lady go inside.

Ralph: It turned out really well. The humans had a bonfire later, and we went back to thank the nice lady. She gave each of us something called a s’more. It’s 2 graham crackers with melted marshmallow and chocolate between them.They were really yummy.

Tommy Tabby: Me next. We went to the beach.

Ms Cavendish: That’s an interesting choice for a cat family. Do you all like water?

Tommy: Not at all. I mean it’s great to drink, but don’t make me walk or play in it. My mom’s the same way.

Ms Cavendish: So who planned the trip?

Tommy: My dad did. He says he didn’t notice all of the water. He wanted to go for the sun and sand. That part was really nice. But my little brother didn’t understand that it wasn’t an open-air litter box. We almost got kicked out when another guest saw him doing his thing. Mom was so embarrassed. She says we’re never going back.

Ms Cavendish: I can definitely see why she would be a little uncomfortable. Who’s next?

Lily Lab: We went to a family reunion in a place called Woofington.

Ms Cavendish: That sounds like a dog-friendly place.

Lily: We thought so too. But maybe a little too dog-friendly. My aunt had reserved a place in one of their parks for all of us. She was expecting 20-25 dogs. But the park is big, and it seemed like every Yellow Labrador family in the state was in Woofington. There were also lots of Chocolate Labs and Golden Retrievers.

Ms. Cavendish: That sounds like a lot of dogs.

Lily: My mom said that she had never seen so many dogs. We followed the directions to our site. She found her sister pretty fast. My aunt was really upset. Some other family had taken over the site.

Ms Cavendish: That’s awful. What happened?

Lily: Not long after we got there, Mom’s other sister arrived with her family, Aunt Shelly’s married to Steffo. He’s a Tibetan Master. He’s really sweet and wouldn’t hurt a fly. But he’s huge and very protective of his family. He went to the alpha of the other family and suggested that they had made a mistake. They were really good about moving on.

Ms Cavendish: This is all very interesting. Anyone else want to share?

Kyle Coyote: We got kicked out of a national park. I don’t want to say which one because they might be looking for us.

Ms Cavendish: Oh my goodness! What happened?

Kyle: My family went to this park and wanted to camp. Did you know that some of those places are run by humans? We thought bears ran them all. Bears are cool to coyotes; humans are not.

Ms Cavendish: And the one you went to was run by humans?

Kyle: Yeah. Mom and Dad got into a huge fight when they found out. Mom won, so we decided to stay. But the guy at the entrance was kinda a jerk. He read all of the rules to us like we were too stupid to do it ourselves. We finally set up camp and ate. We were relaxing at night when we heard the call of the wild. Of course we had to respond. Several other coyotes joined in.

Ms Cavendish: That sounds wonderful.

Kyle: It was. Until the humans showed up and told us we were breaking the rules by making noise after 9 pm. He got into a fight with my dad who scented him. Then we got kicked out.

Ms Cavendish: This has all been a lot of fun. I’m sorry but we’re out of time. Any last thoughts?

Voice at the Back: Party with animals, not with humans.

Pictures courtesy of Google Images