The frightened kitten sat in the Animal Shelter's "Kitten Pen," her hunched back toward the cage door, desperately wishing she was anywhere but there. "She's going to be a beautiful cat if she gets a chance to grow up." I thought, but the smoky-gray kitten was so shy and scared, I doubted anyone who was looking for a playful kitten would give the half-grown cat a second glance. I was afraid her potential beauty would never have a chance to bloom.

She almost proved me right.

Charcoal turned out to be congenitally shy, and she failed her first adoption miserably when she dug her way out of her owner's cabin to hide underneath the chicken coop. When her owners finally retrieved her, she went back to the Animal Shelter. The Shelter Manager worried that the young cat was too shy to ever make a good pet. That's when I called Denny--he had admired her a few weeks earlier when he had stopped by the Shelter when I was volunteering. If we were going to take her, it looked like it was now or never.

"Well," Denny said, "if she's that shy, we'll never notice we have another cat." We brought the eight-month old kitten home and let her get acquainted with us at her own pace.

Charcoal is possibly our most beautiful cat, though for many years. only our closest friends ever saw her. She has out-grown most of her timidity over time. Sh is a quiet, inobtrusive cat who prefers to hang out upstairs but more and more frequently she will come downstairs to greet visitors.

Her smoky gray coat is gorgeous--long white fur tipped with dark gray. I sometimes joke that she looks like a white cat that got dropped down the chimney. Time has made her more confident and trusting but she will never be the life of the party.

That's fine. We love her just the way she is and are so glad she came to live with us.