The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

his arms. “It’s my onager. My own onager. His name’s Bovril.” He began to
go up the stairs.
An onager was an animal from the Swiss Family Robinson book. Susan
said onagers were like donkeys. You could ride them. They were nothing like
cats.
“Don’t you dare take that animal into your bedroom,” Susan yelled after
him.
“I’m not,” Jamie said, “I’m giving him a bath.”
“Good Lord,” Susan said, to me. “We’ll have to call an ambulance. It’ll
scratch him to death.”
It didn’t. Jamie bathed the mangy cat and drowned its fleas. He brought it
back downstairs wrapped in one of Susan’s best towels. He fed it part of his
meat from dinner.
“It’ll hunt for itself after this,” Susan said. “I’m not cooking for a cat.”
“He’s a good hunter,” Jamie said, rubbing the cat’s head. “Aren’t you,
Bovril?”
Every night after that, Jamie fell asleep with Bovril curled in his arms. He
never wet the bed again. By the end of the second week Susan was offering
Bovril saucers of watered milk. “It’s worth it,” she told me. “Saves me
washing all those sheets.”