Zilny was about fifteen years old. She wasn't sure about her age because she had no family for as long as she could remember. There were so many other children like her in the kingdom that nobody cared to keep track of anybody's age. Most of the adults, too, were unsure of their ages.

The kingdom was a small island somewhere in a vast ocean. Nobody knew where it was, precisely. It was so out of the way. No ships had been there, ever. No aeroplanes had sighted it from the air. Even birds had not found the island.

The island was so small that if someone started to walk along the ocean beach in the morning, they could walk around the whole island by the evening of the same day.

Every day many of the children did this just for the fun of it.

Life was happy on the island. Everybody had enough to eat because the fruit trees in the jungle bore fruit all year round. Apples, bananas, berries, grapes, mangoes, pears, and many others.

There were no animals like cats and dogs and monkeys and snakes and flies, and biting and stinging insects. The only animals around were in the ocean.

From the shores, people would see swimming by, dolphins and porpoises and whales. And sharks!

The people were extra safe because all around the island there were rocks at the ocean side of the beaches. No sea animal could ever swim close enough to the shore to reach anybody wading and swimming about in the countless temporary rock pools.
One warm day, Zilny was lazing about in a warm shallow rock pool when a huge ocean wave washed over her and carried her into the ocean and pushed her down deep into the water.

This kind of wave action had either never happened before, or had happened so seldomly that nobody thought to take precautions against it.

Although Zilny knew it was hopeless to expect to be saved from either drowning or from being devoured by sharks, she did not stop trying to get back to shore.

She kicked hard and she swam as strongly as she could. She was doing so well she reached the surface of the water and popped her head out. She looked around. She got really depressed at what she saw.

She was very far away from shore. The high rock-walls on the beach that protected the island were barely visible.

Zilny felt she was going to cry. Before her tears could start, a huge wave fell on her and pushed her deep down into the ocean and towards the rock-wall. Her head popped out above the water.

She was in cave in a rock wall. She quickly scrambled out of the water and sat on a flat rock inside the cave.

At first she thought she had been washed back on the beach on the island. She breathed calmly again.

She got up and walked about in the cave. It was huge as a room in a home. It did not seem to have any openings.

"I'm not better off in this cave" said Zilny to herself. "I'll die of starvation in here."

Just when she was beginning to feel depressed again she saw a green cat sitting on one of the higher rock ledges.

The cat was looking at her. She felt a bit uneasy because the cat did not take its unblinking eyes off her.

Zilny had never seen a cat before, of course. She thought the cat was some kind of sea animal. Since it was so small she wasn't frightened. She worked it out that the cat had come into the cave the same way she had come; swept here by an ocean wave.

Her believing that didn't help her situation. All it meant was that she was going to die in the company of a green cat, unless that cat was a sea animal that could swim out any time it wanted to. That would mean she would die alone. Zilny pushed that thought out of her mind.

After walking about the cave and not finding any way out except down through the deep ocean, Zilny leaned against the rock wall of the cave, and cried.

She cried so much she did not notice the cat had come down from the ledge and was rubbing itself gently against her leg.

Without knowing what she was doing, she picked the cat up and hugged it while she cried. That's when the cat spoke.

"If you keep crying into my fur, your tears are going to get me all soggy, Zilny."

Zilny was so amazed at hearing that green cat talk she did not believe it. How could a strange animal know her name?

Zilny suspected she was losing her mind. Perhaps she was so depressed she was hearing sounds that were inside her head.

She didn't think she was really talking to the cat when she said, "I'm sorry. But I can't help it. I am so sad and frightened. I don't know what I am doing. I'm sorry." She wiped away her tears off the cat's fur with her hands.

The cat purred and said softly "Zilny, please put me down and follow me."

Zilny put the cat down. She followed anxiously as it walked deeper and deeper into the cave. It got darker and darker the farther they walked. They turned a corner.

Zilny saw an opening in the cave wall as large as a door. She followed the cat out into a whole new world of trees and grass and a river, in warm sunlight.

Zilny and the green cat were standing in the doorway high up on a mountainside.

There was a roadway that led down the mountain to a town. Zilny saw people all about, in the distance. And houses, and other buildings.

Zilny looked at the green cat in amazement. The cat looked at her and said "Don't ask me, Zilny. All I know is that this is a magic world. People like you are brought here because they are good people. Here they live forever at whatever age they are when they enter it. A long time ago I brought your Mom and Dad here. And your two siblings, brother and sister. I was sent to bring you here. Come. I'll take you to them."

Zilny now lives happily in that magic world with her family. She is fifteen forever. Dad and Mom told her she is fifteen.

Every now and then Zilny catches a glimpse of the green cat on the mountainside road in the far distance, leading someone down to the town.

Zilny always waves; the green cat always waves back.