text: Sitting there, covered in spaghetti and meatballs, I reflected on my poor decisions. You must be wondering, how, and why did I end up in such a predicament!? Well, I will start from the very beginning. It all began when I turned two. Every two-year-old Amur leopard must go down to town and get some human food. All of us needed to do this to prove that we were worthy leopards. My best friend, Amara, was coming with me! I was only a day older than her but acted much more mature. The strange thing was that Amara did not think so. Anyway, we decided that we would go to a human food place and choose something that smelled good and looked good at the same time. “My mother told me that the food she tried was thin, crispy potatoes in a bag and said that she was almost caught and killed!" Amara whispered to me excitedly, her eyes shining. “We can try some grilled tigers in the food place if there are any!” I whispered back with a grin. We roared with laughter. The sooner those nasty, prey-stealing, disgraceful animals were gone, the better the forest would be. We left for town around noon, hoping to find something delicious we could try. Our parents had lectured us about safety and the usual parent talk stuff. They let us begin our adventure after they made us repeat everything they had said. As soon as we got to the road that leads to town, I began to sweat. I looked at Amara, who also looked jittery. I nudged her lightly, getting her attention immediately. “It’ll be fine. We practiced so many self-defense moves today. It will be over just before you know it.” She smiled the smile I had fallen in love with when we were just cubs. “If it’s going to be fine, then stop trembling, you frog-face!” I smirked. It was going to be fine. The town was a lot messier than I thought it would be. People walking, buying things, and even some riding on two circular wood things. We were planning to ask someone who looked nice for some good human food. We approached a fat lady, and Amara stepped forward. She bumped her head against the lady, and the lady whirled around to see Amara. Her jaw dropped open. Amara gave the lady a toothy grin, then spoke in her softest voice, “Do you recommend any good human food?” The lady screamed, catching everyone’s attention. Amara took a step back, looking startled, then looked at me. Some police were taking little wooden things out of their pockets and started to press the wood. In no time, there was a huge block of wood that came tearing over to us, making extremely loud noises. We decided to stay because we wanted to try our luck to see if it was a food truck the lady had called for us. Suddenly, mean-looking men with metal loops started to come towards us. l looked at Amara and I caught the fear flooding in her eyes. Then I started to remember. When Amara’s parents had gone to town together, her dad was caught in metal loops and killed. I looked back at the person with the metal loops, and could only think of one thing to say: “RUN!!!!” Amara immediately obeyed and sprinted towards the center of town. I looked back and saw that the men were also sprinting. I ran even faster without looking back, but I could hear the screaming sounds of the metal loop people. Other people stopped to look at us, but then also screamed and ran back to their little huts. We hit our top speeds and ran for our lives. We kept going until I looked back. When I turned ahead again, I realized that I was headed towards a pole. It was too late to turn, and I felt immense pain shooting through my skull. I saw Amara turning towards me. There was fear in her eyes. "Ambrose? Are you okay? Can you get up? Hurry!" I gasped, shivering in agony. "Go-go with-without m-m-me-" I nudged Amara forward, sending jolts pain across my head. Then I collapsed and everything went black. I woke up and found Amara sitting beside me, licking her paws. Her face lit up as she saw my opened eyes. "You're up again! How is your head? Does it hurt?" I stood up and shook myself. “I'm fine, but where are we? Where are the people?” “I dragged you here so the people with the metal loops wouldn’t find us. It also smells really good here.” She explained. “Want to just try some food here then go back home?” I asked. She nodded, and we were on our way into the human food place. There were only ten humans in the food place. We decided we would scare one of them into getting us their food, and our strategy worked perfectly. We chose one of the ladies with a lot of food on her plate. Amara growled softly and the lady took off running. So did all the others, except for one who hid behind the desk. I jumped on the table and licked my lips. The person stood up slowly, his eyes wide as the moons. I snarled at him, showing him my fangs. He bolted out of the door as fast as the wind. I bet he could have outrun the wooden thing with four wheels easily. The food had some weird long stripes of dough and some round balls of meat. I looked at the window and noticed that there was a sign that read, “Best spaghetti and meatballs in town," so I assumed this type of food was called spaghetti and meatballs. One bite and I was instantly in love. Amara was already wolfing down her fill. When she finished five of her plates, she moved to mine, and we started to compete for the last one. She shoved me away, and I decided to shove her back. She actually slipped and fell off the table! I laughed and laughed. Just as I was about to triumphantly devour the rest of the meal, Amara reached up, grabbed the disk, and dumped it on my head. I shot a wounded look at Amara, who was gladly licking the food off my head. Sitting there, covered in spaghetti and meatballs, I reflected on my poor decisions.