Pepper

It wasn't every day that Pepper saw a tree in the living room of his house. But when it appeared, one blizzarding day, his heart struck an extra beat and his eyes widened to the size of tennis balls. The twinkling lights drapped across the boughs, the glittery balls dangling from branches, the promise of delights to come; he knew exactly what it meant for him, all he had to do was wait.
Every day as he lay down at the foot of the tree, staring up at the little red and white man twirling around on string, he waited for the floor to be piled high with boxes wrapped in brightly coloured, wafer-thin paper. Why was it there? he pondered. Was it lonely? Did it need a home? Or perhaps it was cold. That at least would explain why it was inside when the wind howled outside and the ground turned white.
He knew how that felt; to be confined to a small part of the garden, hemmed in by a metal fence with no shelter. Memories from long ago. But now nothing could taint his excitement.
Patiently he sat and on the seventh day, when he cracked open his sleepy, sticky eyes and lifted his head of his tartan, hairy rug he saw before him a pile of glimmering boxes piled randomly on top of one another.
He leapt off his rug and bounded into his carers' bedroom, throwing open the door with a headbutt.
Pepper's carers sat bolt up right in bed. He knew he'd woken them both suddenly by the rasping of their voices, the whites of their eyes and their heavy breathing, but that didn't matter. They called out to him with sounds incomprehensible and furrowed brows. Pepper just stood at the foot of the bed, staring at one and then the other with his jaw open, his lips curled into an eager smile and his tongue lolling like a limp piece of ham from the side of his mouth.
'Gimme, gimme,' he thought. 'Please, please.'
There weren't many sounds he understood but 'Come on then, Pepper,' usually meant they'd given in to his will. This time it was no different. The stockier of his carers pulled back the sheets and led Pepper back through to the lounge. Pepper scuttled alongside him and dashed toward the tree where he sat down, panting and glancing down at the presents and up at his bare, pink-skinned carer.
"You want your presents already?" he said.
Pepper just stared back at him.
"Fine," said his carer as he reached into the multi-coloured pile and pulled out two odd-shaped packages wrapped in wrinkled paper.
Pepper began to salivate. He knew what it was. He could almost taste it, almost feel the hairy texture on his tongue.
"Now," said his carer, waggling the present in front of Pepper's eyes. "At least make it last longer than a day as the ladies at the charity shop are getting suspicious of me. If they knew I bought these for you to tear up they'd never let me in their store again."
More incomprehensible sounds.
His carer handed Pepper the present, and Pepper gently clasped his mouth round the soft package.
When his carer was out of sight he thumped his body on the floor, gripped the packaged between his fore paws and frantically tore through the crisp wrapping, exposing the orange and black striped beast inside.
It had four bulbous paws, two pointed ears, a lolling red tongue and large, black plastic eyes. That's what Pepper liked the most; eyes not so big that he couldn't get his mouth round it and too small to find either.
He plucked the unsuspecting tiger from the shreds of soggy paper and gripped it between his paws.
But just as he was about to begin earnestly gouging out the black eyes with his teeth, something stopped him. The hopeful smile on the tiger's face, the piercing stare of its eyes, the eagerness of its pricked ears spoke to him silently.
Pepper could feel its warmth radiating off its fur, enveloping him like the warm comforting arms of his carer.
He tried to fight back the unfamiliar feeling, trying to tap into his deep desire, his fixation with pulling the ribbons white fluff from its squashy body-the white gold he so desperately craved-but its soothing force was stronger than he could overcome. All he could do was stare at it staring back at him.
He was defeated. He knew he could no more pluck the stuff from that toy than he could his carers. So instead he simply rested his chin upon its head and made sure it never left his side.