The Saga.

It was a cold February night in 2024, in Ocala, Florida — the kind of cold Florida gets maybe twice a year and never stops talking about. Somewhere out in the dark, a very small, very orange kitten made a decision that would change his life: he walked up to a front door and asked, loudly and repeatedly, to be let in.

He was tiny. He was freezing. He was absolutely certain this would work.

Here is the thing about that house: it sat deep in the woods, and those woods had bears. Real ones. So the family stood at the door doing a very short piece of arithmetic: one small kitten, outdoors, overnight, in bear country. The math came back instantly and unanimously.

The door opened. The bears never got a vote.

His name is just Cheddar — named for his exact color, which he considers a compliment. The family, unable to leave a good thing alone, started calling him Chester, and then Chester Cheddar in full, usually when he is in trouble, which is often, and never for long. He answers to all of them. He answers fastest to the treat bag.

These days he is living his best life in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico — where the sunbeams are excellent, the naps are world-class, and the local bear population is, he is pleased to report, exactly zero.

He is orange the way sunsets are orange: impossible to ignore and even better in person. His hobbies include supervising the kitchen from under the table, chirping at birds in what we believe is fluent pigeon, and melting — true to his name — into any patch of sunlight wider than a biscuit.

He has never once caught the red dot. He remains extremely confident.

He is, by every metric that matters, a very good boy.