1.Must be 2 pages in length. 2.Must follow the formatting and style guidelines set forth on the Writing Assignment Checklist. WRITING ASSIGNMENT CHECKLIST: Formatting (all formatting should follow MLA guidelines)  Always create a heading in the top, left-hand corner of the page that contains your name, professor, class, and date  Always double-space the entire document, including the heading  Always use Times New Roman 12-point font  Always give your paper a unique title that represents its main idea, topic, or argument. Make sure that the title is in the same type and size font as the rest of the paper  For documents with more than one page, always include a header in the top right-hand corner (right-justified) with your last name and the page number (on the menu, go to “Insert” or “View” Header/Footer)

The Price by Neil Gaimam (1998)

Tramps and vagabonds have marks they make on gateposts and trees and doors, letting others of their kind know a little about the people who live at the houses and farms they pass on their travels. I think cats must leave similar signs; how else to explain the cats who turn up at our door through the year, hungry and flea-ridden and abandoned?

We take them in. We get rid of the fleas and the ticks, feed them and take them to the vet. We pay for them to get their shots, and, indignity upon indignity, we have them neutered or spayed.

And they stay with us, for a few months, or for a year, or for ever.

Most of them arrive in summer. We live in the country, just the right distance out of town for the city-dwellers to abandon their cats near us.

We never seem to have more than eight cats, rarely have less than three. The cat population of my house is currently as follows: Hermione and Pod, tabby and black respectively, the mad sisters who live in my attic office, and do not mingle; Princess, the blue-eyed long-haired white cat, who lived wild in the woods for years before she gave up her wild ways for soft sofas and beds; and, last but largest, Furball, Princess`s cushion-like calico long-haired daughter, orange and black and white, whom I discovered as a tiny kitten in our garage one day, strangled and almost dead, her head poked through an old badminton net, and who surprised us all by not dying but instead growing up to be the best-natured cat I have ever encountered....