Writing assignment #1. 
Overheard at the bus stop:
“They’ve got cougars in Issaquah. This is my neighbor… She tells me all about this stuff. She’s kinda maybe crazy or something. Well, just a little. She told me that the animal control people come out and tell her that there’s nothing they can do unless the animal is trapped or hurt or something, because they’re not hunters or anything.”
“Did the cougars hurt anybody?”
“Oh, no. Just that she hears them at night. Which is strange, because they’re not very noisy, ya know? She finds the paw prints by the stream in her backyard.”
A long silence.
“Cougar Mountain.”
“What?”
“Cougar Mountain. It’s just east of Issaquah. Used to be some mines on it, and then some gun emplacements during World War Two. Imagine Issaquah as the place where the US took a stand against the Japanese after Seattle had fallen.”
They laugh.
“Yeah, so now people hike all over it. It’s surrounded by subdivisions. Cougar Mountain’s cougars are invading.”
Another long silence.
“When is that bus supposed to arrive, again?”
