Looking through the old photographs, Leia was shocked to discover just how much she resembled her great-great-great-grandmother. She was also surprised to learn that granny was part of a family of West Coast apple growers.

A wealthy family of West Coast apple growers!

Leia imagined what life must’ve been like back in those days. Grandma surely awoke at sunrise and scurried into the orchards with the hardworking humans. She’d chase meadow mice in the morning, sip fresh, mulled cider from an earthen crock in the afternoon and catch mayflies and lightning bugs in the evening. It was a simple life. It was a good life.

It was a wealthy life.

In the Spring, Grandma would climb the coarse tree trunks and step precariously onto the young, green branches. A honeybee would often startle her as she stuck her nose a bit too close to the buds. In the summertime, she’d frolic in the groves with the bad-boy barn cats — she especially liked the rugged, feral types. Come Autumn, she’d scamper through the fallen leaves from the never-ending rows of Braeburns and Honeycrisps and grow tipsy gnawing on fermented Galas forsaken by the legion of bipedal laborers. That’s just how country cats live.

Oh, and let’s not forget, that’s how wealthy cats live!

So, on that note, Leia began to wonder just how much of this family fortune belonged to her. She was, after all, an apple heiress. Surely Great-Great-Great Grandma made sure her progeny would be well cared for. Leave it to Maddy, however, to burst her adopted sister’s Red Delicious dreams.

“You know she’s still alive, right?”

“What?” the would-be inheritress replied.

“Yeah,” Maddy informed her, “she’s ten years old and living in Yakima. And she’s got like a kajillion grandkittens. You’ll be lucky if she leaves you half a worm from one of those fermented apples.”

Turns out Great-Great-Great Grandma did a lot of frolicking with a lot of rugged, feral barn cats.