They would all listen to what I had to say, they were great,” says Aman, a Class VII student of Little Flower School, Jamshedpur, about his best friends Goldy, Silvery, Jack, Joe, Johnson and Scooby. He talks fondly of all his six friends, whom he lost within a span of a year.

They were pretty little fishes to whom he would run home to, sharing with them all his secrets and telling them things he possibly couldn’t tell others. “They knew my darkest secrets,” he says, and of course, Goldy, Scooby, and others understood those secrets.

As does Kutu, Sayoni Mitra’s six-year old stray dog. Half the night Kutu sleeps with her, while the other half, Sayoni, a student of DAV School, Bistupur, sleeps with her parents.

How Sayoni and Kutu crossed paths is an interesting story. “I found Kutu shivering on the pavement opposite my home on a cold winter night. While her mother and three siblings were crushed under a car, my Kutu was miraculously saved,” she says. Sayoni simply picked up the tiny pup and brought it home to milk and lots of love!

“She is so cute! When my mother chases me for a round of beating if I do something wrong, Kutu stands as a shield protecting me from her,” Sayoni laughs, adding that of course she, too, does the same for Kutu.

Fiercely protective of Kutu, she wants to spare the little one the trauma of losing a friend, should she get him another dog for company. Earlier she had an Alsation, a Doberman and a Golden Retriever, but lost them all. “None of them lived for long. That is what prevents me from bringing another dog home to keep Kutu company,” she admits.

Whispering secrets into the ears of Kutu or Goldy is fine, but to snakes?

There’s no need to shudder, for children do have them as pets or rather would like to have them. Like Akshay Kumar, whose house in Telco, apparently has plenty of them. “I get to meet them everyday,” he says. As if it’s perfectly normal to chat with snakes every evening! “They are regular visitors to my home, so that way one could call them my pets,” he says grinning naughtily, quite aware of the awed expression he is getting.

But when one expresses utter disbelief, he comes down to earth and admits: “They are scary. When one watches the crawling creatures all over the place, one can really get frightened away.”

He is not done as yet. He is fascinated by a pair of cobras, who live in the tree opposite his house. “People are afraid to go near that tree. Given a chance, I would love to go in for a pair of snakes as my pets. But alas, I do not have anybody at home who can take care of them in my absence,” Akshay rues. Volunteers, please?

One hopes Akshay finds a caretaker for his cobras, as Shreya Bhattacharya’s father found a solution for her unruly cats! The story goes back to the time Shreya, now a student of Carmel Junior College, Jamshedpur, was living in Bhuvaneshwar, and had as many as 12 cats for company. Some company she had, she says, laughing, as she recollects the wild times.

“The bigger one was so cute and her little children were equally cute. Only the in - between generation troubled me,” she says.

So what’s the interesting story she’s giggling about? Apparently once they were particularly difficult to control and seemed to have gone totally wild. To cool them, her father mixed a little alcohol in their milk and after that they slept for a week! “They just went on sleeping! They did not even get up for their meals,” she smiles a smile that shows how much she is missing the cats at her ancestral home.

Sourovi De, a student of Jamshedpur Public School, too, has fond memories of the place where she studied before settling down in the steel city. Beautiful Goa.

“A friend of mine got her pet snake to school one day, while another friend got her turtle. The whole school crowded around to have a glimpse of these pets!” she says, before adding, “There, people had the strangest of pets.” One’s sure Akshay would love to hear about them! As for herself, she’s perfectly happy with her little dog Floppy, who, true to his name, actually keeps licking the Central Processing Unit (CPU) of her computer all day! “He is my best companion. I actually confide in him,” she says. Well, that was not difficult to guess, was it?

It is not difficult to understand the pain they feel on losing them. Nishay Keshri, a Class VI student of Oxford Public School, Ranchi, is yet to get over the loss of her Doberman, Tiger, a year back. “Pets are the best pals one can have. After I lost my dog, I find the idea of getting another too painful. The sorrow is like one feels when a family member passes away,” she says. She says she feels lonely without Tiger and admits getting another may help, but her grandfather is not willing. “Maybe I could talk to him,” she reasons with herself. For once a pet lover, always a pet lover. Like Aparna Shandilya, who studied in DAV Public School, Bariatu.

“Since Class I, I have been a dog lover. My first dog was a Pomeranian and her name was Silky. She used to sleep with me and I used to feed her myself. When I lost her a few months back, I had not eaten for two days, I just kept weeping. My mother was so disturbed, she said there will be no more dogs,” she says. But Aparna, of course, didn’t sit quietly. Her persistence paid off, and today she has another male Pom, whom they have called Rooney, as he was brought during the FIFA World Cup, she explains proudly.

How well do the kids know their pets? Very well, from the characteristics they point out. Aman knew exactly what his fishes were feeling from the way they jumped up and down, while Tanima Chatterjee, a Class XI student of DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir, Shyamali, knows Boomba, a Alsation, starts barking if he is not feeling clean enough and wants a wash. And Boomba is not even her dog, but her grandmother’s in Calcutta.

Shayma Arzoo, student of Class VII, Oxford Public School, Ranchi, loves the way his two cats come licking his shoes when he comes home. “But they also do it to run after the food,” he says, laughing.

Akansha Kumari, a Class IV student of DAV Public School, Ranchi, loves the way her pet Polly would even chase her to the nearby fields for biscuits. Akansha feels Polly’s reactions are no different than those of humans.“She is just like a human and eats every thing. We have not been serving non-veg items, but as soon as the non-veg items are brought, she starts looking for them and sits waiting till its cooked. My mother then offers her liver and rice, which she simply gobbles,” she says.

While one has seen people taking their dogs along when they go visiting, ever seen anyone taking ones parrot along? Rini Srivastawa, a student of Class VIII, Delhi Public School, Ranchi, does. “Even if we go for a party, we take my parrot Mithu. Needless to say, she becomes the centre of attraction, everywhere. As it was at a recent marriage anniversary they took her to. It’s to Mithu’s wake up call every morning, when she keeps saying, utho, utho, the family breaks its sleep.

“We just love her and cannot think of staying without her,” she says. Pets have that effect.