As for other writing, I don't know about the Mirror On The Wall, I think I may put it away and try to churn out an outline instead of just regurgitating chapters. Besides that, I was collared and almost choked to death by another adorable character named Kaycee. She's a sweet, excitable stray with a seahorse obsession. She's also a mermaid.
Those of you who know me know that I have always disdained mermaids. This is true. I disdain the mermaid stereotype of an world full of perky, beautiful/handsome people with fishtails, almost Disney-ish world. It's ridiculous. I also disdain the other stereotype of a dark, warrior-based world of mermaids with ridiculous sea-magic power and primitive weapons. This too is ridiculous. I've always had my own secret view of mermaids with a lot of little details that I'm not sure anyone has thought of before.
- How do mermaids breath underwater and come up and sit on rocks and woo human men? Biologically impossible. Nothing on Earth can do both. And as far as I can see, mermaids are always set in the Earth oceans. My version gives them gill slits on the sides of their necks. I trashed the rock-and-humans thing.
- Why would a human find a mermaid attractive anyways? I'm sure mermaids would see us as funny-looking things with no natural skills whatsoever. Also, biological compatibility? Yeah...not sure anyone's thought of that...it pretty much rules out half-mer-half-human hybrids.
If they do make their way into a story, probably written for my mermaid-obsessed sister, they shall be posted here. But after November! And, to placate you, the final installment of the Crazy Cat Lady.
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Part Four
Once you are inside, you are not really sure why you went in through the window. It was clear when you pushed the window that it wasn’t going to open the other way to let you go back out. Now you’re stuck in here.
But you pass it off. You are certainly clever and ingenious enough to get out again. You’ve escaped countless times from Suzy. Why is the Cat Lady any different?
But still your tummy squirms with uncertainty.
You ignore it and hold your head high, looking around. There is an overpowering smell. It smells like your litter-box just before Suzy cleans it, only worse. A hundred times worse, because the Cat Lady has a hundred cats and Suzy only has you. Your sensitive nose doesn’t like it, but you finally get past the stench.
Now you can use your eyes. It’s very dark, but that’s no problem for a cat. You can see everything at least hazily. And in this house everything is movement.
You are balanced on the arm of a scratchy, overstuffed sofa. It’s not long before a cat swarms the sofa and stands close by, staring at you with dull eyes. It has lusterless fur and is altogether a sad specimen. You think of your own bright orange-and-white fur and realize you must stand out, even in this dim room.
It’s not long before the first cat is joined by at least another dozen. They all stare at you, waiting for you to move first.
Hello, you say, with a friendly twitch of the ears.
This one is no competition, one says.
Our food is safe, another says. All of them turn to go.
What are they talking about? Don’t they have food bowls? You think of your own food bowls, yellow and blue, back at home. They’re still full of dry yet delicious cat food, you remember, and suddenly you long for them.
What about your food? you ask, and they whip around, suspicious.
The food is on the ground when it is time to eat. There you fight for it. Do you not know this? Do you not fight hundreds of other cats for a meal each day? a white one asks, though you can barely tell it’s white through the dust in its fur.
You hesitate. Don’t they remember the outside? Your stomach squirms harder and you want a way out. But what about food bowls? Don’t you have any of those?
What is a food bowl? The Lady has many bowls of food but they are only for the Lady. What a strange one you are. You smell of things I’ve never smelled before. The white one sniffs you again. Yet they are pleasant things.
Of course they’re pleasant. Much more pleasant than this grubby house. You really want a way out now. But you have no time to look around, the cats around you are swarming to the center of the room, and you wonder why.
Then you hear it. “Here, pussy, pussy, pussy. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
Suzy calls you like that. She says, “Here, you fat sausage. Come here.” But she says it laughingly. You like the way she calls you. This voice is different, so harshly sweet you can’t bear it. Which one of these cats is she calling for?
You jump down and try to blend in.
A stooped old lady in a flowered dress comes into the room with a bag of food. It’s a small bag, the kind Suzy sometimes gets when you feel desperately sick of your old food and just want a change, only for a while. She pours it on the floor and the cats begin scuffling for it. You see now that there’s no way she can have a hundred bowls. There would be no time to fill them.
You try to look like you’re eating, but she can see you. You glow in the darkness, you are so clean and white.
Your collar jangles as she swoops in and lifts you above the crowd. “Aren’t we from outside?” she asks.
Yes, yes, you are, so you need to go back right away. You wriggle and squirm, but she has a firm grim. She clearly has plenty of practice.
“Oh…” She lets go a sigh of disappointment. “You have a collar and tags.”
You relax. Suzy’s number is there, and now the Crazy Cat Lady will have to follow human law and call Suzy and say, “I have your cat.”
But her gnarled fingers are pulling at your neck, and then you hear your buckle slide. A sound you have wanted to hear forever. Until today. Then your collar is free, and there’s a clatter as she tosses it in a bin.
Your tags. Your last hope of escape. Gone.
Then she holds you up and says, “Look at you! You’re so precious! And look. You have fur! So I can call you Fruity-Two! And now that you have a name, you can live with me and my other babies!”
There are too many things wrong with this for you. You are not a baby. All the cats have fur. And you’re not sure you want to know what happened to Fruity-One. And not to mention, you don’t want to spend the rest of your life scuffling over a few kibbles in this overpowering stench!
“Now you belong to me,” she says happily.
And you meow frantically that you do not belong to her! You belong to − well, being a cat, you don’t belong to anybody, you simply live with somebody. But you don’t live with the Crazy Cat Lady. You live with Suzy, who is a very nice, perfectly sane cat lady who is probably back getting out tuna for a cat who is miles away stuck in the grasp of the Crazy Cat Lady!
“Oh, you sweetheart,” she coos, and puts you down. Then she goes into the other room. What she is doing there is anybody’s guess, but you are not going to stick around to find out!
You hear the doorbell ring, and a sense of relief and urgency shoots through you. You may have lost your tags, but fate has dumped another chance to get away in your paws − and you are going to take it!
The Crazy Cat Lady comes into the room again, grumbling. She shoos the cats away from the door. When she spots you slinking towards the door, she cries out. “Fruity! Don’t you dare go near that door. It’s not nice outside my house!”
Oh, yes, you will dare. You dare very much. And not only do you dare, it is nice outside her smelly old house and you fully intend to enjoy how nice it is outside.
She sees that you have no intention of listening to her and shambles forwards, hands outstretched to grab you. You scoot behind a vase just as the bell rings again. Forgetting you for a second, she grabs for the handle and opens the door.
A startled delivery man can’t resist pinching his nose. The Cat Lady furrows her brow and you purr quietly to yourself.
“Young people!” she screams in his face. The Cat Lady does not know how to talk to people anymore, only to cats. This is why she always screams at other people. It’s in all the stories. “So rude!” she yells in his ears.
“I am most sorry, madam.” The deliveryman bows to her and offers the package. It smells enticingly of fish.
“Thank you,” she hollers.
You realize your chance is slipping away while you sit and giggle to yourself. You shoot out from behind the vase, over the deliveryman’s foot.
He shouts in surprise and turns too late to catch you. You are already off the porch and hidden in one of the few scrubby bushes in the Crazy Cat Lady’s yard.
“Fruity-Two!” the Cat Lady screams. You ignore that. Fruity-Two is not your name.
“I am so, so, so, sorry. Please forgive me. I’ve lost you your…Fruity-Two. I apologize. Please let me replace…Fruity-Two. I can find you an excellent cat…” the deliveryman says frantically, trying to appease the Cat Lady.
You purr loudly from the bush and stalk out deliberately, letting the Cat Lady see you once more before you rocket down the driveway. The show cats are already gone.
But is it any matter? You performed Henry’s dare. You are now a cat of such exceptional bravery why should you care if a bunch of stuck-up show cats hung around to see if you got out alive?
You set off on the road to home. You can already hear the can opener as Suzy gets you that big bowl of tuna.
(This next part is so short I'll include it too.)
Epilogue
Your belly is comfortably full as you stretch out on that sunny cushion you were on. Suzy is staring at a leafy thing. Everything is perfect.
Then you hear a knock on the door. You look at Suzy, who has set aside her leafy thing and gotten up, grumbling. You make a quick decision: is it worth abandoning your sunny spot just to see who it is?
Since you’ve already been disturbed, you decide to go see who’s calling. Suzy never has anybody on Tuesdays.
But you hang back anyways, out of sight of the visitor, but where you can see the door perfectly. Suzy opens it.
You suppress a meow of surprise.
It is the Crazy Cat Lady.
She has come back for you.
