Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce chapter six of my story Catzilla. This Tuesday, the thirtieth of May, I celebrated my birthday. Everyone sang Happy Birthday, drank Aquadent and had a lovely time. I did not, however, receive a diamond studded dog collar. Naturally, this was a great disappointment to me. Nonetheless, I was given a darling piece of jewelry: a new name tag. It is larger than my older one and in the same Garamond font as you can see in the picture below:

 I find it makes an altogether different chiming sound when I walk about and allow it to jingle against my rabies and license tags. It is not diamonds but it is lovely just the same. A true keepsake. Yet, I would have liked the diamond collar which I would look spectacular wearing. Christmas is only seven months away. And with that thought, here is chapter six of Catzilla. Enjoy!

Catzilla

by

Gigi the Parti Poodle

Chapter Six

Ellery’s parents’ house stood at the end of the neighborhood street. It was more elevated than the other homes. It had nine windows plus bubbled glass all around the front door. I had passed by it a few times but never strolled up and knocked. My mother, however, had no trouble with the job. She marched up to the door, dog crate in hand and rang the doorbell.

We waited patiently until we saw footsteps approach through the bubbled glass. The door opened and a dour looking woman in a tailored suit answered. “Yes,” she said displeased.

“We believe this might belong to the residents of this home,” my mother said nodding towards the crate.

The woman took a sidelong glance at the crate and said, “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“We found this kitten yesterday and believe it belongs to Ellery.”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “Yes, I believe it does. I will take the Felis Catus and alert her rightful owner.”

The woman went to pick up the crate, but my mother stopped her. “The kitten may be yours,” she said, “but the crate belongs to us.”

“I will return your low-rate crate directly.”

The woman grabbed the crate’s handle, took the kitten in the house, and shut the door leaving my mother and I standing on the grandiose porch with the elegant pillars and the golden overhead light.

“What if she doesn’t come back with the crate?” I asked.

“Then we’ll go inside and retrieve it.”

“Wouldn’t that be trespassing?”

“Taking our crate and not returning it is stealing. I hardly think our crossing their threshold to retrieve what is rightfully ours gives them the higher ground.”

Luckily, we didn’t have to storm the house because the woman in the suit returned post haste, with Harlow’s now empty crate. She opened the door, set it down beside my mother and said, “Thank you for returning the Felis Catus. Then she shut the door and left.

“It doesn’t look like we’ll be getting a finder’s reward,” I said.

“I never thought we would.”

I didn’t think about the kitten much after that. I finished my week in detention and managed to avoid Ellery by ignoring him in class and taking a different route home. Then Friday evening rolled around. After I finished my shift at the restaurant and was coming home, I saw Lyle out in his front yard playing tetherball.

“Hey, Briar,” he said.

“Hey, Lyle.”

“You want to play tetherball with me?”

“I just got off my shift at the restaurant. Maybe tomorrow afternoon or something.”

“Okay…say, I was wondering…I was wondering if you were going to that spring fling dance.”

“I hadn’t even thought about the spring fling dance. I never went to school dances. In fact, I avoided all social school activities. My mother told me this was a terrible idea. She said I couldn’t just rely on playing badminton either. “Grades alone aren’t going to get you into college,” she said. “If you want to go to a university, and I use the word “want” lightly, you need to figure out one or two activities to engage in and engage in them soon.” I knew mom was right. But I had to find activities I could tolerate.

“Um…I’ll have to think about it, Lyle.”

“Oh…well, if you do decide you want to go, my mom could drive us. She could ask your mom if it’s okay.”

“I can’t promise anything, Lyle.”

“Well…let me know what you decide.”

As I headed towards my house, I noticed our next-door neighbor Mrs. Thorndach standing in her driveway setting a small shiny silver steel bowl in front of a kitten. Ellery’s kitten. The kitten sauntered up to the bowl and ate. I had to look twice to make sure it was the same cat. But it had that unmistakable red coat.

“Mom,” I said when I got inside. “Ellery’s kitten is on the loose again.”

“It is?” she said.

“Mrs. Thorndach is feeding it in her driveway as we speak.”

“What’s the matter with those Edevanes anyway?”

“I don’t know. What do you think we should do?”

My mother pondered my question. “I think the best thing we can do is watch the kitten and wait. We just took the poor thing back to them and they let it loose again. If I didn’t have this wretched asthma, I’d let it stay here.”

“It’s odd they just let it go again after we found it and gave it back.”

“I got an email today from Lyle’s mother. She’s offering to give you a ride to that spring fling dance. Is that something you wanted to attend?”

“I don’t know.” I really didn’t want to go. But now I felt obligated because Lyle went and asked his mother.

“Do you need a dress for that?”

I sighed. “Yeah, maybe.”

“You don’t have to go with Lyle. I’m perfectly capable of driving you there if you want to go by yourself.”

I nodded. The last thing I wanted to do was buy a stupid dress and wear it to a stupid dance.

“Think about it and let me know.”

“I need to go do my homework,” I said and headed to my room.

This was not the last time I saw the kitten out and about. In fact, I saw it at a different house every day that week. And every time I saw it someone was feeding it. At the end of the week, I noticed the kitten grew to the size of a full-grown cat.

At lunch the following Tuesday, Lyle came over to my table.

“Hi, Briar.”

“Hi, Lyle.”

“May I?” he asked sheepishly.

 I gestured towards the empty chair across from me.

He sat down and said, “I haven’t heard from you for days. I see you in the halls sometimes, but it’s crowded and hard for me to catch up to you.

“I’ve been busy.”

“With badminton?”

“With life in general. Say, have you seen a reddish colored kitten with oversized ears prowling around our neighborhood?”

“Hmm. Actually, yeah. I did. I was outside playing tetherball when I saw a cat of that description prowling around. I think my neighbor fed it.”

“I’ve seen it every day for over a week. And each time someone feeds it. I think it’s grown. When I first saw it a couple of weeks ago, it was a scrawny malnourished kitten. Now it’s like a full-grown cat.”

Lyle took a thoughtful drink of his green sports drink. “You sure it grew that fast?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe it wasn’t as small as you thought it was.”

“It was a tiny, emaciated kitten. My mom and I took it to the vet to find out if it had been chipped and it hadn’t. But it belongs to Ellery.”

Lyle nodded. “Ellery, huh,” he said taking another pull off his sports drink. “I could bug his house if you wanted.”

“Seriously?”

Lyle shrugged. “Yeah. I made a bug last summer. Worked well. I listened in on my parents a lot. They’re pretty concerned about my not having friends.”

“How would you get it into his house?”

“I tutor him.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“He struggles in science. I can do it this evening if you like. I’ll tape their conversations and bring them to you.”

“When?”

“How about Friday evening?”

“How about Saturday afternoon?”

Lyle nodded. “Saturday afternoon it is.”

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and all five installments of the Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!

STREAM OF THE WEEK: TAPEHEADS (1988)-PLEX.TV

The third 80’s movie sleeper choice comes from producer Mike Nesmith of The Monkeys. This comedy satire was released one year before Say Anything with John Cusack playing a very different type of character from Lloyd Dobber. The story is about two high school graduates Josh Tager (Tim Robbins) who showed talent as a film director but has not yet been successful and his sleezy but loyal friend Ivan Alexeev (John Cusack) who find themselves working mundane jobs as security guards. It is Josh’s birthday and Ivan has decided to throw a big bash. Josh knows how to work the surveillance system, so it looks like the halls have no one in them. But things go awry, the boys get caught and they end up fired.

The two decide to join forces and form Video Aces, a production company with Josh as the creative talent and Ivan as the businessman. The two get a job shooting a commercial for a local restaurant and the doors start kicking in including filming a funeral. But their biggest success comes when they are hired to shoot a music video for the rock group The Blender Children.

There are several cameos of famous musicians in the film such as Sam Moore of Sam and Dave, Connie Stevens, Junior Walker, Weird Al Yankovic, Ted Nugent, Courtney Love, and Michael Nesmith. This film contains one of my all time favorite movie scenes featuring King Cotton who steals the show.