Good afternoon. Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce the seventeenth chapter of my story Catzilla. The rush of back-to-school is here, and my novelist and I take this time of the year to root around our home to see if we have any new and unused school supplies to donate for kids in our school district. Sometimes we have more, sometimes less. This year we located some pencils, pens, and a few pencil/pen pouches and boxes to donate. It is not always easy finding the information as to where to drop off the supplies, however. Sometimes we wish the school districts were better at communication… in every way imaginable. But we managed to figure it out and transported the items to their desired location. The Maltese even helped, sniffing out a few folders for the kids. Last year we were able to donate a Hershel backpack which was new and still in its packaging that we had purchased for something like seventy-five percent off. My novelist loves being frugal as well as generous. It is unfortunate, however, that Canis lupis familiaris like me are not allowed to attend school with our human friends. I would have made an excellent Stanford pupil. I would have majored in writing and economics. I think that would have been a whole lot of fun. But alas, I was only allowed to attend a state college and lived in a dog only dormitory. We had an ongoing rivalry with the neighboring all cat dormitory who were always staging raids. Many of us would end up feeling naked the next day when to our horror we found our collars had gone amiss. But that is topic for another time. Here now is chapter seventeen of Catzilla. Enjoy!

Catzilla

by

Gigi the parti poodle

Chapter Seventeen

My mother reluctantly walked towards the stage. “Principal Homola,” she said, which was Principal Doofus’s real name. “We need to formulate a plan.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Principal Homola said. “You think you can come up with a plan to fight this…whatever that thing is that’s out there and be more successful than the police just proved to be.”

“Yes. It may be a harry situation. But I think what we must do is fight the cat instead of hiding from it.”

“I concur,” Lyle said. “If we hide from the cat, it will still be lurking out there. And it will only get bigger. Mrs. Gagnon’s right. We need to defeat it.”

“Okay, Ms. Gagnon,” Professor Doofus said. “How do you suggest we defeat it?”

“The first thing I’d want to know is does it have any weaknesses? Any cracks? Any fissures we could take advantage of?”

“Cats suffer if they’ve been declawed,” Lyle said.

“That’s an excellent point, Lyle. They are devastated if they are declawed. But how would we declaw this cat?”

“What if there was an antidote? Like a way to reverse the effects and shrink it back down to normal kitten size?”

“Do you know of an antidote?”

“No, but what if there is one?”

“Well, Lyle it would be our best chance. But it may be the most difficult resolution. If it took a long time to get this big, I would guess it would take just as long to shrink.”

“You hear that, Concord?” Principal Doofus said. “It takes time to shrink.”

“What if,” I said, “all we had to do was reverse positions?”

“Reverse positions?” Mr. Relish, my science teacher said.

“The kitten is out there and we’re in here. It wouldn’t solve the problem entirely but what if the first step to getting out of this situation was to get outside and trap the kitten inside?”

“How?”

“If we could lure it to an enclosed place then we could find out if it’s possible to return it to its normal kitten size. Then we could get everyone safely home.”

“You would need a sturdy container to put it in. Where are you proposing we put it?”

Mr. Relish had a point, and I didn’t have a good answer. Where would we put the kitten?

“How large is the cat?” my mom asked. “Because judging by my encounter with it I would say it was at least the size of a toolshed.”

“That would be correct,” Lyle said. “By my calculations and judging on what I heard from Dr. Grosser, that would be its approximate size at present.”

“Who is Dr. Grosser?” Principal Homola asked.

“She’s the scientist who works over at the Edevane factory.”

“Doing what?”

“Well, she made this cat we’re dealing with.”

“Don’t get smart with me, Concord. I want to know what you know.”

“That is what I know. This Dr. Grosser scientist is running experiments for some reason, and she put this cat out there to roam around our neighborhoods so we would feed it.”

“Why?”

“Ask her.”

“I’ll deal with you later. What I want to know right now is where is there a place we could securely fit a toolshed sized cat?”

My mother and I pondered this. I couldn’t immediately think of a place that would sufficiently hold the cat. I looked over at Lyle who appeared to be mulling it over as well.

“How were you able to know this cat was an experiment at the Edevane factory?” my mom asked.

“Well…we bugged it.”

“You bugged it. How on earth were you able to plant a bug on a cat that size?”

“It wasn’t as big then.”

“And?”

This was the part I didn’t want to tell her. “We…drugged it.”

“With what?”

“A sedative.”

“A sedative? And where did you get a sedative?”

“Quincy.”

“Quincy just happened to have a sedative?”

“We think he got it from his older brother.”

“Fabulous,” my mother said sarcastically. “So, what did you and I’m presuming Lyle do after you drugged and bugged the cat?”

“Lyle put the bug he made on its collar.”

“Lyle is quite industrious, isn’t he? So, to get this cat that is the size of a toolshed…”

“And growing.”

“And growing, we’re going to have to drug it again. How did you drug it the first time? Lure it with food?”

“More or less.”

“So, we’re going to need sedatives strong enough to affect a cat that large.” My mom looked away and mulled this over. Then she sighed and said, “I don’t know if it’s strong enough, but I might still have some of your father’s prescription pills in my handbag. I used to have to carry them around for him. I’ll go check my handbag. You stay here.”

“Okay.”

My mom marches off in the direction of the chaperone’s room and I look over at Lyle again. This time Lyle looks back. After a moment, he walks over to me. “Hello, Briar,” he says.

“Lyle.”

“I knew things wouldn’t go well tonight so I showed.”

I nodded. “Yeah, things are out of hand.”

“You…you look really styling in that dress.”

“Thank you.” I looked at his dark blue houndstooth jacket, white oxford shirt, and red bowtie. “You look good too.”

“Thank you. Do you have a good idea of a place to put a toolshed sized cat.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“My mom found out we used sedatives on the kitten.”

“Is she mad?”

“Hard to tell. She’s gone to check her handbag to see if she still has some of my dad’s old sedatives.”

“If she has enough of them that should do the trick. But we’re going to need a way to transport the cat to wherever it is we plan to stash it.”

“I didn’t even think about that.”

“I don’t know if we should give it the sedatives first or lure it to it’s location and then sedate it.”

Just then, my mom returned. “Lyle,” she said. “I’m glad you decided to come to the dance.”

“Thank you.”

“Alright, here’s what I’ve got,” she said opening a small metal pill box.

“Hmm,” Lyle said. “Is that about five pills?”

“Yes.”

“Well…I guess it’s better than nothing.”

“Good enough for me. Now let’s go catch this cat.”

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: UNCLE BUCK (1989)-Netflix

When John Hughes wrote and directed films in the 1980’s and 1990’s he was successful but not necessarily critically acclaimed. You can watch the review from Siskel and Ebert here (I am a big Siskel and Ebert fan). But there is something timeless about them. Whether his films are silly, poignant, serious, or otherwise most of them stand the test of time. And with the banal deluge of superhero movies peppered with characters which, let’s face it, no one can relate to unless you can shoot laser beams out your orifices, it is a genre of film which is sadly missing today. Over time, there have been a lot of movies designed for the generation they were created for and struck a note with teenagers such as Rebel Without a Cause, American Graffiti, To Sir with Love, The Last Picture Show, Dazed and Confused, Clueless, Napoleon Dynamite, 10 Things I Hate About You, Edge of Seventeen, and Rushmore to name a few. And then John Hughes’s films: The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Buller’s Day Off amongst his best. We still have some teenage films being made, but they seem to be missing something timeless or they tend to be more focused on a ham-fisted message than the actual story.

When I rewatched Uncle Buck on Netflix recently, I was delighted to find it had a Most Liked stamped on it. It’s an accessible film. A film about real human beings. A film about a situation that could happen as opposed to waking up one day after being bitten by a moth and finding out you now are able to eat excessive amounts of wool. I would rather see a story about teenagers being teenagers. Movies like Lady Bird, Eighth Grade and Book Smart were hits with the critics in recent years, but let’s face it. Do you want to watch them repeatedly? Are you going to rush to stream them every Thanksgiving break? I’m not. Surely, we can do better than this.

That said, Uncle Buck was not a critical hit. But when folks are being honest it’s a Most Liked. It’s a simple story. A smart suburban teenager named Tia Russel (Jean Louisa Kelly in her first movie) is briming with angst. She is sick of being her parent’s babysitter for her latchkey younger siblings Maizy (Gaby Hoffman) and Miles (Macaulay Culkin). Then comes the late-night phone call that their grandmother has fallen seriously ill. The kids’ mom and dad (Elane Bromka and Garrett M. Brown) must leave for a while. With no one else to call, they contact dad’s brother Uncle Buck (the wonderful John Candy) to take over the role as guardian. Uncle Buck is not suited to be a parent in any capacity. He’s an aged bachelor who would rather bet on horses than hold a real job. He’s broke, he’s a slob, he smokes cigars, he owns the worst car in the world, and he has no experience whatsoever with kids. But that might just be exactly who the Russel’s need.

Uncle Buck is not a profoundly deep film. But it is a charming one just the same. And its teenage themes still hold merit today. Tia doesn’t pick meet her creepy boyfriend Bug (Jay Underwood) on an internet dating site, but he lives up to his name just the same. Families still have black sheep who can surprise them at times. And the struggles between parents and their nearly adult children still exist. If you have never seen it, this is a great summer film to enjoy and perhaps watch again in the years to come. Look for Laurie Metcalf as the wacky next-door neighbor and Amy Madigan as Uncle Buck’s long suffering-girlfriend.