Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to bring you chapter nineteen of my story Catzilla. The time is drawing near when I must wind down to the last few chapters of my story and choose a whole new tale to pen. This is more difficult than it seems. Do I go with drama or comedy? Do I attempt a mystery, a love story, fantasy, or science fiction? Do I write a tale about humans or animals or both? I must say, the pressure is keeping me awake at night. I often hop off the bed, step on the Maltese just to interrupt his slumber, and pace about the room. The moonlight illuminates my gorgeous two-toned hair. I make a cup of tea and sit in the rocking chair and peruse my list of log lines to see which one I like the best. I gaze outside at the stars and ponder my next chess move. How shall I best entertain my readers? You’ll have to tune in to find out. But for now, here is chapter nineteen of Catzilla.

Catzilla

by

Gigi the parti poodle

Chapter Nineteen

Four football players who were attending the dance offered to carry the refreshments table out to the flatbed truck my mother had driven out of the old bus garage. She parked by the back door on the opposite side of the gym.

Before they carried out the table I suggested, “You should take the liquids off it. It would be lighter that way.” The football players looked at me like I was stupid and tried to carry it with the drinks on it anyway. Then they set it down.

“I think she’s right,” the smallest of them said. I think he was the kicker.

“Don’t be a pussy, Toby,” one of the other guys said. He looked like a linebacker.

“But it’s heavy, bro.”

They picked it up again and tried to carry I again and again they ended up setting it down. “I hate it with Toby’s right,” the linebacker said. “Let’s just try it again.”

“I’m not trying it again, Buckly,” one of the other football players said. “This is stupid.”

They set down the table and Buckley said, “Gagnon,” in reference to me. “You’re the one who wants the drinks off the table. So, take the drinks off the table.”

I shrugged my shoulders, walked over, and began taking cans of soda and bottles of water off the table. Lyle headed over and started helping me.

“What do you think you’re doing, Concord,” Buckley said with a sneer.

Lyle calmly looked at him and said, “I’m helping Briar.”

“I don’t think so, flyboy. She’s the one who wants the drinks taken off the table so she’s the one who’s taking the drinks off the table.”

“Just let me do it, Lyle,” I said concerned the football players might rough him up.

Lyle looked at me and then looked at the football players. “Are you okay doing this?”

“Yeah, I think I can take drinks off a table by myself.”

Lyle nodded. Then he looked at the football players again and stepped away.

“Your boyfriend’s a weirdo,” Buckly said.

“It’s possible for a girl and a guy to just be friends, you know.”

Buckly and his teammates chuckled. “No, it isn’t.”

Idiots. I took the last few drinks off the table and stacked them against the gym wall with the others and the football players lifted the table and headed out the door where my mom was waiting in the truck.

“I think we’d better go after them,” Lyle said.

“Okay,” I said warily.

We stepped out into the cool night air and watched the boys turn the table around and start to load it onto the truck bed. As they did Lyle, and I heard the faintest sound of an angry hiss. From out behind one of the parked buses sauntered the kitten.

“Lyle,” I whispered, every hair on my arms standing on end. Lyle looked up and saw the wide angry red feline mammoth prowl towards the truck.

“Buckly,” Lyle said. “The cat is here.”

All four guys stopped and turned to see the giant haystack of a creature creeping towards them.

“Holy cow!” one of them said.

“What the…?” another croaked.

The kitten’s elliptical emerald-green eyes twinkled with menace as it hunched down, its fluffy garden hose sized tail swishing, preparing for battle. My heart pounded thunderously, and I struggled to breathe. Then suddenly the kitten was airborne.

It looked like a giant Garfield balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with its arms outstretched like Superman sailing through the air in slow motion. It gave the four football players enough time to jump off the truck and Lyle and I enough time to hurry behind one of the school buses and hide. The football players saw us and headed over to take cover.

The kitten landed squarely on the back of the flatbed with a hard thud causing the truck to shake. It sent reverberations up to my mother in the driver’s seat. The kitten dug in and ate ravenously devouring everything on the table: cookies, chips, nuts, and of course the drug laced cupcakes decorated in the school’s colors.

“What is that thing?” Buckly demanded.

“We believe it to be an experiment from the Edevane factory designed to see how compliant people are.”

“Are they out to kill all their customers?”

“I don’t know. It is, however, overdramatic.”

“What do we do if your mom’s pills aren’t strong enough, Gagnon?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“You don’t know?” he said as we witnessed the cat scarf up the last of the food.

“No, but we need to wait this out and see if it falls asleep.”

The kitten suddenly turned its head and stomped around to face us.

“What now?” Toby asked.

The kitten turned its large triangle ears around like antennas, shifting and flickering as if trying to hear us better. I glance at my mom who is sitting in the truck glancing at the cat in the rearview mirror. The kitten sniffs the air. We hold our breath waiting for my dad’s sedatives to kick in. The cat’s head makes a full 360° turn baring its two rows of sharp teeth.

“It’s like Jaws!” Buckly exclaims.

“I want to go home,” one of the football players lamented.

“Shut up, Silas. You’re going to draw its attention.”

The kitten narrowed its emerald-green eyes and put its left front paw down on the asphalt. Then it put its right front paw down. It started lifting one of its hind legs…it mewed strangely, sagged to one side, and blinked a couple of times. Its green eyes started to glaze over, and it turned its head around, so it was upside down with its chin pointing north. Its long pink tongue flopped out of the corner of its mouth like a large pink deflated innertube. Its eyelids raised and lowered slowly until they finally shut, covering the menacing emerald-green eyes. And then it began to snore.

My mother rolled down the driver’s side window. “Did you boys drive here in a car?” she asked the football players.

Buckly scarfed. “A truck.”

“Get in the truck and follow us. Briar and Lyle, you ride with me.”

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: THE BEAR (2022)-HULU & FX

One of the finest shows on television presently is this smart, funny, raw, and poignant tale from FX and Hulu. Accurately depicting what it’s like to work in restaurants which is essentially like going into battle and not in a good way, the story centers around intense introverted Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White who is fantastic in the role) an extraordinary young chef who while working at one of the finest restaurants in the world is ripped out of his lofty ecosphere after his older brother Michael (Jon Bernthal) blows his brains out and wills the family restaurant to him. Michael’s restaurant is not haute cuisine. It is sandwiches and spaghetti sold in a Chicago neighborhood where mobsters hang out and occasionally shoot at each other. Michael’s best friend, arrogant rough and tumble Richard “Richie” Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach also fantastic here) co-runs the restaurant with Carmy. Despite their different demeanors, the two are relatively sympatico and struggle to keep the restaurant alive, especially since money is tight and deceased Michael owes a large sum to their Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt).

Into their business comes a young, trained chef named Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri) who has a vision of her own as to how the restaurant should be run, which is in many ways compatible to Carmy’s style. The two struggle to bring the rest of the staff on board, including Richie, to change their low-bar style of cooking, train the chefs to work as a team, and elevate the menu to a higher plane all while Carmy fights to come to terms with his ever-present crushing grief.

This wonderfully claustrophobic show is nominated for thirteen well deserved Emmy nominations and is an absolute must see. Especially impressive is its surprising first season finale that knocks it right out of the park.