Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce chapter twenty-three of my story Catzilla. The rain here has been coming down in torrents. As a poodle I get anxious when we get rain like this. It is most horrifying. Scarier to me than Halloween. Last night was unearthly. Buckets lashed down from the skies. I was mortified. I stayed very close to my novelist sitting on the blanket in her lap as she did her writing. I would get antsy and move to my pillow on the floor and then hop back into the chair. Thunder rumbled. Lightning struck. Rain poured. I was devastated. I was hoping things would get better today and my novelist was uncharacteristically optimistic. We went for a walk and got caught in a rainstorm. Not as bad as last night mind you, but I came home drenched. I was toweled off. My gorgeous curls were mashed and damp. That dratted Maltese laughed. Horrible. Hopefully the weather will clear soon, and I can become stable again. Until then here is chapter twenty-three of Catzilla. May you stay dry and comfortable.    

Catzilla

by

Gigi the parti poodle

Chapter Twenty-Three

My mom turned around and narrowed her eyes. She stood up very straight and scrutinized the owner of the voice. “Fortunately, it’s been a long time, professor,” she said.

“Indeed,” Dr. Grosser said. “From what I understand you’ve gotten your meat hooks into my latest experiment.”

“I’d hardly call it an experiment. More like a death wish gone rogue.”

“I’m merely doing what the Edevanes require. That is my job. As far as going rogue, I am in complete control of the experiment. The Edevanes needed a test done determining how far customers are willing to extend generosity. And the results show quite far. Have you ever noticed how pets have been bred to look more and more like human babies? It’s rather terrifying. Human beings simply love pets. And even when a seemingly normal kitten continues to grow bigger and bigger right before their eyes, they keep feeding it no matter how absurdly large it becomes. One of your neighbors was always willing to feed the kitty. If that’s the case, how could a company harness that frail human instinct to lure a customer into buying one’s product?”

“You’ve lost your mind.”

“Hardly. I am lucidly sane. Imagine a world where a customer’s generosity would drive them into purchasing more and more. Even better, how they could be manipulated into wanting to outshine their neighbor, give twice as much by buying more. We noticed how each neighbor would give the kitty more than the neighbor before. It became an endless cycle. And to the degree to which they would compete was utterly fascinating. Creating a logarithm to put into motion is how the Edevane factory is going to triple its sales.”

“They won’t be selling anything with a giant cat on the loose bent on destruction.”

“There are always setbacks. But how many people can a giant cat demolish? Not enough to matter compared to the behemoth this company could become.”

“That kitten might have killed my friend!” I shouted. “He’s on route to the hospital and he still hasn’t woken up!”

“You are young. You will make other friends. People place far too much value on friendship. A good friend today is only destined to become a memory tomorrow. Friends come into your life, and they leave your life through a perpetual revolving door. They don’t matter and you cannot count on them. What does matter are sales and what you can count on are profits. Profits are what pays for the heat, the groceries, the new SUV, and the trip to Dubai. All far more worthy aspirations than friends. Right now, I believe Ellery Edevane and his friend Quincy are pulling up to the mechanics business you just left. Quincy’s father is with them and will soon be opening the doors to the pole building where you so naively put the cat. Soon our kitty will be let loose to run rampant once again.”

“You’re insane!”

“One must always finish what one has set out to do.”

My mom grabbed my hand and we headed for the exit.

“And just where do you think you’re going?”

My mother pressed down the latch on the door but as she opened it two large guards stepped in front of us.

“I cannot have you going out there attempting to be heroes. That simply won’t do. These two lovely gentlemen are going to make sure you stay put.”

“Mom,” I whispered. “The kids leaving the dance.”

“Fine,” my mom said to Dr. Grosser. “We’ll stay.”

“Do hand these kind gentlemen your cellphones, will you?”

My mom and I reluctantly handed the two goons our cell phones.

“Take them to the office upstairs,” Dr. Grosser told the men. “They might as well get comfortable. It’s going to be a long night.”

The goons stepped aside allowing my mom and I to step out of the laboratory into the hall. I wished my mom still had her mace on her. We might have had a chance to spray them and run for the exit. I had no idea how we were going to get out of this now.

“Start walking, ladies,” one of the goons told us in a gruff voice. “Right up the stairs.”

We began climbing the stairs towards the offices where Lyle’s mother worked. All I could think about were Lyle and my classmates and the giant red kitten roaming free. I looked at my mother who seemed serene as if none of this phased her.

“Turn left,” the second goon said.

“Bend sinister,” my mom said.”

“What?”

“To go left is to bend sinister. Did you know a disproportionate number of criminals are left-handed?”

“Is that so?”

“It is so.”

“Yeah. Well, thanks for the trivia. “Bend sinister here, lady.”

We turned and the second goon held his keycard up to the pad turning it from red to green. Then he opened the door, and the first goon escorted us inside.

“If you think about leaving or doing anything stupid, we’ll be right outside. Enjoy your stay, ladies.”

They shut the door and locked it. My mother walked over to the whiteboard on the wall opposite the desk and wrote, “look up”. I looked up at the ceiling. Then she wrote, “we are leaving now” and underlined “now”. She pointed to the desk. I walked over and warily looked up. I stepped onto the desk, reached up with my hands and pushed the ceiling tile up and scooted it over one inch. I scooted it over another inch, and then again, and then again. Finally, I was able to scoot it over enough for me to get through. I grabbed the ceiling. My mother stepped up on the desk and pushed and guided me through the opening. I crawled forwards with trepidation and found it to be sturdier than I expected. I looked down and saw my mom step down, erase the whiteboard and step back onto the desk. She pushed the tile above her over another inch and then pushed it again. She hoisted herself up and met me in the ceiling. We both carefully closed the tile and my mom pointed forwards.

“Do you want me to take the lead?” my mom whispered. “I know how far we have to go.”

I nodded my head and my mom awkwardly scooted around in front of me and I scooted behind. My mom started crawling forward with me at her heals. We headed down the hall over the offices towards the front entrance. This was not easy as I was afraid of us getting stuck over the factory as opposed to over the offices and then having the tiles give way. But my mom knew where she was going and after a couple of minutes she stopped.

“Here,” she whispered. She carefully moved the tile away in front of her and stuck her head down and surveyed the room. “This is it,” she said. “We’ll have to move fast.”

I looked down and saw the desk below was further away than I was comfortable with. My mom, however, worked herself down and landed on the industrial carpet like a superstar. She motioned for me to follow her, but I hesitated.

“We have to hurry,” she said, “or that cat’s getting sprung loose.”

“I’m going down over the desk,” I said and scooted over and pushed back another tile.

“We should probably scoot those two tiles back before we go.”

“You’re right,” I said and carefully slipped down onto the desk landing more like a backup singer than a superstar. I turned, reached up and slowly scooted the tile back into place. Then I stepped down onto terra firma.

“Help me take this plant off this small table here and then we can move the table under the open tile.” I moved over and picked up the potted aspidistra and set it on the floor. My mom lifted the table and placed it under the askew tile. My mom stood up on the table, reached up and began scooting the tile back into place. Suddenly the tile tilted, and I ran over to try and help catch it, but it hit the floor with a bang. My mom and I looked at each other and knew the thugs must have heard the sound. “Let’s go!”

We hurried to the door, opened it, and headed out en route for the stairs at the front side of the building.

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: CACHÈ (HIDDEN) (2005)-TUBI

If ever there was a movie to prove the screenwriters were right about AI, this one is it. This French gem by director Michael Haneke is a complex unusual puzzle of a story that has been debated ever since its release in 2005. The movie was robbed of an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film because the film is in French and Haneke is Austrian which the Academy didn’t allow. Stupid. As far as I’m concerned Best Foreign Language Film is a film in a language other than English made in a country other than America. And frankly, this category should allow seven instead of five films. Too many great foreign films have gotten passed over for a nomination and certainly in present day, everyone makes better films than the Americans. It’s embarrassing. The best film in theatres this summer was the re-release of the 2003 movie Old Boy, a masterpiece of modern South Korean cinema, which, by the way, AI couldn’t write either.  

The movie starts out with a mundane shot of a city street in Paris. We see the occasional car or bike drive by, and the shoot just stays still. But it doesn’t take us long to find out what we’re really watching is a video tape. A tape that has been sent to the home of bourgeois TV literary reviewer Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil) and his wife Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche) who works in publishing anonymously. The couple have a twelve-year-old son named Pierrot Laurent (Lester Makedonsky) and wonder if the boy’s friends sent it as a prank. But another anonymous tape is sent wrapped in a white piece of paper with the drawing of a face spewing blood and the couple starts to wonder if they are not being pranked but stalked. To say more about the story would ruin it. But I will mention this: pay very close attention to the last shot of the film and look at it from different angles.

After and only after you’ve watched the film entirely, I would encourage you to look at this review by Roger Ebert.