Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle once again to introduce chapter twenty-four of Catzilla. It has been a sad and strange week as we have been mourning the loss of my human uncle. We also had a bunny rabbit die in the back yard which has been a puzzle as it exhibited no signs of trauma. I find myself struggling to be my usual witty self and many arrangements have had to be made keeping all of us here quite busy. It’s amazing how many things must be done. Many of which are unpleasant and necessary. I will say that when dealing with a sad season in life it is important to find humor and so my novelist will be recommending a comedy this week. Comedies deserve a lot more respect than they get. So, without further ado I will introduce chapter twenty-four of Catzilla.

Catzilla

by

Gigi the parti poodle

Chapter Twenty-Four

My mom and I heard the pounding of the goons’ feet as we raced down the hall. When we turned the corner, I looked back for a second and saw the shadows of the men stretch across the wall. My mom rushed down the stairs with me right on her heels. I could almost feel the heat of the men’s breath on my neck. We pounded down the stairs, hit the bottom, and dashed for the exit sign.

The men raced after us in hot pursuit. “Ladies!” one yelled. “Ladies!”

My mom got to the exit and pushed the bar on the door. Suddenly, one of the men grabbed my shoulder. “Mom!” I yelled.

Mom whipped around and searched frantically for a weapon. She found a piece of pipe, grabbed it, and slammed it down on the thug’s elbow. The thug yipped and unhanded me. The other thug skittered to a stop just as my mother took my hand and burst through the door to the front parking lot.

This was not the best time to learn how hard it is to run in flats. “Mom,” I said. “I can’t run in these!”

She stopped, turned around and I pointed to my shoes. “We’ll get you new ones,” she replied.

“Mom!” I hobbled and tripped along after her. The second thug burst through the door just as we turned the corner and headed towards the chain link fence. My mom held her key card up to the pad and the gates began to part. We could see Areo’s small white truck waiting for us. I hurried to the passenger’s side as my mom hopped into the driver’s seat. She started the engine and hit the gas. We barreled forwards zooming down the road to freedom. I held on to the handle above the door for dear life.

“We must get back to Quincy’s dad’s garage. How are your shoes?”

“I wish I’d worn sneakers.”

“You’ll be fine. Right now, we have a giant red cat we need to thwart.”

“What are we going to do about the Edevanes and Professor Grosser?”

“Excellent question. But first we need to get to that garage. I never liked Ellery. He’s a menace. I’m going to pull off the road up here.” She slowed the speed of the truck and took a sharp right down a dirt road driving deep into the trees. She killed the engine and turned off the headlights.

“What are we doing here?”

“Waiting for those goons to drive on by.”

“Do you think they know we turned off the road?”

“They wouldn’t know I knew where to turn off the road.”

“How did you know where to turn off the road?”

“Your dad and I used to come here sometimes. Before you were born.”

“I don’t even want to know.”

My mom and I waited in the forest for several minutes with the headlights off. Then she inched slowly towards the road and scrutinized it carefully before she turned the headlights back on and headed for Quincy’s father’s garage. When we arrived, my mom parked the car across the street, turned it off and waited.

“I think the door on the pole building is open,” I said after looking the property over.

My mom leaned in closer. “I think you’re right. I think we may have gotten here too late.”

She started the truck and drove across the street to the garage. She pulled up to the pole building. “Wait here,” she told me.

She disembarked the truck and walked up to the door and looked inside. She hurried back to the truck and hopped in. “We are too late.” She started the engine and we headed en route to the high school.

As we drew close, we could hear the muffled sound of pandemonium. My mom drove faster and as we closed in on our location, we could see kids running around in a panic. Some were screaming, some were crying, some looked like they were in shock. My mom hit the brakes as a couple of them ran in front of us. Suddenly, we saw the kitten. It looked like it had grown even larger since we’d locked it in the pole house. It prowled with a weight that made the ground tremor.

“It’s huge,” I said.

“Even huge insane creatures can be stopped,” mom said. “What we need is the antidote.”

“I’m not sure there is an antidote.”

“Oh, there’s an antidote. Dr. Grosser always makes an antidote.”

“But we already left the Edevane factory.”

“We’re going back.”

“Look.” My mom looked and an unmarked van just like the one Lyle and I saw when we visited Quincy and drugged the kitten. The side door opened and out stepped the two thugs and Professor Grosser.  

“How are we going to get the antidote from her?”

My mom studied Dr. Grosser. “We’re going to have to get the kids safe first.”

“How?”

“Distract the cat.”

My mom hit the gas and drove straight for the kitten.

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: A.P. BIO (2018)-Peacock

If you are looking for something awesome and hilarious and easy to binge look no further than this fantastic Peacock gem from Seth Meyers and Mike O’Brian. The show originally ran on NBC who dropped it from their schedule and Peacock wisely picked it up.

Dr. Jack Griffin (spot on played by Glenn Howerton) is a narcissistic award-winning Harvard philosophy professor who after getting passed over by rival Miles Leonard (Tom Bennet) disgraces himself by pitching a huge fit, and no university will touch him. He finds himself living in his deceased mother’s house in Toledo, Ohio and is hired to teach A.P Biology at Whitlock High School by likeable softy Principal Ralph Durbin (also spot on played by Patton Oswald). Jack arrives at the school, crashes into the school sign, chases off a bicyclist with a tire iron and tells his frightened class of eggheads to shut up, he will not be teaching them biology and that they are now his partners in staging a revenge plot against Miles.

Jack’s trio of fellow teachers are art teacher Mary Wagner (Mary Sohn), history teacher Stef Duncan (Lyric Lewis), and health and home economics teacher Michelle Jones (Jean Villepique). Durbin’s wacky secretary is Helen Demarcus (Paula Pell). Main students include preppy nerd Marcus (Nick Peine), goofy egghead Heather (Allisyn Snyder), persnickety know-it-all Sarika (Aparna Brielle), gentle souled intellectual Anthony (Eddie Leavy) clueless brain Victor (Jacob Houston) and cool guy Dan (Spence Moore II). Sadly, the other two main characters intellectual goth Devin (Jacob McCarthy) and soft-spoken brain Colin (Tucker Albrizzi) both left the show after the first season to work on other projects and were excellent on the show.