The Great Cat Detective: Detective Fuzzy Bottoms and the Great Pumpkin
 |
| Never Fear, Detective Fuzzy Bottoms is on the Case! |
Anyway, people seemed to like Detective Fuzzy Bottoms' first adventure, so I decided to write a Halloween sequel. It's a bit long, but sometimes holiday stories about cats and pumpkins just need to be told, okay?
***
Cats only celebrate one holiday. It's called All Cat's Eve. On All Cat's Eve, we eat catnip cookies, exchange gifts, and sing cat carols. My favorite cat carol is called "Merrily We Go to Eat Some Mice and Break Their Bones." It makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside (or maybe that's the catnip). I especially like the part of the song that goes, "I'll grind their bones and make my bread." I'm not quite sure what bread is, but it sounds very festive. My partner detective, Xavi, likes the song "Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding." In cat culture, a figgy pudding is a jellied concoction made from the intestines of small rodents and the blood of song birds; having a figgy pudding always reminds me of my grandmother's cooking.I didn't know this until I went to solve cases for humans (humans don't have their own detectives, so someone has to look after them), but humans also celebrate All Cat's Eve. Of course, humans don't understand the language of cats (which is a pity because Meowonese is so very mellifluous, whereas human language is so harsh and guttural; they can't even roll their meows properly), so they call it All Hallows' Eve or Halloween. They also try to dress up as cats on All Cat's Eve. I think this tradition is meant to celebrate cats and all the wonderful advancements cats have brought to human culture, but most of them don't end up looking even remotely like a cat. Of course, one has to remember that humans are silly creatures and they do the best that they can. My great-great-grandfather, Fernando Alejandro de los Montes, the greatest cat poet that ever lived, always said that cats should smile and nod when humans try to celebrate All Cat's Eve. In fact, he wrote a poem about that very subject. It's called "Take It As a Compliment When Humans Try to Celebrate All Cat's Eve, Even Though They Always Do It Wrong." It speaks very eloquently on the moral and ethical dilemmas the modern cats face.
I wasn't planning to detect anything on All Cat's Eve. I had the day off. In fact, all cat detectives have the day off on All Cat's Eve; it's a union thing.
Xavi and I were planning to have a quiet night in. Xavi had baked some catnip cookies; they were rather burnt and crispy because Xavi got distracted by a dust moat while they were in the oven and forgot to take them out on time, but I ate them anyway because All Cat's Eve is about generosity of spirit (and killing small rodents, but mostly generosity of spirit).
I munched a catnip cookie with the quiet dignity that befits a detective who is also the descendant of the greatest cat poet that ever lived. Xavi wolfed his catnip down as if he hadn't eaten in a week; Xavi doesn't have any quiet dignity--or dignity of any sort--because none of his ancestors were poets (although one of his great uncles was a professional mouse hunter of great repute).
"Did you put cinnamon in these cookies, Xavi?" I asked politely. "They have such an interesting flavor."
"What's a cinnamon?"Xavi asked, picking some crumbs off his whiskers.
"Never mind," I said, reminding myself of my great-great-grandfather's poem "Not Everyone Knows What Cinnamon Is." "I saw a very interesting documentary on the glowing box full of tiny people the other day. It was called "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.""
On a previous occasion I had tried to free the tiny people from the glowing box, but they had perished in the attempt. So, when my humans found another box full of tiny people I decided not to try to save them until I could think of a better rescue plan.
"What's pumpkin?" Xavi asked.
"I think it's a mineral or maybe a vitamin," I mused, "it's very large and round and orange and quiet."
"Sounds like it's stupid. Like dogs." Xavi said knowledgeably.
"Oh no," I said, "that's not true at all. The great pumpkin is very wise; it brings catnip to all sincere and believing cats on All Cat's Eve."
"That sounds like an unsubstantiated claim to me," Xavi said, finishing the cookies, "can we have some figgy pudding now?"
I sighed and got the figgy pudding. Xavi learned phrases like "unsubstantiated claim" from me, but I do not think they means what he thinks they mean.
We had just finished our figgy pudding when our humans returned to the den. They had admirably tried to disguise themselves as cats, with very little success. Our she human had rubbed some sort of green paste on her face and was wearing some sort of pointy cone on her head. I think the cone was supposed to symbolize the majestic ears of cats, but cat ears, of course, are far more beautiful.
Our she human was also carrying something round and orange in her arms. I gasped. It couldn't be, could it? Was it possible that it was the great pumpkin?
"Xavi," I whispered, sotto voce, "is it possible that that's the great pumpkin?"
Xavi licked his arm and rubbed it on his ear. "Remind me what pumpkin is again?"
"Never mind!" I said, hurriedly, "I have to go investigate! I have to see if it's the Great Pumpkin!"
I hopped up onto the table as my she human set the pumpkin down. I knew at once that it was the Great Pumpkin. It was so big, so orange, so great pumpkin-esque, so...full of holes. The Great Pumpkin was riddled with gaping holes. I saw at once what had happened. My humans (humans are terribly silly creatures) had carved holes in the Great Pumpkin to get the magic out. I was horrified! How could they have done such a thing to the Great Pumpkin. It was almost as bad as the time that the humans had dunked me in water and scrubbed me all over with some sort of devilish concoction that smelled of lavender. I think they called it a b-a-t-h.
"Gato, you're not allowed on the table," my she human said, picking me up and putting me on the floor.
"How could you butcher the Great Pumpkin??" I meowed plaintively.
She patted my head, "now, now, you've had your dinner!"
"Murderer!" I meowed, butting her with my head.
"Oh Gato, I love you too!"
She scratched behind my ears. I tried not to enjoy it.
"What are we going to do?" I asked Xavi when the humans had gone to take off their cat costumes. "The Great Pumpkin is dead!"
"Are you sure?" Xavi asked. "Did you do an detecting?"
"I didn't need to detect anything! He's full of holes!"
"Maybe holes don't hurt pumpkins," Xavi said, pausing to lick his paw, "I think you can only kill vitamins with soap, whatever that is." He added sagely.
Xavi hadn't attended the University of the Royal Meow, as I had, but he sometimes had good ideas. I jumped back up on the table.
"Excuse me, Mr. Great Pumpkin," I said loudly, "are you alive?"
The Great Pumpkin didn't answer. My heart sank. Maybe all the magic had escaped through the holes after all. The biggest hole was on top of the pumpkin. I leaned my head over the hole and placed my front paws on the rim.
"Excuse me! Great Pumpkin? Your lordship?" I called, scrabbling up the side of the pumpkin to lean my head further into the hole. "Do you have any magic le-"
I didn't get to finish my question. Without warning, I tumbled into the maw of the Great Pumpkin. I was falling, falling, falling for four whole inches. I meowed in shock.
"Gato!" My she human gasped. "Oh my god, Gato got into the jack-o-lantern. How did he do that?"
She lifted me out of the pumpkin by my legs, which were sticking out in quite an undignified manner.
My humans were scolding me, but I didn't hear a word they were saying. She had called the pumpkin jack-o-lantern. It wasn't the Great Pumpkin after all, just a non-great pumpkin called Jack! How could I have ever thought Jack was the Great Pumpkin? The Great Pumpkin would obviously be greater and more pumpkin-ish.
"Next year," I said to Xavi, after our humans had stopped scolding me, "the Great Pumpkin will come next year, if we believe hard enough!"
Xavi yawned. "Maybe he'll bring us some figgy pudding."
***
Comments
Post a Comment