Illustrations by Alison Berry
Guest art by Sarah Ferrick
Episode 7: Jack and the Cool Cat
Hana, James and Henri were out shooting their movie in the woods near their school when they came across just what they wanted, something so strange as to be absolutely ludicrous: a white cat wearing black sunglasses, a t-shirt and an orange afro. It padded along the forest path in what seemed to be some kind of cat strut, completely unmindful of the three humans who had stepped aside to film its every movement. The trio giggled lightly as the cat went by, with Henri struggling to keep his camera steady. Then James had an idea.
‘Hey, Hana,’ he whispered. ‘Why don’t you sneak up on the cat and try to grab it? Then we can make it out to seem like you were fighting it or something. We can build the movie’s story around it.’
‘I don’t want to scare it,’ Hana whispered back. ‘What if he bites me?’
‘You’ll probably be laughing too hard to notice,’ James whispered. ‘I know I’ll be.’ They then looked to Henri for some kind of approval, and he nodded behind the camera; James grinned and gave both of them an eager thumbs-up. ‘Two against one,’ he whispered back to Hana. ‘Get grabbing.’
Sucking in her breath, Hana stepped stealthily back onto the path and began sneaking up on the cat. The cat was not the type to appreciate being skillfully snuck up on, however – he stopped, turned, and stood up on his hind legs as if preparing to defend himself. But then he fell right back down onto the forest path because, realistically speaking, his hind legs could not support the weight of his body, no matter how slim he was. He looked up at Hana as if nothing had happened, and she could tell that he was looking at her despite not being able to see his eyes through the sunglasses; it was all in the way the cat postured himself, like a messenger of cool who could not be fazed. Hana froze in her tracks.
‘What’s up, babe?’ the cat asked smoothly. The trio was stunned all at once: Hana because she had never been called ‘babe’ before; James because he had been looking forward to meeting another talking cat, the way king, but had given up all hope on such a thing even existing; and Henri because, well, it was a talking cat. He zoomed in on the cat’s face, hoping to capture the movement of his lips if he spoke again; if they told the teacher that they had created the special effect themselves then surely they would receive a high mark for it.
‘P . . . Pardon?’ Hana stuttered.
‘I said “What’s up”,’ the cat repeated. ‘You know – what’s shakin’?’
‘Oh, um, we just wanted to say hi, is all,’ Hana answered nervously.
‘Well, hello, babe,’ the cat said. ‘The name’s Gorey, Cool Cat A. Gorey.’
‘A cool category of what?’ Hana asked.
‘Oh, I used to be of the alley until the old man started getting on my nerves,’ the cat said bitterly. ‘Now I just go where I please.’
‘I might be confused,’ Hana said, her head swimming. ‘Why is your name gory?’
‘That’s just the name my parents gave me,’ the cat answered. ‘It’s probably the same reason why you’re Confused.’
‘I . . . I think my head is about to explode,’ Hana said, whimpering. This was worse than being bit. James and Henri watched all of the needlessly complicated exchange from the sidelines, filming and enjoying every second of it. ‘My name’s Hana,’ Hana told the cat.
‘Wait – you’re the Hana?’ the cat asked, suddenly bursting in surprise. ‘The same Hana who battled the villainous kappa and defeated her? The same Hana who put an end to the lobster uprising? Is that you, babe?’
‘Um . . . maybe?’ What the cat said sounded like extremely exaggerated accounts of events that had actually happened, and she wondered where he could have heard them from.
‘I heard all about you from my dad,’ the cat said as if reading her mind. ‘You remember the way king, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do!’ Hana exclaimed. ‘I was actually looking for him recently, since one of my friends has a question for him, but I couldn’t find the alley no matter how hard we looked. I can’t believe you’re his son. You look nothing like him.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to say that you made a mistake, babe,’ the cat told her. ‘You don’t find the way king, the way king finds you. Thanks for the compliment, by the way – I take after my mother’s side. All my weight goes straight to the ’fro.’
‘It’s very impressive,’ Hana agreed. ‘Actually, while you’re here, could you tell us how we can find the way king?’
‘The . . . the way king finds you, babe,’ the cat repeated.
Just then they heard the sound of things breaking: the sound of twigs being crunched and pebbles being kicked up increased in volume behind them, and they turned to see a young boy running up the path with a shiny metal object in his hand. The boy slowed down as he neared the group; he appeared to be around six years of age, had blonde hair and wore a burgundy suit with a black tie. The object in his hand turned out to be a pair of scissors, so new and shiny that they reflected the sun into the eyes of everyone except the cat. Henri turned off the camera.
‘Could you please lower that thing?’ James asked of the boy. ‘You’re going to burn our eyes out.’
The boy hesitated, but then he nodded and hid the scissors with his hands.
‘You shouldn’t be running around with those,’ Hana told him. ‘There are only two things our parents teach us: don’t talk to strangers and never run with scissors. You’re breaking the only other rule they ever give us.’
‘I can run with scissors if I want,’ the boy said haughtily. ‘I’m rich.’
‘Is that short for Richard?’ Hana asked.
‘No, my name is Jack,’ the boy said, informally introducing himself.
Hana offered her hand. ‘Hello, Jack,’ she said cheerily. ‘My name is Hana.’
‘Hello, yes,’ the boy said, looking at her hand like a foreign object. ‘What is going on here?’
‘Oh, uh, we were just talking to this cat,’ Hana explained, motioning towards the cat with the orange afro. James and Henri both nodded.
‘The cat you’re talking to is mine,’ the boy said, and he snipped his scissors as if to punctuate the statement. ‘I’ve been looking for him all day; I have to trim his hair.’
‘You’re not cutting my afro!’ the cat wailed. ‘You don’t even own me! I’m a free cat!’
‘Gorey!’ the boy scolded.
‘I’m not his pet, I just let him feed me every so often,’ the cat explained to the others. ‘However, by “every so often” I do mean every day.’
The boy opened and closed his scissors impatiently. ‘Come on, Gorey, just one snip or I won’t feed you for an entire week!’
‘No! Stay away!’ Gorey wailed, and then he turned to run off, but Jack grabbed him by the tail and pulled him closer. When Jack reached for the afro Gorey bit his hand, hard enough to draw two beads of blood. Jack yelped in pain and stabbed at the afro in retaliation, knocking it clean off the cat’s head.
‘It . . . It was a wig!’ Hana cried out in alarm.
For some reason the afro made a rattling sound as it rolled onto the path. Jack let go of Gorey so he could nurse his hand, and as soon as he did so the cat took off, disappearing into the woods. Ignoring the cat, Jack looked down at his hand and whimpered.
‘I can’t believe he bit me,’ he whined. Hana was thinking ‘better you than me’, but did not wish to say it.
‘Well, let’s see what this wig was all about, then,’ Hana said as she lifted the fluffy orange object from the ground. As she did so a few small objects fell from inside it and clattered onto the path. James and Henri bent down to inspect them.
‘This looks like a watch,’ James said as he lifted a round, golden object from its perch on top of a rock.
‘These here are spoons and forks,’ Henri said, pointing out the obvious as he pointed at the utensils sticking out of a tuft of grass. ‘I think they’re made out of silver.’
Jack stopped staring at his bite marks and looked at the fallen objects. ‘Those are my family’s,’ he said. ‘Why would they be in Gorey’s afro?’
The answer was right in front of their faces, of course: it was the reason why Gorey had been running away from a simple haircut and had even attacked the small boy who looked after him. Gorey was a thief!
‘No wonder he was kicked out of the alley!’ Hana exclaimed. ‘He’s a no-good thief! A dirty, rotten liar! I can’t believe he could be the way king’s son. Oh, that poor fat cat.’
‘Maybe he’s not the way king’s son after all,’ James offered.
‘No, I could tell he was that much,’ Hana said. ‘Only the way king exaggerates the way Gorey did when he mentioned me “battling” the river monster and “putting an end” to the lobsters.’
James and Henri stepped aside as Jack collected the family treasures into his wounded hand. ‘I’m not feeding him ever again,’ he said sulkily. ‘I’ll put mousetraps in his food dishes from now on.’
‘No, don’t,’ Hana told him. ‘That would be too cruel – you’d be no better than he is.’
The boy shrugged.
‘Don’t be like that,’ Hana said. ‘You should be happy you got your family’s things back. You may have never seen them – or Gorey – again.
‘Oh, hey, by the way, I don’t think I introduced you to my friends: this is James and this is Henri.’
Jack nodded to each of them in turn, and they nodded back courteously in response. At least the boy knew to be polite when he needed to be.
‘You know, I just realised how different – but similar – you and James are, and not just because of the whole age thing,’ Hana said to Jack, trying to help take his mind off the recent turn of bad business. ‘James has a soft name and you have a sharp-sounding one; James carries around a blunt baseball bat while you carry around sharp scissors; and you—’
‘I’m a sharp dresser, yes,’ the boy stated flatly, as if it was a universally agreed-upon fact. Hana nodded.
James, however, was confused by this last comparison, spending a few minutes to wonder in which way he could contrast a sharp dresser; when the realisation eventually did dawn on him, the others had already gone on to talk about other things.
‘Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!’ he cried out belatedly.
‘What’s what supposed to mean?’ Hana asked.
James, embarrassed, realised that quite some time had elapsed while he had been mulling things over. ‘Nothing,’ he murmured to them as he looked at a suddenly interesting weed. ‘Carry on.’
Hana turned back to Jack and Henri, shrugged, and continued where their conversation had left off; she was trying to learn more about Jack while Henri double-checked the settings on their camera.
They learned that the boy was exceptionally wealthy and lived in a mansion not much further into the woods, situated along a small river; that was why he was out in the woods now, trying to retrieve what he had perceived to be his escaped cat.
‘You know, I’m pretty jealous of you rich kids,’ James said, looking over Jack’s fancy suit.
‘If you’re jealous of my clothes then go out and buy your own,’ Jack suggested, rather sarcastically.
But James shrugged it off. ‘I’m not made out of money,’ he told him. ‘I’m completely broke. In fact, what they should do is build a machine that can make me into money, since that’s probably the only way I’d be able to pay off my family’s debts.’
‘You’re just saying that because you want to score some pity money off Jack,’ Hana accused.
‘Maybe I am and maybe I am,’ James admitted.
‘None of you are getting anything!’ Jack shouted, and then he turned around and began running back to where he had come from. Before he disappeared past the horizon, however, he stopped and looked down at the precious metals in his hand. ‘Th . . . thanks,’ he called nervously to the trio; it was as if giving a word of gratitude was the most work he had ever done in his life. And then he was gone.
In his wake an awkward silence entered the path and did not leave until James dispelled it with his dry humour.
‘So my vote is that he was stranger than the cat,’ he said as he raised his hand.
‘I don’t think anyone is going to vote against that,’ Henri said.
Hana walked up and down the stretch of path they were on while they talked, thinking over everything that had just happened. She wanted Gorey to learn the error of his ways but could not think of how to go about it; in any case she might never see him again, so it would be best to focus on the project at hand instead of letting some villain distract her – because if that happened then the villain would win, she felt. ‘Do you think you got some good footage of me and the cat?’ she asked Henri.
‘I got enough for us to work a script around it, I think,’ he answered.
‘Yeah? Then we should probably get working on it,’ suggested James, and everyone agreed. They left the forest and went to James’ house.
By the time they reached the house they were utterly exhausted from the trek, which required feet instead of the usual bicycles – they had left them behind so as not to risk damaging the camera, which was owned by the school, and because their bikes were not built for riding over the fallen tree branches and random rocks in the forest. James’ mother fed them all tuna fish sandwiches almost as soon as they came in, especially remarkable considering she had just returned home herself from a long day of picking blueberries to sell to the local stores. They ate the sandwiches greedily and then stowed away in James’ room, so that Hana and Henri could offer their ideas for the script while James wrote it out.
They decided to incorporate aspects of reality into their movie by having Hana’s character, named Hana, look for a thief who had stolen her gold watch and silver eating utensils, which would lead into the recorded encounter between Hana and Gorey and end with the cat’s capture and chastisement. For the third act they would require the use of a white cat, but they figured that would be easy enough if they could find a pet store willing to let them film the last part of their movie there. James wrote some basic dialogue into the scenes and transcribed the encounter between Hana and Gorey from memory, filling up about six pages in total. Hana and Henri were both impressed by the amount of effort he was putting into it.
‘I have to start getting good marks if I want to be on the baseball team next year,’ he explained.
‘Keep working hard like this and you probably will,’ Hana told him proudly. She then reached for the script and began reading through it, and was surprised by how well the quality matched the quantity of pages. ‘Wow, James – this is pretty good, and it looks easy to remember, too!’
After skimming through it she handed it to Henri, who likewise praised James for his effort. James seemed unable to handle the sudden compliments, as he continuously fidgeted and even got up to walk around his room, pacing back and forth in deep thought. Then he stopped and pulled the script from Henri’s hands.
‘I guess this means I’m good at something after all,’ he said as he flipped through the pages.
‘You’re always good at things when you put your mind to them,’ Hana told him. ‘That goes for just about everybody.’
‘What about the river monster and the lobsters?’ Henri asked.
‘Except for them,’ she admitted.
‘And Gorey?’
‘I said just about everybody,’ Hana answered in frustration.
‘Should we go out and film this now?’ James asked, holding up the script.
Henri shook his head. ‘By the time we get around to filming anything it’ll start to get dark out,’ he said. ‘If that happens then whatever we film won’t match up with the scene between Hana and Gorey, since that was done this afternoon.’
‘So we have to do it tomorrow afternoon?’ Hana asked.
‘Yeah, we’ll do it after school,’ Henri said. ‘Is that all right with you, James?’
‘I have no problems with it,’ James said, putting up a tough front but obviously disappointed. ‘And we can do the final scene in the pet store afterwards, since it won’t matter what time it is if we’re doing it inside. Actually, why don’t we do that one now?’
‘Because I’m tired,’ Hana complained, pointing out her feet. They left it at that.
As soon as school ended the next day they returned to the forest.
‘Oh no! I’ve lost my watch and my knife and fork!’ cried Hana as she came rushing onto the forest path. When she reached her marker – three rocks arranged in a triangle – she stopped and panted, looking at something off in the distance that could have been the sun; since the camera never swung around, nobody would be able to see what she was actually looking at, which was absolutely nothing at all.
‘Could someone have stolen them?’ she whispered fearfully to herself. ‘They were gifts from my great uncle who passed away when I was five. I don’t know what I’d do without them – my parents might beat me savagely if they find out. Where did I leave them last? I think they were in my house, but sometimes I take them outside for picnics so I can keep track of time while I eat things. In that case anyone could’ve gotten away with them – even a cat. Oh! what am I going to do? I’ve been searching for them all over. If I go on any longer I might pass out.’ She wiped a thin layer of sweat from her forehead and sighed. ‘Maybe I could just get another watch and knife and fork and pretend they were from my great uncle. But no, it wouldn’t be the same; I have to find them.
‘No, I must find them! I will find them, no matter what it takes!’ She then pumped her fist in a display of determination.
Henri and James were thoroughly enjoying her over-the-top performance from behind the camera. Hana acted as if she noticed something on the path just ahead of her and began walking towards the camera; Henri and James walked around Hana with it to film her walking further along the path.
‘Hey, what’s that?’ she said to herself. ‘Is . . . is that a cat?’ And then she walked out of the camera’s view. Henri stopped recording and shut the camera off.
‘That was perfect, Hana,’ he told her when they regrouped. ‘It’s hard to believe you could remember every single line like that.’
‘I do always say that I have a really good memory,’ she said, not particularly modest about it.
‘And I always say your dandruff is your brain exploding from the effort,’ James teased triumphantly. ‘But it’s worth it when we get something as good as this out of it, eh?’
‘Agreed,’ Henri said.
‘No, don’t agree with that!’ Hana cried.
‘We should go find a pet store now,’ Henri suggested, ignoring her outburst. ‘The sooner we finish filming, the sooner we can start editing all of the scenes together. And James still has to record the soundtrack.’
‘I’ll do it when we get the rest of the movie done,’ James confirmed. ‘I want to focus on the more important parts first.’
Despite just being teased, Hana could not help but agree with them.
After being turned down by three major pet stores, the trio decided to try a smaller one located in one of the seedier areas of the city. Strangers stared at them from within the shadowy depths of alleyways, and Hana could feel their eyes piercing directly into her soul; she shuddered and kept one of her hands near her hair in case she needed to quickly grab a dandruff weapon for protection, which she would have readily done, secret or no secret.
When they had all made it safely inside of the store they breathed a collective sigh of relief, and Hana put her hand away as if sheathing a sword. The store smelled of animals, their food, and what the animals did with the food afterwards. James tried plugging his nose with his fingers but Hana was covering her ears: all around the trio were barking pups, meowing kittens and squawking birds, creating a cacophony that rattled not only the cages but their bones as well. Making their way through the store was like pushing through a battlefield of obnoxious behaviour.
They found the owner in the back, having a casual conversation with one of the chinchillas; obviously he was slightly crazy, but to them that was a good sign – it increased their chances of being able to film the capture of the cat thief in his store.
‘Uh, excuse us,’ Henri said as he tapped the man gently on the back.
The owner cut off his conversation with the chinchilla in mid-sentence and slowly turned to face them, rotating in such a smooth motion that it seemed like he did not have any feet. The movement sent shivers up Hana’s spine and she held herself for warmth; she wanted to run out of the store, race down the street and not look back until she was at her front door, but then James and Henri would never forgive her. They seemed to have come into a not-so-unspoken pact where the marks came before everything else.
The trio gulped when the owner finally and fully did turn around: he was the most remarkably ugly man they had ever seen and made every other man handsome by default. With thick black curly hair that reflected the dim overhead lights with its greasy sheen and a nose pushed up so much that it had technically become a snout, the owner appeared more like an animal than Hana, James or Henri did after Pitaya had sung to them. He was also the size of a bear, with a stomach that could fit all three of them at once.
‘Hello, sweeties,’ the owner greeted them in a croaky voice. ‘I’m Dora, and this is my store. Do you require any assistance?’
Hana and James stared up at her, wide-eyed and with their mouths hanging open. Henri, on the other hand, retained his composure as well as he could, knowing full well that this could be their last chance at filming a cat in a cage. ‘Uh, hello . . . Miss . . ?’
‘Missis, actually,’ Dora said, and their skin nearly crawled right off their bodies. Not only was he a she, but married as well? Somehow that made it even worse!
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Missis Dora,’ Henri said politely, and he even offered her his hand. When she shook it Hana and James felt ready to faint.
‘The pleasure is all mine, sweetie,’ Dora said, grinning widely. Her teeth were uneven rows of yellow shards. ‘I’ve always been a sucker for a charming young gentleman like yourself. Now, what can I do for you kids?’
Henri was not about to miss the perfect chance to ask, now that Dora’s defences were lowered. ‘Actually, ma’am, we do have a certain request, if that’s all right,’ he said smoothly.
‘Anything at all, my sweet,’ she said, seeming to grow more attached to Henri with each passing moment. Hana hoped it did not mean she would be readying an oven for him or preparing a pot for child stew.
‘The thing is that we’d like to film the ending of our movie here,’ he said, presenting the camera. ‘All we need to do is film Hana with a white cat and then we can be on our way. Is it all right if you let us do this one thing, ma’am?’
‘Of course! Of course!’ Dora exclaimed joyfully. ‘And I have just the cat for you, too. I found him last night trying to dig into my garbage, but I captured and caged ’im, and gave him his shots. I think he’s still sleeping from all the excitement. Follow me.’
As they followed the crazed owner, Hana and James gave Henri congratulatory thumbs-up, which he took with a shrug and a smile.
‘I should warn you now that he’s a talker,’ Dora called back to them, and the trio exchanged uncertain looks. Then Dora came to a sudden halt in front of a cage and they nearly crashed into her, narrowly avoiding her ample backside as they darted past her to the cage.
Sure enough, there was a cat who looked suspiciously like Gorey, albeit sans the wig, sunglasses and t-shirt.
‘When I found him he was wearing a little shirt,’ Dora said as she looked admiringly at the cat, who was sleeping soundly despite the racket the other animals were making. ‘But it was so dirty that I had to take it off. Shirts aren’t meant for cats, anyway, if you ask me.’ And then she prodded the cat awake.
‘Oh, man, my head feels like it’s about to implode,’ the cat said groggily, stretching and peering at his surroundings through slitted eyelids. ‘Where am I?’
‘Oh, the poor thing has amnesia!’ Dora cried. ‘I’ll go see if I have something for it. You kids can go and make your movie while I’m gone.’
‘Thanks, ma’am,’ Henri said on everyone’s behalf. When she was gone they went back to gawking at Gorey in his little prison.
Once Dora was safely outside of earshot, Hana called out the cat’s name in surprise: ‘Gorey?!’
The cat struggled to stand on its hind legs but immediately fell back down again. ‘Is that you, babe?’ the cat asked, still groggy from its deep slumber. ‘I can’t seem to remember much of what happened last night.’
James punched Henri in the arm to gain his attention and then pointed at the camera. Henri nodded and began recording.
Hana looked back to make sure Henri was recording, winked, and then returned to the cat. ‘You’re in jail,’ Hana told Gorey, reciting her lines for the final scene from memory. ‘You landed in jail because you’re a thief, and now you’re stuck here for the rest of your life! Did you really need the watch and the knife and fork so badly? I would have gladly given them to you, or let you borrow them if you had simply asked. How do you think I got them in the first place? They were given to me! And if I came across somebody who needed them even more than I do, then I’d gladly give them away for free! And now, all because you didn’t ask me a simple question, you’re behind bars, and you’ll never see your loved ones again! Why? Why did you have to do this to yourself?’
‘Uh, what, babe?’ the cat asked, suddenly appearing nervous. ‘You mean I’m really in jail, like? Shouldn’t I be getting my one phone call? If I call my dad then he’ll spring me outta here for sure. Come on, babe, get me a phone here!’ The cat wailed pitifully, making it hard to believe that this could be the same cool cat they had met yesterday. Hana was satisfied knowing that Gorey was finally learning the error of his ways.
‘I’m sorry, but this is how it has to be,’ Hana told the cat, gently touching upon the top of his head with her fingers. ‘Goodbye.’
The cat, speechless, watched with his mouth agape as Hana walked dramatically away from the cage, covering her face with the back of her hand and not stopping until she was past the camera. Then Henri stopped recording and everyone high-fived each other.
‘All right, we did it!’ Hana shouted gleefully, confusing the cat even more with her sudden change in demeanour. ‘Now we can get out of this place!’
‘Wait, what about me?!’ the cat cried. ‘I’m too cool to die!’
‘Oh, hush,’ Hana said to the cat. ‘You’re not gonna die – I’ll go tell Jack where you are and then he can buy you, and then he’ll get to own you for real and you’ll get to live honestly like a good cat should. Just hang in there.’
Gorey mewed pathetically as the trio thanked Dora, who was on her way to the cage with a mysterious bottle; she was sorry to see them go and invited them to come make movies again whenever they wanted.
They left the store feeling satisfied that they had accomplished something, and not just because of the movie.
‘You think he’ll be all right?’ Henri asked Hana, who was smiling at the sun.
‘Of course he’ll be,’ Hana said. ‘He gets to be in a movie, and that means he gets to be the coolest cat around!’
‘I mean more do you think he’ll be all right with Dora,’ Henri elaborated, to which Hana shrugged.
‘He’s going to have to be,’ Hana said. ‘If Jack is still bitter about what he did then Gorey might be waiting a very long time for freedom.’
They returned home in an introspective mood, completely unaware that a red lobster with sharp pincers had entered the pet store as soon as they had left it. Gorey’s freedom was going to come a lot sooner than they thought.
To Be Continued In Episode Eight: Dandruff Girl
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8
Episode 9
Episode 10
Episode 11
Episode 12
Episode 13
Episode 14
Episode 15
Volume 2
Purchase the Book