Chapter 1: Tentative Correspondence
Dear Pouncival,
I'm taking my courage in hand and writing this letter. I know we hung out together a little bit at the Jellicle Ball a few months ago, but I hope you remember me. I will understand if you choose not to send a letter back to me. I'm sending Ademetus with this letter since he goes into your part of town a lot, but I have no idea how you could get any form of correspondence back to me.
As you will know, the Tribe has made the move out of the Junkyard. Cassandra insisted upon it even though Munkustrap rather liked the idea of the humans knowing about us in the Junkyard. It seemed he enjoyed people coming in on hearing our songs at the Ball and filming us. Me, I thought it was a violation of privacy. The humans of the city turned us into a big production. There was a cover story they came up with. The ones who found us told the public that our songs were written by this big composer: Andrew Lloyd Webber. Bombalurina told me that our story, which has been twisted, is going on West End and Broadway and that they're making a movie from the shots they got of us. She gets about town a lot and has seen posters. Have you seen them?
Proper letter etiquette tells me that I now need to ask you about yourself, your life. How is it having a mother in a state of rebirth? Does she act different? Is Grizabella enjoying her new life? I hope you and Tumblebrutus aren't missing the Tribe too much. But, as brothers, you must be able to entertain each other even just a little. Well, I dunno. I wouldn't exactly call myself entertained by my sister most of the time. You should remember her, sensual queen that she is. My sister is Demeter. (Jennyanydots and Asparagus (the younger) are our parents.) We don't really spend much time together, there's too much of a personality clash.
Things aren't really all that interesting here. You see, we've relocated to another dump on the outskirts of London. It's smaller and doesn't have much interesting junk, like an end of a car or a huge tire. Mostly, we have rusty metal, tin cans, and old lamps. We do have an entire bed frame that Demeter found a mattress for. I hear it's now a very popular spot for couples. I wouldn't know. Romance isn't really my forte, you'd have to ask Demeter or Victoria. Or Mistoffelees. Don't listen to what the public say about our love lives! You know as well as I do how Munkustrap encouraged…forced us to play our love lives up a bit. Like that bit with The Rum Tum Tugger. Honestly. Or the part with Plato and Victoria. Do you think I enjoyed snuggling up to Mistoffelees? We never get that cuddly in an actual Jellicle Ball. But why am I telling you this? You know it already. I just need to vent my frustration at the whole plan.
I'm sorry. I should censor myself. You don't need to hear me complain. I'll stop since I'm afraid you won't write back if I talk this way in a letter. I only wrote because I'm fairly lonely here. Etcetera, you remember my good friend Etcy, has been mostly hanging out with Victoria and Jemima, queens who aren't really my type of friends. Ademetus is fairly nice; I'm hoping there'll be a friendship. I chose you since we seemed to get along pretty well, so I hope you don't mind.
Signing off. Sincerely,
Electra