Powers of Levitation

The Life and Times of the Napoleon of the Crime

Chapter 1

Three kittens, the three alike in dignity, in fair London, where we lay our scene, from new grudge broke to the same old quarrelling, where the brother's blood made the brothers' hands unclean.

However concealed, it's been said that the three kittens were children of a now centennial tom, halfway back then, whom supposedly crashed uninvited in Queen Victoria's coronation. The kittens' mother… how should I put it? Even today, she remains a mystery. My sources, however arguable, are positive that she should have been a certain cute queen property of Alexandra of Windsor, née Schleswig-Holstein. Back then, Alexandra was known as the Princess of Wales, still one year away from becoming Queen of England and the second Empress of India. I must apologise. I'm not allowed to disclose the kittens' mother name—one doesn't disclose an HRH's pets name just because. Moreover, she never belonged to the Jellicle cats, so you're not interested in whom she was.

The rumours about her being pregnant and the father's being a commoner cat spread country-wide like wildfire, threating to turn into a sovereign scandal, until gossip crashed against Kensington Palace's unyielding walls and staff. They denied everything, and by everything I mean EVERYTHING. All during her pregnancy, the cute little queen was withdrawn from all public appearances. The palace's spokesmen answered with laconic "no comments" to all question about her whereabouts, whilst reassuring the media—mainly newspapers and tabloids back then—that "both Her Royal Highness and her lady cat" enjoyed good health and were in their best humour. Gossiped leaked that Princess Alexandra and her lady cat had been secluded in Balmoral or Windsor Castle, or that they had travelled to Canada under covered on board of the Olimipc, sister ship to the not-yet-built, would-be infamous Titanic.

The father, a random no one—according to the Duke of Kent's cat account— a Deuteronomy as it was afterwards leaked, lived sharing his roof with Grizabella, the glamour cat—whether within the sanctity of marriage, I cannot tell. Yes, you've read right, I'm talking about the very Grizabella who used to perform, God only knows in how many different, unsettling manners, before perverted, Boer-war veterans' cats, in seamy cabarets near Tottenham Court—cats who quenched their thirst consuming both cheap alcohol and cheap queens. Kindly acknowledge that what I'm relating here happened years before Grizabella's scandal at "The Rising Sun".

The kittens' childbirth was surrounded by fitted secrecy. Deuteronomy spent the whole night outside Kensington Palace under the rain. He only knew that the kittens had answer to the cue that beckoned them to stage because he heard them meowing, crying for milk. Each one sang a different song; each one would be applauded for different reasons. If tears welled up Deuteronomy's eyes, nobody could tell, for they blended with the rain. He had been banned from entering the palace, and the tricks he had used to leak himself in Westminster Abbey years ago were useless this time because of the tight security.

Only Grizabella stood by his side that evening, her make-up ruined and the mascara trickling down her face, both the rain and the lack of an umbrella accountable of turning her into a grotesque Halloween, sad character.

"I can't stand it anymore," she said with a bitter meow. "The kittens are fine. Those were healthy meows. There's nothing left you can do for them. Now let's go. Next time, think it twice before dating one of these posh queens. I'm already hating you enough, so don't keep me here any longer."

Deuteronomy did not answer. He only sighed, wiped his cheeks and nodded. She was right. A premonition bordering scary certainty had already shown him that, in the years to come, he'd meet his children again and the family should be united, albeit fleetingly. Also, that one of the sons that had been born tonight in such a regal cradle was fated to succeed Deuteronomy and be twice greater than him. Other one may be adored by queens, young and old, gorgeous and ugly, shy and daring, etcetera. However, what really worried the would-be Jellicle cats patriarch was this other vision of the ginger kitten fighting his own kin after kidnapping his very father.