CHAPTER 1- Confusion
"Macavity!" Demeter hissed, coming to an abrupt halt in the middle of a spin. All the other cats immediately stopped dancing, too, and the kittens dived for protection behind Skimbleshanks and his mate, Jellylorum. Bombalurina ran to her sister, and Munkustrap assumed his "guard" stance in front of both of them.
Sure enough, Macavity's evil laugh rang out, seeming to come from all directions. Demeter curled into a ball and wailed, while Bombalurina hissed and held onto her sister. Macavity laughed again. There was a ringing silence, and then CRASH! SCREECH! SHING! Macavity jumped out of nowhere, accompanied by a huge burst of red light, a clap of thunder, and about 30 howling stray toms and pollicles.
Pandemonium reigned. A bunch of pollicles herded the group of queen-kittens away from the others and started to toss them around like sacks of potatoes, laughing at their frightened mews. Skimbleshanks, attempting to come to their rescue, was surrounded by mean-looking strays. He suddenly found himself fighting not only for his life, but for Jellylorum's, too. The tom-kittens had formed a lopsided triangle and were fighting back-to- back, though they were no match for Macavity's battle-worn lackeys. Almost everyone else was hissing, spitting, and doing all they could to defend themselves and their friends against the intruders.
Demeter and Bombalurina were crouched in the corner. Bombalurina didn't like just sitting there, but she was very devoted to her sister. In front of them, Munkustrap was fighting off three pollicles at once, always the protector. In the middle of the confusion, Macavity slipped up next to Munkustrap and raked his claws across the tabby's back. Munkustrap gave one final swat to send the last pollicle running, then whirled around to face the Napoleon of Crime.
All around the junkyard, Jellicle, Pollicle, and stray alike ceased their fighting to watch their leaders' battle. For a while, Munkustrap held his own, but his many injuries soon began to take their toll. With one final slash, Macavity sent the tabby to his knees, where he soon blacked out. Grinning and howling triumphantly, Macavity turned to face the sisters in the corner behind him.
When Munkustrap went down, Demeter had yowled out in anguish. It was happening all over again! Macavity had swept her back into the nightmare she'd tried so hard to forget! She wailed and pressed herself farther into the corner. Bombalurina, however, did no such thing. Instead of fear, she was filled with anger. How dare this tom come and try to ruin her sister's life a second time! How dare he hurt Demeter's mate right in front of her! Hissing, she launched herself at Macavity with all her strength. But no queen can match the Hidden Paw's skills, and soon Bombalurina, too, was unconscious.
Laughing madly, Macavity yanked a screaming Demeter forward into his arms, then ran up on top of the Old Tire. "Hold on tight, Love! " he whispered to her, before jumping over the fence into the alley. His yellow eyes were the last thing Demeter saw before she fainted.
---
Demeter woke to find herself sprawled on a hard, cold floor. She was confused for a second, then she remembered -Macavity! Groaning, she levered herself up onto her knees and looked around. She was in a dark room divided into three sections by metal bars, each with their own barred door that led to a narrow hallway (the hallway had another door, which connected it to the rest of the dwelling). She was in the middle cell.. In the cell on her right, she could just make out two big, brown sacks. On her left, a red queen was lying on the floor, out cold. "Bomba!" cried Demeter, running toward her sister.
But before she could take six steps, something choked her, holding her back. Looking behind her, Demeter realized that her collar was connected to a metal post in the middle of the cell with a long, sturdy chain. She began to panic - to not be able to reach her sister at a time like this! - but then she realized that the chain was knotted up, and once she untangled it, she could just reach the bars that separated her from Bombalurina.
"Come on, Bomba, come on-" she whispered as she struggled to lick her sister awake through the bars. "Come on, come - Bomba!" Demeter cried happily, as her sister stirred and sat up.
"Demi -" Bombalurina said dazedly. "Demi, where are we?"
"Macavity's lair, I guess."
"Macav - ooh, now I remember. One day that ratty excuse for a cat will pay for all this!" Bombalurina exclaimed, with a sudden return to her earlier anger. "Are you all right?"
"Scared out of my wits," Demeter replied softly.
"Don't worry, I'm here - what was that?!" Both sisters turned toward the far cell, on the other side of Demeter's. The sacks were moving! Demeter hissed, but Bombalurina shushed her. "Look!"
A white head had popped out of the nearest sack. A black, white, and red head, the same colors as Demeter, popped out of the sack next to it. Soon, the rest of the creatures appeared, too, revealing them to be...
"Victoria? Sillabub?"
"Demeter!" Victoria cried.
"And Bombalurina, too!" added Sillabub, peering around her friend.
The two kittens walked over to the bars of their cage, and Demeter went to meet them., noticing that none of the other Jellicles were chained to posts. Demeter pushed this thought out of her head, before she could wonder why she was. She didn't want to know the answer.
For a while, the four queens just sat and talked, exchanging their stories. It seemed that the pollicles had eventually become tired of playing catch with the queen-kittens and tossed them away, going off to join the fight. Electra and Etcetera had immediately gone to hide in one of the old pipes. Victoria and Sillabub, however, wanted to find their to-be mates, Plato and Pouncival. They had spotted the group of tom-kittens, but before they could reach them, they were surrounded by a bunch of scruffy-looking toms, all of whom were grinning evilly. The two kittens had been warned not to move or speak, then stuffed into the sacks. The last thing they remembered was being pulled along inside their sacks, too frightened to do anything, until they passed out from being dragged over rocky, thorny ground. Next, Demeter told her story, and then Bombalurina explained that she really didn't have a story to tell - she assumed that after Macavity knocked her out, he'd just told one of his lackeys bring her back to his lair with him, but she really didn't know anything, since she had been unconscious the whole time.
Bombalurina was just telling the kittens how her sister had woken her up when Demeter suddenly hissed, "Someone's coming!" The Jellicles quickly fell silent. They knew that the footsteps they were hearing were not Macavity's, because Demeter would have said so, but that did not mean that the person wasn't dangerous.
Suddenly, the door burst open, and the four queens raised their hands to shield their eyes from the harsh light that poured into the prison. Bombalurina heard something smack into the wall next to her, and then the door closed again, plunging the cells back into darkness. It took a few minutes for everyone's eyes to adjust to the dim light again, and when they did, Bombalurina saw that the thing in the cell with her was another cat! Another queen, in fact - a yellow-, orange-, and white-striped one. The new queen cocked her head and blinked at them. "Hi," she said to the startled group. She had a peculiar accent. "I'm Rumpleteazer, but you can just call me Teazer. Who are you?"
---
"Demeter...don't let him take Demeter..." Munkustrap groaned as he came to his senses. He opened his eyes, and found himself staring up at Jellylorum's relieved face. Distantly, he heard someone calling, "He's awake!" but he didn't bother trying to identify the voice.
"Where's Demeter?"
Jellylorum glanced over at Jennyanydots, who was also in the room, then back at Munkustrap. Her sad eyes told him everything.
"He took her, didn't he?"
"Yes, he did, I'm really sorry..."
"Anyone else?"
Jellylorum looked uncomfortable. "We shouldn't be talking about this when you've just woke up, everyone was so worried you know - "
"Jelly, please, I need to know. It's my duty as a leader."
Jellylorum and Jennyanydots exchanged worried looks, but then the Gumbie Cat said softly, "Bombalurina...and Sillabub and Victoria."
Munkustrap sighed. "Sillabub and Victoria. Of course he would go after the kittens, they are the most easily frightened. How are Tugger, Pouncival, and Plato taking it?"
"They're all heart-broken." "
Yes, well, I know exactly how they feel." He tried to stand up.
"Oh no you don't." said Jennyanydots, as Jellylorum pushed him back down onto the blanket. "You're too weak to get up yet. You need rest."
"But-!"
"Rest!"
---
Bombalurina and Demeter hesitated - who was this strange cat anyway? - but Sillabub immediately called out from her cell, "Hi! I'm Sillabub, and this is Victoria, Bombalurina and Demeter - "
"Demeter? You're Demeter?"
"Yes... why?"
But the queen only shook her head.
"A-Anyway," Sillabub continued, slightly hesitant now, "We're Jellicles."
"No, really?" Rumpleteazer exclaimed. "Serious? That's so cool!" Then, almost as an afterthought, she said, "What's a Jellicle?"
That night, Rumpleteazer told the Jellicles her story. She said that one night, she and her brother, Mungojerrie, got carried away with their "questing" and were out much later than they should have been. ("Questing?" asked Victoria. "Stealing," Demeter replied.) They wanted to get home quickly, because their human only gave them treats if they were back before curfew. In their haste, they decided to take a shortcut through a back- street alley."That was a mistake," Rumpleteazer sighed. "and if we had been thinkin' straight, it's a mistake we wouldn't have made. Everyone knows you don't go into a back-alley at night." She went on to tell them how Macavity and half a dozen other toms jumped out of hiding and surrounded them. "Macavity kept sayin,' 'Work for me or die,' or somethin' like that... Anyway, Jerrie kept sayin' no, he'd rather die, and so finally Macavity gets impatient with him and says, 'If you don't care about yourself, then think about your lady,' and then a bunch of these toms jump on me and pin me to the ground in front of Macavity. Jerrie had no choice. So that's my sad story; Macavity keeps me here and poor Jerrie has to work for him, or else ol' Mac will kill me. Kinda goes 'round in a circle, don't it?"
---
Meanwhile, Munkustrap was up pacing his room. Jellylorum and Jennyanydots wouldn't have let him, but he said he would go crazy if he had to stay in bed. Seeing that they were still skeptical, he joked that if they didn't let him up he would have to order them to; after all, he was second-in- command of the tribe. Jenny said that was abusing his power, and Jellylorum said she would get Old Deuteronomy to veto the order, but in the end they all laughed and let him get up anyway.
But now Munkustrap was far from laughing - in fact the only laughing he could think of was Macavity's horrible cackle as he grabbed away Munkustrap's own mate for himself. Again and again, Demeter's frightened wails played through his head, tormenting him, until he stopped pacing all together and just ran, racing his mind around the junkyard, until he was totally exhausted. He slumped down in a patch of moonlight, looking up at the moon itself. Oh Demeter, he thought, I'm so sorry...
---
Curled up in her cell, Demeter jerked out of her slumber. She was curled up next to Bombalurina, though there were bars between them. She was still all alone in her cell, but... she could have sworn she'd just heard someone call her name, apologize for something... It wouldn't have been Macavity, she knew that, and all her cell-mates were asleep. Could it have been a dream? She didn't think so. But then who...?