I'm not going to lie. This story is going to be very depressing.
I've had this idea in my mind for a little while and I've decided to go with it. There will be subtle connections to Seussical, but they won't be the central focus.
With that in mind, enjoy.
The more he stared at the girl through the little window, the more he could feel his heart breaking.
"How long has she been in there?" He asked the doctor.
"Not very long, since Thursday last week." The doctor pulled out some papers from the girl's file. His nametag read: Dr. Denison Dake. "She hasn't done much since she woke up a few days ago. She's been mostly quiet and unresponsive to the other nurses. Considering the little success we have had with her, we thought it be best to bring in a professional."
A smirk crept up on the man's face, "So you called me?"
"Well, you are great with kids. They warm up to you fairly quickly. Maybe once she warms up to you…."
"There's no guarantee."
The Doctor flinched, "Excuse me?"
"While I may be a strong influence on children, you may notice that she is not a child." It was true. Despite her small stature and slight baby fat around the face, her records stated that the girl was about seventeen.
"We're running out of options," Dr. Dake sighed. "She's got no family and no friends to speak of, even if she would speak. She needs someone, Cat, and you're the only one who could probably help."
He scratched the back of his head. The tall feline usually found any interaction, with any person, easy. Did it always go well? Not necessarily and that normally never bothered him.
But for once it felt imperative to make sure that he gave the best impression possible with this girl.
He jiggled the handle, "It's locked."
"I know."
"Don't you have a key or something?"
Dake's head sunk, "She's a bit of a special case. She's secluded herself from everyone else, so she locked herself inside." The Cat mentally face-palmed. He'd think the one relatively normal doctor he knew at the Geisel Institute (GI, for short) would at least hold onto the keys.
Then again, their history together had proven time and time again that while Dake was a typical, fully-functioning doctor, his methods were far from normal.
The Cat readjusted his focus, pushing back an embarrassing memory from their days at Cat Tech away in his mind.
"Well, how am I going to get her to talk to me if I can't get in?"
The Doctor patted his back, "You're in the Cat in the Hat. You'll figure something out." The Cat stared at the floor in deep thought as Dake walked away. With no way to get inside to interact with her, how could he possibly warm up to her?
He glanced back up at the little window and blinked in surprise.
The girl was staring back at him.
The Cat didn't flinch. He just touched the edge of his Hat, giving a nod before walking away.
"Just a bit of time," he said to himself, "That's all she needs."