See, the thing with us Jellicle Cats, we just live in Scotland Yard, but we like to gather into the Jellicle Junkyard at night, you know? We lounge all day in our family homes with the humans, but go on out at night. We're nocturnal. We all live on the same block, which is a dead end road actually, because at the very end of it comes the tall fence to the Junkyard. The fence goes pretty high, up to the third floor of the buildings that surround it. You go on in, and against the front wall there's big piles of junk that reach almost the top of the fence. It fades out as you go along the brick walls of the buildings, but builds back up once you get to the fence on the other side. So there's all this junk lining the junkyard, and then there's smaller junk piles closer to the edges, but it clears out in the center of the yard, which we like to call the Square, 'cause, you know it's all empty and everything else sort of surrounds it. Most of us have dens closer to the Square, whether it be in the edges of the junk along the walls, or in the junk piles surrounding the center. Except for the one big junk pile that's just north of the Square. It's not as big as the ones in the corners, but it's kind of unique. When you enter through the crate, then it's just a big clearing, like there was a divot in the ground and the junk forms a pyramid around it. We all gather there for meetings, but we don't get that many of those. And on the north side of said junk pile, that's where Deuteronomy lives. I mean, that's his den. Not his family home, just his junkyard den.
Anyway, you're probably bored as I'm explaining all this stuff about the junk yard. Well not I'ma explain the Jellicles.
We've been around for generations, you know? All of us have lived on this same street in Scotland Yard in the apartments and flats of the residents that live in the buildings. It's really not that long of a street. It has two really long apartment buildings, and then at the end of the buildings there's a park on both sides of the street. So you've got the park, the long buildings where we live, and the junkyard, but really the junkyard is just the dead end part of the road and the apartment buildings still go on until you get to a road perpendicular to it, cutting off the junkyard and the buildings. But I keep getting off track here.
Jellicles. You've heard us sing the song of our people. We're pragmatical, dramatical, fanatical, and so on and so on. We stay in for most of the day, sleeping, eating, getting wonderful rubbings from the humans, goofing off in the daylight, and then at night when the humans are asleep, we head out into the junkyard. We're family. I mean, not all of us are blood related, but our families have a lot of generations except for the occasional newcomer that the humans will bring. We let them go to Deut to see if they can be a Jellicle and for the majority of the time they can be. They're normally kittens when they're brought, so they can learn how we roll.
In this day and age we've got some good Jellicles. Deut is of course our leader, the good, fat guy. He has a few sons. Macavity is the oldest, but we don't talk about him no more. Then Munkustrap, you're handy protector, and Rum Tum Tugger, the pretty boy. You've got the golden girls, Jennyanydots, Jellylorum, and Grizabella, but we also don't talk about her no more. There's the older brothers, Skimbleshanks and Asparagus, and their pop Gus, that good old theater cat. There's a few cats that come in an out of the junkyard, but sometimes I don't like to call them Jellicles because they just don't seem to care that much about us, so I ain't gonna name those suckers. Bustopher Jones comes in and out, but his humans travel a lot with him and who wouldn't want to travel? He'd be in the yard all the time if he could, so he counts. You've got the older kits, but if they knew I called them a kit they'd be mad 'cause they're not kits no more.
Macavity was the oldest of them, 'cause all the ladies have kittens at the same time so there's some age difference and all. Plus, we've had a few passings because there had been a cat virus going through the neighborhood. He's what...twenty-five now? No, twenty-six. His ma had gotten the virus and passed almost ten years ago. Growltiger is twenty-six, too, but he up and left the yard so I don't know if he counts no more. Hm. Munkustrap is twenty-four, so is Mungojerrie, Admetus, Coricopat, and Tantomile. Griddlebone is twenty-three, but she left with Tiger. Uh, let's see. Tugger is twenty-three, too. Who else is? Losing my memory here. I'm the keeper of the Jellicles, so I'm suppose to know this. Uh, Alonzo, Demeter, Exotica, and Bombalurina are twenty-three as well. Cassandra, Bill Bailey, and Rumpleteazer are twenty-two. Plato and Carbuckety are twenty-one. Mistoffelees is just twenty. Oh, and Tumblebrutus is, too. Sillabub, Etcetera, Electra, and Pouncival are nineteen. Then Jemima is eighteen.
We haven't had a kitten around because, I mean, the older kits haven't started getting together or nothin', and none of the humans wanna bring in a new kitten when they still have their cats. So we're waiting on those little rascals to get it on.
Yep, it's a close nit group. A loving one, but we ain't perfect. We've got problems. In fact, we've got a lot of problems. We remain positive, but...it ain't easy.
You see, none of the Jellicles know this yet, but their block is up for sale. Some company wants to buy the buildings and the street and build some bigger building for their company. They don't know it...but they're going to know pretty soon.