Well, it's been awhile since I've been here, since I'm writing my own stuff instead of fanfictions. What's this you ask? A fanfiction. I've rediscovered my love of CATS the musical, and have been working on an enormous family tree, introducing new characters, and making up little plotlines. This may or may not pan out, but I've decided to put it up anyway as a kind of writing practice apart from my more serious projects. Feel free to critique and leave comments :).

Chapter One

Rumpleteazer had had her eye on those pearls. When Margaret Chamberlain came home with them hanging around her throat, luminous and white and thrilling in the evening damp, she knew immediately they were destined for her own neck. She confided her intentions to her brother later that evening as they settled down on Mr. Chamberlain's fuzzy winter sweater.

"They're the perfect thing for me," she declared rather vainly in her homely Cockney accent. (For the sake of comprehension, I will dictate her words in plain, understandable English.) "And no doubt Maggie will miss 'em sorely."

"They was given 'er by her beau, ya know," Mungojerrie observed, sounding almost stern as he plucked a stray fuzz off his shoulder.

"'Ey, Jerrie! You made a rhyme!" Rumpleteazer crowed, instantly distracted by her brother's unintentional poetic verse.

"Don't play the fool, Teazer. You know Maggie loves 'er lad. She'll be quite distraught, she will, if you go an' pinch 'em."

The tiger queen pouted. "But I wants 'em, Jerrie. They'd be the perfect addition to our lit'l act at the Ball in a few nights."

Mungojerrie's eyebrows rose a few inches. "Ya know, I do think you're right. Bet the others won't be expectin' an extra line about Miss Maggie's Woolworth pearls."

"We'll have t' be quick about it, the Chamberlains are off t' the sea t'morrow," Rumpleteazer confided. "I 'eard from Miss Lyddie's spaniel."

"S'pose they'll be takin' him along," Jerrie groused, digging his claws into the sweater with feeling. "They never take us anywheres special."

"Come t' think of it, they've got good reason," Teazer reminded him.

"True. Alrighty then, when shall we perform our next dastardly act?"

Rumpleteazer's eyes shone with lust for the pearls as she kneaded the worn fabric mightily with her well-groomed claws. "Tonight it'll be. After supper."

Margaret Chamberlain loved her new pearls. Tommie had given them to her special, when they went to the park. So that evening she primped and preened for dinner a little extra, turning this way and that as she admired their creamy sheen in the mirror. What she didn't notice in her preoccupation was the twitching tail beneath the stool that betrayed Rumpleteazer's presence.

Dinner went well, for once. The cook had employed, with Mr. Chamberlain's permission and blessing, a boy of about nine or ten to stand guard over the oven while the other staffers were busy preparing the other dishes. In this way, the main course was protected from the two stripy thieves residing in Victoria Grove.

After the meal, Mr. Chamberlain called for the port, and his wife and two daughters removed themselves to the drawing room with their female guests, where biscuits and fruit punch were served and playing cards laid out. The head of the family was just getting comfortable with his business companions and a few cigars when an ear-piercing shriek was uttered in the drawing room.

"What is it, what is it? A robber, a bandit, a rat?" the men cried as they rushed to the ladies' aid.

"My pearls!" cried poor Margaret. "Where have they gone?"

Underneath the floorboards in one of the tiger twins' many hideouts, Rumpleteazer was too absorbed in admiring her newest catch to pay attention to the dramatic sobbing of the eldest Chamberlain. Mungojerrie, however, was not so enraptured, and his tail twitched uncertainly.

"I'm not sure this is such a good idea anymore, Teazer," he said slowly. "Miss Maggie sounds quite upset."

"Oh, it served her right, it does," his sister replied without taking her eyes from the string of jewels. "She stepped on my tail last week, on purpose."

"Still…" Mungojerrie scratched his ear and sighed. "Well, it's two more lines to the song I guess."

This caught Rumpleteazer's attention. "Two? What for, we only need one."

"Well, I, er, composed a bit. It's only a little piece of doggerel, but what do you think?" Clearing his throat and shifting his feet nervously, he sang, "And after supper one of the girls, suddenly missed her Woolworth pearls," in a surprisingly rich tenor.

"Oh Jerrie, it's lovely!" Rumpleteazer praised. "Come on, I've got to try these on with a proper mirror."

To Rumpleteazer's intense pleasure, the pearls were a hit at the annual Jellicle Ball. All the queens, from little Jemima to the voluptuous Bombalurina, were very complimentary. Demeter especially praised Teazer's find.

"They look so nice against your orange and black stripes," Demeter approved when the Ball was over and the cats lay in small groups all over the Junkyard to watch the sun rise. Rumpleteazer was about to thank her graciously when an eruption of hisses and snarls broke out from the other side of the Jellicle haunt. Heads went up everywhere, ears erect and tails bristling in shock as Munkustrap, Alonzo at his heels, bounded forward to the source of the trouble.

Bombalurina was angry. She had had big plans for this Ball, and that little white snippet of a bigheaded princess had ruined them. Admetus was hers. Quiet and angelically handsome, the brown-and-white tom had captured her attention as soon as she had arrived several months ago with Demeter in tow, escaping from Macavity's regime. He was her opposite in many ways, but that didn't bother her. He struck her as a one-queen tom, and that attracted him to her from the beginning.

But something had been brewing under her very nose without her being aware of it. Admetus fancied Victoria – Victoria! That snot-nosed, flat-chested, frou-frou ballerina – and he had danced the Courtship with her. Bomba was seething with anger, and wasn't about to let her dream tom get away without a fight.

Unfortunately, her plans were quickly ruined. Munkustrap, that goody-goody little guardian, was quickly between them, curling back his lips to show his teeth in warning. Bomba was taller than the silver tabby, but knew she was no match for his strength, so she backed down, still hissing. Vickie was shaking like a leaf in Alonzo's grip, startled, but her mouth was slurred by an ugly snarl. Bomba struck out with one hand, claws extended, over Munkustrap's shoulder, but her arm was stopped mid-strike. She whirled around, surprised by the unexpected intervention.

A pair of wide brown eyes stared back into hers, seemingly as taken aback as she was. "S-stoppit," a tiger-striped tom stammered. "There's no call for that. Stop it."

"Mungojerrie's right," Munkustrap said sternly. "That's not how we settle things here. I realize you haven't been here long, but that's no excuse to attack a defenseless princess."

Bomba recovered herself quickly. Shaking her arm from the tiger tom's grip, she straightened her shoulders and looked coolly over Munkustrap's shoulder into Vickie's crystal blue eyes. "Not a princess any more, is she?" With those words she turned her back on Munkus, Vickie, and Alonzo, and brushed past the tiger tom. She ignored Demeter's mortified, "Bomba!" and stalked into the shadows to nurse her wounded pride.

"Vickie, I'm so sorry for Bomba," Demeter apologized, the first to break the awkward silence. She came up to the white queen and smoothed her stiffed-out mane down in an almost motherly fashion. "Are you okay?"

Victoria nodded in affirmation, finally relaxing with the disappearance of the red queen. "I'm all right. Thank you."

Mungojerrie, suddenly shy at being the center of attention, slunk back to his twin sister's side. "Blimey," he mumbled under his breath.

"Blimey's right!" Rumpleteazer exclaimed as the Jellicles' chatter began filling up the Junkyard again. "Whatever possessed ya t' do that? She coulda taken your head off!"

Mungojerrie shook his striped head in bewilderment. "Blimey!" he said again, and indeed he seemed incapable of saying anything else. But in his head he was replaying the red queen's beautiful face turned for the first time in his direction, and couldn't be prevailed upon for the rest of the night to speak a word.