Chapter 1: Mysterious Stranger
A ray of pale yellow sunlight lanced through the shattered window of one of the junkyard's many demolished cars to land on Bombalurina's closed eyes. She mumbled something and turned over on the ripped car seat, trying to go back to sleep. Finally, after several minutes of tossing and turning, her eyes fluttered open. Bomba sighed. She was well and truly awake now - might as well get up. She yawned and stretched as far as she could before hitting the car's wall and crawled out into the junkyard.
Still yawning, Bomba looked around for any unsuspecting rodent which would do the honours of serving her as breakfast - not that she was really hungry, come to think of it.
Suddenly, an almost juvenile feminine voice tore her out of her contemplations regarding her morning meal.
"Hey Bomb, wait up!"
Bomba turned around to catch sight of Alyzria, one of the younger members of the Jellicle tribe. The older cat sighed, not for the first time that morning. She had been hoping for some quality time on her own, but her soft spot for Alyzria kept her from telling the Siamese to leave her alone. She reluctantly stopped walking and let her young friend catch up with her. Alyzria, who had been running at full speed, came to a skidding halt next to the ginger tabby cat. Now Bomba noticed that Alyzria was holding her own Breakfast, which turned out to be a large rabbit. Of course that explained her excitement - it was not every day that such a large catch entered the junkyard. Alyzria could hardly contain her pride. Almost immediately a flow of words came bubbling from her.
"Isn't this great? My first bunny! This is - "
"Whoa, slow down Aly!"
Bomba had absolutely no desire to listen to a rambling hyperactive kitten. The dark Siamese interpreted Bomba's words correctly and immediately set to work at controlling her happiness. After taking a few deep breaths, Alyzria started talking again.
"So anyways, what have you caught for brekkie?"
Bomba looked a little sheepish.
"Nothing yet. I think I might skip breakf - "
She didn't get to finish her sentence, for Alyzria immediately cried, "No way," and Bomba found herself firmly gripped by the arms and steered on top of an upturned fridge. Alyzria was already getting ready to tear her rabbit in half before Bomba stopped her.
"No you don't! I've gotta watch my weight."
Alyzria, who had taken a quick glance at Bomba's perfect form, gave her a slightly bewildered look, but made no further attempt to share her already mutilated Breakfast.
Halfway through the meal, Tantomile and Coricopat, the tribe's `psychic twins' appeared, each holding a fat rat.
"I sensed that you would join us for breakfast today," Coricopat greeted them in a misty voice, but the mischievous glimmer in his eyes didn't escape Bomba and Alyzria.
"And I sensed that Bomba is turning anorexic," Tantomile added with a cheeky grin. Bomba rolled her eyes at the twins' incredibly enlightening prophecies. They ignored her and sat down on the fridge next to them, before devouring their rats. Bomba, who had nothing else to do, deftly climbed up to the top of a pile of car tyres and other junk, to look at the view. After a while, the other three joined her.
"Hey, what's that?"
Alyzria pointed at a strangely lopsided figure in the distance. All four of them watched intently as the figure moved towards them, until it became apparent that the figure was another cat - a female by the looks of it.
Bomba raised her eyebrows in confusion. As the figure came closer, and into the light, it became clear that this was not a member of her tribe. Alyzria's reaction was slightly different; she bounded down from the pile of junk on which she had been perched to greet the newcomer. Close up, she could now see why the feline was stumbling in such a lopsided manner. Not only was she slashed and bloody (apparently by some sort of sharp weapon), but her fur was also scorched and she was gasping for breath, as if exhausted. After having digested her surprise and slight queasiness in her stomach, she turned around to look at the others, who could see her alarmed expression.
"You guys! Get down here now!" she called.
Her three companions could hear the urgency in her voice, and quickly made their way down to where Alyzria was standing. When they arrived, Alyzria was already holding up the outsider for support and urging her to breathe more slowly. Now that they could see the terrible state that their visitor was in, the twins bounded off in search for Jellylorum, one of the tribe's healers. Meanwhile, Alyzria and Bomba tried to get some information out of the gasping newcomer.
"Okay, take it easy now - look, you'd better take those things off your back."
Bomba opened the blood-crusted leather strap which held two long thin scimitars to the stranger's back. Alyzria's curiosity got the better of her, and she tentatively unsheathed one of the curved knives, only to discover that they were also smeared in blood. Bomba, who had taken a quick look at the scimitar chose this moment to put two and two together.
"Judging by her wounds, the blood on her scimitars, and her exhausted state, I'd say our friend here's been in a fight."
Their `friend' , who had collapsed, managed a weak, though definitely cynical smile and croaked,
"You got that right."
Before they could question her any more, the twins arrived with Jellylorum in tow.
Jellylorum's eyes widened in horror as she saw her patient's physical condition.
"All right, get out of the way, you lot," she said in a business-like tone, and the others obediently let the healer do her work. Jelly's business-like tone suddenly gave way to the more motherly voice she reserved for her patients.
"Can you breathe all right?" she asked with concern radiating from her eyes.
The tiger patterned cat managed a nod, before slumping in Jelly's arms in a dead faint.
"Cori, give me a hand. This girl's pooped."
The male psychic twin easily lifted the lower end of the nameless cat, and carefully followed Jellylorum to the den where she tended her patients.
"We didn't even find out her name," Tantomile realized.
