Twenty-Three: Christmas Preparations
It was morning. The snow lay thick and glittering on the ground, covering the TSEs and the paths through the junk. It was surprisingly quiet, since all students had decided that the first day of Christmas Break was a day to sleep in. In TSE 4, two students lay curled up underneath a large number of fuzzy blankets. The only sound being heard was that of the two snoring, and also the fluttering of pixay-wings.
After a moment or two there was a groan, and a paw covered in grey fur poked out from the pile of blankets and waved about in the chilly air. Someone shivered and the paw quickly disappeared under the blankets again.
"Cold," reported a muffled voice. "Hey, Jo?"
"Hm, what?" said a second voice, sounding newly-awakened and somewhat confused. "Oh... Mornin'." Joanna managed to untangle herself from the blankets and sat up, blinking dazedly. She perked up once she saw the snow. "Oh! Pretty!"
Misty also sat up and wrinkled her nose. "More of the bloody snow. Cold and nasty, it is. Wake me when spring comes."
She lay back down, trying to get back to sleep. Joanna pondered for a moment whether she should do the same, but her stomach protested loudly to that. She was starving.
"I'll just pop off to the cafeteria for a bit, okay, Misty?" she said. "I need something to eat..."
Misty only muttered something. Joanna shrugged and wrapped a pair of blankets around her. It was freezing cold, and she had a feeling that Mistoffelees had neglected putting force-fields over the TSEs on purpose. Stupid, sparkly twit.
She jogged through the snow with the blankets billowing out behind her. White clouds of condensation came out of her mouth as she breathed, and the snow crunched under her feet. In a junkyard that usually held so many peculiar things, it was a surprisingly normal sound.
The kitchen was silent as Joanna arrived. Macavity's henchcats had apparently also decided to sleep in today, and the common sounds of breakfast being prepared was reduced to one black cat standing by a stove, frying bacon in a large pan. The cat looked up and hissed at Joanna, mostly out of habit.
"Good morning," she said politely. "I was just hungry... you think I could take a snack?"
The black cat shrugged. "Student food in cupboard. Just you don't mess anythin' up."
Joanna smiled. She was quite used to the henchcats's bad grammar by now, even if she used to wonder silently to herself what miss Minnaloushe and the PPC Agents thought about it. She nodded at the black cat and walked up to the cupboard. She knew what it used to contain: a large supply of Shrimp Delights, at least one bit of mouse-cake that not even the rats would touch, and cabbage, for some reason. She grabbed a bag of Shrimp Delights to bring back to the TSE 4, and then she caught sight of something.
On the top shelf of the cupboard stood a large, blue plate, filled with the most spectacular display of seafood she had ever seen. There was shrimps arranged it neat patterns, caviar in small, exquisite china bowls, and of course many different sorts of fish. It looked delicious, and much more advanced than any student snack she had rafsed from the cupboard in the past.
Joanna reached out to nab a shrimp, but the black cat growled at her: "Don't mess anythin' up!"
Joanna's hand stopped moving halfway to the plate, and she pouted. "Sorry. What's it for?"
"Students mustn't know. It big surprise. Miss Minnaloushe said not tell. Commanded. And boss said. Must do what boss says, student knows." The black cat nodded gravely.
"Yeah, we've figured that out," muttered Joanna, the entire incident behind the new verse of Macavity in fresh memory. "Is it for the Christmas party?"
"Maybe," said the henchcat and stirred the bacon with its back towards her. "Student should go now. Student got the snack. There's tea in kettle too, if student should want." It nodded at a huge brass kettle on a hot-plate.
"Thanks."
Joanna filled a thermos with hot tea and poured some milk into it before saying goodbye to the black cat and get on her way back to the TSE 4. She tore open the bag of Shrimp Delights and began munching on the one the way. It was amazing how quickly you got used to eat things that reminded more of cat-treats than anything else, rather than comfort-eating chocolate at any odd hour. This was probably better for her teeth though.
She strolled lazily back to her warm sleeping-quarters. So far it had been a pretty decent day, and she would prefer it if it would stay that way. Lately she had been extremely stressed out about her grades, she still hadn't found the perfect name for her OC, and she had recently discovered that she just could not write on command.
And she actually found herself being homesick. That was weird. She had never even considered herself a person to get homesick easily, but suddenly everything reminded her of home. She missed her parents; she even missed her brother. And that was something. She was split in two about the whole situation. One part of her wanted to stay desperately, since this was a place where she had friends that understood why she loved CATS so much. If summer should come tomorrow, they would be what she would miss. And lessons with Mistoffelees, of course. And maybe the food, too. The food was good.
The other part wanted home, right now. It wanted to sleep in her real bed, in her real room, without the eternal smell of junk in her nostrils every day and without getting ambushed by mini-Pollicles when she least expected it.
Bah. Life wasn't fair.
Joanna was so deep in thoughts that she didn't notice it when she walked into a large conifer that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. She yelped out in pain as the dark green needles poked her skin.
"Hey watch it!" The red face of Bombalurina poked up and glared at the student. "Eyes on the road!"
"Sorry," gasped Joanna and hurried out of the way, silently cursing the fact that she had dropped most of the Shrimp Delights in the snow when she'd walked into the tree. "I... I didn't see you there."
"We figured as much," muttered Skimbleshanks and hoisted up the tree further onto his shoulders. "Hm. Students today, always so wrapped up in themselves..."
Joanna squinted at the bushy tree. She could see glimpses of different coloured fur here and there, and she thought she spotted Munkustrap's silver and the Rum Tum Tugger's velvety black somewhere as well. Various minis strutted by their feet, always ready to pounce, should a student show up. They regarded Joanna with the eerie confidence that clearly said: "Glomp and die, that's how it goes."
Joanna swallowed. This was not exactly how she'd wanted the day to continue. She apologized again, curtsying nervously as she pulled backwards. Then she gathered her bag, her thermos and her blankets and hurried away.
"Ho ho ho!" Mungojerrie beamed at the running student with his best Santa impression. "An' what do you want for Christmas, li'l girlie?"
She only gave him a wide smile, but said nothing. She only clung to her bag of Shrimp Delights and ran off as fast as she could.
"Students today," sighed Rumpleteazer, echoing Skimbleshanks' previous statement. "Hey, can someone explain ta me again why we're carryin' this thing to the junkyard?"
"Miss Minnaloushe says that we should try an' get things as similar as possible to the tradit'nal Christmas," explained Mungojerrie cheerily and took a new grip of the tree. "She's really excited 'bout i'. She's never had a real mortal Christmas before, ya know."
"Oh, an' like we have?"
"Hey you back there!" came Munkustrap's voice from somewhere inside the tree. "Keep quiet and carry this bloody pincushion to its proper place!"
Rumpleteazer giggled, but she and Mungojerrie kept their mouths shut until the tree had been carried off to the Jellicle junkyard. By then the fur on their hands were sticky from resin, and they felt messier than they had in a long time. As soon as the tree was erected the Jellicles started to clean themselves until said messiness had been neatly put back into place, and then they stared at the tree.
"So what do you suppose we do now?" asked the Rum Tum Tugger and squinted at the far top of the tree.
Munkustrap shrugged. "Miss Minnaloushe said something about decorating it. Made little sense to me. The kittens are off to get the things we need however, so we'll figure it out."
"Do we have to?" sighed Bombalurina. "Haven't we done our part already by getting this thing here?"
There were some mutterings of agreement from the other Jellicles. No one had the time to say anything, though, because then Etcetera, Electra, Jemima and Victoria showed up, all carrying large cardboard boxes filled to the brims with shiny, glittering things. Their eyes glowed almost as bright as the tinsel they carried.
"It is very chase-worthy!" announced Electra and beamed. "There are these little red, shiny balls, you see, and they are so good to play with, and they make such a pretty sound when they break..."
"I don't think we're supposed to break them, Electra," said Munkustrap with a small smile. "We're supposed to use them for this tree." He nodded at it.
"But they're shiny!" whined Jemima. "How can we not play with them?"
"We'll just have to restrain ourselves. Miss Minnaloushe counts on us. She'd be here herself, but she had some things that she had to go through with the Headmasters. Now." The grey tabby opened one of the boxes and grabbed a hold of a long garland with flags from all possible countries. "This is... really quite enticing," he had to admit. "But no. We must be strong. Jerrie!"
He glared at the male calico, who had snuck up on an unopened box, his tail waving eagerly from side to side, and his eyes gleaming. When Munkustrap called out to him, he immediately straightened himself up.
"Wha'?" he asked, looking at the tabby with large, innocent eyes. "Wha' did I do?"
"Don't think I didn't see you," scolded Munkustrap.
"Perhaps we should leave this job to the students," said Victoria nervously. "I... I don't really trust myself around all these glittering stuff."
"Enough!" Munkustrap sighed. "We are of a noble specie, we Jellicles. We should be able to stand against this temptation. Think of the humiliation, think of the ridicule! The students would lost their respect for us if they saw us give in to this... very intriguing idea, as if we were nothing but Pollicles! No offence," he added to his own five minis. "You know I respect you greatly."
Munkestrap, Munkistrap, munkusrapt, Munkustap and Munustrap all shrugged simultaneously. Their name-sake smiled, and then he looked up at his tribe.
"Now, will you join me?" he asked.
The Jellicles sighed, and mumblings of "fine," "sure," and "if you put it that way..." were heard.
Munkustrap looked proud, and was just about to start giving people assignments when he heard it.
The soft, tinkling sound, of a Christmas bauble breaking. It was so exquisite, so perfected, that it sent shivers down his spine. He groaned.
"Oh for Heaviside's sake..."
Maybe the OFUC Christmas tree could manage without some of its ornaments anyway...
A/N: Well, I am VERY disappointed that no one managed to figure out who said it! The direct quote is: "A long time ago, cats were worshipped as gods; the cats have not forgotten this." And it was, of course, the wonderful and hilarious Terry Pratchett who said it. Ah well, more cookies for me!
Regarding the winner of the Fanart Contest: A lot of people has asked me when you'll find out who won it. First of all you have to know how EXTREMELY difficult this was for me. I couldn't decide on simply ONE winner all by myself, so I asked my family and friends what they thought. Together we all decided on three finalists. These are:
"Deuteronomy and Minnaloushe," by Rallikit.(Also known as Ralli-Rah.)
"Aftermath," by Roman de la Croix.
"Trick or Treat," by Aislin Kageno.
The rest of you, thank you SO much for playing, I love you all, and there will be prizes for you too. In my next update, I will reveal the winner.
Answers to Reviews:
Aier: No, I did mean "he."
Jemima-luvah: Do you REALLY want all seven of Macavity's minis? They'll wreak havoc on your home, you know. They've already made a mess of my room! It's terrible. One of these days, my mother will probably force me to CLEAN it!
Korora: Heeelp... I don't speak Spanish. I have no idea what you just said.
Mystical21: Misty curled up with her head on Joanna's lap. You're right, she can't fit there.
Ralli-Rah: Yeah, I'm sorry... It's too late to change your species. /
Antigone: Good for you! Yes, yes, calm yourself. I focus more on getting the newly enrolled people into the story before I give the already featured ones a new cameo...
Arakasema: Yeah, it was a little Wicked reference there. :) Glad someone saw it!
Brize: All righty, I'll make a note of that, thanks...