eld mcm/ Thank you for your comment! I'll keep 'em coming! :)
The first thing that was on her mind when she woke up was her new treasure. Fogs and clouds of slumber kept control of her mind, but the thought of the mirror still seemed clear in the midst of them all.
Slowly, Etcetera tiptoed over and pulled out the mirror from the pile of junk. Nothing was different from what she saw yesterday: Just an old mirror in a brown, rectangular frame. There were marks of dirt, stain, pawprints, and fingerprints almost everywhere on the mirror, but she could still recognize her own self with it.
As long as she could see herself, the object was doing its job perfectly well.
The technology of how exactly it worked was yet a mystery to the kitten, and she wished that Macavity had taught her that, too, yesterday; but no matter what, she was fascinated by this new possession of hers.
She dragged the mirror to the wall and let it lean at a steep angle. She made sure she didn't make any unnecessary adjustments to this temporary position, lest the mirror may lose its balance and fall.
She looked into the mirror and looked at her face. Nothing different from yesterday. For some reason, this was quite a relief for her.
She then moved her eyes from the image of her face down to the image of her body and…
Hmm. Normal. She turned around to walk out of the den when she suddenly turned back. Wait, what?
She looked into the mirror again. Her face was normal, but her body… It was a little different than what she had remembered it was.
A little… thicker…? (Is that the right word? she thought.)
Regardless of what the correct terminology was, to her eyes, it seemed undeniable that her body has gotten… a little bit bigger. Maybe just a tiny bit… thicker.
Oh, poppycock! She wanted to simply ignore what she just saw and go out, but the image that she just saw seemed a little bit too clear to ignore.
Did I… really get… fat or something…?
She rubbed her eyes vigorously and looked again in the mirror. She relaxed when she saw that her body seemed to be back to normal again, whatever normal meant to her at the moment.
Ha! It was just my eyes fooling me. But… just to make sure…
She looked into the mirror again. As if her eyes and the mirror were cooperating and playing a cruel prank together on her, her body seemed a bit bigger again.
As if she was under a spell or something…
No… no… I'm sure I'm just being sleepy and all…
She looked again. Nothing new. She didn't know what exactly was the standard boundary between fat and thin, but her body that she was seeing at the moment was nowhere enough to satisfy her.
She groaned and ran out. It's just my eyes that are playing a trick on me. I'm sure…
But from when were my eyes so unreliable…?
She saw that her friends were sitting by an old, broken television. She ran toward them, trying to free herself from the slight distress (Or was it slight?) that she was going through a few minutes ago. Hanging out with her friends would make her forget it, or so she hoped.
"Hey, sleepyhead!" Electra called. "You slept in again?"
Etcetera smiled with a shrug. She saw how her friend was positioned literally right next to her new tomfriend. There was absolutely no space between two, but they seemed to be enjoying every single second of it. Jemima seemed to be keeping her safe distance from the two, dare not trying to disturb the two in their sharing of love.
"You guys really are going fast," Etcetera commented, laughing.
"I know," purred Electra, patting her tomfriend on his back.
Jemima was acting like she was throwing up. "You two are going to see what I ate a few minutes if you don't control yourselves," she jokingly warned the couple, rolling her eyes.
The couple didn't seem to mind this. Then, for a second, it seemed as if they were doing such things to tease the two others who were still without their tomfriends. Etcetera tried to dismiss the thought.
"So… Is anything exciting happening today?" she asked, trying to break the awkward air of silence.
"I guess not," answered Jemima. "But… I guess the couple right here will provide us with some enjoyable entertainment by what they are doing right now," she grinned.
Etcetera smiled. Seeing that the conversation would not carry on for long, she took a step closer to her friend and tapped her on the shoulder.
"Jem," she whispered into her ear, "I want to talk to you for a minute in private."
Jemima seemed a little alarmed at this. "Excuse me?"
Etcetera didn't give a chance for hesitation; she grabbed her friend's paw and pulled her aside. "I want to ask you something."
"Uhh… sure…" Jemima murmured.
"Do I look… any different than usual today…? I mean, just asking…" Etcetera asked, hoping she wasn't frightening her friend with her sudden seriousness.
"Uhh… Well…" Jemima muttered. She looked up and down at her friend's body with a confused face. "I don't see anything different…"
"Jem, look closely. Do I look… uh… bigger than usual…?"
"Well… Hmm. Nope, I don't think there's anything different about you. Why?"
Etcetera wondered if she should tell her friend about the mirror. The side in her mind that told her not to tell eventually won. "I don't know. I'm just asking."
"Well… You seem very normal…"
"Oh… okay. Well… from now on, can you tell me… if… if I'm getting bigger or something…?" Etectra asked, somewhat hesitantly.
"What do you mean?"
"Like… Tell me if you see that I'm getting fatter," Electra whispered, making sure that the nearby couple, cuddled together a few feet away from her, wasn't hearing what she was saying.
"What…? Etcy, what do you mean? Fat? Why'd you think that?" Jemima asked, unable to understand what her friend was trying to say.
"I mean… just warn me."
"Why…? Why would you worry about getting fat, Etcy?"
"'Cause… It can happen…" Etcetera said.
"Wait… wait… I'm confused. Munkustrap always told us that we will gradually get bigger, so that we can become grown-ups," Jemima said.
"Well… Forget Munkustrap. I mean, Jem, friends can ask these kinds of favors, right?"
Jemima nodded. A look of bewilderment was obvious on her face.
"Jem, don't worry too much. I'm just saying… Just tell me, you know, since we're friends. I just want to stay in shape."
"But… You are in shape," Jemima replied.
"But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't be careful," Etcetera replied back.
Jemima simply nodded again. "I don't see why you're worrying about this so suddenly…"
"It's nothing much, really. It's just a thought I have. Jem, don't worry. I don't want to see a worried look on your pretty face…"
"Aww, Etcy. That's so sweet," Jemima smiled.
Her smile made Etcetera's tensed-up shoulders relax. Finally. "Don't take it too seriously, Jem, about the 'fat' thing and all."
"And you shouldn't take it too seriously, either. You know you're beautiful, so why'd you worry?" Jemima shrugged. "Excuse me; I gotta go ease the temperature between the two over there a little bit… They are going a little too over the thermometer, aren't they?"
Etcetera giggled. "I agree; alright."
"Hey, 'Lectra! Mungo! Things are getting a little too hot over here, don't you think…" Jemima shouted.
Etcetera shook her head, smiling. Alright, alright. I guess I was just a little too sensitive or something this morning. Look, even my friend says I look okay. I'm sure my eyes were fooling me or something in front of the mirror; you naughty eyes!
She hoped that this was what she was feeling at the moment; but she had to admit quietly to her own heart that this was really what she wanted for herself to feel at the moment.
Please, tell me what you think so far. :)