The pink one, it seemed, had other ideas. "Are you absacredibly increlutely positive there's no one else to meet around here?" he yelled much too loudly into the night.
"Yes, we're sure," Misto muttered, rubbing one ear with a paw. "You've met everyone. We even managed to take you to see Bustopher Jones, that's how thorough a job we did. Now if you'll excuse me," he said through a yawn, "I'm off to bed. G'night." And with that, he attempted to limp off toward his little den.
The pink one, it seemed, had still other plans. "Wait! Don't go! I need help!" he cried desperately. "I don't have a den or a bed! Where will I sleep!"
Victoria saw this as her golden opportunity. "Well," she said coyly, "You could always come share my den with me..." She sidled up to him rather suggestively, batting her eyelashes.
Celebintart seemed to consider this proposal. He looked at Victoria, turned to Misto, looked back at Victoria, but his eyes finally settled on Misto. "Um..." he muttered, extracting himself from Victoria's embrace to put his arms around Misto. "Maybe I could sleep in your den tonight?" he whispered, almost bordering on the edge of being on the fence of ... seductive!
Misto's eyes widened farther than Bustopher Jones' waistline on all-you-can-eat night. "Me!" he gasped. "Why would you want to share a den with me!"
"Well, I guess you could protect me," came a purr of a response.
Victoria took Celebintart's paw, trying to draw him away from the tuxedo tom. "C'mon, you'll be nice and safe in my den..." she tried.
But Celebintart's other paw remained firmly around Misto's. "But I'd so rather stay with Misto..."
"No, really, you don't want Misto," Vic argued, getting both paws on Celebintart, literally trying to drag him away from the conjurer. "He does weird stuff when he's asleep; his magic gets away from him. You'll wake up with your fur all frizzy, I swear. You'd be much happier with me. C'mon!" She yanked on his paw, threatening to rip his arm out of its socket.
"Wait, don't I get a say in this!" Misto tried to interject.
But Celebintart was quite close to bawling his eyes out. "But if I can't be with Misto, I can't live in the junkyard anymore!"
Misto was baffled by this (how would that determine if he could stay in the yard, pray tell!), but Victoria abruptly let go of the pink tom's arm, releasing the tension of their game of tug'o'war, and causing him and Misto to tumble to the ground all over each other. "You heard him. He's staying in your den tonight, Misto." Vicks knew which side her bread was buttered on; as long as Celebintart still lived in the yard, she would have further chances to woo him.
Things in the junkyard got off to an eventful start the next morning.
"Pouncival, you're kidding, right?"
"Hey, I had to stick by Admetus, right?" Pounce answered Jemima, trying to impress her with the large green "A" spray-painted on his chest. "Even you have to admit, it is pretty sexy, right?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Tumblebrutus stumbled over, barging in on this romantic scene. "Pounce, do we have any spray paint whiteout?" he asked, gesturing to the large "T" on his chest which more closely resembled the number 9.
Jemima could only stare. The day could only get better from here, right?
"Good morning!" Victoria cried, crashing into Misto's den under a junkpile.
"Got any headache stuff?" Mistoffelees moaned feebly. Victoria looked at him confusedly, wondering what he could want with medicine, but then she caught a glimpse of Misto's denmate from the night before.
"I'm all sparkley! I'm all sparkley! Celebintart cried, dancing around the hollowed out junk (and occasionally breaking things).
Victoria sat down softly next to Misto to inquire, "How did this happen?"
Misto groaned. "Well, you know how power gets away from me when I sleep. I tried to tell him he had to sleep on the other side of the room from me, or else I couldn't guarantee what would happen. But he wouldn't listen, and I kept trying to tell him, but he wouldn't listen. So finally, I just went to sleep, because you remember how tired we were. A couple hours ago, he woke me up doing that." He gestured to the wild antics by the pink – and now sparkley – Persian. "I guess I must have made him glittery," Misto continued. "I've been trying to think how to get it out of his fur, but I don't think I can."
Victoria watched Celebintart prance about. "You know, I don't think he minds."
"Yeah," Misto responded through a yawn.
"So how much sleep did you get?"
"A couple hours? Maybe?"
"Nice."
Until this point, Celebintart hadn't seemed to have seen the new arrival to the den. At this moment, he spied Victoria, and, leaping upon her, cried out once more, "I'm sparkley!1!"
Victoria, beginning to catch Misto's headache, mumbled, "I can see that ..."
"So what do we do now!" Celebintart cried out in that strident voice he had, bounding out of Mistoffelees' den. "What happens next!"
Misto looked confused. "Does something happen next?" he asked Victoria as she emerged into the sunlight.
"Happen next? What?" she said, confusion evident on her face as well.
"What happens next!" Celebintart reiterated, literally hopping up and down. "What do we do now!"
Victoria and Misto mirrored the same "Oh" look.
Luckily, they were saved from having to dignify the question with an answer by the sudden appearance of George and Carbucketty, two very young tomkits indeed, racing and darting around between junkpiles.
"It's mine"
"I saw it first!"
"You can't have it!"
"Give it to me!"
"Hold it!" Mistoffelees called out, adding a twist of power to the command. Bother kittens involuntarily stopped dead in their tracks.
Victoria strode over to George and grabbed the item he was trying to keep away from Carbucketty. "Spray paint?" she mused, holding it up. "What did you two want with spray paint?"
"Ooh, spray paint is lots of fun!" Celebintart announced, bubbly and giddy as ever. "I know lots of things to do with spray paint!"
"Like what!" both kittens chorused eagerly. Celebintart grabbed the can out of Victoria's paws and ran over to the two kittens. The three huddled together and began conversing in excited whispers.
Misto took the opportunity to let go of his spell on the kittens' feet and pulled Victoria aside. "Vicks, what are we going to do with him?"
"What do you mean?" Victoria asked distractedly, her attention on the giddy Persian tom.
Misto took her by the shoulders and forced her attention away from Celebintart and Co. "Victoria, we can't lead him around by the paw all day! We have things to do! Or I have things to do!"
"Oh, come on!" she retorted. "There's nothing wrong with leading him around by the paw all day!" Misto stared. Victoria continued: "Besides, we're cats! What could we possibly have to do?"
Misto hesitated, but answered, "Well, Admetus asked me to do a favor for him ..."
Now it was Victoria's turn to stare. Finally she said with a flip of her paw, "Fine. Go off and try to get the paint out of Addy's fur. Whatever. But I'm going to accompany Celebintart around the yard!"
"Fine with me," Misto muttered. "Good luck." He turned and went back into his den.
Victoria hmph'd, then turned to rejoin the pink tom. But when she looked, neither the kittens nor Celebintart were anywhere in sight!
It took Victoria several hours to locate Celebintart and the errant kittens. When she finally found them, the kittens were playing a kick-the-can type game with the spray paint can, and Celebintart was sunning himself on a nearby car hood, occasionally offering can-kicking advice to the two kickers, and admiring the way the sun glinted off his new sparkles.
Victoria (who, now that she'd found him and forgotten her earlier headache, thought the glitteryness was actually quite becoming) hopped up onto the car to sit next to Celebintart, barely resisting the urge to stroke his fur. "Hello, Sparkley," she said coyly.
"I am sparkley, aren't I?" he replied, giggling.
Victoria was silent for a minute, trying to think of where to turn the conversation to next, when she suddenly took notice of the game the kittens were carrying on with nearby. "Ah, Celebintart?" she prodded.
"Hmm?" came the response (for he was still largely engrossed in admiring the sparkles in his abundant pink fur).
"Wasn't that can of spray paint full earlier today?"
"Yes."
"Is it empty now?"
"Um-hmm."
"Where did the paint go?"
He grinned at her wickedly. "We had fun!"
"And all those cans over there?" she asked as she grimaced and pointed to a pile of cans not far away from them.
"Oh, we had fun with those, too!"