The room was bigger than Kat had expected, but just as beat up. There was a few little sofas, one in front of an old battered television, another two beside a book case. In the corner of the room near the book case there was a small table with a chess set on it and in the opposite corner there was a small radio.

The Joker suddenly sprinted off to the other side of the room and vaulted over the back of the sofa in front of the television. Slowly Kat followed, aware of the other inmates staring at her.

Leaning on the back of the sofa she looked at the television, cartoons. Kat turned to speak to the Joker but, upon seeing how transfixed he was by the images on the television screen, she though it better to leave him be.

She glanced around the room and noticed that there was a man sitting next to the Joker. She glanced over the red-haired man's shoulder to see he was holding a newspaper, opened on the daily crossword, and a pen. All the spaces of the crossword bar one.

Tapping the pen to his chin in thought Kat heard him mumble to himself, "13 across, general term for primary food source in the ocean."

"Phytoplankton," Kat said to herself, a little too loudly. The man turned to look at her.

"What?" he asked coolly.

"I said phytoplankton, it's a primary food source in the ocean isn't it, or am I mistaken." Kat replied timidly.

The man looked from the newspaper in his hand to Kat and back again until he finally replied. "It….is" he quickly filled it in and looked back at Kat. "And you are?"

"My name's Kat." She smiled at the red-head.

"I'm Edward Nigma," he smirked at her.

Kat locked thoughtful for a moment before returning the smirk, "Enigma how very clever." Smiling she turned from Edward. "I'll talk to you later Edward." She grinned over her shoulder as she walked towards the bookcase, still aware of the mad men's eyes following across the Rec Room.

Her eyes looked through the book spines that faced her until one caught her eye. "Alice in Wonderland." She smiled to herself as she pulled the book off the shelf and went to sit on the closet sofa.

As she opened the first page, the door to the Rec Room opened and Kat heard two pairs of feet make their way across the floor towards the chess set near her.

"Game of chess Jonathan?" a cheery English voice sounded somewhere near Kat.

"Must we always play chess Tetch? It's beginning to get boring." The voice that must have belonged to Jonathan moaned at the English man.

"Fine, what do you suppose we do?" Tetch replied huffily.

"Why don't we just read?" Jonathan suggested as he walked closer to Kat.

"What a grand idea!" Tetch cried happily as he himself moved closer to Kat and to the bookcase. The two stood in front of the bookcase.

Kat's eyes flicked between her book and the two men; first she saw a small blonde one with a large hat. The other man was tall, thin and had messy auburn hair.

The tall man only stood for a minute before picking up a book that Kat only saw a glimpse of the title 'Fear in the Mind.' The other man was a different case; he stood there, eyes scanning the book case repeatedly, his hands clenched into fists and screamed in a childish manner to the whole Rec Room, "Who took Alice?"

Kat froze, book in hand, and sank back into the sofa, not wanting to be seen, unknown to her was the fact the tall man had seen her and the book. He towered over Kat where she sat curled up on the seat and trying to hide her face with the book. She looked over the book to see his skinny torso, not daring to meet his eyes.

"Jervis," she heard the man say, "I think I found your thief."

Jervis hurried over to where his friend stood in front of Kat. "You stole Alice!" Jervis' voice was urgent and whiny as he looked down at Kat. The entire Rec Room now staring at them.

The words past Kat's lips before she could think twice, "The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts!" her voice was barely a whisper, she looked up to Jervis with frightened eyes.

"I'm sorry?" The look on Jervis' face was disbelieving to say the least.

"The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts! I-I-I didn't mean to take the book." She stuttered over her words, not out of fear but out of confusion at his face. Jervis and the rest of Rec Room were silent. "Sorry?" She tried to prompt a response out of the blonde man. She did the only thing that she could really think of, that didn't involving kissing or slapping, when she saw the man standing over her, frozen to the spot. She stood, "Hello?" Kat stared into the man's eyes, "Are you alright? I didn't mean to take Alice, I didn't know you wanted to read it."

She searched the man's face for any sort of response, all she found was a childish grin, one that could challenge her own, growing on his face.

"That's quiet alright my dear!" he chirruped happily. "I just thought you had taken it as a horrible joker. I didn't know you were a Carroll fan." He smile at Kat.

Kat returned the smile before the other man spoke up. "I'm sorry, but who exactly are you?"

Kat turned to him, "My name is Katherine Tailer but you two can call me Kat." She grinned, Kat saw the smallest flicker of a smile on the man's face before he turned away with his book to sit on the other side of the small sofa that Kat had been sitting on.

"I am Jervis Tetch and he," Jervis pointed to the auburn haired man on the sofa. "Is Jonathan Crane." Jonathan momentarily looked up from his book and nodded to Kat before returning to his reading.

"Alright. Well here's your Alice Jervis," she grinned and gave him the book before returning to the small bookcase and picking up a copy of 'Pollyanna' and going back again to sit beside Jonathan.

A few minutes passed before Kat heard herself being called. She looked and glanced around, seeing no one looking pointedly at her shrugged and turned back to her book.

"Hey toots!" the gruff voice called. "Cat girl!" The voice was getting closer to her. "Cat girl!" it called again, almost right beside her. "Yo!" This time the call was right in her ear.

"What?" she growled back turning to the source of the voice. Upon seeing where the voice had been coming from she gave a small terrified scream and leapt backwards and accidentally landing on Jonathan Crane.

Eyes still locked on the source of this absurd reaction, Kat subconsciously wrapped her tail and arms around the torso of Jonathan for comfort.

In front of Kat, the object which had brought on this strange reaction, was a ventriloquist dummy who was now laughing at how much he had scared Kat.

Kat looked up at Jonathan Crane and giggled faintly, "I really hate puppets." She looked into his eyes; they were green, unbelievably green, emerald green. Kat could see Jonathan's face beginning to blush and could feel her doing the same. "Sorry." She clambered backwards so that she was sitting opposite the puppet. Sitting up right like a dog she cleared her throat. "What so you want?" she glared at the puppet.

"Nothin' nothin' toots just wondering if this was you." The puppet master held up a newspaper at the dummy's command.

Quickly Kat read the headline 'Mysterious Animal Doctor off Streets Thanks to Batman' Crouching like a cougar on the sofa arm Kat pounce over Jonathan and the sofa, snatched the paper out of the puppet master's hand before landing with a forward roll and sat up, legs crossed, to read the front page.

'After three months of kidnapping, theft and illegal experimentation the unnamed tigress who plagued Gotham is finally off the streets thanks to the vigilante Batman. The mysterious animal doctor, now known as Katherine Tailer (27) has been moved to Arkham Asylum and will be standing trial against her crimes tomorrow morning.

More on Page 8'

Kat still holding the newspaper stood up and looked back to the others. Jonathan, Jervis and the ventriloquist were looking at her.

"Are you alright my dear?" Jervis asked concerned.

Kat walked back to the small sofa and flopped down again, and the looked at the photo of her below the small paragraph of writing. It was her in the middle of a theft at a jewellers wearing her tiger mask and holding a gun to someone's head while packing money and jewels into an old satchel. It had obviously been taken from the security cameras.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she looked up at Jervis. "It's a terrible photograph though." She giggled. She could still hear the soft breathing if the ventriloquist man beside her. "Scram!" she turned and yelled at the man. The man, frightened, ran as she threw the newspaper after him.

Suddenly a plague of silence befell those watching Kat scare of the ventriloquist as large newspaper hit a small flower in the corner of the room.

Quickly Kat vaulted over the arm of the sofa and ran over to the plant.

"Oh dear," she breathed softly as she pulled the newspaper off the flower to reveal that its steam had been bent and it was now drooping sadly. "Now, now no need to pout." Kat crooned to the plant as she lifted its head to straighten the stem. She had always talked to plants ever since she was young, she had learned that plants were living organisms so, like cats and dogs, maybe they had their own language that only other plants could understand and perhaps, also like animals, they could understand people. She turned to the bush next to the flower and broke off a twig just a little smaller than the dropping stem, "Terribly sorry," Kat apologised to the bush. "But it is for your little friend." She stuck the twig in beside the small plant and plucked a few of her hairs and the stem to the twig so that it stood up straight. It wasn't perfect but it would do. "There we go, all better" she smiled stroking the flowers bright blue petals.

"Thank you." A feminine voice said behind her. She stood and turned to see a pretty fiery haired woman.

"It was no problem it was my fault. Bad aim and all that." Kat grinned at the woman as she passed Kat and knelt down beside the plant and crooned over it in a maternal manner. "How is mummy's baby?" again she stood and turned to Kat. "Thank you so much." The strange woman pulled Kat into a hug. "You helped my little baby."

"Baby?" Kat was confused 'The plant was her baby?'

"But of coarse the plants need someone to speak up for them and care for them against the cruel and heartless man." The woman explained to Kat.

"I feel the same way about animals," Kat grinned back "The speechless need someone to speak for them." Kat then thought to herself 'So all the plants were her babies,'

They smiled at each other "I'm Pamela Isely but please call me Ivy."

"My name is Katherine Tailer, call me Kat. But if you would excuse me Ivy I would like to get back to my reading." Kat smiled politely.

"See you later Kat." Ivy turned back to the bush and the flower and started crooning to the plants again.

Kat turned on her heel and walked back to where Jonathan and Jervis were seated. Picking up 'Pollyanna' she had sat down and almost started reading again when Jonathan piped up, "How did you do that?" he asked.

Kat looked up from her book and noticed that both he and Jervis were looking at her. "Do what?" she replied confused for about the 7th time that day.

"Not get killed by Miss Isely?" Jervis elaborated for Kat.

"I don't know, I helped the plant and found common ground I guess." Kat shrugged.

Normally she wasn't a people person, but apparently she was an insane people person. Curiouser and curiouser!