Another morning waking up at the El Greco Hotel. Danny stretched his arms out widely, his eyes attempting to remain closed to shut out as much of the California morning sun as possible. Looking at the chrome alarm clock next to his bed, he realized he woke up earlier than he had expected to. With a smile, he shut the alarm off and quickly prepared himself for the day.
He noticed a slip of paper on the floor near his hotel room door. Picking it up, he read it aloud. "Danny, as per our current arrangement, your stay with us will end tomorrow night at 7:00pm. As we are in need of all of our rooms, we would appreciate your cooperation in a prompt and speedy checkout. -The Management." He whistled to himself, then set the paper down on his dresser. "No pressure or anything..."
Looking into the mirror with a huge grin, he began to talk himself up. "Danny! Going out to get a job! No pressure now, it's no different than singing and dancing – just put on a good show and everyone will come out smiling!"
Danny stepped out of the Mammoth Studios personnel office, his face significantly more glum than it was when he left the hotel. Taking a moment to sit down on a wooden bench outside of the building, he saw T.W. slowly walking by, opening yet another fortune cookie.
"Hey there, T.W.," Danny greeted him, half heartedly. T.W., startled at first, turned and walked over to Danny, sitting down next to him.
"Oh, hi Danny. Just checking my daily fortune," he replied, taking the small slip of paper out of the cookie.
"So you're cutting back to one a day now?" Danny asked, almost jokingly. T.W. nodded.
"Yup! Just one a day. Unless of course it's really bad, then two. Or three if my luck is really..."
T.W. stopped, realizing Danny was drifting off into his own thoughts.
"I just don't understand it, T.W. What does a cat have to do to get a job in this town?" T.W. didn't hear him, however. He turned to his fortune instead.
"The worst is... yet to come?" T.W. gasped in horror. Danny watched in amazement as the turtle dashed off in a hurry to find the nearest Chinese restaurant.
Danny walked up to the Brown Derby, the world famous restaurant of the stars. Outside stood a burly doorman, quick to hold his hand out in Danny's face as he tried to enter.
"Hey, no animals in the Brown Derby," he barked. Danny smiled, trying to remain positive.
"I'm not here to eat, I'm looking for a job!" Danny held out his paws, attempting to put his best foot forward. The doorman first began to move forward, as if he was about to shoo Danny away like a stray. Then, in midmotion, he moved his hand up to his chin in thought.
"Actually, the boss did say something about us needed to hire a few new waiters. Can you take orders?"
"Can I? I lived on a farm my whole life, I certainly can..."
"Yeah, yeah, you'll do. Get an apron on and start learning the ropes, cat."
The doorman stepped aside to allow Danny to enter. As he passed by, Danny tipped his hat, and offered a polite, "It's Danny, thank you," before entering the restaurant. The doorman rolled his eyes and went back to ogling a movie billboard with Joan Crawford on it.
Working at the Brown Derby wasn't difficult at all for Danny. Having been the youngest at home in Kokomo, Indiana, he had been used to running around taking orders. Waiting tables came naturally to him. Unfortunately, he had hardly considered how he'd react to being surrounded by celebrity after famous celebrity.
Upon approaching Jimmy Stuart's table, Danny tripped over his own feet, spilling drinks all over the flustered actor. Later, he knocked steak sauce all over Katherine Hepburn and, in his rush to help her clean it out of her dress, ended up touching Howard Hughes' food, causing him to demand it taken away and burned.
Once he had helped Charlie Chaplin find his hat, he figured the worst was over and that the day would proceed as planned. He approached a table in his section that had just been seated by the doorman, only to find none other than Wilbur Dagmouse seated at the table.
"Wow... Um, well, hello Mr. Dagmouse! It's a pleasure to see you here today!" Danny greeted the cartoonist warmly. With a small smile, Dagmouse paged through the menu.
"Thank you, cat," Dagmouse addressed Danny. Danny's whiskers twitched slightly. Even before everything began to go wrong for him with other patrons of the restaurant, they always referred to him the same way. Cat. Danny normally wasn't bothered by things like that, but the amount of disrespect being shown to him, especially by people he considered his peers, was starting to get on his nerves.
"Heh heh... My name is Danny, and I'll be taking your order today," he smoothly redirected the conversation. Dagmouse turned to look at his waiter, and chuckled to himself.
"Danny, huh? It's so nice to see you again so soon!" Danny opened his mouth to ask for an explanation, but Dagmouse continued talking, "I happened to be at the Little Ark Angel premiere the other night and saw your fantastic performance."
"Well!" Danny puffed up his chest a bit, "Thank you, Mr. Dagmouse! We're excited that the world can finally begin to see what animals have to offer..."
"So what's next for you then? Has Mammoth Pictures signed you to a three picture deal?"
Danny stuttered to a crawl. "Um, well, no... not exactly..."
"No?" Dagmouse asked, taken aback. "Well certainly there have to be offers pouring in from other studios, then? Does Cosmopolitan Studios want to sign you and your friends? Or Turn of the Century Minx?"
Danny could only shake his head. Dagmouse tutted and handed the menu to Danny.
"What a shame. You animals really could go somewhere. Speaking of, can you go get me some coffee? Cream and two sugars, if you don't mind."
Defeated, Danny nodded and walked away. Dagmouse turned back to face the other, empty, side of the table.
"He didn't seem like that bad of a cat. What do you have against him?"
Peeking out from under the table, dressed in a hooded trenchcoat, Darla Dimple cast a dark glare at Dagmouse.
"...and don't forget to file away any ducks under the file for Stormy Weather. They're still calling for them over at Cosmopolitan."
"Yes, Mr. Wink, right away," Sawyer dutifully replied. Wink, putting on his hat and coat in front of the mirror, took a moment to straighten his eyebrows before turning back to Sawyer.
"Sawyer, this place would be a wreck without ya. I almost hope that Hollywood never calls your name just so that this place doesn't fall apart the second you leave."
"Wow," Sawyer replied, "That was almost a compliment."
"Ya gotta take what you can get. See ya tomorrow," Wink waved as he threw open the front door and walked out. Seconds after the door slammed shut, it slowly began to open again.
"Farley, what did you forget now?" Sawyer groaned, rolling her eyes. She turned to see not Farley Wink, but Danny standing in the doorway. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, his face crestfallen and hurt, a Brown Derby apron haphazardly tied around his waist, and the hat of a bellhop nearly falling from his head.
"Hiya, Sawyer," Danny quietly uttered, walking over to her desk. She watched as he slowly pulled up a wooden chair and slumped into it, his head falling onto her desk. Sawyer removed the hat from Danny's head and slowly stroked his fur.
"Danny, what happened to you?" she asked softly, attempting to lift his chin up with her paw.
"Has it always been this bad for animals in Hollywood?" he finally managed to spit out. He looked up at Sawyer, her compassionate eyes feeling every ounce of sadness in his broken body. She had no answer for him. "I just don't get it. Mammoth Studios wouldn't give me a temp job, I got fired from the Brown Derby for accidentally starting a fight between W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers, and I couldn't hold down a bellhop job for longer than an hour before I was fired. And no matter where I went, I was always called 'cat'. It didn't matter if I told them my name or not, I was just 'cat' to them."
"There's a reason no one believed you could do what you did, tiger," Sawyer explained, shaking her head. "This town's got rules. The humans make them, we follow them. That's just the way it is. And it means we get the short end of everything."
"But what happened, Sawyer? What happened to us all becoming stars, like L.B. Mammoth said we would?"
Sawyer scoffed. "It hasn't even been a week, Danny! You know how long it takes to make a movie? How long it takes to write one? Wink has been on the phone all week with the studio heads, each of which has entire screenwriting departments working on new scripts for animals. It takes time, Danny! You have to be patient!"
Danny raised his head. "New scripts for animals?" he asked, curious. Sawyer nodded. "So, we can't stand on our own as actors and talent? We have to have specific scripts written for us?" The corner of Danny's mouth was beginning to twitch slightly. Pulling Danny to his feet, Sawyer embraced the distraught cat tenderly.
"Give it time, everything will work out."
"But what am I going to do? I can't get a job, I'm running out of money, I have to move out of the El Greco tomorrow night..."
Sawyer sighed deeply, then tightened her hug. "If you need a place to stay..." she began, feeling every word slide down her spine like ice, "...I suppose you can stay with me."
Danny's eyes opened wide. He spun around, looking all over Sawyer's face for even the slightest hint of sarcasm. "You mean it?" She rolled her eyes.
"If you don't get too over excited about it," she clarified. "I'm not that kind of girl, Danny." At first, Danny's mind reeled, attempting to come up with the perfect reassurance. But then a smirk cracked across Sawyer's mouth, and Danny was instantly reassured.
"I guess I'll go get my things?" Danny grinned. Sawyer rolled her eyes harder and ruffled Danny's hair.