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By Lily Liu

Kim nearly bumped into Katrina on her way back.

Katrina stared at Kim. “Well, the Cat’s Studio did a good job on picking out the colors of fur. Soft grey tabby pattern on bottle green eyes. A grey collar with a clearish white bead. What a perfect way to bring you out as a cat! So…. What’s your cat pronunciation?”

“I think it’s Rew?” Kim said. “They carved it on a piece of wood in the shape of a fish and stuck it on my collar. And they said my cat name was Dawn.”

“They certainly did their job well,” Katrina replied. “Let’s hitch a ride.”

A merchant walked by with several turtles. He said, “would you like to buy some turtles? These are the fast kinds; these are the kinds that can walk in their sleep.”

“By any chance, do you have any Catland Giant Speeders?” Katrina asked. “I would buy one if you have it.”

“Aha! We have one speeder left! That would be one hundred and thirty-two biscuits and five kibbles. Do you have that much?” He asked.

“I thought most of them were two hundred biscuits and ninety-nine kibbles,” Katrina remarked.

The merchant frowned. “This one has a problem, so we lowered the price.”

Without waiting to hear the problem, Katrina handed the merchant the biscuits and kibbles and headed off to the Jewel Castle.

                                                 …

At the castle, Katrina announced, “Mawmew XXVII, King of Catland, Emperor of the Cat Isles, Monarch of Kitten Valley, Ruler of Feline Forest, Sovereign of Ivory Mountain, Sultan of the Bleached Deserts, Majesty of the Spring Falls, Lord of the Countryside Fields, Prince of the Longevity Lake, Imperator of the Silver Streams, Baron of the Broad Rivers, Kaiser of the Seven Suns, Caesar of the Seven Moons, Magnate of the Forlorn Lagoons, Crowned King of the Phantom Woods, Overlord of the Starlight Hollow, Potentate of the Snowbear’s Cave, and Maharajah of the Fallen Forests, I, Katrina have come here with Kim and Siame. Kim is a very experienced entertainer who can make everyone in the cat world— or not—laugh.”

Then Katrina told Kim to entertain King Mawmew XXVII with what seemed like stupid questions to ask, but really had the potential to suck up as much information as she could about the Jewel thievery, and ‘S.P.I.D.E.R.’, whatever that was.

“What is ‘S.P.I.D.E.R.’?” Kim asked.

“I can’t say it,” Katrina replied. “But I’ll write it down.”

So, she somehow suddenly, magically, made a piece of notebook paper out of thin air. On it, she wrote the meaning of S.P.I.D.E.R.:

Spider’s

Perfect

Intelligent

Duo of

Extreme

Robot-spiders

“Who says they’re robots,” Katrina rolled her eyes. “They’re spiders. And they’re pests. Have you ever heard of the Great Invasion?”

“No,” Kim was puzzled. “I’m not a citizen of Catland. Or the Cat Isles. Or anywhere else in the Cat World.”

Katrina sighed, but she did explain the Great Invasion. “Well, the Great Invasion is a large invasion of the Spiders— Uh-oh, here comes the King!”

…

The King was dressed in fine, jeweled, velvety robes of many different colors. His sleeves were so long that his paws could not possibly come to the end of the sleeve. He looked like an Orchid blooming in midsummer.

“Hello, Second in Command, and is this Rew and Meow? Why, yes, it is…. Come in,” King Mawmew XXVII said of their presence.

“Hello,” Katrina replied flatly. “We were waiting for you. It’s been thirty minutes since we came.”

“Greetings, King,” Siame replied just as blankly as Katrina had.

“This is Kim, the entertainer.” Katrina turned to the King. “But you have to pick what you want her to do.” She wrote down a list of things that the King could ask Kim to do:

            1: Questioning

        2: Helping find the missing jewel.

        3: Preparing a Raw Fish Pizza (and other picnic foods to go on a picnic in the royal garden)

        4: Climbing up to the turret to check the weather (and set up a cat tree, hammock chair, and a bookshelf full of the ancient books and non-ancient ones, too. Three beds, etc. make the turret a little room so we don’t disturb you in the castle.)

“That’s it,” Katrina stated simply. “Four choices. So, what are you going to do? I’m going to look for S.P.I.D.E.R. Kim will entertain you.” And then, Katrina said bye to the King, and sauntered away like the castle was her very own house.

…

Finding S.P.I.D.E.R. was not easy. In fact, it was extremely hard. Katrina had searched all the places she could possibly think of, but she did not find S.P.I.D.E.R. anywhere. She was about to give up. Frustrated, she pounded up the stairs to the turret two at a time. She leaned out, hopelessly wanting to jump. If she did land in Spider territory, she was lucky. Then she would have found Spider.

But it didn’t happen. Cats have nine lives, after all. So she landed on her feet without a scratch. Unhurt, right in front of the castle.

Katrina jumped nine times, and she was still unhurt. She went around the bottom of the castle and then and there, was standing face-to-face with… S.P.I.D.E.R.

By Lily Liu

          Kim quickly turned around the Washington Memorial, and waited for Katrina to come. “So, do you have a ‘cat world’ too?” she asked.

          “Yes, but you have to tell me the passcode, though. What word starts with a ‘c’, and means feline, who is ‘tac’ if you are talking about it backward. Its favorite food is fish,” Katrina replied.

          “A cat, of course!” Kim laughed. “So, can you show me where the cat world is since I’ve answered the passcode?”

          “It is correct…” Katrina said thoughtfully. “Yes. All right. Come with me.”

…

          They walked over rooftops and up some stairs. Then, Katrina turned and started balancing on a wall, which seemed like so long, that you could not see the end of it. Kim sighed. She carefully stepped on. She was nervous, though, since there was only a foot or two of wall underneath her. The wall connected two buildings. There was a ninety-six-foot plunge if you fell, and you would fall into the middle of the street and get run over by a car, motorcycle, dirty garbage truck, bus, school bus, or anything else that drove on the street. They finally crossed the wall, and Katrina climbed a set of bricks sticking out of a building, pulled herself onto a roof, and made a thirty-foot plunge to get to the ground. Kim followed. Everything seemed so easy for Katrina! Finally, they saw what Katrina was looking for.

…

          A guard stood at the entrance of a large iron gate. “So this is Kartina?” He looked at the name on Kim’s schoolbag. “And you brought a visitor named Milk?”

          “I’m Katrina, Oat! And that’s Kim, not Milk!” Katrina said, annoyed. “Why do you have to mix everyone’s name up!”

          The guard started again. “I’m sorry, Kartina—”

          “Katrina! Not Kartina. For the seventy-millionth time, Oat! Can you please remember?” Katrina interrupted.

          “You’ve been counting???!!!???” Oat said in shock as he took out a big key and unlocked the iron gate which immediately swung open. “Signature?” he asked. So Katrina signed a little scrap of paper:

Kat Corel: Second in command of Jewel Castle

            “You’re the second in command?” Kim asked. “How come you’ve never acted like it?”

“Because, what says I have to act like a second in command even when I am a second in command,” Katrina replied calmly.

They went through the gate and they came to a chimney.

“Wait— aren’t we going to land in someone’s fireplace?” Kim asked.

“Definitely not. This isn’t a fireplace, anyway. It’s a shortcut. Unless you want to go through all the security scans, but I don’t think so. I think you’ll like it better this way,” Katrina said, pulled Kim in with her, and they slid down together.

…

After they slid down the slide, there was a poster. Katrina tried to ignore it, but there was something important on it that she just couldn’t ignore. Katrina looked at the poster, and here is what she saw:

Jewel Thievery at Jewel Castle

Breaking News! Breaking News!

Jewel thievery occurred last night at 12:30. Suspect is a black cat with an outline of a white mask. Police cats suspect it is Fog, the cat put to jail more than 150 times a year. Or it could be one of his brothers. We don’t know at this point who it is, but we do know it is not a female cat. If anyone catches the thief, they will be rewarded! Meet at north police station to receive your reward. If you did not actually catch him, but you got a reward, you will be sued and put to trial. Thank you for reading.

Kim gasped. “The Jewel Castle! Isn’t that where you’re second in command?” she asked.

“Yes.” Katrina jumped to her feet. “We can’t go this way,” she said. She grabbed Kim’s hand and ran.

Kim didn’t appreciate being dragged. She tried to run, but suddenly, she wasn’t. She was hovering! Then she really got dragged. She was suddenly grabbing on to an athletic-looking Siamese cat, and in that same row, was an athletic-looking Bengal cat. “Wait—but—but…” Kim couldn’t argue. The sight was too shocking, and she just had to stay silent for the rest of the astonishing ride.

“Look,” Kim looked seriously at the two cats. “I appreciate that you— like saved my life by getting me back on the ground. But, however, where is Katrina Corel Ex?”

The Siamese cat just meowed.

“Tell me, please. You’re cats so I suspect you know Katrina Ex. Please tell me. WHERE IS KATRINA EX?” Kim nearly shouted at the innocent cats.

The Siamese yawned and meowed. “Meow, meow, meow mew!” Then the Siamese stretched. She purred.

Suddenly, Kim understood! She stood still looking at her sneakers. Only she didn’t have any. She didn’t have any feet either, it seemed. She had paws!

“Cats…!” She growled, confused, furious, and shocked, all at the same time. “What did you do now? I asked you where my friend was, and all you tell me is ‘you’re gonna turn into a cat’??? I’ll get back! RETURN ME TO MY HUMAN FORM AND TELL ME WHERE KATRINA IS! NOW!” Kim growled furiously, not knowing what fate this new land had given her.

By Lily Liu

Katrina licked a piece gum, and then shoved it back under tongue. She started to write.

The Story Behind Bees: How bees make things we use everyday

By Katrina Corel

…

All her life, Katrina had used her middle name, Corel, as her last name. That was because she hated her real last name. Ex. But she liked how many changes she could make to her middle and last name. And her first name, too. She could make herself Kat Corelex, Kathy Corelex, Katy Corelex, or Katrina Corelex. She could also be Kat Corel, Kathy Corel, Katy Corel, or Katrina Corel. That was not all. She could be Kat Ex, Kathy Ex, Katy Ex, Katrina Ex, or Corel Ex. She could even change the order of her name! Once, on her paper, this had happened:

Corelex Kat

Name:____________

The teacher had thought she was crazy. She had personally just put it that way and the teacher thought she was crazy.  She continued to write on her paper. She soon wrote the last paragraph.

Bees make honeycombs to store their honey they make. It may seem bad to take that honey away, but the honey we use doesn’t come from wild bees. Instead… they use farm kept bees to make honey! That’s because farm kept bees make much more honey than they need, so the rest is stored away. It’s amazing how we get honey, and the wax from honeycombs, too!

Thank you for reading, Katrina Corel.

Katrina licked her gum again. I wish I had honey, she thought. She ducked under her desk and blew a bubble. She was using bubble gum. It was very sweet, as sweet as honey.

…

Suddenly, a student’s head poked down. Katrina quickly released her gum, but it was too late. “Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Brown! Katrina is chewing bubble gum in class!” the student shouted. Tattletale, thought Katrina. She knew that boy. The guy who told everyone about his pocketknife and told on everyone. He also shredded erasers with his “special” pocketknife. His name was Frank. What’s so good about a pocketknife if you get in trouble when you use it? Katrina thought.

“Don’t shout, Frank!” Mrs. Brown yelled.

“You’re shouting,” Frank replied innocently. “So why can’t I?”

“Be quiet, Frank,” his sister Ana elbowed him. “Don’t you have some common sense? No one would chew gum in front of Mrs. Brown.” Ana was a year older than thirteen-year-old Frank.

…

Frank William should be put in seventh grade, not eighth grade. Ana William can stay. She’s much more practical. Thought Katrina, I’m just glad reading is over. It wasn’t that reading was impractical to her, just that they had read a drama. They had decided to do a reader’s theater about it. Katrina had to be what seemed like the most disgusting part in it. She’d be a man if she had to, which was really saying something since Katrina usually despised being men. But instead, since there were less men in the drama, she got the most disgusting role with one line, the most disgusting line.

Katrina looked at Kim, on her left, and Mary, on her right. Kim and Mary were both right-handed. But Katrina was left-handed. Ana, sitting across from her, was left-handed, too. Frank was not handed at all. He did have hands, but he didn’t write well with either of them. It looked like he was using three-year-old handwriting. She peeked over his arm and here is what she saw:

          Well, I can’t read it, she thought. Then, looked over at Kim’s paper:

From Hive to Store: How bees make products we use

          Ana’s was:

How Products We Use Come To Us: The way products from bees are made

          Finally, Mary:

Honey, And Beeswax: A story of how it’s made

          All right. That was enough. Katrina leaned over to Kim, “If I tell you a secret, will you be my friend?” She had needed someone to talk to all class.

          Kim shrugged. “Sure.”

          “I can turn into a cat,” Katrina whispered.

          Kim’s eyes lit up with excitement. “You mean you can change your genetics? Like how we changed human genetics, even though they were just fruit rolls, into animal genetics?”

          “Yes.”

…

          The school bell rang. “School is out. Everyone may go,” Mrs. Brown said.

          Everyone lined up and exited, but Kim exited out of the back door. Katrina pushed out the back door and hopped on her bike. Cheerfully, she followed Kim to the Washington Memorial. Maybe Washington DC won’t be as bad as I thought it was, she thought.

By Lily Liu

Katrina is an unusual fourteen-year-old girl growing up in Washington D.C. On her first day, she tries out for the CIA, though she’s much too young. The CIA politely declines her offer after a surprise meeting and a prank for retaliation at 10:00 PM.

Katrina has a big secret she hides from everyone, including family. She is part cat and is willing to go back to the Cat World, where she was from, if anyone would let her. Yet she chooses to spare a chance and tells Kim, a friend from school, that she is part cat, since Kim has proven worthy of her trust.

As they embark on their journey through Catland and the Cat Isles, two fascinating places in the Cat World, problems arise. The jewel at Jewel castle is stolen! However, the secret organization that stole the jewel is tougher than everyone thinks.

But even in this mess, Katrina is determined to get the reward for catching the thief. Of course, this reward is not for herself, but to offer to her parents as a gift so they will let her live in her real world for the rest of her life.

By Lily Liu

To: Mr. BigNose/Jackson

From: Silly Goose/Mr. Tintin

RE: CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!! I HAVE A MILK BONE!!!!

Place Written: Under the Porch

Time: 10:30 PM

Date: December 23, 2020

Day: Wednesday

Mood: SUPER EXCITED BECAUSE CHRISTMAS EVE IS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Mr. BigNose:

Christmas eve is tomorrow! Here is my wish list:

1. A gigamantic lump of raw meat
2. A gigamantic lump of cooked meat (that daddy hopefully made)
3. A gigamantic typewriter (Bigger than my normal typewriter)
4. A gigamantic toy (Perhaps a squeaky gingerbread house.”
5. A gigamantic milk-bone
6. A gigamantic KONG (Perhaps sparkly green and red)
7. A gigamantic Santa hat (Holes for my ears and with my name on it)
8. A gigamantic stocking (With a “T” for “TINTIN” on it)
9. A gigamantic nose from the nose shop
10. A GIGAMANTIC YOU TO PLAY WITH A GIGAMANTIC ME

Do you know why the last one looks different? Because that one is my most special wish ever! I love milk bones so much that I decided to send you a picture!

Do you like the milk bone? I hope you get some. I will see a gigamantic YOU on Christmas!!!

-Mr. Tintin

By Lily Liu

            Birds always had wings. They always flew. Even the very big birds like Ostriches flew. Yet some of them did not like the other kinds. The Ostrich was one of these. The Ostrich was proud of her pretty tail feathers.

            One day, there was a dispute. The dispute was about the annual trade festival, where every bird would go and trade one tail feather for another bird’s tail feather.  The Ostrich did not want to give a tail feather, only receive a tail feather.

            On the day of the trade festival, the Ostrich took grass-made tail feathers to trade. When she traded, she traded with everyone. “Now I have so many pretty tail feathers, and other birds have grass on them! The grass will fall off soon.” The Ostrich thought.

            The next day, though, the Ostrich was so heavy he could not lift himself off the ground! There were too many tail feathers and the Ostrich was too heavy!

            And to this very day, Ostriches still cannot fly.