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.