Dear reader, you are about to immerse yourself in a world of cunning cats, cursed pumpkins, dirty politics, and ancient rivalries. It is a nasty sort of fairytale, for grown-ups. Proceed only if you think you can handle this.
Chapter 0 -- The zero hour
Basil braced himself, as the glowing eyes came closer. From the corner
of his eye he noticed some movement of the rats. Behind him he could hear
shuffling sounds coming from the shrubbery. He hoped Mad Louie and Mahoganey
had run off, yet he doubted that. Mahoganey wasn’t easily scared, much less by
a couple of FurBalls. Great Cat Above, he wished these three were just that:
FurBalls. They had the overall appearance of cold blooded assassins. The kind
Madame Raisin recruited for this kind of ... situation.
Bring it on, he thought as
he drove his claws firmly in the dirt. He curled his lips in a menacing snarl.
I am ready.
Chapter 1 -- In which is told how it all began
Savoy was sitting
on the wall of rugged rocks and looked down on the Garden. His orange eyes were
fixed on the big, shiny and absolute huge pumpkin. The tip of his tail waved back
and forth in a hypnotising rhythm, while he tried to ignore the mouse that had
emerged from under the woodpile. It was still early but the sun was warm.
Behind Savoy the dew still glistened in tiny beads on the grass. There was an itch
between his shoulders, that sent uneasy tingles down his skin, making his
white-and-orange fur stir violently. That pumpkin was simply too big for its
own good. How in Great Cat’s Name did it get this … this enormous? Savoy
squinted his eyes. The other three pumpkins were a lot smaller. Savoy knew the
big one was called Potiron. And that he was notoriously feared. Even though
everyone knew plants had no voice or conscience of their own, Savoy could feel
the pressure of dark energy that surrounded the pumpkin. He was way too
different from the other three. Bigger. Shinier. Eerier. He could not quite put
his paw on it, but Savoy sensed the danger. He couldn’t help but remember,
three Summers ago, Timmy the tomato. Timmy had been living proof that ‘something’
was able to take over the soulless state of a plant and thus terrorise the whole
Garden. Savoy did not need to look at the wilted beanstalks to learn the effect
of the monstrous pumpkin on the Garden. Apparently, the beans had passed rather
quickly. Maybe thankfully so. Earlier, the Man had sowed carrots and when they
had grown their first four fuzzy leaves, they died a horrible death. Not to
mention the forget-me-nots and the tagetes the Woman secretly had planted in
between the zucchinis and the peas. One zucchini had been stomped to mush
overnight. Again, Savoy thought of Timmy.
No comments:
Post a Comment