Something Fishy

Chapter 11: In Which We Finally Reach Where This Story Began

     Everything was going reasonably well and I was beginning to allow myself to relax when Uncle Fry turned to me and said, with a big, goofy, smile on his face, “See? Piece of cake!”

       If this was a movie, something horrible would have happened at that moment. I immediately tensed and looked around, waiting for a cage to fall from above and trap us, or the floor to give way to a pit of rabid cats or something. But nothing happened.

        That was when we noticed that we were not alone. It was sitting about two feet or so down the tunnel, and I was surprised I had not noticed it before; I could have sworn the tunnel had been empty. Nevertheless, the cat as definitely there, and it was watching us as though we were mildly entertaining at most. I’m sure we were an interesting sight – an old woman in a lavender sundress, a mustached man loaded down with survival gear, and a diminutive girl with thickset glasses.

        “Hey there, kitty,” exclaimed Uncle Fry, reaching down as if to pet it.

        A wave of panic went through me, and I was reminded of Basil’s parting words – ‘remember, don’t trust any cats’. At least, that's what I had thought he had said.

       “I don’t think that’s a good –” I began, but I was drowned out by the cat. A moment before Uncle Fry's hand reached its head, it opened its mouth and released a blaring meow that sounded not unlike a ferry horn.

       Prudence, Uncle Fry, and I all leapt backwards in shock.

       “What sort a cat is that?” Prudence looked warily at it. "That's unnatural."

        Then it all made sense.

        “That’s not a cat,” I cried. “At least, it’s not a real –” Then I stopped. There was an odd sound swelling from the end of the tunnel, a sort of pounding, drumming sound.

      Prudence shouted something, but I couldn’t hear her. She grabbed my arm and we turned and began to run, Uncle Fry on our heels. But the sound grew louder and louder, and it became apparent that we were not going to outrun whatever was heading towards us.

        With a sickening feeling, I stopped and turned around, just in time to witness a solid wall of cats slamming into us.

      I think I must have blacked out or something. I’m not really the fainting type, but something weird must have transpired, because one moment I was being buried alive in a writhing mass of felines, and the next I was standing up in an otherwise-empty room with Uncle Fry and Prudence on either side of me.

      “What just happened?” I rubbed at my itchy eyes. And my itchy neck. And my itchy arms. Were those hives?! Dang cats.

       Uncle Fry looked equally confused. “A giant…cat ball…swallowed me up….?”

      “We've been kidnapped by a cat herd!” shrieked Prudence.

      “Actually, the proper term for a group of cats is a clowder,” I said timidly.

       “We don’t have time flaunt our oversized vocabularies right now,” snapped Prudence. “We need to get out of here.”

      “Where is here?” wondered Uncle Fry, rubbing a hand through his messy hair. He succeeded only in messing it up even further.

     “It appears to be a sort of prison,” said Prudence.

     “More like a holding cell, really,” said The Boss, stepping out of the shadows like a textbook villain. Of course, it would have been more classic if he had been wearing a black cape instead of a business suit, but it was close enough. The effect was most certainly startling.