Okay, so the picture on the right is supposed to be Katrina's cat, Star, but much bigger of course. The cat on the cover isn't really anyone in the story, but the wolf is Colin. Enjoy the story!
“Okay… So why is there a three year old here?” I rolled my eyes. Lillian could be so annoying sometimes, well, usually all the time... That three year old was my adorable little sister, not some annoying kid that would get in the way. Actually, that’s what Lillian was, except she had to be here. She’d gotten her cat just like the rest of us.
“I have to watch her. Besides, she’s starting to get her cat and I want her to understand the world she’s growing into. Anyways… you’re only ten, so you shouldn’t be complaining about age.” She sighed at me as she folded her arms.
“Well, at least I’ve connected with my cat form. You know, officially, like, full transformation, and in-head conversations with her… sort off. She doesn’t let me talk often.” I nodded my head. Getting your cat to listen to you was the hardest part of growing into your cat. I knew Lillian was having trouble with communicating with Tiger Lily, but I also thought she was being very rude about my sister.
“She’s getting there, doing pretty well for her age.” I told Lillian. Then, Picked Kira up, and smiling whispered into her ear, “Show ‘em your new trick.” A smile pulled onto my baby sister’s face, before cat ears slowly began to grow on her head. They were bright orange, and stood out from her black hair. She giggled at me while twitching them around. Tyra walked in just as this was happening.
“Oh! Nice! Kira’s getting her cat. I hope she’ll be helping us fight in the war soon.” I nodded at her, and then placed Kira on the ground.
“Yeah, but um… hey! What’s in your bag?” Smiling, she placed the bag on the table, and tried to keep me from seeing inside.
“Oh, just some new supplies for tonight’s mission.” With that, my smile became a frown. I couldn’t go on a mission. I had to take care of Kira.
“Shoot! There’s a mission tonight?”
“Yeah, Uh… Is that a prob- oh. Kira.” She looked over at her as she said her name, figuring out why I couldn’t go. I nodded unhappily.
“Gosh, that’s too bad. There’s no danger currently, so I was planning on something fun, and you’re going to miss out” I slumped down.
“Don’t make me jealous, or more jealous.I already realize that I’m missing out.”
“Well, it is going to be hard not to make you jealous, but I’ll try.” I rolled my eyes and sat down across from Tyra at the table. She opened the bag and the rest of our pride: Lillian, Maury, and Sashara gathered around. Tyra began pulling out items, and suddenly I became very confused.
“Um… Tyra? That’s all make-up.” She simply rolled her eyes at me.
“Yeah?”
“Well, you kind of said it was for tonight’s mission… and, well I don’t know what would be mission supplies, but that is certainly not it.”
“Don’t be lame, Katrina. Tonight’s mission is across the street…” Across the street was the one house where they had a party every night. A bunch of- wait. Was Tyra implying what I thought she was?
“This doesn’t involve the…” I had to pause for a second to build up my disgust, “dogs’ party, does it?”
“Oh, definitely. We’re going to get into that party and have our revenge.”
“Explain to me how we’re going to get in when we weren’t invited.”
“That’s where the makeup comes in. They’ll let in any girl as long as she’s pretty enough.”
“One problem. Maury isn’t a girl.” She looked a little upset for a quick second, then turned to me with a big smile.
“That’s great! Well… for us. Maury can’t go, but at least now you CAN!”
“What? Huh? What’s the plan?” She rolled her eyes at me, like it was so obvious.
“Maury can’t go, so he’ll have to stay here. He’ll be with Kira, so you won’t have to watch her. Us three girls will get dressed up, and sneak into the party.” She said each word slowly, as if I was too stupid to understand had she said it normally. But, I was still confused.
“Three girls? There’s four of us.”
“Lillian can’t come. She’s too young. Maury will just have to watch her too.” At the sound of this, Lillian jumped up, her face already a bit furry.
“I am not too young. Have any of ya’ll been paying attention? I’m am PERFECTLY capable. I’ve been on every mission we’ve had since I got my cat!” As she spoke, her anger grew, flashing her eyes to her cat’s, so that as she finished speaking, her words turned into a growl and her whole body was taken over by the transformation. We all stepped back to make room.
Her clothes turned to shreds as a large, bobcat-sized, striped black cat took her place. Lillian’s cat, Tiger Lily began backing up while growling at all of us. Lillian hadn’t learned to control her transformations as well as the rest of us yet. Her and her cat couldn’t communicate well, and Tiger Lily didn’t recognize us in our human forms. We were lucky she was showing fear rather than aggression, but there was time for that to change. I wasn’t scared for myself, as I could also turn into a cat, but I needed to get Kira out of there.
She had already begun crying, quite unusual for her, but I never transformed around her, and this was the first time to see one of us in full animal. I really could see it as being terrifying, especially to a three year old who used a night light. I ran over and swooped her up, but was caught by Sashara on my way out.
“I’ll take your sister home and watch her. You’re able to control Tiger Lily in a way that I don’t understand. You need to stay here, and get Tiger Lily to turn back into Lillian.” I nodded quickly and handed Kira over. We didn’t talk much, but that was mostly because of the age difference and our clashing interests. I trusted Sashara.
As she walked out the door, I turned back to Tiger Lily. Maury had left. He was a scaredy cat, unlike the rest of our pride. Tyra was standing away from Tiger Lily, trying to talk to Lillian, telling her to change back. I sighed. That was not going to work.
I began taking my clothes off. It wasn’t embarrassing. It was only Tyra and Tiger Lily. I wasn’t worried about anybody in my pride seeing me without clothes. I was used to it. We had to change in front of each other all the time to change into our cats. Once those were out of the way, I brought out Star, my dark brown, striped, cougar-sized kitty with mix matched eyes. Unlike Lillian, I was able to control my cat. It was a wonder that she did come along on all the missions since getting her cat late last year, but it was a rule we had that if a member could fully transform, they were allowed on missions, whether they had good control or not. Still, we’d always had to worry about Tiger Lily going off and doing something unexpected, as Lillian never seemed to have control of her.
I walked toward Tiger Lily. Tyra saw me and backed away, afraid I would have to fight her. Instead, Tiger Lily calmed down and came up to rub herself against me. Being in my cat form, I could subconsciously feel her thoughts. We were connected, and I was feeling how although comforted by seeing me, she was still afraid of Tyra. I bumped her back, and looked down into her eyes, pouring my thoughts into her.
“Tiger Lily, it’s okay. Tyra is your friend. You know her as Beauty though.” With things starting to make sense, she calmed down. “Good. Now, you know there’s another voice inside you, yes? Now, why are you ignoring it? Listen to Lillian. She’s a part of you.” Tiger Lily backed up into the wall, jerking her head from side to side, trying to get in touch with Lillian. A few minutes passed before Tiger Lily threw open her eyes, but they weren’t hers. They were human. Gradually, her entire body changed until it was Lillian sitting hunched over on the floor, breathing heavily. I commanded Star to resign control of our shared body became Katrina again.
Tyra, who had been standing behind us, ran up to Lillian to comfort and help her. I pulled on my clothes before turning back to the two of them.
“Well, Lillian, it seems nobody will be doing anything tonight. You ruined it for us all.” Lillian sighed and Tyra frowned.
“I’m sorry. I know I can be too young for some things, I guess, but it didn’t seem fair. I thought you guys were just being mean to me, and I didn’t mean to bring out my cat.” Tyra laughed.
“Of course you didn’t mean to bring out your cat. It’s happened to all of us when we were growing into our cats. Well, maybe not Sashara. She always seems to have control over her emotions.” I laughed. Tyra was right about that.
“Yeah, okay. Now, I hope you brought a change of clothes. If not, I can go get you something, but I need to get home to Kira.” I said to Lillian as Tyra gathered her stuff to leave.
“No, I brought some stuff, but mom isn’t going to be too happy about me ruining these.” Lillian held up her shredded clothes for us to see just how ruined they were. I laughed before walking over to the door. I replied with one hand on the door before heading out.
“Alright then, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”