Spanish Eyes
It was the last two weeks of summer. Then school would start. The kittens hated the idea. But the most fantastic thing about the summer is at the end: Summer Love.
A medium sized Tom walked past them all, with brownish fur, spiked on his head. His collar was black with little spikes. But what caught their—I mean Matty’s eye, was his beautiful brown eyes. Matty saw them, and loved them. They were soft, dark, dancing, and wonderful.
The cat eyed Matty back, but when he caught her stare, he looked back where he was going.
“Wow.” Matty just watched him.
“Oh-no,” Pouncival whispered.
“She’s got that funny look in her eye!” Travie added. Matty stretched her neck out to watch him and fell off the bench.
“OW!” she yowled. The cat turned around.
“Are you okay?” he asked, walking back over to her. He pulled on her paw and helped her up.
“Yeah. Thanks. What’s your name?”
“My name’s Enriquo. But you can call me Rick. Yours?”
“Matropolis. But you can call me Matty.”
“That’s not a good pick-up line!” Pouncival whispered. Matty grabbed his collar and pulled him down.
“And this is Pouncival. And Travie, James, George, Jonathan and Tumblebrutus. You guys, this is Rick.”
“Pleased to meetcha!” Travie stuck out a friendly paw. Rick shook it with a broad smile. Matty liked his smile. It was so charming it seemed.
“Pleased to meet you too!” Rick shook her up pretty good.
“Whoa,” Travie managed, all dizzy when she let go. They laughed.
“Where you from?” Jonathan asked Rick.
“Actually, I come from down by Mexico. My owners kinda left me here when they went back to Mexico.”
“Do not be alarmed!” Matty declared. “We know just the place for you. The Jellicle Junkyard. Was anyone in your family Jellicle?”
“No.”
“Don’t worry. Jellicles sing and dance and do alotta fun stuff. But we have a lotta boundaries that street cats don’t have. Like school.”
“Gee, I like singing and dancing. Back at my home we used to sing a lot. Well, before my queenfriend left me. She didn’t take me seriously. Anywho, after that, I was kinda down, even though I don’t even like her anymore.”
“That’s too bad Rick. But I know you’d like it. How old are you?” Matty asked.
“A tad over a year,” Rick said proudly.
“Fantastic. Come on!” Matty grabbed his paw. His fur was warm and soft. She liked him already.
In the junkyard, everyone was rushing all over the place, when Alonzo saw his sister with a Tom a bit smaller than he. “What is this, sis?” Alonzo purred.
“This, is Rick. I’d—he’d like to join the Jellicle Tribe.”
Alonzo looked Rick up and down. “He looks cool enough.”
“Alonzo! It’s not whether he’s cool or not, but I bet he is,” Matty said. Alonzo purred at her romantically. “Alonzo,” Matty snapped through clenched teeth.
“Well, you know you gotta see the big guy.”
“Big guy?” Rick looked to the sky.
“No, no,” Matty laughed. “The other big guy. Our leader.” She leaned close to Rick and whispered, “Our jerky leader.” Her voice went regular. “His name’s Munkustrap, and he’s on the Vicarage Wall. All the time.” Alonzo gave Matty the evil eye. Matty sighed. “But we respect him greatly.” Alonzo nodded in satisfaction. “Come on. Maybe you should meet some other cats first.”
Matty and her friends took Rick around the junkyard. “This is my brother Mistoffelees, he’s magical, Quaxo, a magician, Mezoa, a travel agent, Boxer, Jemima, Sillabub, Cliffy and Chewie, our adopted brother.”
“Cliffy—she’s a dog!” Rick gasped.
“You’re not afraid of dogs are you?”
“No of course not. But how is it possible?” Rick asked. Matty explained to him her story, about being part dog but looking like cat, and having a lot of qualities like a cat, but a lot like a dog.
“That’s cool.”
“You mean your not going to go scream and tell your friends you met a living, breathing mutant?”
“Of course not! I think it’s cool that you and Cliff are so different, yet so alike.
“Boy am I glad you feel that way. Let me show you some other cats.” They led him to a corner of the junkyard where there was always a card game going on. “This is ‘Muddy’ Mungojerrie, ‘Punky’ Plato, ‘Ripper’ Rumpelteazer, ‘Victory’ Victor, and ‘Attitude’ Admetus.” Her voice hushed to a whisper. “I don’t think he’ll be our adviser for long. He’s still kinda kittenish.” Rick nodded.
“In this corner, we have our psycotic little twins, Cori—“
“We are not psycotic,” Coricopat said calmly.
“We are metaphysically adequate to consummate devoirs with aptitude that progresses beyond,” Tantomile corrected. Rick looked at Matty and the others with a confused look.
“Don’t worry, none of us got that,” Matty assured him. “Anywho, these psychotic little cats are--"
“We are not psychotic, we are—“
“Yeah, I know, you’re meta-follicly ade-cwot to consum devours with latitude blah, blah, blah. They’re names are Coricopat and Tantomile.”
“Matty, you positively should work on your comprehension of alienation,” Coricopat noted.
“Do you ever say ‘ain’t’? Or ‘He don’t do that’?
“Matty! ‘Ain’t, is gramatically erroneous. The legitimate method is ‘isn’t, or aggrandized prototypal, ‘is not’. And ‘he don’t do that’ is correspondingly gramatically indecent, by virtue of, you are aphorisming ‘he do not do that’, which is intensely incongruous, and is circumscribely imprecisionable. It should be phoneticed as ‘he does not do that’, which is verily prudent. Discern?”
“Not at all,” Matty smiled proudly. Tantomile drooped her head.
“Now all you need to know is—“
“We gotta go,” Pouncival said. “Come on.”
That night, all the kittens headed home. Travie was going to stay with Matty, but she figured Matty wanted to be with Rick. Matty dragged Rick to the highest point that she knew existed in London. It was a tall cliff, that led over across the ocean. By the time they got to the top, the sun was setting. Matty almost knew that God had saved the sunset for them.
“I hope I can be a Jellicle,” Rick said.
“Me too,” Matty agreed.
“It was really nice of you to show me around today. I was totally lost.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“I have to. It was really nice. You know the minute saw you, I knew you were nice. I’ve never seen a cat other than a Siamese with bright blue eyes.”
“When I saw you I saw your dark brown eyes. You have such beautiful eyes. I haven’t seen many cats with brown eyes. They’re really beautiful.”
“Thanks.” Rick looked up to the moon. It was silent.
“Midnight. Turn your face to the moonlight. Let your memory lead you, open up enter in.”
“If you find there the meaning of what happiness is, then a new day will begin.” Rick smiled. “My mother used to sing that to me at night.”
“Where is your mother?”
“Heavan.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I know she likes it up there. She’s in good paws.”
“I don’t know where my parents are. I’ve never seen them.”
“That stinks.” Rick didn’t know what to say, and neither did Matty. “The suns so beautiful. The way it—“
“Shines through the trees in summer?”
Rick smiled brightly. “Exactly. How’d you geuss?”
“We sing that song at the Jellicle Ball. It’s such a beautiful song.”
“You know Matty. Where I come from, cats come in rare quanties. But no matter where I go there’ll never be another you.”
“Rick. That’s nice. I’m kinda unique, most people would say.
“I noticed. You have spunk. Attitude. Sarcasm. Sweetness. Humor. And Travie. She’s so cool. She’s so sweet, kind, nice, with a bit of attitude. And you’re both so different. So special.
“That’s why she already got a boyfriend. But I don’t care. I was never very into Toms.”
“No?” Rick asked, a little stricken with sadness.
“Rick? You seem different too. I’v enever really felt this great around a guy. I admit, I’ve hed crushes on Pouncival and Mungojerrie pretty bad, but never like this. This isn’t a crush. It’s almost different.”
“I know what you mean. I know what you mean.”