Animal Behavior

A short story about Apollo and Phoebe. Two cats that are planning on escaping their humans with the help of some unlikely creatures. [Oneshot. Short Story. Wrote for a challenge]

Hello, my name is Apollo. Don't you just hate it when stories start out this way? Please bear with me if you do. This story is different, I promise. I'm of the feline persuasion. Surprised? Don't be.

Humans don't give animals much credit. I can think, speak and do things all on my own. It's not my fault that my two lazy owners don't pay close enough attention when I try to make conversation.

So we've established my name, right? Well, let's get one thing straight. Despite my owner thinking it would be fun to name me after a Greek God, I am a girl. Got it? Every time we go to the vet, they always and I mean always call me a boy. I can't stand this. Phoebe always laughs at me when this happens.

You see, Phoebe is my sister. Not blood related of course, but close enough. She is named after a Greek Goddess, but most lame humans won't be smart enough to know this.

They'd assume she was named after that blonde bimbo on Friends, or how about the other dumb one on that Charmed show my lady owner likes to watch so much. I don't get the appeal to these shows. I mean where are all the felines shows?

There should be a show called The Powerpuff Cats, about clawsome cats who fight evil. Most of the shows my owners watch could be recast with feline actors. For example, I would much rather watch The Walking Cats instead of The Walking Dead, and Once Upon a Cat sounds like it would be more of a hit than Once Upon a Time.

Anyways, this is my life. I'm a one year old calico forced to live in a mad house with my childish sister. The name Phoebe fits her, though. She is a moron. I mean that in the nicest way possible. If your name is Phoebe, I do not apologize. Cats don't apologize. So get over it.
 
Why is it a mad house? Other than Phoebe, there are the two owners, a man and a lady. The man leaves all the time to go to work, whatever that means, and the lady stays home to take care of the house and us animals, but most of all, she sleeps. She's crazy, too. She will sometimes use me as a pillow and tries to force Phoebe to cuddle with her. Phoebe hates cuddling and will only do so when she wants something.

I on the other hand love to cuddle because at least it keeps me warm.

Now other than the humans, there are the others. By others I mean the other species the humans dare keep. Phoebe and I laugh at them often, because they are trapped in cages most of the time and when the owners get them out, they don't allow us to play with them. How is that fair?

There are five fat round things that take up a huge amount of space in this open top cage that the owners never allow us to get into. I don't know what they are supposed to be, but they shriek a lot and demand disgusting amounts of green foods the humans eat.

They poop more than we do.

Then there is the rats. Yes, I said it. RATS! Can you believe my humans can be so cruel as to keep rats in the house. I'm not even going to mention the mice.

Whoops, I mentioned them.

Anyway... rats and mice in the same house as two clawmazing cats.

The world is doomed.

The rats have stupid names like Marble, Voodoo, Starr and Persephone. Who names a rat Persephone? That should be a feline name. Part of the name is PURR for goodness sakes. Persephone is another Greek Goddess, by the way.

I'm seeing a pattern with my humans.

They are freaks.

I'm not even going to mention the names of the big fat blobs I mentioned before because they are named after food and it's getting late and I'm starting to get hungry.

“Phoebe, should we try try acting cute so the human will shake the treat bottle for us?” I asked my sister who was currently laying on her head, her butt against the wall, with her paws hanging in her face. She barely glanced at me, before twisting around until she was on all fours. She lowered her body low to the floor and bared her teeth.

Not now Phoebe, I thought. Phoebe was still a kitten and any minute now she was going to jump on me and demand play time. I love chasing a jingling ball or playing with the curtains as much as the next cat, but there were times and a place for things like that.

“Don't you dare! I'll throw up on you if you do that,” I said, backing up until I was pressed against the bed. “I'm starving. My stomach can't handle your kitty behavior right now.”

I'm ashamed to admit that I have a weak stomach. One of the reasons the humans take me to the vet a lot. They are paranoid I have some cat disorder. They also don't like it when I throw up in their shoes.

The tabby stopped crouching to the floor and calmly walked over to me. She still had that kitten gleam in her eyes, though.

“I can get the human to feed us, but after that we need to talk about the plan again,” she said, looking up at the window we had been trying and trying to get open for the last catade.

“You think we can make it on the outside?” I asked. I loved the comfort of being indoors, except the vet visits and whenever the lady decided to sit on me. She did that a lot.

This is when she dropped the bomb on me.

“We can if we work together with the others!”

WHAT?

“What do you mean? They are the enemy!”

I can't believe I'm hearing this. She wants us to work together with the rats, mice and fat blobs? The blobs can't even climb out of their cage and here she thinks they can help us survive on the outside?

How much catnip has she been eating?

~@~

So this is how I, Apollo and my sister Phoebe found ourselves running through the neighborhood, the five blobs following, two rats and one mouse on my back and two rats and two mice on Phoebe's back. It's crazy. The world is crazy. We're crazy.

We're doing this!

“Try to keep up you blobs!” Phoebe yelled. The round balloon shaped things didn't run as fast as us. Well, I'm not being fair. They are not balloon shaped, but I don't know what else to compare them to.

“We are not blobs!” The white one cried. “We are-”

“I don't care what you are,” I interrupted. “Just keep up.”

There was some chattering behind my ear and it took me a few seconds to realize the rodents were laughing. The blobs picked up some speed when Phoebe ran behind them, like a sheep dog who runs after sheep.

I'm just glad we have neither sheep or dogs in this group. Dogs are annoying and sheep are idiots.

“Get your head in the game,” Phoebe growled in my ear when she caught me daydreaming.

“Dog catcher!” One of the mice squeaked.

We all skidded to a stop. Sure enough, across the street there was a huge van and in the back of the van we could see cages full of poor unfortunate dogs, but it wasn't only dogs. There were other felines in there!

I looked at Phoebe. She looked at me.

“Are you going to save them?” one of the rats asked.

Before I had time to think it over, two men in dark clothing jumped out of the front of the van. They looked at us. What a sight we must have been to them. Two well groomed felines, with four rats and three mice on our backs and five fat blobs in a circle around us.

We all laughed at their expressions and then yelled in our various ways when the men started to come toward us.

“Everyone for themselves!” Phoebe yelled. We all ran away in separate directions, though of course the rodents didn't dare let go of our fur.

“You are such cats,” one of the rats muttered darkly. “You do know all the guinea pigs are going to be caught.”

“Oh! Is that what they're called.”

We stopped running, looking back toward the van and the humans. Sure enough, the blobs-- I mean the guinea pigs were being round up and put in the back of the van. I cursed my abnormal conscious as cats are not supposed to have one.

“I guess we're going on a rescue mission,” I said.

They all cheered.

I've realized something, though I'm loath to admit it. We were better off with the humans, after all.

The End

Author's Note

Just a short story I wrote for a challenge on another website.

Reviews

[Zoe Marie Ross]

So inventive! I enjoyed going on the adventure with Apollo, Phoebe, the rats, the mice... and the fat blobs (as not to ruin it for anyone else). I was trying to work out what animal the fat blobs, could possibly be. Very well written and humourous.