Fat Cat of Underwhere

by Bruce Hale

  Fat Cat of Underwhere

  by Bruce Hale

  illustrated by

  Shane Hillman

  To

  Mom and Lee,

  Cat Ladies

  with class

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Trouble with Garlic and Onion

  Chapter 2

  Dino Dog

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Cat’s Best Friend

  Chapter 5

  Movie Magic

  Chapter 6

  ’iddle Bitty Kitty Spy

  Chapter 7

  Fun with Fidos

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Catnapped

  Chapter 10

  Riding with Mothball Man

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Bad Hair-Ball Day

  Chapter 13

  Stunt Cat

  Chapter 14

  An Unexpected Visitor

  About the Author and the Illustrator

  Other Books by Bruce Hale

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  Trouble with Garlic and Onion

  Let’s face it, humans are pretty hopeless. I don’t know how you make it through this world.

  You can barely hear or see. You have no claws or fangs to speak of. You can’t smell (although you do smell, if you catch my drift). And worst of all, where your glorious tail should wave, you don’t even have a stump to wiggle.

  In fact, if you didn’t feed us, pet us, and scratch us in that special place under the chin, I’d be half tempted to write you off altogether.

  So imagine my disgust and surprise when I found myself turning human.

  No, not physically (perish the thought!). But mentally.

  One day I’m looking out for Number One, being fabulously selfish, the way cats should be. The next day I’m attacking evil magicians and helping children save the world.

  It’s not natural. It’s not right.

  I blame it all on that wicked little man who smells like rotten eggs.

  Shortly after the neighbor children, Zeke and Stephanie, got this fancy old litter bowl (toilet, I believe you humans call it), Rotten Egg Man started showing up. Trouble followed. And bit by bit, I began talking and acting more like a human than a proper cat.

  Don’t believe me? How else can you explain this latest episode in my entanglement with Underwhere (the place, not those ridiculous things humans wear under their clothes)?

  One fine day in spring, I was leaping up and down outside a classroom window. (Is that any way for a cat to behave, I ask you?)

  My human, Hector, was inside, doing whatever humans do at their school. And I urgently needed to tell him something.

  But schools are not built with cats in mind. Cat paws, though clever, cannot open doorknobs. So I jumped up and down like a nincompoop (or a dog—same thing) to catch his eye.

  Finally, the boy spotted me and hurried out.

  “Fitz?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Acting like a mouse-brained dunce,” I said. “Listen, there’s trouble back home.”

  Hector just shook his head. “You know I can’t understand you up here.”

  I rolled my eyes. Fur balls and fish bones! I can understand humans, but they can’t understand me unless we’re in Underwhere, that strange land below our world.

  So, I trotted a little way toward the school gate and looked back over my shoulder.

  “What is it?” said Hector.

  I repeated the move.

  “You want me to go with you?” he asked.

  That’s my Hector—slow on the uptake, but he gets it eventually.

  I nodded.

  “Sorry, Fitzie,” he said. “I can’t leave school yet.”

  “Oh, for the love of mice,” I muttered, trotting back to Hector. I bit his pants leg and tugged.

  “All right, all right,” he said. “I’ll try to get off. But this better be important.”

  Hector hurried inside. A minute later, he rejoined me.

  I led the way as we hustled back to my territory—otherwise known as the Center of the Universe. In front of the neighbors’ house, a stinky metal box on wheels (car, I believe you humans call it) was waiting. In it sat a big-eyed old man who smelled like mothballs.

  “By Aphrodite’s nightie!” he cried. “Thank heavens you’ve come!”

  “Dr. Prufrock!” said Hector, approaching the car. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s the, er, Scepter,” the old man whispered. “We must hide it someplace safe.”

  Hector’s eyes brightened. “You found the Scepter?”

  “Shh!” said the old man. Fear scent rolled off of him, stronger than Hector’s grandmother’s cheap perfume. If he’d had a tail, it would’ve been curled between his legs.

  “I brought the Scepter here,” he said, “thinking we could figure out something together. When I found you children weren’t home, I tried to leave. But my car wouldn’t start.”

  “Let’s see it,” said Hector.

  Mothball Man picked up a cloth-covered item. He unwrapped it.

  My human took the object, a short stick with a bell-shaped thingie attached. “Where did you find it?” he asked. He held it up, and pretty rocks on its shaft twinkled in the sunlight. Supernatural power pulsed from it, making my whiskers quiver.

  “Careful!” said Prufrock. “Keep it hidden. The Scepter mustn’t fall into the wrong—”

  Screeech!

  Just then, a car pulled in behind us. Two men in dark suits, dark hats, and huge pink sunglasses stared from it intently.

  Well, tug my tail! It was the government spies the kids called Agent Belly and Agent Mole. (To my mind, they were Onion Breath and Garlic Breath.)

  “What’s that?” called Garlic Breath.

  “Looks like a magical object,” said Onion Breath.

  For some reason, these two were eager to get their paws on some magic. I guess without cat powers, humans have to make do as best they can.

  Mothball Man shrank back into his car. Up went the window.

  Hector turned to face the men and slipped the Scepter behind his back. “What, this?” he said. “Just a bathroom plunger. Nothing special.”

  The two spies climbed out of their car.

  “If it’s nothing special, then you won’t mind us having a look,” said Onion Breath, waddling over. His onion stench made my nostrils flinch.

  Hector backed up. “But it’s all dirty. You might catch something.”

  “Had it already,” said Garlic Breath, extending his hand.

  My boy shot a glance at Mothball Man, who had slid so low in his seat only his eyes and white hair showed. No help there.

  Hector kept backing away from the two men in black.

  “Over here!” I called from behind them.

  Hector spotted me. He hefted the Scepter and tossed it over the heads of the spies.

  “Hey!” cried Onion Breath.

  I snatched up the object in my jaws. Oof, it was heavy. Cats aren’t meant to fetch and carry. (Others fetch for us—it’s only right.)

  I carried the Scepter off, but it slowed me down.

  “Here, kitty!” called Garlic Breath, closing in.

  My neck and jaw were straining. Too much weight…

  The Scepter slipped from my mouth and hit the ground—tonk!

  “Nice pussykins,” said Onion Breath. He was anything but nice.

  Behind the men, Hector shouted, “Stay away from my cat!”

  “Easy now,” said Garlic Breath.

  I growled. My magnificent tail lashed the air.

  The two men pulled on t
hick black gloves and advanced cautiously, hands held out. They’d better be cautious. They were taking on a backyard tiger.

  And this tiger was ready to rumble.

  CHAPTER 2

  Dino Dog

  Whoosh!

  From nowhere, a figure shot through the space between us. It scooped up the Scepter, leaving behind a scent of…pizza?

  “Zeke!” cried Hector.

  It was the neighbor kid, Hector’s friend. Obnoxious, rude, and a real yank on the tail, he was also quick on his feet.

  “Hand it over!” cried Onion Breath. “Your government commands you!”

  “Oh, really?” came another voice. “Where’s your letter from the president to prove it?”

  Zeke’s sister, Stephanie, marched up, smelling like spring in a pine forest.

  “None of your business,” Onion Breath said. “Give us that toilet plunger. Now!”

  He reached for Zeke.

  The boy danced sideways and tossed the Scepter to Hector. “I don’t have it.”

  Garlic Breath snarled, “Give it!” He strode toward my human.

  Hector threw the object to Stephanie. “I don’t have it.”

  “Children,” Onion Breath snapped. “This isn’t a game.”

  But in fact it was. And the spies were losing.

  “Grrr!” Garlic growled as he whirled on the girl.

  “Over here!” I called.

  Even though she couldn’t understand my words, Steph threw me the Scepter. (She is the smartest of the bunch.)

  But she hadn’t counted on Garlic Breath. The tall spy stretched out his arms, and the Scepter bounced off his hand into the bushes.

  “Oh, no!” cried Stephanie. Her hands flew to her face, and the smell of worry rolled off her like thick cigar smoke.

  Garlic Breath bent and pawed through the shrubbery.

  Zeke and Hector leaped forward.

  “Enough!” said Onion Breath, patting a bulge in his jacket. (I smelled oiled metal.)

  The other spy gave a triumphant cry. He reached and tugged. Then his face collapsed into a frown as something tugged back.

  “Eh?”

  A strong, funky odor hit my nostrils—a blend of dog and…lizard?

  “What th—?” said Garlic Breath. My thoughts exactly.

  All the hairs on my back stood up as a strange creature exploded from the bushes. It combined the ugliness of a dog with the scariness of a giant lizard. Three horns jutted from its broad head. A powerful black-furred body tapered into a scaly tail.

  It carried the Scepter in its jaws, and it was headed straight at me!

  “Reeeow!”

  Every backyard tiger knows there’s a time to fight and a time to run. This was the time to run.

  I shot across the driveway and up the nearest tree.

  “Gurrrumph!” the creature growled around the stick in its mouth.

  I clung to the lowest branch and looked down.

  The humans screamed and scampered about. If they’d had a little cat sense, they would have joined me.

  “Don’t let it escape!” cried Onion Breath. He chased the dog-lizard thing, but when it whirled on him, he screamed and fled. “Aaugh!”

  “It’s got the Scepter!” Stephanie shouted. “Stop it!”

  Zeke leaped aside as the creature thundered past. “You stop it.”

  Hector crouched, ready to catch the monster. At the last second, the dog-lizard feinted with its horns, and Hector hopped back, landing on his butt in the bushes.

  From my perch, I watched the thing power down the sidewalk and push through the fence around a half-built house.

  “Don’t look now, but it’s going into the construction site,” I said.

  Zeke glanced down the street. “Hey, you guys, it’s going into the construction site.”

  My whiskers twitched. “My, aren’t you the clever one.”

  The boy ignored me.

  “Let’s go!” cried Stephanie.

  The spies seized her and Zeke. “Not so fast,” said Onion Breath.

  “But, the monster—” said Zeke, struggling.

  “Exactly,” said Garlic Breath.

  Onion Breath loomed over the kids. “Where did you get that thing?”

  “Us?” said Stephanie. “It’s not our doggie-lizard-whatever.”

  “Likely story,” said Garlic Breath.

  “She’s right,” said Zeke. “We don’t even know what it is.”

  My human frowned. “Let’s see, it had the head of a triceratops, the body of a Labrador retriever, and the fur of a poodle,” he said. “That makes it…”

  “A labceradle?” said Stephanie.

  “A poobradoratops?” said Zeke.

  “Nope,” said Hector. “A…triceradoodle.”

  I shifted on the branch. “Whatever you call it, it’s going to Underwhere.”

  Everybody ignored me. Tch, humans.

  Onion Breath growled. “You children had better bring back that tricera-whatsit, and the magical thingamajig, too.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to do,” said Stephanie.

  “If you’ll just let us go,” said Zeke.

  The two spies looked at each other.

  “All right,” said Onion Breath. “But if you try to pull a fast one…”

  “Us?” said Hector. “Never.”

  In his case, never meant not in the last five minutes.

  Nevertheless, the spies let go, and the children started off.

  “Wait,” said Hector.

  “What?” said Zeke.

  My human pointed up at me. “Fitz. We need him to track the Triceradoodle.”

  “Hector’s right,” said Stephanie. “It’s got a head start.”

  They gazed up at me. I pretended not to notice and busied myself with cleaning my paws. (Tree climbing is filthy work.)

  “What do you say, Fitzie?” said Hector.

  I shook my head.

  “Please?” said Stephanie. “We’ll give you a nice piece of tuna for dinner.”

  My tail twitched. We needed the Scepter, but it would take a lot more than tuna to make this cat chase a savage dino dog.

  “And that electric blanket you wanted?” said Hector. “All yours.”

  Aw, wax my whiskers.

  I knew I would regret it. I sighed a long sigh—twice the usual length, for maximum effect—and climbed down from the tree. Then I led the way to the half-built house where the portal to Underwhere waited.

  A normal cat would’ve stayed up in the tree.

  I was well past being a normal cat.

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  Cat’s Best Friend

  Not only did those ungrateful humans refuse to carry me on the long walk home, but they also gave me dry cat food for dinner.

  What sort of meal is that for a Mighty Kittykins? I ask you.

  When the humans had finished their own meal (no dry food there), we gathered in the great room of Stephanie and Zeke’s house.

  Stephanie had spread open a rotten-egg-smelling paper thingie (book, I believe you humans call it) on the table. I sat on her lap for maximum petting, and the boys crowded close.

  Zeke flipped a page. “Does it say how to get into the cave?”

  “Careful,” said Stephanie, elbowing him. “The Book of Booty is ancient.”

  I gazed at the book. Although I can understand spoken human language, I can’t read it. Everything looked like worm wriggles on a sidewalk.

  “Bo-ring,” I said. As usual, they ignored me.

  Stephanie pointed. “This is interesting…”

  I nudged her arm. She petted me as she read aloud:

  “Where three-horned beastie lies awake

  And hoards the prize across the lake,

  Beware the wee folk, fierce and fuzzy,

  And trick them, though their tails be skuzzy—”

  Fish bones and fur balls. I hate poetry.

  In one fluid move, I leaped from her lap onto the open book. “It’s
simple,” I said. “We borrow a boat, paddle out, distract the lizard-doggie, steal the Scepter, and defeat Rotten Egg Man. Then I can finally get back to normal.”

  Blank looks greeted me.

  “Do you mind?” said Hector, lifting me aside. “We’re trying to read.”

  I rolled my eyes. Books wouldn’t solve our problem. No matter. Dark time is hunting time. And I was still enough of a cat to know that.

  “See you kitties later,” I drawled. “The night is calling.”

  I trotted across the room, into their kitchen, and out through the cat door. (One of the top-five best human inventions, along with the can opener.)

  At the top of the steps I groomed myself. No sense going out on the town looking shabby.

  I sniffed the cool night air. On it floated the news of the neighborhood: people, pork chops, jasmine blossoms, the funk of a dog from two yards down, and the stink of a car engine.

  Poor humans, with your puny noses. You don’t know what you’re missing.

  I sauntered down the steps and around the house. Long grass tickled my belly. An owl hooted.

  Then, under the car stench, I picked up a new scent: Mouse! I froze. With eyes, nose, and ears I scanned the front yard.

  There! Twenty tail lengths ahead, the grass twitched. Mmm. A nice, juicy mouse would erase that dry-cat-food taste.

  Slowly, I stalked forward, eyes on the prize. I was a ghost, a whisper, a rumor. Mousie wouldn’t even know what hit her.

  Ten tail lengths away, I froze again.

  The car’s metal-and-oil stink was even stronger, and I could hear two humans sitting inside the big steel box, yakking.

  “What are they talking about now?” said a smooth voice.

  “Books,” the rougher voice growled.

  The voices seemed familiar.

  The wind shifted, and I caught their scent. It was Garlic Breath and Onion Breath, the two spies. But why were they sitting in a darkened car, listening to the children?

  “Books?” Smooth Voice said. “You’re using that fancy gizmo to listen to kids doing homework? Let me try.”