Conner the cat

For Mum.

One day, a cat named Conner was born. Conner had a skinny figure with jet black fur, and he was as different from his bigger brothers and sisters as can be. They were big and loud. He was small and quiet. They liked to bang drums and sing at the top of their voices. He liked to sit quietly and purr. Because he was so meek and small, the others would tease him a lot. “Pooh, look at tiny Connie wonky!” “Ha, ha, teeny weeny can’t even reach his tuna!” This made Conner both upset and angry. Every night he would sob quietly on his pillow. Quietly. If he was too loud, he would get teased as a cry-baby again, even though he was. He would even cry at the happiest moments. Like his birthday. That was another bad thing. Conner was everything he didn’t want to be. A cry-baby, a scaredy-cat and a teeny tiny. He wished he wasn’t him. And one day, his wish came true. He was just running away from his brothers and sisters when his leg caught on something. A hairbrush, hair curlers, some makeup, dye and some other fancy stuff. Suddenly, a smile crept to his face. “Bye, bye Conner” he thought, as he sprayed and brushed and squeezed. Finally, he looked at the mirror to see if his appearance was better. He gasped. He looked better all right. No, better than better. In other words, outstanding. “I look amazing” he said proudly, as he strode outside to show his brothers and sisters. When they realized it was Conner, they were bursting with questions “How did you do that Con? Is that really you? Did you do magic or something? C’mon, we’ve got to show mum!”

And so Conner’s celebrity life began. Millions of cats from all over the world rushed to the now humongous mansion of Conner, the world’s most famous cat. Posing and smiling, Conner let his fans snap pictures of him from head to toe to send on Instacat. Millions of television reporters travelled miles just to film a single clip about him. He let them yell “we love Conner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” repeatedly. He didn’t realize that far, far away, there were four heavily tattooed cats, grunting at their television.

“Not that stupid show of cat again!!!!” groaned one of them, who was called Trevor. “Yeah, that smelly faced Conner, strutting his butt saying, “ooh, ain’t I pretty, ain’t I flipping ridiculous!” said another cat, whose name was Kim. Trevor, along with two other cats whose names were Pip and Limmy, rocked with laughter. Now, you might wonder why these cats hated Conner so much. The reason to this question was because these cats had always dreamed of being famous, had done so much just to get an autograph, that it was such a pain in the eye to see Conner being famous. They were like that with any celebrity cat, from Caty Perry to Taylor the swift cat. Their laughter became howls, and then the howls became a made-up song about their sorrow for not becoming famous. Then they all slumped on the moth-eaten sofa, crunching past by date crisps and moaning about how sore their paws were and some other moan-able things. “Will someone please turn off the telly?” moaned Limmy, turning on his back. “That smelly faced cat is doing my head in.” Kim sighed, pressed the red button on the remote control, then sat back down on the sofa, squeezing several small fleas to death.

They all sat there for a moment, in an awkward silence. Suddenly, an idea popped in Trevor’s mind. An idea so terrible and delicious, Trevor had no idea why he hadn’t thought of it before. “What are we doing?” he demanded, standing up, hands on hips. They all stared at him. “what are we doing?” he demanded again, getting impatient. “Err, sitting on the sofa eating past by date crisps?” Pip answered hopefully. Trevor was always a kind of leader to the cats, so getting appreciated from him was a treat. Trevor threw Pip a dirty look, which clearly showed he was not pleased. “No, you fool! We are clearly sitting on the sofa eating past by date crisps doing nothing!” he yelled. “That’s what I said” moaned Pip. “You didn’t add the last bit,” Said Trevor. “Now, obviously we’ll never be famous if we carry on like this. So, tell me, what can we do to improve?” “Get a new sofa!” yelled Limmy. “Eat correct dated crisps!” shouted Kim. “Really!” said Trevor, staring down at his team. “This is who I have? A bunch of bozos!” “Yes!” all three of the cats yelled. Trevor looked as if he wanted to smack Pip, Limmy and Kim hard on their faces. But he took a deep breath, and stared at them all directly in the eyes, so it felt as if they were all being hypnotised. “I’ve got a plan.” He said in a dark voice. “And we’re all going to follow it.” “No buts!” he added, as Pip opened his mouth to speak.

To be continued…