Black Catkin Part 1

Part 1

"Weeeeee!!! Do it again, Pandora?" squealed the dirty fair-headed little girl, her dark green eyes sparkling with delight.

"Yeah Pandie.  Show us your jumping trick" smiled an older brown haired girl.  The other girl, whose hair was dark blonde, smiled mischievously and began to change shape.  Before long a dark blonde pussycat was sitting where she had been, licking its paws.

Suddenly it started to trot over to a nearby oak tree, climbed up it, until it reached the top most branch, climbed out onto the branch, lay down and started to mew.  Hey Casey! shouted Pandie's mental voice at the brown haired girl, You have to change too, ya know.  You're part of this trick as well

"Oh, okay" sighed Casey, laughing slightly, and began to change shape.  Like Pandie she changed into an animal, but instead of being a cat she was a brown cocker spaniel with a tan muzzle.  Okay she said mentally to her two friends, Let the fun begin

Pandie looked around for the perfect target for their trick.  Suddenly she spotted him. He had short golden hair, blue eyes, and a young mocking face.  She looked down at her best friend who was sitting butt down, head up, ears pricked, with her tail wagging like it was on overdrive, on the sidewalk, just under the tree.  Immediately Casey was up, scampering towards the boy, barking at him.

"Go away, ya dumb mutt" said the boy, trying to shove Casey away with his foot. Casey gave a low growl and grabbed the material of one of the trouser legs of the jeans he was wearing and began dragging him back towards the tree.  "Hey get off, stop it.  I paid good money for these jeans, stop ruining them with your teeth, spit and smelly dog breath" he was complaining as they reached the tree.  Casey let go of the boy's trouser leg, barked and looked up at the tree where Pandie was. As soon as the boy looked as well, Pandie began mewing (this was her "kitty stuck up in a tree" act).  The young boy looked up at the tree and then looked around and noticed the little girl.  "Hey kid!" he said, pointing up to where Pandie was, "Is that your cat?"

That!?! thought Pandie, He's making me sound like some kind of object you chuck in your room and forget about!!  She looked down the tree, saw Casey sneeze (but she was really covering up a doggy laugh) and was also glad to notice her little sister was shaking her head.

The boy continued to ask the little girl more questions, like "Can't you get it down from there?" and "Can't you climb trees?"

Good grief! Pandie thought to herself, What is this? Kiddies' Question Time?!

Eventually when the little girl answered no to all his questions, the boy said "Well kid, it looks like your moggy will have to stay stuck up there, because I'm not ruining a perfectly good pair of jeans."  Then, when he was about to leave, Casey growled and grouched over the boy's trainers.  To anyone smart enough, this meant "Climb the tree and rescue the cat or I swear I'll pee on your shoes."  And boy was this guy smart enough.

"Okay! Okay!" he said grumpily as he began to climb the tree, "I'll rescue the dumb mog! Just don't ruin my treads!"

Pandie looked down from the tree at her little sister and said mentally, smiling, Now, watch closely Faline.  This is the best bit.  And when I say "Follow me", you follow.  Okay?

Faline stared hard up at the tree.  Suddenly the boy slipped slightly, and still staring up at the tree, Faline smiled widely.  This was her way of answering her older sister's question in her mind, without her answering out loud and giving the whole trick away.  Muttering obscenities under his breath, the boy continued to climb, gradually getting closer and closer to where Pandie was sitting.

That's it, don't be afraid thought Pandie, Come to kitty.  I won't scratch you.  Just totally humiliate you instead.  Oh, and by the way, before I forget, do you realise your foot's getting very itchy?

Then, without even realising what he was doing, the boy twisted his left leg around to an angle and began scratching away at his foot inside his trainer.  And when that didn't seem to work, he pulled his trainer off to try and get at the source of the itch, better.

Uurgh!! If I could hold my nose right now, I would. Do I really have to put that smelly trainer in my mouth?!

Pandie laughed mentally at her best friend's comment.  The boy's trainers didn't exactly smell of rose blossoms.  And being half cat shape-shifter, she could smell how bad it was.  It was definitely worse than the smell of rotten eggs.

Yeah Pandie replied, or the trick won't work and the chance for revenge will never be taken.  Don't worry Case; I'll buy you an extra large strawberry sundae at Swirlz later to make up for it.

You'd better said Casey, laughing mentally. Okay, I guess I'd better get on with this then

Suddenly Casey began running around the tree and barking so loud that half the neighbourhood could hear her.  Every five seconds, she put her front paws up against the trunk of the tree, bounced off and twirled round, wagging her tail furiously at the same time.

This, of course, was very annoying, especially for the boy, who by now had managed to climb all the way up to the top branch of the tree and was now scratching at his smelly foot even more.  "Shut up, ya dumb mutt" he said crossly, throwing his trainer at Casey.  But instead of it hitting her on the muzzle or bouncing off the top of her head, Casey leapt up, caught the trainer in mid air and ran over to the garden, all the way at the other side of the street.

"Hey that's mine," yelled the boy "bring it back here.  No, don't chew on it, that's a genuine Nike Blizzard you're slobbering over!"

Cheap copy

"I paid over $300, for that shoe, alone."

More like $15 dollars for both trainers, from a low price sale, at K-Mart.

Puzzled for a second, Pandie stared at her best friend.  Sapphie told me. said Casey's voice, laughing in her head, Now go quickly, before he realises what's going on

Pandie didn't need to be told twice.  Without stopping to reply to Casey, she leapt all the way out of the tree, landing gracefully on her two front paws, then her back paws, on the ground, and began running, mentally giving the instruction to follow to her little sister, not knowing whether or not she had heard her mentally.  But, thankfully, halfway down the street, she turned her head round for a second and saw Faline right behind her, changing from a human child to a small dirty blond kitten, mid run.

As she ran, Pandie could still hear the boy yelling and complaining from the top of the tree and then yelling even louder when he realised that the cat he'd been forced into rescuing had disappeared from the tree.  Hah! That's for shoving me in the school swimming pool with my clothes on! said Pandie mentally, but not so the boy could hear.

********

"This is soooo boring." complained the small girl, stirring her ice cream around with her spoon.

The boy on the other side of the table looked up at her and said "Are you going to turn that into complete mush?”

The girl realised what she was doing and put her spoon down.  Looking straight at the boy, she said, "I'm being serious Hadrian.  All we've be doing so far, is sitting around here eating ice cream, looking over boring stuff, which I'm getting fed up with reading, you know.  It's just so booooring".

Hadrian sighed and shook his head, "Arizan, you where the one who pestered mum and dad for years if you could be a Circle Daybreak agent when you grew up.  At the moment you're too young to do any proper work, but since you are over 14 years old Thierry said you can train as an agent until you're old enough to become one."

"I know" sighed Arizan, looking out the window, "But I thought we would be staking out Night World lairs or risking our lives saving our people from vampires who still think humans are just a source of food.  Not visiting small towns out in the middle of nowhere, which hardly anyone visits."

"Hey! I resent that remark."

Arizan looked up to see a tall boy with ash blonde hair, whose eyes at that moment were dark brown, holding a tray with a ice cream sundae and a mug of cappuccino.  "Sorry Ash" said Arizan, smiling at the boy as he sat in the seat next to Hadrian, "I forgot about your visit to Briar Creek that you told me all about. How is Mary-Lynette, by the way?"

"That's okay, Rizzo" said Ash, cracking a smile, "Mary-Lynette's doing great. She's just finished a course in astronomy (she passed with flying colours, by the way), and then after the summer holidays she's going to Kennedy Space Centre for two months to do work experience with all the top space scientists and astronomers there."

"Oh, that's great, Ash" Arizan said, smiling.

"Yeah" replied Ash, still smiling, "but I forgot to mention the best bit.  Mary-Lynette's coming to visit us in Las Vegas for the summer vacation.  I'm going to have a two whole months to spend with the girl I love."

"That's great, Ash" said Arizan, "I wish I could find my soulmate."

Suddenly two shadows loomed over the table.  They all looked up to see a boy and a girl with black hair, holding an ice cream sundae and a chocolate milkshake.  "If you don't mind Ash," said the boy, mischievously, "could you change the subject, please, before I dump this ice cream sundae on you and go ralph my guts out."

"Yeah Ash." said the girl, "You're beginning to get too mushy for us at the moment.  The next thing, you'll be turning into a complete wimp and start reciting soppy love poems, all the time."

"Ha ha, you kill me guys" Ash said sarcastically, before stuffing a big spoonful of ice cream into his mouth.

"So Rashel," said Arizan, "have you and Quinn found anything out? Do we have to spend another day sitting on our butts, bored out of our wits, or are we going to get to kick the bad guys butts, now?"

Rashel laughed and said "Well Riz, you'll be glad to know we won't be sitting around on our butts for much longer, but we won't be doing any butt kicking, just yet, though.  By the way..." She looked at Arizan.

"What?" Arizan asked, puzzled.

"You need to fix your hair" replied Rashel, "before it all falls into your ice cream."

Arizan looked down and noticed a lock of silvery pale blue hair was half an inch from dunking itself in her ice cream.  "Aaah!! Why does my hair always seem to have a mind of its own?" Arizan said annoyed, tucking the lock of hair, behind her ear, "It was almost looking like it was going to eat my ice cream, instead of me there.  Or at least try to eat it."  She stopped and looked at Rashel.  "I'm babbling, aren't I?" she said, with a slightly guilty face.

Rashel laughed and said "Yes, you are, Riz.  Now go fix your hair before all of it decides to (as you put it) eat your ice cream.  Here, you can borrow a couple of my hair bunches."  She reached into her pocket, pulled out a plain black bunch and a velvety black scrunchy, and handed them both to Arizan.

Arizan took the bunches and looked at Rashel.  "So, I'm guessing black is your favourite colour, Shel?" she said, grinning cheekily, twirling the scrunchy in her hand.

"Ah! Go and fix your hair" said Rashel, pushing Arizan towards the Ladies rest room.

********

"Where did you drop it, Fally?"

"I don't know," said Faline, twiddling her hair and swinging her legs while she sat on the sink unit in the rest room, "I left it near the sink, but I dropped it by accident."

"Really Faline," said Pandie, continuing to search under the toilet compartments, "you know you can't lose that ring.  Why couldn't you have given it to Mrs Garner to look after?"  I feel so ridiculous looking under here Pandie, thought to herself, and then out loud, "Y'know, someone's going to walk in here and wonder why I'm crawling under the toilet cubicles."

Suddenly Pandie could hear the door open and the sound of someone's footsteps entering the room.  "I spoke too soon" said Pandie, muttering under her breath. Maybe they won't notice me, if I pretend they're not there, she thought to herself, continuing to search for the ring.

"Um, excuse me, are you okay?"

"Aaaaaaaaaaah!!!!"

Pandie quickly pulled herself together and turned around to look at who was talking to her.  "I'm sorry," said the girl, smiling apologetically, "I didn't mean to scare you.  My name's Arizan, but you can call me Rizzo, if you like."

Looking at the girl, Pandie noticed how strange, yet so stunning the girl was. Her hair was very long, slightly wavy at the ends, and mostly a pale silvery colour.  The hair at the front of her head was a dark royal blue, while the hair framing her face was a pale silvery blue.  The strange thing though was her eyes.  The right eye was dark brown, but the left eye had all the colours of the rainbow flecked around the pupil.

"Hi, I'm Pandora," said Pandie, smiling at the girl, "but I prefer to be called Pandie.  Sorry if I sound rude, but why's your eye like that?"

Arizan pulled out a pocket mirror, from the small knapsack she was holding, flipped it open and stared into it.  "Great" she said, "I forgot to put my other contact in."  Quickly, she reached into her bag and took out a small plastic container.   She opened the container, emptied a small contact lens into her hand and proceeded to carefully put the lens in her eye.  Now both her eyes were dark brown.  "So," she said, putting the container back in her bag, "have you lost something? When I came in here, you seemed to be crawling under the toilet cubicles looking for something."

"Oh, my little sister Faline dropped her ring," said Pandie, slightly flustered, "It's one that our late father gave to her before he died.  It's very important that it's not lost, because it's one of the only things we have to remind us of him."

"Well," said Arizan, pulling something out of her pocket, "I'll help you look for your ring in just a minute." She held up a couple of bunches, and turned towards the mirror.  Looking in the mirror at Pandie, she said "I can't really look for anything with my stupid hair flinging itself in my face."

Pandie laughed at this comment and went back to looking for the ring under the toilet cubicles, just in case it had rolled under one of them.  She liked this girl, Arizan.  She seemed like a new kindred spirit, in the otherwise small boring old town of Little Brook.  Most of the population of the town were old age pensioners and thirty-something year old yuppies wanting to get away from it all.  The only young people in the town where the Black Thorn gang, Sapphire Rose Blackwell, Mrs Garner's daughter Lee Jasmine, Casey, Pandie herself, and little Faline.  Since there wasn't enough of them to run a proper school, they all had to go to the local high school, which was seven miles away in the next town.  The only one who didn't have to go to school was Faline, who was 2½ years old and not old enough yet.

Suddenly Pandie heard a faint ching.  Turning around, she noticed Arizan finish tying back her hair, bend down and pick up a small shiny object off the floor right next to the sink unit.

"Is this the ring, you're looking for?" she asked, still looking at the object in her hand.

"Yeah," said Pandie, as she got up, "thanks for finding it."

Continuing to look at the ring, Arizan said "No problem."  Then without looking up, she asked "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," said Pandie, puzzled by the way Arizan was acting, "ask away"

Arizan looked up, "Which Night World witch circle do you belong to?"