Chapter One: The Bad Beginning
It was a stormy day outside. I was immensely bored. I was in school doing algebra.
Please ring, I thought looking at a poster that said Learning is fun! (with a teacher that had a creepy smile on it).
Ringgggg!
Finally!
Stacy and I walk home together every day. Stacy’s my best friend. She’s from Miami. She has blond hair, white skin and loves beach volleyball! I wish I were born in Miami! I have brown hair, hazel eyes and I was born in texas.
“Do you want to come to my place?” I asked.
“You want to come to my place instead?” Stacy asked. I thought about it, and decided that was a good idea.
Stacy was so excited. “Yay! My mom made cookies,” she said. Now it was my turn to say yay (and yum)!
We walked up to Stacy’s house and rang the doorbell, jumped into a bush and waited. When Stacy’s mom opened the door we jumped out and booed her.
“Boo to you, too,” Stacy’s mom said. “Want a cookie?”
“Yes, please,” we said at the same time.
“Jinx!” we both said at the same time again.
We all laughed (because it was funny). I took a cookie.
“Thank you…and you’re welcome for finishing off the cookies!”
We laughed again, because that was funny, too.
It started storming just as we walked inside.
“Oh no!” I said. “The cats! They’re scared of thunderstorms!”
I rushed out the door to my house, but to my surprise the cats were fine. They woke up and started meowing like crazy! Stacy ran into my room.
“What’s the…oh,” she said, slapping her hand against her forehead.
“Darn those cats,” Mom screamed from downstairs.
Stacy and I looked at each other, puzzled. Then Stacy remembered that Mom hates it when the cats start meowing like crazy.
Thunder clapped. All the cats ran out the door as Mom was trying to come inside.
Chapter Two: CATastrophe
“Oh no!” we screamed.
“Daaaaa! How are we ever going to find them?”
“Drama queen,” mumbled Stacy.
Okay so we have a CATastrophe. (get it?)
“Grayson? Earth to Grayson. We have a problem here!”
“Wait, what?”
“Dang it!” Stacy said, slapping her hand against her forehead.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Maybe focus on our problem?”
“I am focusing on our problem!”
We found a few cats right away, and walked around outside to try to find more.
“Ahhh! The cat catcher! Hide the cats!” I yelled.
The cat catcher gave us a rude look.
“He knows you have a lot of cats. He must know something is up,” Stacy whispered.
“What are you up to now?” the cat catcher asked, with a suspicious look on his face.
“Nothing!” Stacy and I answered at the same time.
One of the cats started to leave the bush it’s hiding in. Stacy grabbed him, just in time, and squished him back into the bush.
“Okay…but consider this your warning. I’m on to you.”
“Oh no!” we said at the exact same time.
“Run for the door,” I yelled, “before it’s too late! The cat catcher will surely come back any minute now!”
Stacy grabbed the cats and ran inside.
“Phew!” I said.
Thunder clapped again, and the cats shimmied out of our arms. They ran outside again, darting into bushes and down rabbit holes.
“Now the cat catcher is going to find them and that’s the opposite of what we want!”
“Noooo!” we screamed.
Mom came up to us, as we sat on the stairs feeling glum. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“No. We lost the cats! Again!”
“Oh…I’m sorry to hear. Come here girls,” Mom said and gave us a hug. “Wait…did you say you lost the cats?!”
“Yeah,” me and Stacy said.
“Oh me, oh my”
“Is there a way to get them back?”
“There is one way, I suppose, but you pay for it.”
“Fine,” we say, shrugging our shoulders.
Okay. But whyyyyyyyyyyyyy? I scream in my mind.
“I think there were some cats at the shopping outlet,” I said.
We went to the shopping outlet.
I saw a cat! She was wearing a sun hat.
We got her and brought her home.
We went to the printing store and printed 50 posters that said: Missing cats! Last seen in Rocky Ridge. If found, call (567) 678-8006.
We went to Mr. Plantneck’s house and asked if he had seen anything. Sadly he hadn’t.
“I’ll tell you if I see anything,” he said.
Chapter Three: One Way, Maybe
We went to the cat catcher’s office.
He welcomed us in.
“So little mischief makers…how can I help you?”
Mom gave us the look. We laugh nervously because we know that he had caught us making mischief more than just once. Like the time he caught us with a cat without a leash. Man, oh man, he’s strict alright.
Mom spoke up. “We came because we need you to catch-”
“Our cats,” Stacy and I interrupted.
“Yes, our cats,” Mom finished.
“I’m sorry, I can’t. Mr. Peacock lost his precious poodle, Penelope Sparklepants, just this morning. I’ve already committed to helping him.”
I looked at the wall with an award for best pet catcher of the decade. I felt a big bucket of guilt wash over me.
“Can you at least call us if you see one of the cats?”
“Maybe, but no promises,” he replied with a smirk.
We left the office, feeling frustrated and defeated.
“Girls, I can’t believe…” Mom stopped talking as soon as she noticed me and Stacy were crying.
“I’m so-” Mom started.
But I interrupted her. “It’s fine,” I said, slamming the front door behind me.
I ran up to my room (I slammed my bedroom door, too), and screamed into my pillow.
“Aghhhhhhhh!”
Then something magical happened.
Chapter Four: A Surprise Return
I heard a meow.
I heard an actual meow.
Oh my goodness! A meow!
“Mom,” I screamed. “A cat!”
“What? I thought they were all lost!”
Then I heard Stacy scream “what?” too.
We were all super joyful when we got up to my room to see a cat purring and enjoying itself.
“Wooohooo!” I screamed.
“Wait. Does that mean there’s more?” Mom said.
“I don’t know,” Stacy replied.
“Hmmm…I hear something,” I said.
“There it is again!”
I heard a knock at the door. I looked out the window to see who it might be. As soon as I looked out the window, my body went stiff.
“What, honey?” Mom asked.
Stacy came up to the window.
“Oh,” she said.
I ran downstairs and screamed to keep the cats hiding.
“What a delightful surprise,” I said, opening the door. It was the pet catcher.
“So,” he said.
“So,” I said.
“Well, I found Penelope Sparklepants, so I thought I would help you instead.”
“Okay,” I said. “Follow me inside.”
We hear a rumbling.
“Uh oh,” I said, just as the power went out.
“Is there a working light switch in this place?” Stacy screamed from upstairs. “You know I’m afraid of the dark!”
The pet catcher started to laugh – at Stacy.
“Don’t even,” I said, under my breath.
He gave me a shocked look.
We reached the top of the stairs in silence.
“Mom, someone wants to see you!” I yelled towards the bedroom.
Stacy looked at me and then him.
“You let him in?” she whispered.
“Yep,” I said with a shrug. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
Chapter Five: Corn Maze of Life
“You came back?” Mom said, with a puzzled look on her face.
“Yeah,” he said. “I found your cats. They are in the truck. Come on, let’s go.”
“Yay!” we said.
“Okay, let’s go,” Mom said.
We went to his truck.
“Uh-uh-uh…” the cat catcher said, wagging his finger. “You’ll have to pay for them first!”
“Um…what are we paying for?” I said, staring into the empty truck.
“Oh no! The cats must have escaped…again!” the cat catcher said.
We went crazy trying to find the cats…again.
We went downtown. It was almost Halloween so there was a corn maze.
We saw paw prints going into the corn maze.
We went to the booth selling tickets to the corn maze.
“Excuse me sir, we would like four tickets to the corn maze, please.”
“Wonderful. Here you are.”
We ran into the maze and something jumped out of the corn! We ran as hard as we could.
We heard a meow coming from a part of the maze with a sign that said: young adult level scary.
Me and Stacy gulped.
We entered that part of the maze, even though it seemed like a bad idea. I heard something breathing behind me. Oh no! I thought.
I turned around slowly. “Ahhhhhhhh!”
A cat?
“Mom, Stacy, I found him! The cat!”
“Yay!”
When we got home, we didn’t remember the power was out. (We did, however, remember we were soaked.) Stacy and I changed up in my room while Mom called the pizza place.
“Pizza place, what can I get ya!”
“Thanks for letting me borrow some of your clothes.”
“It’s nothing,” I replied. The pet catcher stayed at our house for pizza. He and mom were talking about finance (aka boring adult stuff).
Chapter Six: An Unexpected Surprise
Dad got home ten minutes later. I was sick of sitting on the couch staring at my parents. At least I had the cats to think about. Mom and Dad got up and went to the sitting lounge. We heard a truck pull up just as the power came back on.
“I’ll get it!” Mom screamed from the sitting lounge.
Me and Stacy asked Dad if we could watch a movie. Of course he said yes. We picked The Untitled Guide to Horror. Mom came back in with the pizza. Stacy and I got some from the pepperoni pizza box. Dad likes sardine pizza. We watched our movie. And then a cat came up to me and meowed. “Awwww!” we all said.
It started storming harder and I swore to Penelope Sparkle Pants. All hope of finding any of my cats was gone.
The movie finished and I went up to my room to talk to Stacy about the cats.
“Oh no!” I screamed. I closed my eyes, hoping this would disappear. It didn’t.
“Mom!” I screamed. “My room is infested with spiders!”
Imagine a gazillion spiders crawling around your room. Now that’s something you can’t unsee!
“Let me call pest conceal.”
“OH NO!” I screamed. “The cats are on the other side of the web that the spiders are weaving. We can’t get to them!”
My answer to this was to scream and run.
“Nope, this isn’t happening,” I mumbled under my breath.
Dad ran up the stairs and I tripped over his shoelaces. “OOF,” I said as I got back up and kept running away from my room.
Stacy followed close behind. Mom grabbed my sleeping bag and said we can sleep in the living room tonight.
“What do you mean we?” I asked.
“Stacy and you are having a sleep over tonight!”
“OMG!” we screamed.
“Can we go down to the creek?” I asked. Anywhere but here with all these spiders.
“Sure,” Mom said. “As long as you talk about how to get the cats back!”
I headed down there. The best part of the creek is that I have a secret!
Chapter Seven: River Rock
Back at home, pest control arrived and dealt with the spiders.
We reached the creek. I headed down to the rock and opened the door to our secret club. When we found it there was a power box for the neighborhood nearby and it had furniture sitting next to it! It was the perfect place for a club house! Not even mom knows about our secret spot.
When I went in, Amber was sitting on the floor.
Pause the story. Who’s Amber you ask? She’s my other best friend! She’s from Las Vegas and has brown skin, blue eyes and loves arcade games. Back to the story!
Our clubhouse is basically a room with a tv and neon lights. We also have arcade machines and bean bag chairs! We sat down in the beanbag chairs and talked.
“You want to go ask Mom if you can come to our sleepover?” I said.
“Sure!” Amber replied.
We went home and asked her, and she said yes!
We went to the living room and hung out.
“I can’t believe my room was infested with spiders!” I said.
“Pest control dealt with it!” Dad said.
“YAY!” we all screamed.
“But it was fun to experience the look on your face when you tripped over your dad’s shoe laces!” Stacy said.
“Wait. They dealt with it?” Mom yelled from the kitchen.
“Yep,” Dad said.
We all laughed at that! Just then kracabobom. The lights started flickering frantically.
“Dang it!” we all screamed.
A cat came up to us.
“Maybe some are in the house?” I asked.
We all spread out except for me and Stacy. (We all know she’s afraid of the dark by now, right?)
“Creak…” the floors started making creepy noises.
“Why me?” Stacy mumbled.
“Hmmm. Maybe some are in the bathroom? Persilla loves my parent’s bathroom!”
Stacy groaned. And just as she finished groaning her head off… lightning struck.
Stacy groaned some more.
“What? I have a way with nature,” I said, laughing.
Chapter Eight: Who Was It?
When we entered the bathroom I could see a ruby mirror and a gold hot tub. The bathroom was beautiful. That’s why it was Persilla’s favorite spot.
“Persilla!”
“What!?”
“Grab her! I said. Stacy grabbed her just in time.
“Oh! I wonder if we can find cats based on what they like best!”
“Like how Mr. Lalala likes to sing so he’s in the ballroom playing the piano to his tunes, maybe?”
“Let’s find out!”
We went to the ballroom and there he was! My theory was correct! So now we could go to the kitchen or the living room.
We decided on the living room. We looked there, but there were no cats.
Ring, ring…
“One sec, that’s mine,” I said.
“Kk.”
“Umm, okay,” I said into the phone. As soon as I hung up, Stacy asked who it was.
Chapter Nine: The End
“It was the cat catcher! He found our cats!”
“Woohoo!”
“Let’s go! He said he’s out front!”
We went outside and he gave us the cats. He did make us pay for them though, and yes, it was ALL our allowance!
We went inside, soaked but still happy.
Stacy’s mom came over, too, and we told her the whole story. Mom and Stacy’s mom made chocolate cookies. Of course those are my favorite!
We watched a movie, ate pizza and cookies and…
Cuddled the cats (so we wouldn’t have a repeat of them running away again so you don’t have to read this book all over again)!
by Grayson M.