"Mistoffelees?" she whispered softly. Her noes was pressed to his, her lips barely a whisker width from his. "Misto? Please wake up." Her voice croaked at the end and for the first time that night the thought that she might lose him entered her head. She cringed away from the thought but it wouldn’t leave. Her eyes filled and because of it she missed the twitch his eyelids made. Now that the tears were there she couldn’t stop them from falling and she closed her eyes from his lifeless face.
She missed him opening his own smoky blue eyes, missed them come out of their confused state upon the sight of her and into a look of delight and… what ever else he kept in those sleepy depths. But he did smile, lifting his own paw and stroking it against the soft fur on her face.
Thistle gasped, her eyes shooting open and staring blindly into his. She stared, scrambling up so she was sitting over him, looking down into those laughing eyes. He moved to follow, cringing slightly, but moved halfway up into a sitting position. She grabbed him in a makeshift hug, tears still falling from her eyes she rested her head against his shoulder. It was at this point, as she lifted her eyes to the stars, that she’d join with Scatter Cat…
Munkustrap stared at her. "You must be joking!?" He spoke in alarm.
Thistle lifted her paw, licking at a dirty spot on it from her morning. "Must you talk so loudly?? I really didn’t want everyone to know, but if you want a panic…" She let the sentence hang but her forest green eyes caught his and held them meaningfully.
He sobered, understanding her thinking. "But you can’t seriously be thinking of joining with him? He’s a monster." Munkustrap’s voice dropped, "they reckon that’s why Macavity hasn’t been seen around for a while. Everyone reckons that this ‘Scatter Cat’ has run him out. I’ve never liked Macavity but anyone’s better then him."
Thistle just shrugged, "like I care about Macavity, he wasn’t the one who offered me a spot, Scatter Cat did." She stood up carefully, "besides, I’m more welcome there then I am here."
Munkustrap was surprised and the look showed on his face, "do you really believe that?"
Again she shrugged, it was elegant like her every move, "maybe you should talk to Bombalurina and Demeter about that." Now she turned from him, "besides, I don’t have to explain myself to you, apparently I’m ‘not a Jellical cat anymore’."
And then she left, leaving a puzzled Munkustrap to ponder the inner workings of Thistle…
Mistoffelees was quite lively for a cat whose life had not been certain the night before. He bounded into the junkyard, his eyes shining wide in wakefulness. His tail twitched with delight and he couldn’t wait to see what today brought. Mistoffelees didn’t stop to think about what had made him so happy, especially after the events from the night before. For some reason those events had completely left his mind. Besides, other then being a little cat gossip, it would have all been forgotten by now.
Those were the thoughts that were screaming through Mistoffelees mind as he came into the center of the junkyard. So he didn’t notice the unnatural quite at first, he didn’t notice that the few cats that inhabited the junkyard were silent or speaking in soft whispers. Nor did Mistoffelees notice the looks of worry and sadness he got from the few cats who noticed him. He didn’t notice that even the most playful of the kittens, Victoria and Jemima, the kitten Thistle had saved the night before, were slinking sullenly around the rubbish piles.
Mistoffelees would wonder later what precisely had been on his mind for him to be so blind to everything around him. He saw Munkustrap and Rum Tum Tugger talking quietly in one corner and he pranced towards them. They saw him approach and watched him with sad looks. He still didn’t notice.
"Hey guys, anything happening?" he smiled winningly at them.
They both stared at him in alarm. "You haven’t heard..?" Munkustrap spoke slowly, digesting the fact.
Mistoffelees frowned slightly. "Heard what? What’s happening?" His eyes roved the junkyard, "and where’s Thistle."
"She’s ‘what’s happening’ old buddy," Rum Tum Tugger spoke softly. "You were kind of out of when everything happened last night, I’m surprised no one’s told you yet," he muttered to himself.
"What happened?" Mistoffelees asked again. He had a bad feeling about this, a really bad sinking feeling.
"Thistle decided she’d leave," now Victoria, followed by Jemima, spoke up, joining the group.
Something in Mistoffelees mind shattered, his very heart skipped a beat. His ears rang loudly but he still managed to hear himself speak with a calmness he didn’t possess. "Why did she leave?"
"The black tom, ‘Scatter Cat’, offered Thistle a place in his gang. She informed me earlier this morning that she was going to take him up on his offer. She… believes she is not welcome here." Munkustrap spoke gravely.
"What else did she say…?" the words rang in his ears. Mistoffelees found it hard to make coherent thoughts but it seemed his mind knew the right questions to ask.
"She said to ask Bombalurina and Demeter about it. Hey," Munkustrap cried out in surprise, "where are you going?" Mistoffelees had spun on his heels, walking away.
"To do just that…"
Bombalurina and Demeter were relatively easy to find, they had found a nice, quite place in the junkyard. Demeter was curled up on a wheeled chair and Bombalurina was stretched out on an old two-seater couch. Both were dozing lightly in the midday sun when Mistoffelees found them.
He wasn’t in the best of moods, in fact, this was possibly the worst mood anyone could have found him in. He was pissed, and rightly so, one of the nicest person he knew was going to leave him in the learch. At first Mistoffelees had been devastated that she was just going to run out on them, again. Then he got angry, furious. What right did she have to do that to them? To him? Determined to find her reasons he found the two cats as quickly as possible.
Striding into their secluded area, a look of red fury on his face, he moved up to Demeter’s wheeled chair… and knocked it out from beneath her.
Demeter awoke with a violent hiss as the chair moved. She was on her feet for barely a moment when it smashed into a solid looking car. She yowled in fury as she was propelled through the air, falling unceremoniously into a pile of smelly garbage. Bombalurina awoke dizzy and surprised at her cry and toppled to the ground in a less than graceful fashion. She blinked a few times in order to wake herself up and stared up into the grim face of Mistoffelees.
Demeter lifted her head out of the garbage. "Mistoffelees!" She cried out angrily, "what the hell was that for?"
He barely glanced at her but when he spoke it was to both of them. "I suppose you both know what Thistle’s done..?" he fought to keep his voice level. He didn’t succeed.
Bombalurina, a shamefaced pink from being caught by surprise, stood up and shook the dirt out of her fur. She failed to notice the slight crack in his voice… but Demeter didn’t. "What are you talking about Mistoffelees?"
"You don’t know?" he prodded.
Demeter frowned, "other then the fact everyone thinks she’s a hero from what happened last nigh? From the way she saved the kittens from the dogs? If that’s not it then we have no idea what you’re talking about."
"My you two have gotten slack," he commented with false lightness. They both continued to look at him in confusion, Demeter scrambling out of the rubbish she was in. "So neither of you know that Thistle is taking Scatter Cat up on his supposed ‘offer’?"
"My God," Demeter cried out in genuine alarm, "but she’s a hero!"
"Why would she want to do that?" Bombalurina agreed with Demeter.
"Apparently you two have something to do with her choice." He spoke as calmly as he could muster, but it wasn’t working too well.
Bombalurina and Demeter both looked at each other and it was Demeter who sighed, who turned back to Mistoffelees and spoke steadily. "About a week before Thistle left the Timon’s kids had beaten her up pretty badly. We didn’t notice anything wrong until Bombalurina said something nasty to her. She lashed out but not the normal way. She lashed out with something like your lightening, only this was a ball of green fire. It almost hit Bomb, but she jumped out of the way. The bush behind her wasn’t so lucky, it exploded. We were to scared to say anything so we picked on her until she left, her own gift scared her."
Demeter sighed softly, "what we did wasn’t right but we were scared that she’d lose her temper at someone who wasn’t as quick and that they’d die because we didn’t do something about it. You know yourself that people were scared of your gift until you learnt to control it."
Mistoffelees sighed, understanding what they were saying. "You could have told someone, you could have told me."
"You didn’t tell anyone about your gift until you could control it," Bomb pointed out, "she hasn’t either, what right do we have to tell everyone something that she didn’t want them to know." She paused slightly, "she must have better control over it, or why else would she come back in the first place?"
Mistoffelees frowned, "if she has, then why is she leaving now? There must be more to this entire mess then meets the eye…"