Macavity ran through the underbrush of the nearby park, dodging the occasional squirrel and rabbit, only stopping once to snarl at a dirty pollicle who thought it would be fun to play catch-the-running-kitty. Breaking clear of the park, and running all-out to the abandoned warehouse where he made his headquarters, he was almost passing up the messenger who was sent to him to tell him the news.
His queen was having kittens, and they were almost here.
He barreled all-out throughout the hole in the boarding of the door, where he almost ran into a group of rats huddled around a prone queen. Throwing them out of the way, her made it up to his mate, and kneeled before her. Her face was stricken and pain-wracked. Her breathing was fast and labored. She smiled at him gently and sadly, and her body relaxed and her eyes rolled back into her head. She was dead.
It took a while for Macavity to get over his queen's death. He took as best care of the four as he could, knowing that these wretched things were the death of his only love.
There were four, three boys and one girl. One boy was named Joqnai, who was the spitting image of his mother. He was blindingly white with a black chest and black feet. One was Gromeni. He was ginger, like his father, but his feet were white, and so was the tip of his tail. Crankquotz, the biggest, was different from his siblings. He was all black. The girl was named Xandria, after her mother. She looked exactly like Macavity. The only thing about her was her eyes. One was blue and the other, green. And she is who this story is about.
Her brothers never really accepted her, being the only female in a litter of males. She was not especially pretty, nor was she ugly. She was large to begin with, but she never grew any. So by the time she was six months, she was already the size of a full-grown tom. She spent her childhood in the shadow of her littermates. While they learned to pick locks, and levitate, she was with the other queens learning how to change litterboxes and fix salmon paste. But, when she wasn't learning how to clean a newborn kitten or skin a rat, she would sneak off and watch her brothers become masters at crime, just like their father. She'd learn the tricks, and practice them at night, under the only eyes of the owl who watched her window to make sure she didn't escape. He never told. And she became quite good at her profession. Finally, at the age of one-and-a-half, she decided to leave. She borrowed a stolen tape recorder from her father's bedroom, and recorded this message:
Dear Father,
You have always been kind to me, doing the best you could in
bringing me up like a real queen should. You've done an excellent job,
as far as I'm concerned, especially after my mother died like that. But
I have a confession to make. (At this point she began to cry) When I
wasn't learning, I watched you and Joqnai, Gromeni, and Crankquotz. I
learned the tricks you taught them. And I feel that these walls are
cramping me, suffocating me, and I cannot get enough air. That is why I
am leaving. You have every right to hate me. But if I stay here much
longer I feel I may die. I love you more than you can ever imagine,
papa.
After doing this, she waited until she had some time off, then gave the tape to one of her father's cronies whom she had bribed to pass it on to him. She then grabbed her few belongings, tied them in a kerchief, and knotted it around her tail. As she ran from the warehouse at top speed, she looked back only once to see her father in the doorway. "Xandria!" He called. She stopped and turned fully, "You're right. I do have every right to hate you. And you'd better run as far as you can get. Because once I find you, I'll kill you." And he disappeared inside the house.
And so Xandria roamed, for half a year. She made her living off of stolen goods, and a few scraps of food here and there from pitying humans. She'd been in too many fights to count. With one pollicle, or another stray, or yet another underestimating rat. This is how she came to get the scar under her blue eye, running from the lower rim of her eye to just under her chin. The one battle that was to change her life, though was not with a rat or a stray or a pollicle or even a peke. It was with a Jellicle.
She had been wandering for about 6 months, and finally stumbled upon a large junkyard. It was seemingly deserted, so she went in. Having a strange liking for high-up places, she nestled into a poofy ginger ball of fur atop a rocking chair that stood on a pile of junk above an old, blue Ford. She was rudely woken by a penetrating yowl.
"MACAVITY!!!"
All of the sudden, scores of small, well-groomed cats came pouring out of various nooks and crannies of the seemingly uninhabited junkyard. One of them, a gray striped tabby, a bit larger then her called to her.
"Macavity," he yelled, "come down here and fight me like a real tom, you coward! You shan't have Old Dueteronomy this time!" he cried.
Xandria, scared out of her wits by the sudden influx of cats, leaped from the rocker and landed infront of the tom. With a snarl, he leaped on her, and began tearing viciously at her mane of hair. Yowling, she fought back as best she could, but could not keep him off of her. With a final yelp, he landed on her, paws on her shoulder, pinning her to the floor. Raising one high into the air, to finish her off, she watched him with wide eyes. Suddenly, the cat gasped, and backed off. She shakily got up.
"What's the matter with you Munkustrap?" a black and white tom, about her age called, "Why didn't you finish him?" The group of cats stepped back from the shakily standing pair. Xandria, from her near-death encounter, and the gray cat, Munkustrap, they had called him, shaking from astonishment.
"T-That's not Macavity." He wheezed. "Macavity doesn't have one blue eye and one green eye."
Xandria looked from one cat to another, their astonished eyes growing wider and wider. Then she fainted from blood loss and exertion.