CATS: The Night Meets The Light

Mistoffelees blinked his eyes open, slowly waking up from his nap. The tom looked outside of his precious black pipe and noticed that his tribe wasn't dancing or even singing.

That's odd he thought, as he moved his gaze to the bright pale moon that shone high in the sky. But Mistoffelees could hear them whispering about something.

"She's here".

Is all he could hear.

Who's she?

Then he realized who his tribe was talking about. A young, beautiful white queen stood only a few feet away from the mouth of the pipe. Mistoffelees hasn't seen any cat like her before.

He watched as she balanced on her left foot and extended her right leg in front of her, before she stroked it twice with her left paw. Then the white queen raised her right leg high in the air before she put her leg down and slowly slid into her splits.

She's quite flexible, thought Mistoffelees as he watched her.

Finally she balanced on her bottom, raised both of her legs in the air and pulled her chest closer to her knees.

Better make a good first impression.

Mistoffelees turned his right wrist white with black stripes before he turned his legs white going from his ankle to his thighs. He quickly added some black stripes to his white legs with a black spot on his right leg just below his knee cap.

Once he was ready, Mistoffelees crawled out of the mouth of the black pipe, stood up and ran to the young white queen.

He surprised her when he turned on the lights that surrounded them with his magic. Mistoffelees held out a paw to help the white cat up.

"Nice dancing," he commented.

"You-you were watching me?" stuttered the young white queen.

"Why?".

"Because it's hard to ignore a beautiful white queen dancing in the center of the junkyard," replied Mistoffelees, looking directly into her dark brown eyes.

The white cat blushed a little.

"Are you going to join the Jellicle tribe?".

"The Jellicle tribe? There's a bunch of cats-".

The white queen was interrupted by the sound of cats coming out of their hiding places and joining her in the center. She was shocked to see how many cats were around her; There were like 27 of them.

Munkustrap came up next to Mistoffelees and whispered in his ear, "Did you invite her to the Jellicle Ball?".

"Not yet", he whispered back.

"Will you be joining us for the Jellicle Ball?" asked Munkustrap, as he smiled warmly at the young queen.

"The Jellicle Ball? What's that?".

Munkustrap turned to Mistoffelees to see if he wanted to explain it to her.

"You can explain it," Mistoffelees said, quickly getting the feeling that everyone was watching him.

Munkustrap turned back to the white cat.

"So every Jellicle moon, our tribe gathers together to sing and dance, called the Jellicle Ball. Not only that, but we all get to select our mate and our leader will then choose one cat to go up to the heaviside layer".

"What's the heaviside layer?" questioned the white cat.

"It's a place where you can go to be reborn again into a new life," explained Munkustrap, trying to make it easy for her to understand.

"That makes sense. Will you be choosing the cat?".

Munkustrap chuckled.

"I'm not the Jellicle leader; He's not even here yet".

"When will-".

The young white queen was yet interrupted again by some loud music that started playing on an old tape recorder. All of the young queens got up and stood next to her, giggling with each other.

She looked at Mistoffelees and mouthed, what's going on?

Mistoffelees mouthed back to her, You'll see.

What's your name?

Victoria.

What's yours? The white cat mouthed back to him.

Should I tell her my real name? Or should I tell her the other name I get called?

Before Mistoffelees could decide, The Rum Tum Tugger hopped down from a giant tire and began to sing his song.

Of course he is. He just wants to impress Victoria, thought Mistoffelees as he went and sat down on the back of an old punch buggie.

As he watched his friend flirt with all of the young queens in the tribe, Mistoffelees thought about doing some magic with the lights during the instrumental part.

I could stand back to back with Rum Tum Tugger and create yellow spotlights onto some of the cats around him. Then I could spin, crawl in between Tugger's legs and make all of the spotlights shine onto him, thought Mistoffelees, as he watched Tugger dance and sing.

He waited until the instrumental part of Rum Tum Tugger's song came on and Mistoffelees danced his way towards Tugger, standing back to back with him.

From there, he created three yellow spotlights on three different cats that were close to the toms. They instantly posed in a cool position and didn't move.

Mistoffelees quickly did a pirouette and crawled in between Tugger's legs, before he used his magic to again move the spotlights onto Rum Tum Tugger, letting the three cats who were frozen in a position move again. He joined in on the chorus.

"The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat!" sang every Jellicle cat.

Once the song was over, Mistoffelees made his way back to where Munkustrap was sitting.

"Mind if I joined you?" he asked politely.

"Sure".

He sat down on the huge tire, next to Munkustrap.

"I bet by the time she leaves she'll know every word to every song we sing," joked Mistoffelees. Munkustrap let a smile spread across his face.

"Yeah".

Both cats watched as Victoria was talking to some of the younger queens in the tribe. Mistoffelees yawned, remembering how tired he was, since he was woken up early from the loud whispers of his tribe.

"I'm going to sleep a bit more, so I have some energy for later".

"What's happening later?" asked Munkustrap, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh nothing. Nothing at all" smirked Mistoffelees, thinking about spending time with Victoria later.

Munkustrap looked even more confused.

"Are you doing alright?".

Mistoffelees smiled big.

"I've never been better".

He happily skipped away with a little bounce in each step, with Victoria on his mind. Rum Tum Tugger came up beside Munkustrap.

"You know, I just don't understand him sometimes".

Tugger chuckled.

"You and me both".