The Amazing Adventures of Nikolast the Cat - Chapter 2

 The Amazing Adventures of Nikolast the Cat - Chapter 2  - The Ladybug Compact

By Richard Dean Fisher

The dying embers of the fire cracked and crackled as Nikolast slept.  The air cooled and a cold draft blew from under the Thomas Cottage front door. Nikolast woke up, stood on all fours and shook and ruffled his short fur.  A ladybug who had been sleeping on his tail catapulted into the air and only due to a furious beating of her wings did she avoid the hot fireplace.  The Ladybug landed on the tip of  Nikolast's ear. He took a white paw swipe at her and missed as she floated above him, then landed again in a tuft of fur just inside Niko's ear.

  "Hello?"  said a very tiny voice. Nikolast froze.  "Hello, can you hear me?"  said the very tiny voice in Niko's ear. Niko nodded.

"Who are you?" the minuscule voice asked.

"I'm Nikolast or Niko. Who are you?  I can't see you. I can barely hear you." Niko replied as he slowly turned his head to look around the room.    

Ladybug giggled and tickled Niko's ear.  "I'm in here. Miss Tennelope Ladybug at your service and pleased to meet you.  Nikolast walked over rubbed along side the couch, making certain to turn his head to try to stop that tiny itch in his ear.  Tennelope flew out of his ear and landed on his nose.  "Can you see me now, Nikolast?   You haven't answered my question who are you?" Tennelope Ladybug shouted as loud as she could,  "I wasn't asking your name, I was asking WHO are you that  crows would place you under their protection?  They only do that by prophecy."

Nikolast  tilted his head slightly.   "First, Miss Ladybug, I don't know anything about a crow prophecy or that I am under their protection.  I spoke with a crow today and we became friends."  Niko shook his head but the ladybug was faster and floated above and then gently landed on top of Niko's head.  She landed so lightly Niko didn't even know she landed at all! 

" That is a problem for you indoor animals.  You spend all your time with humans inside their homes and get no outside education at all.  I will let the crows explain their customs to you but I am going to  be tagging along.   You probably don't know this but ladybugs are good luck and it is very bad luck to kill a ladybug.  Once the crows placed you under their protection, the ladybug nation, in accordance with the agreement forged at the Great Circle join in the protection. We provide a good luck shield for you. And so I am here."   She busily fussed with her dotted wings.  "I just don't understand how an indoor cat can be this important,."  

Nikolast shook his head several times to ride himself of this insulting little bug, but every time she was faster and landed on him again.  "Are you going you be in my fur the entire time?  He was exasperated.

"Not all the time,  I have ladybug business to attend to. I will tell you when I am leaving and when I will return."  shouted the tiny voice from on top of Niko's head.

Niko shrugged, " Miss Tennelope I am not certain how this is necessary or how one ladybug will protect a cat 50,000 times her size, but you are welcome to 'tag along'."  

"Nikolast, I am not the only ladybug here." As she spoke thousands of ladybugs emerged from every crack and corner in the walls, flying up to cover the entire ceiling of the room. Miss Tennelope Ladybug then flew three circles above Niko's head and just as quickly as they had arrived, they disappeared back into their hiding places. Then she landed on Niko's nose and smiled at him.

Nikolast was impressed but also curious, "Miss Ladybug, that was something to see. But how will that protect me?"

Ladybug smiled.  "We can create a screen that repels bat radar and blocks the keenest of night vision, say from owls or nighthawks. There are other uses too, but those are highly secret.  It is not a good day for you should we have to use our advanced skills to protect you."

" I don't know why I would need protection,"  Nikolast replied,  frustrated with all this nonsense, he jumped up onto the sofa and curled up on top of a decorative pillow of hand-stitched daisies and ladybugs.

Outside the window, the Watcher's Net had expanded one hundred miles to the North, into The County, as it is referred to by humans, and the great last wilderness in the Eastern United States.   Red Winged  blackbirds had now joined in to cover the farmland areas, to avoid confrontations with humans who love red-winged blackbirds but would shoot Crows sitting on cornstalks without hesitation.

Soon reports were carried back through the net to Johnny Crow.   Hawks in the North had begun flying in crossing patterns above the net,  canvassing the land from above.  Johnny Crow, King of the Eastern  Sunrise Nation, was stunned,  This was told and retold for generations that a great  war of the wild animals would arrive soon after the birth of a kitten named Niko, last of its litter.   Johnny Crow sent a message back through the net- send in the sparrows to disrupt the hawks and chase them off.

~end Chapter 2 

 

 

  

The Amazing Adventures of Nikolast the Cat - Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Friendship

 

Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Friendship

By Richard Dean Fisher

Nikolast is a cat.  He started out in life  (like all cats do)  as a kitten.   And he wasn't an extraordinary kitten either.. He was the runt of the litter,  a  calico kitten with flecks of tabby orange around his face and a thin, black stripe on each ear, from base to tip, right up the center.  He looked like a baby bobcat.  Basically, Nikolast was very much a normal kitten with a few unusual markings.  I forgot to mention his paws.  One was completely white. The other three were black as a crow's feather.

Johnny is a crow.  Big and black, with a black beak, and marble-black eyes, and dark gray claws. He enjoys talking to humans and following them around with his cousins, brothers and sisters.  'Hey Jim, you're 5 minutes late for work."  "Hey Jeanie, did you forget your phone again?"  "Travis, Travis, you better hurry and get out of there, you'll be late to your wedding."   "Kevin, drop the french fries, you know you can't eat them all.  Hurry before those pesky sparrows show up."  

 Johnny Crow and Nikolast had never met before Sunday, March 7th in the 1300th year of the crow revival or the Year of the Cat, No. 2225.  Yet they had something in common that is rare in the animal world.  They both had deciphered the verbal  English language. No, they weren't bit by a radioactive spider. This isn't a super hero story.

It was a foggy March  morning in Fortune Oaks, Maine.  Nikolast was outside Thomas family cottage, laying low, silently watching blue-jays at the feeder.  He was 12 weeks old and had learned to walk between Bert Basset's paws to get  through the doggy- door, although the rubber door smacked him back several times before he found his balance and timing. To Niko's benefit, Bert Basset is an old hound dog, with a slow gait and the door does stay open a long time.  Sill, Nikolast was proud of his accomplishment, now for a nice plump blue-jay.

Johnny landed on a thick pine branch near the feeder, behind the cottage.  The taunting was about to begin.  

   "Hey big blue, how many of those seeds you need to eat to fill that big blue belly?"   Hey, big blue, the sky called. He wants his color back. Hey, how come ya'll have the same last name? That's all kind of seedy. "   

Johnny flew down to the wooden lighthouse feeder and landed on top.  The Blue Jays scattered.  Nearby the cawing of several crows could be heard as the flock of blue jays flew through the  neighborhood.  Then he flew down to the ground, looking for a french fry or piece of cheese.

Nikolast pounced and it was a good pounce, but perhaps a tad too high and maybe a second too fast, which he realized as he flew over the back of the black-feathered bird and tumbled across the lawn.  Johnny Crow noticed the breeze as Nikolast flew past.  

   "Do you want to try that again?  It was an elegant attempt.  I feel bad you missed. Of course, grabbing you in my talons and dropping you thirty feet will not result in an elegant landing at all."

Nikolast, looking suddenly disinterested, sat and groomed his paws before replying,

   "I wasn't trying to catch YOU for dinner, I was after a big, plump blue-jay.  YOU are all skin and bones," said Nikolast in a dismissive tone.  Besides, I'm too heavy for a bird to carry."  

 Johnny found a piece of old bread and poked at it with his beak, while keeping one eye on Nikolast.

   "You're a cute kitten, ya look like a baby bobcat, and I could fly with my talons dug into your soft, furry back.  I might just do that too and drop you off outside a Chinese restaurant, then dumpster dive tomorrow for  kitty-cat lo-mein.  Yum.  I'm getting hungry thinking of it."

Nikolast laid down facing Johnny Crow.  A lady bug landed on his ear.  

   "My name is Nikolast Octavio Leggier, 8th of my litter, born on the first moon of the Year of the Cat, No. 2225.  I am owned and cared for by humans named Thomas.  They kept me because I was the runt of the litter, I have very few friends.   Would you like to be my friend?"  

 The words burst out of Niko's mouth in a series of tiny meows.  Johnny tilted his head and observed Nikolast very carefully.  

   "You talk more than I do and that is saying a lot," said the young crow, "How do you know the name of your owners?  Is this a trick?   Do not pounce me again, you won't like the result.  OK, we can be friends on one or more conditions.  I do not accept fair weather friends, friends of convenience, or transactional friends.  I am free, un-owned and living dangerously in the outside world."   Johnny ruffled his feathers, stuck out his chest, and crowed or cawed but of crowing variety.

Nikolast replied with short laugh, 

  "Wow, you're kind of random, I don't know all those big words you spoke, we can just be friends.   Oh, and I know their name because they speak it all the time.  Nikolast stood up on his rear hind legs and bowed,  

'Hello Mr. Thomas, dinner is almost ready. Has your day gone well?" Nikolast pecked the air imaginatively, "Mrs. Thomas you are so good to me.  Leftovers are fine,  now where's our son Maxwell hiding today? And where's that playful kitten Nikolast hiding?"   Nikolast sat back down and smiled at Johnny Crow.

Johnny looked up into the trees.  He heard a hawk screech high in the blue-jay colored sky.

 "Buddy, there are only a few of us who can understand their words. That is a rare gift.  Now did you hear that screech?  A hawk is up in the sky circling.  He sees lunch and that's you.  He is twice my size and he doesn't like chit chat, just a dive bomb with talons first for his prey.  Get inside right away.  We'll talk again later."    Johnny waved his wings as he spoke, shooing the kitten onto the back porch where an old basset hound was patiently waiting (sleeping) to help Nikolast get back inside the house.

Johnny flew up into the higher branches of  the pine tree, one eye on the Thomas Cottage and one eye on the sky. Johnny thought ' I had better not be wrong but I think I need to establish a watch. Nikolast is completely unaware of the danger that is near this house.  The hawk screeched again.   Johnny began to call out to his cousins, sisters, and brothers.

"Set up a watcher's net, set up a watcher's net for a five long-flight radius, five long-flight radius," cried the crow over and over. Within minutes the call was  repeated and within a few hours  hundreds upon hundreds of crows took up positions in trees and rooftops, on poles and wires, extended for several miles. The crows repeatedly called out back and forth, standing as sentries into and throughout the day and long into nightfall.  

Nikolast was curled up asleep by the fireplace, the red flames of the fire licking at the seasoned red oak wood. Outside the Thomas cottage, for the first time since year 698 in the crow calendar, a watcher's net was in full force, and growing wider by the hour.

 End Chapter 1