Feathers and Fur-Balls

Once upon a time, Kitty the cat paced back and forth in her fancy room in the palace of Purr-Kins, occasionally pawing at her ball of yarn.

Kitty had had a bad case of hairballs for the past week, and it had made her rather touchy. She curled up on her fancy, sparkly, canopy bed, a pretty, reddish-pink with lace around the canopy. She loved it in the palace, being princess of the cat kingdom and all, but it hadn’t always been this good.

Kitty had once had a rather mean and insensitive owner who would not feed her unless they could be bothered or were already in the room, and Kitty had had to borrow food a lot from her friend across the street, whose owners were very kind and caring, quite the opposite from Kitty’s. Now, Kitty flopped onto her back and decided to walk in the garden for a little while, and maybe get a few hairballs out.

At the very same time Kitty was pacing her room, Puss in boots was pacing as well. He was to become king of Meow-Kins the following day, and he had no love to be his queen. Puss decided to ride to Purr-Kins to talk to Prince Charming, his friend in the palace.

But when Puss arrived at the palace, the first thing he saw was not Prince Charming, but Kitty, walking down the palace steps to the royal garden. They stared at each other, and Puss was in love.

“My sweet,” he began, “please, do me the honour of telling me your name?”

“I am Kitty, sir,” Pussy meowed, a little embarrassed, as she had loved Puss at first sight as he had her.

“I am Puss, and I will be the king of Meow-Kins tomorrow,” declared Puss, rather uncomfortably.

“I suppose your wife is very beautiful,” Kitty meowed.

“Oh Kitty, you are the most beautiful cat I have ever seen- Will you-” Puss mewed, all fast and flustered, until Prince Charming swept in and stole Kitty, who hissed at Prince Charming, but nothing either Puss nor his love did could slow down the evil Prince.

“PUSSY, NOOOOO!” Puss was overcome by a feeling of anger directed at Prince Charming. In his anger, he almost missed the ball of silver-grey hair that Most-Annoying-Prince Charming had accidently pulled out of Kitty’s fur as he stole her away.

“I will go to every house in the kingdom!” Puss cried. “And demand to see all the cats there! In case Prince Charming has hidden her in a human house, and then I will see if the fur matches! Fur never lies!” He explained, mostly to himself.

So Puss rode around the kingdom, asking to see every cat, but he was taking too long. He sighed, and asked a duck who was waddling past, “I know this is very specific, but have you seen a human prince riding past with a silver tabby cat?”

“Yes. I have seen them,” replied the duck simply.

“Oh, thank goodness! Do you know which way they went?”

“Yes, I will show you, er, but I should probably ride with you on your horse”

“Of course,” mewed Puss, and helped the duck (whose name was Sir Henri Duck Face) onto the back of his horse, where he called out directions.

As the sun began to turn bright red and disappear below the ragged horizon of the cat kingdom mountain range, they came to a derelict old cottage.Inside Puss heard mewling, and guessed it to be Kitty.

“Kitty, my love! Is that you? Are you all right?” Puss yowled.

“Oh Puss,” replied Kitty, leaning out of a window. “Puss! I am fine, but Prince Charming has locked me in this room, and the key is at the bottom of that pond!”

She mewed sadly, “I saw him toss it, with his long arms, throwing so far out into the pond I lost sight of where it landed!”

Then Henri Duck-face spoke up, “Don’t worry, I will ask the many ducks from the pond to look for the key! It will be found in no time! Then we will take care of the Prince, I might take him to Duck-lantis, and he will be punished!”

So the ducks searched the bottom of the pond, under Henri’s supervision, and found the key, which they passed to Puss, and stormed into the house with a cry of ‘Duck-ward march!’ The ducks attacked the Prince, and took him prisoner, while Puss dashed upstairs to free Kitty.

And so, they all lived happily ever after, once the royal wedding was held and Sir Henri Duck Face was given an award for bravery, and he invited the other ducks to Duck-lantis.

Lily Robertson
Year 6
Balmain Public School