A story from Wonderland by Hitomi
 
This is supposed to be the first page of the story.
Sorry it got delayed, but I hope you enjoy this belated prelude.
Cheers/Hiotmi 
 
 
Prelude
 

Greetings!  

 

 
My mother died when she gave birth to me. On her dying bed she told me," Come here, a little kitten. Listen to me. You have a special skill none of the cats has.The path your will take has full of roses and the life you will live has so many possibilities. Everybody will adore you.You will be proud of yourself. Whatever happens, just remember you are a special cat no one could imagine. "
 
prelude 1
 
 
 
At that time I was so sad to see my mom gone, so I didn't put any thoughts on what exactly my special skill was.Separated from all my brothers and sisters without my mom, I was all by myself without anyone on my side. My priority became surviving from all the things a lone stray cat had to overcome.  
Of course what my mom told me gave me a hope to hang on to. Sometimes I thought of when I would see the roses and the possibilities in my life and what I would do when I actually saw them in my eyes. 


 
 
 
 As I encountered more living creatures during a few months after my lonely journey started,
I came to know what my mom meant by my special skill.
Yes, I could understand what human beings said and I could communicate with them verbally. First I didn't think that was nothing special about, but by seeing how people reacted when I talked to them in their language, I began to realize that was something unusual to them.
It was hard for me to belive that was my special skill my mom meant because instead of making me feel good, it made everything turn out disastrous. Everything went completely opposite from what my mom said it would.
 
prelude 2
 
 
One day I found myself surrounded by several kids. 
"We should take him home."
"He must be hungry."
"Let's go get food for him."
They all said something very kind to me.
Feeling warm and comfortable in one of the kids' arm, I asked,
"I am so thirsty. Would you give me some water?"
In a second I found myself thrown away back to the ground. All the kids ran away, screaming at the top of their lungs.
 
 
 
 
 
  
A few minutes later, one even went out of the way to come back to throw a rock at me,
and then he ran away again.
 
                                         prelude 3
  
prelude 4
 
 
Another day I saw three ladies gossiping over coffee outside the table in the cafe. After overhearing their conversation, I could not help but chime in.
"I'm sorry to interrupt you, but overall I think your boyfriend is not serious about you. You should definitely break up. "
 
 
 
 
All the three ladies screamed, jumped up from the chairs and ran away.
The hot coffee fell on the top of my head and it gave me a burn.
I could tell they were terrified.
 
                            prelude 5
 
I met an old woman who neither got terrified nor screamed.
But instead she got very upset.
prelude 6
She grabbed my neck and tried to squeeze me into a brown paper bag.
 "You must be a creature created by a devil. Talking cat? It's not supposed to happen."
Trying hard to get away from her hands, I was the one who was screaming this time.
"Why not? "
" What is not supposed to happen is not supposed to happen."
"Who decided it's not supposed to?"  I screamed inside the paper bag.
" No one needs to decide. We all know it's not supposed to! I don't accept this! No one does!"
She was outraged about who I was.
 
  prelude 7
Next day I found myself confined in the cage in the animal shelter.
Things went pretty much the same way in the shelter, too.
I felt alone. My so-called special skill was something that made other animals draw the line between me and them. Plus they were busy with being adopted and finding home in the competitive circumstance, so my special skill was not priority for them to pay attention to, much less, adore like my mom said  they would.  
But there was one exception. My girlfriend.
 
prelude 7
 
"I wish I were like you. You are so special. You can make a lot of friends with people. How nice!"
She was friendly and she adored my being different.
I sometimes thought, if all these things I went through was because of my special skill that was supposed to make me feel proud of myself and make my life rosy with full of possibilities, my mom must have been lying to me. But every time I said this to my girlfriend, she stood on my mom's side and never gave me an inch.
 
 
prelude shelter
"I am really sorry for this talking cat. No one will adopt him."
"If you feel sorry for him, why don't you adopt him?"
"Me? No way. I have already my children who talk too much. Listen, kitty. If you wanted to be adopted, don't talk. Pretend like you are just like all the other animals who don't understand what people say and don't talk to them. Show them all you want is to be patted and kissed .Otherwise you don't have a future."
The staffs in the shelter talked about me all the time.
Then I said to them all the time. "Hell no!" 
 
One day I bit one of the staff's hand, grabbed my girlfriend's hand and ran away from the shelter.
I didn't remember how much we walked and where we walked. It wasn't easy to be on the street, but being with my girlfriend, I didn't feel so sad any more. Even when we were hungry, looking for food together made me happy.

 One day man's big hands scooped up me and my girlfriend.
"Poor thing. Stay in my apartment for a while. I have one vacancy there."  
He put us up one of the room in the apartment building, room 105, with water and food. Later we found he owned the apartment building and he was a famous activist for animal rights. I said to him big thanks in my mind.
 
"They are so skinny."
"Let me hold them."
"They need blankets."
"Let's go get milk for them."
Next day what woke us up was the whispering voices and warm strokes. Two kids were looking at us.
"Milk? What is milk?" When I asked them, of course two kids jumped up in surprise and backed off. All of us fell in silence and stared at each other for a moment.
  
prelude 8
 The boy, Kenny Malchovich, slowly and hesitantly asked me, "Did you just talk?"
"Yes, I did." I said.
"Can you talk?"
The girl, Lisa Malchovich, asked me curiously.
"Yes, I can." I answered.
I waited to see how they would react for a moment.
In a minute later I saw both of them jumping up and down with excitement and delight, and asking me lots of questions all at once.
"What's your name?" Kenny asked me.
"I don't have one." I answered.
"Don't worry. We get you one." Lisa smiled.
"Thank you." I said. 
  prelude 9
These two kids took us to their place, room 106, and introduced us to their mother, Mrs. Malchovich.
Three of them asked me all kinds of questions like what happened to us and how we reached in this neighborhood. They didn't seem to be scared of or terrified about my talking to them. Instead they sincerely and intently listened to my story, nodding and shaking their heads, sometimes with tears in their eyes.
 
 
 
 
prelude 10
 
 
Then another tenant, a tall sturdy guy with mustache, came over and joined us.
"Anything could happen nowadays. "said this mustache guy in no surprise.
"So what's your favorite movie?" He asked me.
This guy was Don Moor, who lived on the second floor, room 205, and later I found his dream was to work in movies in Hollywood.

 
 
 
The following days, the Malchovich kids showed me around their neighborhood and introduced us to all the people there.
prelude 11
 
At Everybody's coffee down the block, I said out loud, "Can I have caramel macchiato, Grande, please."  
I saw the clerk freeze for a second, but soon putting her smile back on, she asked me, "Would you like whip creams on the top of it?
 
 
prelude 12
Then Kenny and Lisa took me to the clothing store next to Everybody's coffee.  The old man with no hair said, "Are you guys hungry? I have sandwich here."
"Yes, I am hungry."  I raised my hand and answered.
 He stood still without a word. Then in a minute later he pulled another chair next to his and held his sandwich out to me.
"Come sit next to me and tell me about your story."
 
 
It was like once things fell into a right place, all of sudden everything began to flow quickly and smoothly.The Malchovich kids knocked at my door every day and day and night. We became closer and closer.                                                          prelude hoppy
"We got you a name. You are Hoppy." said Kenny, smiling.
"Hoppy?"
"Yeah. Do you like it?" Lisa asked, smiling as well.
"Yeah!."
Excited about my new name, I turned around to smile at Mrs. Malchovich. I found her looking at me thoughtfully with her gentle smile on her face.
"You have such a special skill. None of the cats can do that. Did you know how special you were? You really should be proud of yourself."
Mrs. Malchovich's words brought to my mind what my mother told me before she had gone. I felt so good to see finally that it proved that my mom had never ever lied to me.

So, this is how my story has started.
I decided to stay in this neighborhood as long as I could and share my life with these people I fell in love with.prelude 14
Life is good!