It was a dark, stormy night…
Part one, Mission Two, of Snowfall.
Sparkles shoves a paw into the bowl of popcorn and scoops out a small pile. I wrinkle my nose in disgust as she shoves it into her mouth, paw and all.
“That’s disgusting,” I spit out. Sparkles just shrugs and continues to stare at the TV screen.
With a paw, she nudges the TV remote towards me. “Turn it up a little, I can’t hear the twoleg over the storm.”
I sigh and tap the tiny button on the remote a few times. “Happy now?”
“I’m happy. Want some popcorn?”
I silently refuse the offer and gaze blankly at the wide window looking out onto the street. Like Sparkles said earlier, there’s a storm outside. Not a usual rainy storm, but more like a freakin’ hurricane. Seriously, the house has been flooded for days! All I’ve done is watch TV, eat, and train. Spies have to keep up their awesome physique, you know. Even if they are cats.
Lightning flashes outside, illuminating what seems to be a cat’s head; white with luminous, purple eyes. I scream and leap onto Sparkles.
“Snowpaw, chill out,” she laughs. “I knew dogs were afraid of lightning and stuff, but us cats? I thought you were raised in the wild, or something.”
“Don’t remind me,” I mutter. I still miss Thunderclan. I’ve even seen footage from security cameras of them. Being a spy is great, though. Except when I almost die or I watch loads of kids being shot to death. Yeah, that was quite a freaky thing to watch.
It’s been a few months since Pi has died. Sparkles and I still keep up our training around the house, and sometimes we pop in to the FROST centre to say hello to the gang. Yep, life’s still great, I guess.
Sparkles nudges me and points to the TV screen. “Are you ready?” she asks me.
I nod and look at the lottery ticket in Sparkles’ paw. Ever since we’ve returned home from FROST, we’ve been printing off countless amounts of lottery tickets for no reason. Just something to do in our spare time, I guess. We haven’t been given another mission because Snarl and the others are trying to pinpoint the location of the rest of The Hidden. They’ve tried everything, even attempting to hack onto the Dark Web, as they call it.
A number flashes up onto the screen. 46. Sparkles’ face lightens up in excitement. “This is it!” she squeals.
The numbers keep on coming. Twenty three. Forty five. One. Fourteen. Thirty two. Forty nine. Each time a ball is revealed, Sparkles quickly glances at her ticket and looks like she’s going to explode. The numbers match perfectly with the ones on the ticket. The one-hundred and sixty one million euros was definitely ours.
“And the bonus ball…” we meow in unison. “Twenty five!” we yowl loud enough to wake up out twolegs.
We’ve done it. We’ve finally won the lottery!
Sparkles looks at me smugly. “Want to make a quick trip to the Bank of England tomorrow to claim that cheddar?”
I glance around wildly. I begin to speak, but a sound interrupts the celebrations.
For some reason, someone’s just knocked on our door.
Sparkles’ ears prick up lazily as she slides off the sofa. “Who would be crazy enough to knock on our door at this time of night?” she yawned.
The lock clicks, and the door creaks open. I slowly poke my head around the corner of the living room and into the hall.
“Amy?” Sparkles squeaks.
“So I got the right location.” The stranger steps into the warm light of the house. She gazes at Sparkles questioningly, who is still frozen in shock. “Happy to see me?”
Sparkles nods and rushes to the kitchen. By this time Amy had spotted me and she walks over to me.
Her fur is too white to be a real colour, and is gelled into spikes with the tips dyed purple. Her eyes are the same luminous purple as the cat who stood outside the window earlier. The collar is the same shade of purple, with pale purple gems protruding out of it.
“You’re the cat who was standing outside earlier,” I breathe. Amy laughs and pats my head. Hard.
“Congrats on winning the lottery.” Amy smiles down at me. “Do you want to know who I am?”
“…Yeah…”
“I work for FROST, but in China. Sparkles and I are sisters. My real name is Amethyst, but people know me as Amy. I am a bawss. And I just decided to pop in.” She whisks herself into the kitchen. “Is my tea ready, sis?” she yells.
Sparkles hurries out of the kitchen with three steaming mugs of tea. I gladly take one.
After a few minutes of silence, Sparkles lets out a breath. “I thought you were dead.”
Amy shrugs. “I don’t know how that came into your head, but I’m alive.”
Sparkles nods slowly. “So why are you here?”
“She wanted to pop in for a visit,” I butt in. Amy looks at me expressionlessly and I go back to sipping my tea.
“Yes, but I also thought we could do something together. We are sisters after all!” Amy chirps.
Sparkles snorts. “Remember the time we went skiing in Russia and almost got crushed by a falling tree?”
“I didn’t know people were logging there!” Amy protests. “Besides, this will involve no danger whatsoever.”
“What is it? A waterslide down Niagara Falls?”
“No, we’re going to Florida! And there’s no backing out as I’ve already booked the tickets for tomorrow.” Amy hugs us both.
Sparkles turns to me. “Find Amy a place to sleep, out of the way of Twolegs.”
“Sure thing.” I lead Amy out of the hall and into the kitchen. “Under the sofa?” I ask. Hopefully she won’t mind.
“I guess I have no other option.” Amy slithers under the sofa and curls up into a ball. “Goodnight, kiddo.”
“Goodnight,” I call back before heading to my own bed.
Twelve hours later, Amy, Sparkles and I are crouched in the shadows of an airport. Amy carries a suitcase containing the one hundred and sixty one million euros converted into dollars.
Amy decides to have one final role-call of items: “Suitcase?”
“You’ve got it,” Sparkles replies back.
“Tickets?”
“Check.”
“Boarding pass?”
“Check.”
“Then lets go.” Amy scuttles forwards towards the terminals.
I creep after her. “How are we even supposed to get on the plane? Hi-jack it?”
“There’s a special section of the airport which is like an airport for cats. I know the cats around here. Some of them even work for FROST. They gave me the tickets and boarding passes,” Amy replies without looking at me.
It was too much to take in. First cats occupy a school, now an airport? “Do cats pilot the planes?”
Amy nods, and that’s when I lost control. “This is just way too crazy, okay? I’m not going!”
“We’re going! It’s final!” Sparkles hisses. She pushes me towards a small, cleverly-hidden gap in a wall. “Everything will be alright once we’re in,” she reassures me calmly. Instead of coaxing me inside, she shoves me through the hole, and I skid across the polished floor.
“Woah…” I breathe as I stare at the cats around me. Some are serving as airport staff, some are janitors, and the rest are just waiting for their flight. It’s like a secret world I never knew existed! “Where do we go first?” I squeal.
Sparkles laughs. “I told you everything will be alright.”
I rush over to a cat selling burgers. Sparkles trots after me. “Can I have a burger, please?”
“Sure,” meows the cat behind the counter. I watch in amazement as she easily prepares and cooks the burger. She smiles at me as she pushes it towards me. “Have a nice flight!”
“Have a nice day,” I reply, and smile back. I follow Sparkles to a table and scrabble up onto a chair. “So how long have cats been running this place?” I asked Amy.
“A few years. Maybe even longer than that. It’s been undetected by humans since.” Amy sips at a brown liquid inside a mug. “Want some? It’s coffee.”
I wrinkle my nose at the smell. “No, thanks.” I continue to much on my burger. “So when’s our flight?”
Amy glanced up at a clock on a wall. “Ten minutes.” She looked at sparkles. “Shall we get going? We’ll take the suitcase as a carry-on item; it’ll be less of a hassle at the luggage collection points and all that.”
The two cats finish their coffee, and I gulp down the rest of my burger.
“Terminal A,” Amy tells us. “Just follow me.”
Soon we’re queued up behind a long line of cats. At the start of the queue, is a grey door. It slides open, and cats calmly flood in. We find our seats, and settle down.
“So we’re going to fly? In the air?” I ask Sparkles.
“Yup.”
“We’re going to go in the air?” I squeak. “What’s it like being in a plane?”
“We surge upwards, and we fly in the air.” Sparkles explains. “It’s not scary, honest.”
I struggle against the seatbelt. “But cats control these planes!”
“And?” asks Sparkles, looking at me questioningly, acting as if cats flying planes was the most normal thing in the world.
“This isn’t right! Humans are the dominant species! They drive and fly planes! They occupy buildings of service! Not cats! This was never meant to be!” I fumble for the buckle. “I’m getting out. I’m going to go back to Thunderclan with Wolfpaw. I should have never stayed here.”
Then the intercom comes on: “Seatbelts are now locked. Please prepare for takeoff.”
I scream in defeat and frustration, then vomit all over Amy, Sparkles, and myself.
This is going to be one wild ride.
Minutes later, after several poppy seeds and slaps to the face, I’m finally flying for the first time. And I have to admit, Sparkles was right: It’s not so scary after all!
I press my face to the window, staring agape at the ocean below us. “So this is what’s below the sun-drown place,” I gasp. I look back over my shoulder at Amy and Sparkles.
Amy managed to get us Business Class tickets, meaning we have luxurious beds and twenty-four hour service. Amy is snuggled deep into the cushions of hers, on her laptop with earphones snugly fitted into her ears. She’s half asleep, even though we’ve only been flying for a few minutes. Sparkles is sipping on lemonade while watching a movie. I gently tap on her paw. She removes her headphones and pauses the movie.
“How long is the flight?” I ask her.
“It’s eight hours until we reach Florida, so you’d better get something to do for the journey.” Sparkles leans over to me and switches my TV on. “Games, movies, music, books, it’s all here.” An evil grin spreads across her face. “Heck, I bet you could even hack it to show footage of Thunderclan.”
My stomach turns. “No thanks, I don’t want the memories.” I mutter as I browse through the selection of books. I freeze dead as I spot something. Warriors: Into the Wild. The cat on the cover is a flaming ginger tom who I vaguely remembered from my last mission and elder tales. Firestar? But how?
I open it, and my eyes flick through the first few pages. This is Sunningrocks, from the old forest! And there’s Bluestar and Spottedleaf… It’s like a more detailed elder tale!
As the hours fly by, I keep reading. There was Tigerstar’s rule, the battle of Bloodclan, the Great Journey, the Tribe, the Lake, the Three, the Dark Forest battle, all of it!
And the weirdest thing: It’s about Thunderclan, my clan! It’s a more detailed tale of everything that happened before I was born!
But how did anyone know of the clans? Could this be another deed of The Hidden? Or did someone stumble across Thunderclan and monitor our lives to turn them into books?
When I finished the last sentence of the last book, I glanced at the clock. Almost eight hours had passed. The flight was almost over! And I had survived!
I yelp as the plane hits the ground with a loud bump. Amy jerks up from her sleep and Sparkles knocks her hundredth glass of lemonade over.
“You have reached your destination,” crackles the intercom.
I sigh with relief and unbuckle myself.
From the other side of the three-seater compartment, Amy staggers to her paws. “Welcome to Florida,” she yawns. “Now where was my suitcase?”
I rush to the window. The sky is a piercing blue, the most perfect sky with no cloud to ruin the blueness. There’s palm trees, flora and fauna. It’s just perfect. A perfect paradise.
“So this is Florida?” I breathe.
“Yep. Come on, kid, let’s go.” Amy leads me out of the plane and into the airport.
And I have to say, all that trauma was worth it.
I’m free… I guess.