Inspired by an old friend I met in the Lion King fandom, I became interested in the movie Bolt. After
reading proofing all of
his many fan stories based on the movie, I decided that the three main characters had a fun dynamic.
That's why I wrote a quick, one-off story about them when an idea came to mind. It got about as much attention as you would expect in a small, dead fandom and I decided it would be the only one I would write.
Then I wrote a second one because the first one had been so fun to write, and I really did like the characters. But that was
definitely going to be the last.
... until I wrote this one.
This, along with (most of) my story library is also up on
my AO3 site.
I was watching an old Peter Gunn episode on the Classics Channel when the cat dame wandered into the room.
I'd never been much for the boob tube in the old days, but when Penny started leaving it on to keep me occupied while she studied for school, I got hooked. I liked the oldies best because they were in black and white, so I didn't have to deal with colours.
Rhino used to like TV, but when I asked him yesterday why he didn't watch it with me anymore, he said that he'd become disillusioned since he'd learned the day before that it was all fake. I felt bad for the little guy; he was missing out on some wonderful film noir antics. Lately, though, he was starting to say strange stuff about television. This morning, he'd spouted some nonsense about how they were using 'the tube' to keep me pacified and maintain the power structure in the house.
"You listen to me, Bolt," he'd said. "That infernal device is a distraction. It's the opiate of the proletariat, keeping you docile and sedated against the oppression of our masters. It's their mind-numbing inoculation against the uprising of the fuzzy masses."
"Who's putting that nonsense in your head?" I'd demanded, cocking my head at him quizzically.
"Marx," was all he'd said. I'd waited for him to expand on that, but he'd simply stood there with his stubby arms across his chest as if his response were self-obvious.
"Which Marx?" I'd pressed.
The question had seemed to stump him, and he'd scratched his hamster head furiously before he replied. "Zeppo, I assume," he'd said slowly. "He's the only one who seems to have his head firmly on the right way."
I pitied him as I watched the disillusioned hamster roll slowly out of the room in his plastic ball. I knew in my heart that he was wrong; there was more to television than a hollow distraction. I'd shimmied up to the TV as soon as he was out of sight.
"There, there," I'd murmured, gently stroking its frame. "He doesn't mean that. You're not just a distraction - you're entertaining and informative." Almost immediately I'd heard Penny's voice echoing her disapproval in my head.
"Bolt, you know the rule;
ten feet or you'll ruin your eyes!"
Guilt and conditioning had me scampering back to my usual watching spot before I even registered that I'd been moving. I wondered how long Rhino would deprive himself like this. If he kept it up, he might never experience the thrill of solving a case before Peter did, nor would he ever vicariously share the joy of the pooch in those ads that finally got his Beggin' Bacon Strips.
It was probably just a phase.
But let's not forget about the cat. It dawned on me that the little dame had cleared her throat and even mewed politely a couple of times while I was wandering the shady meanders of memory lane.
The moment she'd sauntered into the room, all whiskers and catchouli, I knew that this little lady spelled trouble. Cats are gonna be the death of me someday, and tuxedos are the worst. Once she saw that she'd finally caught my attention, the slinky feline circled me once, cutting deep with the razor stare of those sharp, harlequin eyes as she looked me up and down, running the tip of her tail along my body as she strutted. She ended where she had begun, giving me a teasing, half-derisive flick under the chin with the end of her long, luxuriant posterior appendage. She paused then to groom, almost like she had lost interest in me, but her verdant peepers stayed locked on mine and I could feel myself being drawn into them. I sat there helplessly, feeling those beautiful, emerald irises closing around me like a trap.
I don't know how long she kept me snared by her mesmerizing gaze while she slowly, sensuously licked the back of her right paw, before she finally brushed it absently across her feline brow and freed me from the geas of her emerald scrutiny. She turned her attention to the selfsame foot, inspecting its pad with strange intensity before she finally spoke.
"Bolt," she said with a nascent purr tickling the back of her throat, "do ya have time to give a lady a little help?"
"I might," I replied, feigning an air of indifference. "Depends on what you need, and what's in it for me."
Of course, the little lady needed help - it's not like a dame to just stop in to say hello without strings attached. I had to admit that the gal had me intrigued, though. It had been ages since someone had approached me with a job, and this grizzled gumpaw could stand a break in the ennui of his semi-retirement.
"What's in it for you?" She rubbed her white chin and pondered on that. "A break from boredom I guess ... and my gratitude."
As I craned my neck to see the TV behind her, I heard myself say, "Okay, sure - that works for me. Whaddaya need?"
"Well, there's this..." she began, but she stopped again just as quick. The dame looked at me, then over her shoulder at the television, then back at me again. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a small frown of annoyance creasing her face, and she waved a paw in my line of sight. "Yo, Bolt," she mewed, "Pete shoots Chop, then wrestles with Sam in the water until he drowns."
"Spoilers!"
I was madder at myself than at the dame because of the pathetic whimper in my voice.
She gave a languid roll of her green eyes and blessed me with that cocky little heart-melting grin of hers. "Spoilers?! Wags, you've seen this episode at least half-a-dozen times." The mix of mild exasperation and amusement in her tone felt like a glove slapped across my grizzled maw.
"Still..."
But I bit my tongue because my protest felt lame, even to me. The lady had a point. It seemed silly to be watching old reruns of Peter Gunn when I was almost muzzle to muzzle with a real woman with actual work. A gal with a gig. A jane with a job. A cat with a caper. A damsel in distress. I quickly ran out of alliterative euphemisms, so I pressed on.
"Bolt at your service," I said, bowing and holding out my right paw graciously. "What can I help you with today?"
She rubbed her pert little white chin again with the paw she'd cleaned earlier and settled herself down on her lady haunches. "Well, it's like this," she said, and I watched as her expression turned soft and her eyes took on a distant look. I wanted to put my paws on her shoulders and give her a little shake to get her back to the point. But dames - they don't work that way. They gotta get themselves all dreamy and wistful and put themselves back in the moment. She was pushing my patience, though. I felt the beginnings of an irritated whine working its way up from my brisket, but she started talking again before it fully formed.
"It seems that Penny's Mom accidentally put my cat treats in a sealed jar up on the counter." She cast me a pouty look, and not knowing what this dame expected from me, I nodded in what I hoped was an encouraging and empathetic manner. But what was this dame's angle? What did cat treats have to do with me? I almost missed what she said next.
"Penny's Mom has a habit of misplacing them in weird spots," Mittens continued. "I'm even starting to worry about her mental acuity. She clearly ain't trying to hide 'em because she forgets them in obvious places like the top of the fridge, the back of the high cupboard, or the bottom of the laundry basket." The gal frowned daintily and gripped me again with those green peepers of hers. It took me a moment to realize she was still talking. "Now she's finally left them somewhere ... reasonably logical, but she accidentally put 'em in a Mason jar with a lid clamped on."
"I mean, obviously I was meant to get at them because it ain't like I can't jump up there," she continued, raising her right paw and giving it a dismissive twirl, "but the clasp is too tight for me to undo with my little paws - especially without claws." I only realized that the paw twirl had been a distraction when I noticed that she was moving toward me again. The lithe black dame practically glided over the floor in that smooth, sinusoidal slink that a cat will do when she wants to keep you back on your heels. Before I knew what she was planning, she had already placed her soft paw on mine and was gently caressing it with her silken pads. "I bet you could make short work of it with these big, meaty ham-paws of yours," she purred.
My head spun like that time when I concussed myself chasing a fire hydrant in my youth. This dame was using her feminine wiles to set my mind awhirl and convince me to conspire against our humans. She could unload all of her feline charms on me that she wanted, but it was time to lay down the rules and put this lady in her place.
"You're asking me to work against my masters," I said firmly. "I can't do it. That would make me a
bad dog."
At first, the lady looked perplexed by my response, but she covered her dainty mouth with a paw and giggled. "Oh Wags," she said, "I ain't askin' you to do anything bad. I just need your help to ... fetch something. Playing fetch is allowed, right?"
I tried to find a hole in the logical trap she's sprung on me, but it was like trying to paw one's way through honey. One could dig all he liked, but it just filled in again until he was completely nestled in its sticky golden strands. It was cloying logic that took one's breath and stuck to one's tongue, making him smack and drool while everyone laughed. It occurred to me then that I might
actually have been thinking of peanut butter instead. Anyway, the easiest way to escape from a honey trap was to go with the flow.
"I'd love to show you all the things I could do with these big, strong paws," I said, flexing my toes, "but I don't think they have the dexterity to open the clip on that jar." Her look of disappointment hurt a bit, but I hadn't played all of my cards yet. "On the other paw," I added, " I know a guy..."
Yeah, I knew a guy.
You met him earlier; a fat little hamster named Rhino. He usually spent his days watching TV, pondering on weird conspiracies, eating snacks, and practically worshipping the ground under my paws. I considered at least two of those four things to be important assets in a good sidekick.
You caught where I said 'usually', right? He's shunning the television now, bitter and disillusioned by it after learning yesterday that Lassie was scripted. He'd believed in that dog. He kept telling me that she was almost - almost - as awesome as me. It broke his heart when I told him it was just a fictional show like mine had been. He'd thrown his little fistfuls of Hamster Chow in the air.
"What can a guy even believe anymore?!" he'd cried in anguish before slamming the lid on his plastic ball and rolling, disheartened, out of the room.
Poor little guy. He'd left the room before I'd had the chance to tell him that Lassie was also a boy. I think he'd had a bit of a fan crush on 'her', so I guess it is just as well that I didn't get to that part. Come to think of it, I'd had some awkward moments to deal with when I'd learned that for myself. The first thing I'd done was quietly throw out the old, sticky picture of Lassie I'd secretly kept under my doggy bed.
This hadn't even been his first go-around being disappointed by his favourite medium. I could still vividly remember the tantrum he'd thrown when he'd learned that the chefs on his favourite cooking challenge show were given advance lists of helpful ingredients. He'd gone so far as to make a motion like he was going to throw the remote before he put it gently back on the table and stormed out of the room. The stubborn rodent had boycotted the TV for almost two whole days.
I began to wonder if my inner dialogue was running long when I became aware of the cat waving her paw in front of my face, saying, "Yo, Bolt. Earth to Bolt, are you in there?"
Dames; always pushin' when you're not getting them what they want fast enough. I gave her a curt nod of my head.
"Just noodling on a plan," I said aloofly. Keep the lady guessing, I say. There was nothing to be gained by laying all of my cards on the table at once. "Rhino can probably open that jar with his deft little claws. I can hold him up there with my paws if I stand on my hind legs. You can keep watch for Penny." ... Then again, if you've got a good hand, you may as well flaunt it. That made the lady smile, and my tail double-crossed me by giving a couple of hearty wags at her approval. Cursed tail!
Like any good sidekick, Rhino came rolling into the room at the mention of his name. He saw me and the black cat lady, and I could see his sharp little mind assessing the situation as he looked between us. He could tell that something was afoot, and he wanted in on the action. He pointed at the television and raised a brow.
"If you guys aren't watching this, do you mind if I change the channel?"
And so ended the second great boycott, not with a bang but a whimper.
I could sense the nuance in his question, though, because I know my sidekick. This was his coded way of saying, "What's the deal, boss? Who's this feline femme fatale? Can I get in on the action?" Also, I was pretty sure that he legitimately wanted to change the channel.
"I got us a little job," I said to him. He paused while reaching for the remote and responded with an inquisitive look, cocking an eyebrow. I motioned toward the tuxedo babe. "This fine feminine feline needs us for facilitating some frivolous felony."
"Yo, hey, it ain't no felony when they're my treats, okay? I'm the only cat here, so I don't see how Penny's Mom would have bought them for anyone else."
The dame's excessive protesting did nothing to support her case, and I could tell that my partner wasn't buying it either. Fortunately, trouble was right up his alley. He broke into a broad, toothsome grin and tapped the tips of his claws together rhythmically.
"Shenanigans, is it?" he said, giving me a conspiratorial wink. "I suspect that this is a cat caper to liberate some tasty treats from the Mason jar up on the worktop by the sink in the kitchen, eh?" He lowered his voice as if he were sharing a conspiracy, and he looked furtively both ways before he continued. "I saw you trying to get into them earlier, Mittens. Penny's Mom thinks she's finally outsmarted you here, so I guess in a couple of ways this is a," he paused dramatically, "
counter-intelligence operation."
Me and the cat both groaned.
"Sounds about right," I barked, a bit more loudly than I had intended. We all froze, but if Penny had heard me, she gave no indication. I continued in a softer woof. "Here's the plan, see? The three of us will head out to the kitchen. I'll take up a position by the sink, and I'll pick you up in both paws and stand on my hind legs so that I can get you close to the jar. You do your best to open the clasp while Mittens keeps her sharp little ears open for the sounds of an impending Penny."
The cat and hamster both sat bolt upright and saluted in unison. "Got it, boss," they both said.
"Now let's move out," I said. "We've got us a ploy to perform. Follow me." I started toward the kitchen, and nearly jumped out of my white fur when I glanced back to see if they were following. It turned out the sneaky little tuxedo was right by my shoulder. I hadn't heard a sound as she'd walked up beside me. I'd have to keep an eye on that dame - she could move like a ghost when she put her mind to it.
The plan was working as smoothly as we well-oiled Glock on a busy work night, even surviving its first genuine emergency when Penny came out from her room to get a glass of milk. By the time she got to the kitchen, we were all milling about looking as cool and nonchalant as street side craps players feigning innocence for the fuzz.
Penny had just shaken her head and said, "Your dinner isn't for another two hours."
As soon as Penny left with her milk, the cat scurried over to the door and cocked her head so that she could follow the girl's movements. She gave me a nod when she heard the bedroom door close and made a thumbs-up motion with her paw - a move that would have been more effective if the furry little dame had actually had thumbs.
"Game's back on," I said. I grabbed my sidekick and lifted him back up to the counter while the cat slunk back and forth by my hind feet, nervously watching what I was doing and keeping her sleek ears peeled for danger.
Rhino managed to wrap his deft claws around the wire catch on the jar, but it only took him a couple of attempts to decide that he didn't have the strength to undo the catch. He's a persistent rodent though, and he patted me on the muzzle as I was about to suggest that we scratch the idea and work on a different plan.
"I just need more leverage," he said. The stout hamster climbed out of my paws and reared up on his hind legs as he stood on the counter. He slowly circled the Mason jar with his hands on his hips, looking it up and down from all sides. I could see his mind chewing on the problem like a junkyard dog that had got its maw on a discarded radiator hose. He pointed at the catch on the other side of the jar from me. "I'm going to try that one," he said. "It looks a bit looser."
He reached up and got a firm grip on the catch, then grunted as he scrabbled to climb the slick glass of the jar with his rear feet until he was 'standing' against the side of it like Batman rappelling up a building. He flexed his knees and gave it a couple of experimental tugs. "It moved a bit," he said.
Outta the corner of my eye, I saw the cat lady tense and stand alert like a safecracker who'd heard an unexpected click. She cocked her head one way, then the other before her tail magically puffed out to twice its usual size. "It's the car," she hissed hoarsely. "Penny's mom is home early!"
I gave her a curt nod of acknowledgement and turned back to my helper. "Did you hear that, Rhino? How's it going? We need to act fast, here."
"I think I've got it," panted the hamster. "I just need to give it a little twist to the left as I pull. I'll have it open in a jiffy."
The dame was becoming more animated. At first, she was just frantically looking back and forth between Rhino and the back door, but her agitation quickly grew. Soon she was nervously prancing in place, with her eyes dilated to the point where those ardent irises were just a sliver-fine memory around her ample pupils. "There's the friggin' car door," she yowled. "It ain't worth it, Rhino. Bolt, abort the mission. Abort! Abort!"
"Maybe she's right..." I began, but my little partner had other ideas.
"Not when I'm so close," he said through clenched incisors. "You don't throw out an empty tissue. I've got this!" The hamster let out a feral roar of effort that would have sounded much more impressive from something about twenty-six hundred times his mass and pushed against the jar with his hind legs, trembling with the effort. Things got a little strange then, but we compared our stories later and recreated the events.
The catch on the lid of the Mason jar suddenly gave way with a loud snapping sound, and the unexpected release caused Rhino to lose his grip. Since the only thing keeping him against the jar was his hold on the wire catch, his straining hind legs launched him away from it like a fat, furry little ICBM. (Mittens would explain much later about the laws of physics, and how every action has an equal, opposite reaction. She was a smart girl ... as cats go.) As Rhino sailed into the sink, the jar flew the other way and careened off the counter over my head.
Fortunately, a lifetime of proximity to cats has almost taught me cat-like reflexes, so I almost managed to catch it. Unfortunately, 'almost' catching it meant futilely batting the corner of it with my big meaty paw as it sailed over me. Rather than helping, this sent it into a spin that flung the freed lid in a clear trajectory toward the window and released a fountain of cat treats out in a vertical spiral. I think Mittens might have screamed, but the sound of it kind of got mixed in with the meaty clang of the hamster's head hitting the inside wall of the kitchen sink.
The window was no match for the heavy top from the Mason jar, as was jarringly illustrated when one of its square panels exploded noisily outward in the flying lid's wake. We all agreed later that the breaking window probably hastened the arrival of Penny's Mom into the kitchen, leaving us little time to hide evidence. For what it's worth, the jar itself bounced off the fridge and clattered to the floor without breaking.
Mittens was freaking out now, meowing frantically about how she was done for and how they were going to send her to the pound for this. The dame was right - but I figured we were all gonna see some time in the slammer. While I did my best to avoid panicking myself into an embarrassing accident, she was dashing around the kitchen trying to gather up the scattered cat treats. She was, she adamantly claimed later, simply planning to temporarily hide them under the stove until she could sneak them back into the jar when the coast was clear.
And that's how, when Penny's Mom burst in the back door, she found an odd tableau that included me running in circles by the counter and yelping like the floor had turned to lava, Rhino scrabbling noisily as he tried to get out of the stainless steel sink, and Mittens spread eagle on the floor with her front legs wrapped around an incriminating pile of cat treats. The human took a deep breath.
"WHAT IN THE BLAZES IS GOING ON HERE?" she bellowed.
I'm not proud of what happened next. I’d been prepared to cope with Penny's disappointment if she caught us, but I hadn't expected to be dealing with The Feds. I'm afraid I folded under the pressure like a card table under the body of a poker cheat getting roughed up for his antics. I reared up and pointed at the sink. "Him! He did it! It was him!" Ya, that's right, I ratted out my rodent sidekick. I'm not proud of this.
A moment later, Penny scrambled downstairs to check out the commotion. She took one look at the damage and shook her head. "Sorry mom," she said. "I saw them all acting cagy in here when I came down for a glass of milk. I should have chased them all outside to play."
In the end, we all landed in the hoosgow, banished to the den with no toys or treats for the rest of the afternoon. I got the loudest scolding of the lot because I'm supposed to be the 'responsible' one, and also because nobody likes a stool pigeon. At Mittens's whispered suggestion, I'd drooped my ears and looked up at Penny and her mom with watery puppy eyes while they berated me. It didn't spare me from prison, but it might have prevented a newspaper-slap of disapproval across the snout.
The next few hours dragged on for - whatever three hours are in dog hours. None of us spoke, though we exchanged awkward smiles, dry chuckles and long sighs.
It was Mittens who made the first move. She had been curled up like a horseshoe, occasionally mewing softly to herself as she absently batted the tip of her tail. I glanced up when I caught motion at the periphery of my vision, and saw that she was making a beeline toward me. She'd shed her earlier confident swagger, and even had her tail held low in contrition. I briefly wondered if she was coming over to sweet-talk me into more trouble, but her posture suggested otherwise. I lay there with my head on my paw, following her with only my eyes.
The lady sat a proper distance from me and cleared her throat. "Hey," she said softly, "sorry I got you into trouble. I was just gonna nip a single treat to prove a point, ya know?" The cat looked like she was going to say something else, but she surprised me when she stretched her neck and gave me a light kiss on the nose. "You're a big sweetie for humouring me, even when I'm getting up to mischief." Cat kisses - ugh! I glowered inwardly with disgust in response, though I think it manifested itself outwardly as a deep blush, dopey grin, and a wag of my tail.
"S'okay," I replied, "next time I'll come up with a better plan."
She turned to my sidekick then. "You too, Rhino," she said, "you're a great guy too. I hope your head is okay."
"It's fine," he said. "Not much up there to hurt. Besides, that was fun. We need to get into minor mischief more often. It reminds a guy that he's alive, and also of the interesting places on his body that can sustain bruises."
I watched the interaction between them, and let my gaze wander with the cat as she returned to her original spot, turned three times and lay down again. My nose still tingled from her touch, and all I could think was, "ok ... fine. That little dame kisses pretty good - for a cat."
I thought back to what I'd said earlier; that little feline spelled trouble. In a moment of clarity, I understood that the sly little cat had me wrapped firmly around her dewclaw. I had a feeling she would try and lead me into malfeasance again someday. I wondered if I would be smart enough to see through her plans before it was too late.
Darned right, I wouldn't.
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