First Drafts: The Cat in the Hat Strikes Back
Listen. The Cat in the Hat is already sketchy as hell. I barely had to do anything here.
“Theo. Theo, come on. Earth to Theo!” Sally waved her hand in front of her brother’s face as he stared absentmindedly out the front window, out into the pouring rain. “Mom just called from the airport, apparently they’ve bumped her up to first class. She’s very excited.”
Theo nodded and continued to stare out the window. Giving up on capturing even a moment Theo’s attention, Sally rolled her eyes, grabbed her book, and flopped down on the couch opposite him. He started cracking his knuckles and Sally grunted, Theo knew how much she hated the sound. He did it again.
“Dude come on, can you not do that? It’s so nasty.” She turned her attention back to her book and Theo sat back against the window ledge. The sound of the rain against the window filled the empty space between them, only interrupted when the little alarm clock next to the fish tank gave off a shrill ring.
Pulling himself away from the window, Theo made his way over to the little yellow fish and tapped on the glass. The fish seemed absolutely unperturbed until the flakes of fish food hit the surface of the water, then he darted up, ravenous.
“Don’t overfeed him. You know how he gets when you go too ham on the fishy flakes.” Sally said, appearing over Theo’s shoulder. Her sudden appearance startled him, causing his hand to shake and yet more fish food to drop into the tank. “See? That’s too much.”
“You know you could be literally anywhere else but here, bothering me, right?” He capped the fish flakes shaker and placed it back on the table next to the tank, where the fish seemed to stare longingly at it.
“Yeah. So could you. Don’t you have some sad teenage boy shit to go do with your sad teenage boy friends?”
“Not really. The height of my weekend was going to be popping a personal pizza in the oven and watching reruns of Frasier until I can’t hear my own thoughts anymore.” He turned away from her as though to punctuate his thought, end of sentence, and started towards the next room.
“That’s the saddest shit I’ve ever heard.” Sally laughed and picked up a couch pillow, throwing it on the living room floor, laying down and making herself comfortable.
“I guess you’ve got some really hip, happening plans yourself then? Kegger on Greek row? Clubbing with your fake ID?” Theo yelled from the kitchen as he grabbed a bag of M&M’s from the cabinet and a beer from the fridge.
“As if!” She yelled back from the floor. Theo’s head popped into her field of vision over the edge of the couch.
“Oh really? None of your sad teenage girl friends want to go get trashed while the parents are out of town? No one would ever have to know you threw up in the tub till 4am and then all slept in a cuddle puddle on the bathroom floor.” He raised his eyebrows at her and took a swig from the bottle in his hand.
“Mom’s gonna know you swiped that.”
“I’ll just say I accidentally knocked one out of the fridge and it cracked open.”
“Yeah, well try to remember that excuse only works for one bottle.”
They returned to their previous companionable silence with the undercurrent of rain sounds and occasional punctuation of a burp from Theo. The dreary weather seemed to have crept into the room with them, the mood very low energy and a bit somber. Suddenly Sally sat up with a determined look on her face.
“This is bullshit.” She stated, matter of factly.
“What’s bullshit?”
“That we don’t have any plans! The house to ourselves the whole weekend, and we’re just sitting here in silence.”
“I could toss M&M’s and you could try to catch them in your mouth.” Theo held up the bag of M&M’s next to his face and gave it a little shake.
“What if we invited all of our sad teenage friends over for a little party? I could make use of that fake ID, grab us some beers, you could bust out a few frozen pizzas.”
“We could watch Frasier.”
“We absolutely will not be watching Frasier.”
After Sally texted everyone she knew and Theo texted everyone he knew and all of those people activated the sad teen phone tree, the expected guest count was unknown but all signs pointed towards too many sad teens. Sally was so concerned they’d run out of beer that she busted open the piggy bank and went back to the store three times. Theo could only cook two personal sized frozen pizzas at a time, so his task was of low effort but long duration. In classic teen party fashion, the siblings split up the house and scoured rooms for valuables and fragile items to hide in the garage. Sally reminded Theo that his crush, Helen, could possibly show up and he spent an hour picking out an outfit. They seemed to be pretty well prepared to throw an absolutely raging party.
The first to show up were Dick and Dane, a set of identical twins that Sally and Theo had known for most of their lives. They’d been introduced as kids, adults having thought that one set of twins would get along so well with another set of twins, but Dick and Dane always seemed to think their identicalness made them superior. So when the party began with just Sally and Theo on a couch in the living room facing Dick and Dane in silence, it seemed like maybe they’d over estimated their own ability to be a party draw.
But once those first few minutes of absolutely agonizing awkwardness passed, and more familiar faces started pouring in the front door, the pair’s worries melted away. The Spaulding brothers showed up with even more beer, apparently courtesy of their older sister, and Neil Morgan brought his party speaker. Soon the party was in full swing, the house filled with music and laughter, the fridge well stocked, and a bowl in the kitchen was filling up with dollar bills intended for a pizza run when inevitably the frozen pizza selection ran out.
Theo himself was three or four beers deep when Helen arrived and Neil decided it was time to give him a pep talk.
“Okay man this is it ya know. This is your time dude. She came to your party, which means she definitely knows who you are. Which is already better than the baseline we were operating from.” Neil was surprising coherent when drunk.
“Alternate theory, dude, she heard from someone who heard from someone that there was going to be a party and we are still correct that she has no idea who I am.”
“There’s only one way to know my friend.” Neil said, winking clumsily at Theo, and then using both hands to full force shove Theo backwards. Stumbling back he made contact with something, no - someone, whose voice he recognized immediately.
“Jesus!” Cringing, both inside and out, he turned to see Helen wiping beer off her shirt, looking annoyed.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. My friend was just joking around with me, I don’t think he really meant to push me so far backward. I’m so sorry. Can I get you something? A paper towel? A less wet shirt?” Despite the fact that her shirt was soaking and her drink was empty, Helen seemed to soften at Theo’s words.
“Don’t worry about it, I try not to wear anything that I wouldn’t want ruined when I go to random house parties. Do you carry an extra shirt with you for situations like this?” Theo sighed, she didn’t know him after all.
“Yeah, I’m surprised you don’t. But in this particular instance it’s more that I live here, so all my shirts are here. Probably.”
“Right! Unless they happen to have gone out for the night. Hit the town.” Helen smiled mischievously and Theo blushed, shrugging his shoulders. “You must be Theo then?”
“That’s what they tell me! Oh god. Sorry, I never say stuff like that. Yes. That is me, I am Theo.”
“Well Theo, despite the wet shirt it’s nice to meet you. And I think I’ll take you up on that dry shirt if you don’t mind?”
“Oh yes, of course! Follow me.” With a cheesy wave of the hand followed by a feeling of intense embarrassment in the pit of his stomach, Theo began to lead Helen towards his bedroom.
The pair weaved their way through the crowds of drunken teens towards a staircase in the middle of the house, when they were cornered by Dick and Dane.
“You didn’t say this was a costume party.” Dick said, sounding a bit put out.
“Dick, that’s because it isn’t a costume party. Why would it be a costume party, it’s April.” Theo said, wrestling with his natural inclination to be as mean as possible to Dick and Dane and his intense desire to impress Helen.
“Well, there’s a guy dressed as a cat.” Said Dane, as though Theo were the one acting ridiculous.
“Yeah, he’s got this insane top hat and like a weird looking bowtie.” Dick added.
“It’s probably just an upperclassman having a laugh. If it’s gonna bother you so much, go get him to take his mask off or whatever, but I gotta say I don’t really care.” Theo shrugged and the twins stormed off in a huff.
“Ugh. Dick and Dane are the worst.” Helen muttered as they resumed their journey towards the stairs.
“Ah, so you too are unfortunate enough to be acquainted with my arch nemesis.”
“Arch Nemesis? That’s intense.
“It’s a fraternal twins vs identical twins thing. Only one pair may survive.”
“Oh right. I read about that in social studies.” Helen said, making Theo laugh as he opened the door at the top of the stairs and ushered her into his bedroom. He thanked the heavens he’d had the inclination to clean it before the party. Opening up the second drawer of his dresser, Theo began to pull out t-shirt options for Helen.
“Plain forest green, a classic. This one has an indiscernible repeating geometric pattern, fun for making other people’s eyes hurt. Ah, the Carly Rae Jepsen tour tee, though if someone were to spill on you again in this, they might catch these hands.”
“You sound like a 40 year old man trying to use teen slang.” Theo cringed on the outside a bit more than he meant to. “In a good way!” Helen assured him, and he relaxed a bit, laughing nervously. “I’ll take plain forest green.” He nodded and tossed her the shirt, their eyes meeting for a moment and an uncomfortable silence filling the space between them.
That’s when they heard the first scream. It wasn’t a party scream, or a drunken debauchery scream, it was the scream of someone who feared for their very life. Just as the first scream ended, the air seemed suddenly full of screams, a whole party full of teenagers who had just seen something that put the fear of god in them. Helen tossed the tshirt to the side and started towards the bedroom door, while Theo was stuck to the spot. Before she was able to open the door, it burst open, a sweating and crying Neil stumbled in and shut the door behind him.
“What’s happening down there?!” Helen demanded and Neil tried to breathe through strangled crying.
“The twins, those fucking dicks, they wouldn’t let it go about the costume. They wouldn’t let it go.” He collapsed to the floor, sobbing.
“What do you mean, the guy in the costume? What did he do?”
“You don’t understand it’s not a costume, you don’t understand….” Neil trailed off, the screams from the floor below continued. Theo finally spoke, his voice horse.
“My sister…” And as the words left his mouth his brain caught up to his body and he suddenly jumped into action. Running over to his desk, Theo opened one of the drawers and rifled around before withdrawing a box cutter.
“You got another one of those?” Helen asked, holding out her hand. Theo rifled a little more and withdrew a multitool with a short knife attached. He handed Helen her weapon and crouched down next to Neil.
“Stay here buddy okay? We’ll be back for you. Don’t let anyone else in.” Neil nodded.
Helen opened the door as quietly as possible. The screaming from the lower level had died down to faint whimpers, and a hacking noise like a cat coughing up a fur ball. The two crept down the stairs until they had a good vantage point of the kitchen and the entrance to the living room. No one was in the hallway, but Theo could just see Sally, crouched behind the kitchen island with a knife, peering around towards the living room.
Getting Sally’s attention, Theo motioned towards the living room and shrugged his shoulders. Sally nodded, the fear in her eyes almost as alarming as the look on Neil's face when he’d rushed into the bedroom.
Theo and Helen continued down the stairs on tip toe, as quietly as they could manage in the relative silence of the house. As they approached the living room and peaked around the corner they could finally see the scene that had left Neil almost unintelligible.
On the floor lay the bodies of Dick and Dane, their throats slit ear to ear, blood still pouring out of the open wounds, their eyes wide open but devoid of life. And over by the fish tank with it’s back to them was the cat in the hat, and even from ten feet away they now understood what Neil had meant. It wasn’t a costume. Everything from the skeletal structure of the creature to the hair that absolutely covered its whole body screamed that this was something different. At what looked like seven plus feet tall, the party goers must have thought this person in a costume was on stilts at first. But there was no way.
The Cat in the Hat suddenly turned towards Theo, with no time for him to retreat to the hallway again. It was just in time for him to see the family fish disappear for good between the cat’s lips. Its huge cat-like eyes held him in a trance. Just as it opened its mouth, to do what they didn’t know, would it speak? Would it meow? But before it was able to utter any sound, it suddenly stopped, lurched forward, and fell face first to the ground. Sally stood behind it, a look of surprise across her face, and they all looked down at the kitchen knife sticking out of the cat in the hat's back.
Theo and Sally looked back up and at each other. Sally spoke first.
“What’re we gonna tell mom?”