CNN: Twitch And Switch

Is this a staring contest?

Taengoo sneaks a peek at the cookie jar. How she wishes she could get just one . . .

“How did you get into my house?”

“I don’t know. I found myself in here when I came out from my box.”

The lady blinks and stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Box?” she repeats. “You came out from that box?”

She’s pointing at the cardboard box that is her bed. Taengoo nods. “That’s my box.”

The lady looks her up and down with a look that spells disbelief. “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“I’m not. That’s my box. I was sleeping in it but knock woke up me and I found myself in here. I would’ve stayed in the box for safety too but I smelled something yummy and came out to look.”

“But-But I touched it. It-It was not human. I mean the fur, it was pink and dirty and—”

“Do you mean the fur I have on my ears?” Taengoo lowers her head to show her ears.

“Y-Yes, t-that’s the dirty pink fur. But there was a lot more of it. Like a whole body of fur . . .”

“That’s because I was in my cat form,” Taengoo informs the lady with a smile.

“C-Cat f-form?”

“I’ll show you.” Taengoo twitches her nose and her view changes drastically from way up high, to way down low. She hears a shrill scream and runs away to the safety of her box. Her sense of hearing is particularly sharp when she’s in this form and the scream is less tolerable. She waits till there is silence before peeping out again. The lady is still standing in the same spot, frozen in shock. Maybe she can get some sleep on the lady’s spongy jacket. It’s soft and warm. Very nice bed material.

But before she can fall asleep again, the lady appears at her box, a big head looming overhead. “How do you shrink to half your size when you’re a cat?”

Taengoo lifts her head and looks at the lady. She’s really beautiful with her doll-like eyes and the light shining behind her makes her look angelic. Getting back onto her paws, she purrs in reply.

I don’t know how to answer it in words anyway. I mean, I’ve been able to transform into a human with cat ears and a tail ever since I could remember. How could I possibly explain it?

Taengoo closes her eyes and leans into the hand that is stroking her. She purrs again. It’s a nice hand. Very gentle. “Meow,” says Taengoo. She is in bliss as fingertips dig into her furr and give her a good scratch. Ooh, the scratch is so very good. I want more. “Meow.”

“Can you change back into a human? I want to talk to you.”

Taengoo jumps out from the box and moves to the centre of the living room. Once there, she twitches her nose again and finds herself lying flat on her stomach. The lady shrieks again and a moment later, the red jacket lands on her back.

“Put it back on!”

Taengoo sits up and puts her arms through the jacket. “It gets quite warm after a while. Could I have something else to wear instead?”

The lady blinks then nods. “Come with me,” she says. Then, as they are walking down to another room in the house, she asks, “Don’t you have any clothes of your own?”

Taengoo shakes her head. “I haven’t been in my human form for a long time. It’s easier to remain as a cat. People don’t look at me as weirdly as they do when I’m human.”

The lady looks at my ears. “I can understand why people would look at you. But why don’t your ears disappear when you turn into a human?”

Taengoo shrugs. “I don’t know. My ears and tail won’t go away, no matter how hard I twitch my nose.”

“Tail?”

Taengoo curls her tail around to the front and points at it. “Tail.”

The lady claps her hands over her mouth and stares. “Oh my God.”

“Most people think my ears are some kind of cute accessory but the tail makes it a lot harder to explain.” Taengoo tucks her tail back behind. “It’s so much easier to remain a cat.” The lady shows Taengoo into her walk-in wardrobe and Taengoo is in awe. “Wow, there are so many clothes in here.”

“You probably want something comfortable to wear.” The lady slides a door open and Taengoo gapes at the racks of t-shirts, blouses, shirts, more than she can identify. “Take your pick. But you should take a bath first.”

Taengoo perks up at the word ‘bath’. “A bath! Yes, I’d love to take a bath.”

“Alright, I’ll get you a towel and you can have a nice, long bath to get cleaned up.”

Taengoo almost purrs but she remembers she’s human again so she goes, “Yay!”

/\/

Tiffany wanders back out to the living room and sits on the couch. She stares blankly at the empty box that previously contained the dirty furry thing. If it weren’t for the pink furry ears on the human cat’s head, she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to believe the human cat at all. Now she has a human cat or cat human, which ever it is, taking a bath in her bathroom. So much for finding the pink furry thing a new home. What is she going to do with it/her now?

/\/