Ditch the outfit

Everyone stopped slurping, looked up from their bowls, and glared.

“How dare you interrupt our fine dining experience!”

“Is that who works in this kitchen? Cats?”

“I demand a refund!”

Catherine and Josephine looked at each other. “Bathroom break,” they whispered and scampered to the bathroom, locking the bolt behind them. Within seconds, someone was pounding on the door.

“Customers only, the sign says, and you are most certainly not customers!”

Josephine turned around. “Take mine off first and then I’ll help you with yours.”

So through the pounding and shouting, they took off their costumes. Looking around for a spot to hide them, they saw a shower stall full of cleaning supplies. They lifted up a mop bucket, shoved the costumes inside the stall, and then crammed the bucket back on top.

The pounding on the door stopped.

“Let me through, I've got a key.”

Christine pointed to a door at the back of the bathroom that said “emergency exit only”. The two royals dashed headlong into the door, finding themselves somehow back in the same alley with the drying dish rack. They raced past the entrance to the noodle kitchen and back into the market.

Out of the frying pan and into the soap suds

Pans full of frying onions sizzled. Pots full of boiling potatoes bubbled. Waiters scurried in and picked up plates of food. Chefs danced from pot to pan and assembled wonderous edible creations. Into and through this, Catherine and Josephine ran.

Somehow they dodged the giant man grating columns of cheese. Miraculously they avoided the woman slicing bits of broccoli. Incredibly they evaded the black haired twins chefs cracking piles of pistachios. The man and the mop bucket, however, were different.

Josephine jumped, clearing the cleanup equipment with no problem. Catherine stopped, thought, jumped over and then turned around and kicked the bucket over, filling the floor with soapy water.

“Why did you do that?”

The answer came in the form of five guards flopping onto the floor. The remaining guards stopped, unable to bound over the bodies of their brethren.

The two royals exited the kitchen and found themselves in the middle of a dining room full of customers slurping on noodles.

The pancake fallout

As they carefully and slowly tried to stand back up, the entire front of the stall collapsed into a heap of wood, plates, and frowning chefs. The back portion of the pancake hut, a tiny kitchen, was now exposed to the open air.

A tall, pale man with a mighty black mustache waggled a long skinny finger at them. “You two cats will pay for this! You’ve destroyed my life long dream, my delicious pancake hut with your foolish feline prank!”

Christine and Josephine exchanged glances. “Cats?”

“Yes, obviously you are cats! Walking, talking, felines! Do you think I am an idiot?”

They looked down at themselves and all at once realized they were indeed, at least costumed, cats. They had made these Poople and Noople outfits with Wilma, fully intent on getting their friends in trouble and completely forgotten they were wearing them.

Wilma emerged from the crowd of humans who had gathered around the accident. Standing next to her were two spear wielding guards. “Look. There they are, Poople and Noople, destroyers of the world famous pancake hut. Arrest them before they run away.”

Christine and Josephine, hearing the word ‘run’ come out of the witch’s mouth, bolted from the scene.

Pancakes!

The gate was closed and locked. Knowing they had to wait until sunrise to get in, they snuck back into the forest and after some searching, found a tucked away spot between two old trees.

They took turns sleeping. One listened for Wilma while the other dozed.

In the morning, hungry and still tired, they hurried back toward the gate. Once they had past the final line of trees and walked about halfway to the city entrance, they saw Wilma, gray hands and all, striding quickly toward them.

The Empress gave off a shriek and pushed the ant queen forward. They blasted right past a spear wielding guard and found themselves immediately in the thick of the morning market crowd.

“Can she see us in here?”

They held hands to make sure they didn’t lose each other. The smells of breakfast foods of all kinds assaulted their hungry bodies.

“Hey, pancakes. Let’s stop and get pancakes.”

They walked over to a delicious smelling stall filled with smiling chefs and steaming stacks of pancakes. Josephine and Christine smiled at each other.

A voice from behind whipped out at them. “This is not the jewelry store, ladies.”

The ant queen spun around and froze. Christine grabbed her friend by the hand and yanked. “Let’s run!” But Josephine was heavy, and instead of moving, skidded slightly across the cobblestone street. The two ladies fell backwards into the pancake cart, knocking over dozens of plates of delicious food.

Ear funnels

As the sun set and the moon became visible in the starry sky, the queen and the empress took turns spying. Wilma read her diary for a while, disappeared, and came up with another identical book that was again marked “Wilma’s diary”. It was probably around midnight that Josephine fell asleep and the empress decided to sneak up a bit closer to see what if she could read what the witch was reading about.

Catherine crawled on her belly, slowly from out of the bushes to the side entrance that led to the basement. From there, she couldn’t see but she could her Wilma mumbling to herself. Most of the sounds she caught were grumbles and a few were whistles or moans but using her special spy funnel held up to her ear, every once in a while she recognized a word or phrase.

“Pied cow,” Wilma said clearly.

The empress, not understanding it at all, wrote the phrase down in her spy notebook and slipped it into the secret pocket of her spy jacket. She strained for another hour by the basement door but only heard grunts and the occasional page turn. She walked back over to the ant queen and waking her, shared the news.

Ear funnels in hand, the two spies crept back over to the house, determined to glean more about what Wilma was so furiously researching. They heard bumps, moans, and grunts. They whispered.

“She seems really frustrated about her reading.”

“I get that way too when I reread my diary. I just remember how silly I was when I was younger.”

“I don’t think that’s it. She sounds like she’s really struggling.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that she really is.”

“No, I mean physically fighting.”

“It can feel like a real battle.”

There was a loud thump and both spies realized immediately it wasn’t coming from the window above their heads but from the door right next to them.

“That’s coming from the basement,” Josephine guessed quietly.

There was a muffled cry.

“Definitely the basement,” Catherine declared.

Wilma’s head poked out of the window and glared down at them. “What is this? What are you-“

The two spies shrieked, abandoned their funnels and bolted to then through the bushes.

Reading your own diary

The two royals, still dressed in their costumes, snuck around the house. First, they crouched behind the hedges, but couldn’t see much of anything. Then, they crept around to the garden and perched in the kale patch. From there, they could see through a window. The witch was sitting on her couch, holding a book. Maybe she was reading it? Maybe she was writing in it?

They decided if they were going to be spies, then they needed gear, so they went into town and bought what they thought spies would need: pens, notepads, and binoculars. With their new stuff in tow, they crouched back in the kale.

She was still sitting on her couch, with a book. Now with powerful lenses at their disposal, the royals could see that the book was a diary. In fact, with a turn of the lens, they could see the title, written on the front, was “Wilma’s diary”.

“Why is she reading her own diary?”

“I’ve done that,” said the Empress. “It’s fun sometimes.”

She sat there, still reading, for a long time. The day wore on and the sun started to set. The witch got up, disappeared and then sat down with another book. The title on the front, handwritten in black ink, was “Wilma’s diary”.

“Another one.”

“It’s like she’s reading her own story.”

Spotty

Christine looked at the witch through the eye holes of her mask. “Wilma, have you always had gray spots on your hands?”

“That’s paint. I was working on an art project earlier and must have gotten some of the gray skies on my hands.” She stood up and walked over to the door. “Now let’s move forward with the plan, children, shall we?”

The fake Poople and Noople walked outside into the afternoon sun. Christine, who was Poople, looked at Noople, who was actually Josephine. “Are you okay with stealing jewels?”

“I don’t think so,” Noople Josephine said. “I mean, no, actually.”

They walked down the path, a little bit away from the witch’s house, and then Poople Christine leaned against a tree. “I think something is going on with Wilma.”

“You mean her hands? She said it was paint.”

“I don’t buy it. The real Wilma wouldn’t ask us to steal from a store.”

“So what’s with the paint?”

“I don’t know. Something is happening.”

“Oh dear. In my condition, I just don’t know what I can do.”

“You’re always pregnant! You’re an ant queen. You can do anything and right now you need to become a spy.”

“A spy?”

“That’s right. We’re going to spy on the witch and see what she’s up to.”

Nice couch

Josephine cleared her throat, carefully placing a hand over her mouth as she did so. She brought her hand down and leaned in closer to Wilma. “Perhaps we could wear our costumes and cause a scene at that new fancy restaurant?”

Christine giggled. “You mean the one that serves all those different kinds of pancakes?”

They both rolled about on the couch with laughter. Wilma clapped her hands together and stood up off her stool. “No, no, ladies. You’ll have to think bigger than that.”

The ant and the demon kept laughing, sinking deeper into the newly upholstered purple cushions.

Wilma sat between them and clapped so loudly it echoed through the house. Both Christine and Josephine sat up straight as if they had been struck with lightning.

We need crowns

“Do you think it was enough to get them in trouble?”

“I should hope so! We upset nearly every high end clerk we met.”

Wilma looked back and forth between the ant and the six horned demon. “Children, please. Nothing will come of your foolishness. At worst, they simply won’t be allowed back into the jewelry store.”

The ant queen stumbled backwards. “A fate worse than exile from the hill! A lone ant with no hive! Can you imagine, empress, a life without necklaces?”

“Please, call me Christine, and the only thing worse than a monarch without necklaces is a ruler without a crown. Isn’t that so, fairest queen?”

“As long as we are being so informal, Christine, you can call me Josephine. And oh, you are so right, dear. How can one even preside over court without a proper crown?”

Wilma the witch sat heavily on a wooden stool in her kitchen. She sighed. “Let’s focus here, children. The crown. If we want the crown, we need Poople and Noople out of the picture, yes?”

Christine nodded. Josephine raised her hand.

“This isn’t a classroom honey, you can say whatever you want without my permission.”

“Oh, well. I mean, we don’t have to hurt them, do we? I mean, they did save our lives and our empires, didn’t they?”

Christine nodded again. “Yes, they did, she’s right, you know.”

“Yes. Well, children, we just have to get them in actual trouble, not just give them a bad reputation at the jewelry store.”