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“What are you doing, Sweetheart?” Jellylorum asked. All she could see of her youngest kitten was the tip of her grey and yellow tail.
“Mama!” Etcetera shrieked. “Tumble said this tyre was magic! So I’m investigating it.”
“Did he, now?” Jelly hummed with a smile, peering into the middle of the large old tyre that looked over the Junkyard.
“Yeah,” Etcetera replied, poking her head up and leaning her chin on the inner rim of the worn rubber. “I didn’t believe him, of course, so I asked Misto because he’s magic.”
“Of course. And what did he say?”
“He said he’d look at it with me, and then he said ‘yes, it’s magic, watch this’, and then he jumped into the middle here where I am now and disappeared! So it’s definitely magic, because it made that Grizzy Cat vanish too, didn’t it?”
Jelly carefully made sure not to laugh. Of course, it must have looked like a magic tyre to the Kittens, who were just a bit too young to understand quite what it meant to be the Jellicle Choice.
“Yes, she did disappear after standing on the tyre, didn’t she?” Her words were cautiously chosen; she didn’t want to lie to her Kitten, but didn’t want to quash her fun either.
“Yes! That was fine, but I don’t want to tell Victoria I lost her brother! If the tyre ate him she’ll be so smad!” Etcetera wailed.
“‘Smad’?”
“Sad and mad mixed together,” Etcetera explained, waving a paw as though this were obvious. To her, it probably was. “But if Vic gets smad, then Plato will get sad and Alonzo will get angry, and then Munkustrap will get all worried, and then Demeter will get all worried, and then Jemima, and everyone will get mad at me! And-”
“Cettie!” Jelly interrupted her increasingly loud and high pitched monologue. “No one is getting angry, or worried, or ‘smad’, ok? You know Misto, don’t you? What kind of Cat is he?”
“A Magic Cat?”
“Yes, but what else?” Jelly pressed.
“A Conjuring Cat?”
“Exactly, which means that if he disappears, he can conjure himself back, just like he did to Old Deuteronomy, remember?”
Understanding dawned on Etcetera’s face and her frown cleared as she realised what her mum meant.
“Oh yeah!” she squealed. “I forgot he could teleport. But should he not have come back by now?”
“Hmmm,” Jelly thought out loud. “Well, teleporting must be difficult, don’t you think? I think it’s hard to aim when you can’t see where you’re going. Maybe he did come back, but popped up in a different place?”
At that, Cettie leaped up on top of the tyre, a look of excitement in her eyes.
“Of course, Mama, you’re right! I should go find him, make sure he’s ok after the tyre played a trick on him. I’ll ask Tugger, he always knows where he is!” She jumped down and tore across the clearing towards the alley where Tugger’s den was. “You be careful there too, Mama! That tyre is tricksy!”
“I’ll watch myself!” Jellylorum called back, stifling a laugh as Etcetera vanished around the bend. She had no doubt Cettie would find Misto curled up in Tugger’s den having a nap, and they’d all have a laugh about it later.