First let me assure you that I, Thomas Grey, am rather unremarkable. I am not an exceptional scholar. I am not an exceptional athlete. I have brown hair and bluish gray eyes. I am of average height and, I am told, average appearance. I am not one to appear in the yearbook or any school publication. Clubs hold little interest to me as I would rather use my time to read fantasy or science fiction peacefully at home
I am average, a singularly uninteresting existence. Yet extraordinary events and people seem to appear around me. My best friend from elementary school became a great and noted athlete, courted by colleges and professional teams even in his Junior year. My middle school was the only building destroyed when a once in a lifetime earthquake hit the region last fall. The first actual jackelope ever caught and displayed live in captivity occurred while I toured the Grand Canyon last summer. Yet, no one notices me.
I want to be interesting. I want to be remembered. I want to have a girl actually talk to me about something other than a school assignment. At the very least, I want people in the same class to remember my name, as I get the distinct impression that when my classmates speak to me they avoid saying my name because they simply do not remember it.
Perhaps I suffer due to my remarkable parents. Perhaps, they used up my fifteen minutes of fame once they used up their own allotment. My father is a translator and works as a consultant to multiple companies, but his job keeps him abroad and while I often see him it is just as the man translating for the CEO of Company X or the Owner of Company Y on the financial news. My mother is a famous chef. She travels the world for months at a time working with other famous chefs and teaching at various schools. I miss them both. Though neither one of them gets to spend much time with me, the time we do share is treasured. No, I do not live on my own in a small house in the city or in a mansion in the hills attended by servants. Those kinds of things only happen in manga and other fiction. For now I live with my Aunt and Uncle, and every now and then one parent or the other drops by for a visit.
I believe I have established that I am unremarkable. So the question is why do these things keep happening around me? Why does the stray dog that appears in the woods have three heads? Why does the only person to ever die from being hit by an asteroid, do so while sleeping in the tent next to mine at summer camp? These are not rare occurrences to me. I have been just outside the frame of more famous headline photographs in the news than I can count. Strange events hover about me like the proverbial moths about the flame and in each one someone gets burned, whether it be the bush upon which the three headed stray urinated or the poor unfortunate soul hit by the flaming space debris.
Okay so I am exaggerating a bit with that last statement. The events are often just strange and do not result in any physical harm to anyone or anything in particular. Yesterday morning, for example, I was walking to school as I normally do. That is to say getting distracted every few minutes by the anatomy of my female schoolmates’ and daydreaming about actually talking to one of them. When THAT happened I was engrossed in staring at Polly’s butt. Let me change that, I was covertly staring at Polly’s butt. The last thing I needed to do was draw her attention and run the risk of her quizzing me to death on various and sundry points about the weather and my apparent lack of manners. Yes, I want to speak with a girl. Speaking with Polly is impossible, as she only speaks to others, with emphasis on the word 'to.' But enough about Polly, what happened as I stared at Polly's butt while walking to school yesterday can be summed up simply.
A girl with cat ears walked out of a telephone pole.
When I say, "walked out of," I do not mean she walked from behind it, though she did indeed appear to walk out from behind it from my perspective. However she was not so thin as to have been completely hidden from sight by the pole. She walked out as if stepping through an unseen doorway and stopped to take stock of her surroundings as her shoulder length black hair streamed back from her face as the wind caught it. Upon seeing me her ears pricked forward and a smile bloomed across her face.
"Aye, it looks as if I have found the right place indeed." she crowed to herself. Grinning like, excuse me for saying this, Carroll's Chesire Cat as she looked at me. Well aware of my gaze she waved and turned with a flick of her tail to disappear back from whence she had come. Yes, she had a tail. No, it was not a hallucination. I am positive Polly saw her as well, as I swear Polly glared at the telephone pole for at least ten seconds before moving forward as if nothing had occurred.
I sighed. This was normal for me. Normal! A girl appearing out of nowhere and speaking with a Scottish accent while sporting feline characteristics that appear real should not be normal damn it! I should not have thought to myself, "Oh at least it is just a cat girl and she left. I wonder what Aunt Carol packed for lunch today." I am unremarkable; I should not have to have such ridiculous thoughts cohabitate in my brain with the normal thoughts.
It was tuna fish in case you were wondering, so in some ways I do guess tuna sandwiches and cats belong together. Actually my aunt packed three day’s worth of lunches before leaving for the beach. It was very kind of her to do so, but the bread was starting to get that stale taste from over refrigeration, however, I digress. Nothing else of note occurred so I thought nothing more of it the rest of the day, but I should have. I really should have known that a simple random appearance would not be the end of it. I should have at least guessed at what would happen next.
The next morning I rise as I normally do approximately five minutes before my alarm clock goes off. I shower and dress in my school uniform. I eat the generic cereal my aunt purchased for the family before my aunt, uncle and cousin left for the beach to visit a sick relative to whom I am not related by blood. I pick up my lunch and my books as a tremor runs through the house causing the glasses in the china cabinet to rattle. Is this another aftershock from last year’s earthquake? I shrug and assume it was just a large vehicle passing on the road out front, I put on my shoes and step through the front door onto the front step.
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Correction!
I step through the front door to meet empty air where the front step should be. Windmilling my arms I manage to fall back into the house rather than forward into a hole wherein the front step once sat.
The hole is not small.
Actually, I think the pit that lies before me would be insulted at me calling it a mere hole.
The entire front yard is nearly gone. Only the trees that line its edges remain circling the pit leaning at odd angles, roots exposed.
Is it a sinkhole? No, sinkholes do not look like this. Sinkholes have rough edges. Sinkholes are not full of sand. Most importantly, sinkholes do not look like a giant antlion has taken up residence.
When I was very little before she started travelling, my mother would show me the antlion, or doodlebugs, that would take up residence near the air-conditioning unit at my grandmother’s house.
We would tease the antlion with a blade of grass to get it to jump in its hole. This had to be an antlion hole, but if this was an antlion hole I had no desire to meet the antlion that resided therein.
The pit in front of me is at least 20 feet in diameter. Were it meets the street in front of the house the asphalt is melted and glassy. At the bottom of the pit something is waiting.
Curiosity.
Curiosity is a great strength when it comes to learning, but I’ve been told my curiosity verges on idiocy. I rummage through my lunch bag and find an apple. I toss the fruit like a softball into the conical pit. Sure enough, sand erupts from the center and an enormous antlion disappointedly withdraws with an apple impaled on its chitinous sickle like jaw.
“Hmm…rather a difficult thing to get past isn’t it?” A lilting voice says. Turning to my right I see a familiar head of dark hair sporting cat ears. It’s the girl from the telephone pole. She sits perched on a branch of the old black cherry tree which cants slightly to the side because some of its roots had dislodged due to the giant antlion pit. She smiles, winks, and hops over to land beside me as effortlessly as if some massive unseen hand has lifted her over and set her down.
“I’ve been playing with it for the past few minutes.” She states matter-of-factly. “It does seem quite hungry, but I don’t think it likes fruit. It sounds somewhat disappointed.”
Actually, I do hear what sounds like disgruntled grunting rising from the pit. Funny, I never thought of whether Antlions made sound let alone complained.
“Nevermind that! Who are you?! Why are you here?” I demand. I mean after all it’s not every day that a cat-girl appears. Okay, maybe given the last 24 hours that may be inaccurate, but let’s not start a trend.
“He’s faced with a giant bug and he’s more concerned with me. What a strange guy!” She chuckles.
“I – AM – NOT – STRANGE! I am normal damn it!” She really is getting on my nerves. I mean after all I still need to get to school. I am normal. I am unremarkable. These things do not happen because of me. I notice my grip on my bag has tightened to the point where my knuckles have turned white. Breathing deeply I consciously release my grip.
The girl just watches me with a bemused expression. “They don’t? Does everyone have a giant bug around here?” She asks looking up the street as if trying to spy other Antlion pits.
“No, but it’s not like I put it there.”
“Well, it’s still quite interesting. I wonder what it tastes like.” She says cocking her head to the side and staring cutely down at the doozy of a doodlebug that is still grumbling as it shifts the loose sand back over itself.
“Whatever. This has nothing to do with me.” I mutter.
Maybe I can go through the backyard and up the alleyway. I should be able to make up for lost time and avoid getting caught up in the inevitable media spectacle that was going to appear in front of the house. Maybe I can stay at Frank’s house tonight. I start towards the backdoor. With any luck the cat and lion will resolve themselves and I can get back to being normal. Though, she is kind of cute…NO. No. No. No. I am not getting involved.
I hope my Aunt and Uncle don’t get home too late from their trip to the beach or they are going to find a media circus blocking the driveway. Three days by myself and now I gift them with a giant bug in their yard.
“Wait, no it’s not my fault. Damn that cat! It’ll serve her right if she falls out the front door. The front door! It’s still open. Damn it. Damn, damn, damn!” I grumble, stomping back to the front of the house. I can’t just leave it open for whoever to come traipsing through.
I get back to the front door to see several onlookers already gathering, pointing not just at the giant hole, but also at my female visitor who has, unfortunately, not managed to make herself disappear back to whence she came.
“Either get out or come in.” I growl at my uninvited guest. “I need to close the door before anyone decides to come in.” I am being a bit of a jerk, but still considering the circumstances I feel I am a bit justified.
“Do you really think they might try?” She asks with a hopeful glance towards the street. “That might be amusing seeing them attempt it.” She lifts her arm as to beckon the onlookers over at which point I pull her inside and slam the door.
“What are you thinking!?” I seethe, “Those people are not your toys.”
“Whatever.” She says spinning towards me. “I am Catherine. And you are?”
“Now you introduce yourself? Never mind, I’m already tired and I haven’t even left the house. Go away Catherine. Or make yourself at home. Or go back inside a telephone pole for all I care. I’m done and I’m going.” I say charging to the back door and outside determined to put all of this nonsense behind me.