Miss. Maine padded softly onto the stage, brushing her long hair out of her face. Raising the microphone to her lips, she said, "Well, ladies and gentlemen, this has been thought-provoking, but...is there some rule I haven't heard that says folktales can't be, y'know, fun?"
"Nope!" Miss. Idaho yelled from backstage.
Miss. Maine cracked her trademark cute grin. "Do you guys wanna hear the story about Annika, the seafaring cat?"
"Hell yeah!" Miss. Idaho yelled again. Miss. Hawaii cheered behind her, and so the tale began.
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Once upon a relatively recent time there lived a cat named Annika. Now Annika may have had four little paws like any other cat and she may have had a long twitchy tail like any other cat, but Annika had a secret: she loved the sea.
Towering waves? No bother. Dastardly whirlpools? Not a single hair on her fluffy back would raise. Now, cats are not technically compatible with the sea, and it cost her her first five lives to figure out exactly how to sail Point A to Point B, but by the time her sixth life rolled around she was a master of the high seas, dashing around the globe with the ease of kittens killing a catnip mouse.
During her annual trip to Malta, word fell on Annika's pointed ears that a ship of pirates were scourging the Mediterranean and leaving no prisoners. Without a moment's pause, our good-hearted Annika began hatching a plan.
When the new moon let fall a blanket of darkness over her sleepy town, Annika snuck into a local department store and dragged the mannikens out, on by one, by the motion-sensor front door. Once she had a small 'crew' assembled, she dragged them to a fancy police cruiser in the bay and happily tramped on their plastic faces until they were a sore sight to behold. Lifting anchor, she set sail into the gaping blackness of the sea with her tail held high.
With her superior sense of smell and hearing, it wasn't long before she managed to slide into sight of the pirates. "Hey! Who goes there?" screamed the watchman, peering into the darkness through his spyglass.
"Meow," Annika primly replied, standing on the edge of the boat. The dim starlight illuminated the silhouettes of the destroyed mannequin surrounding her.
"Cap'n?" called the watchman. "There's, uh, a boat here full of corpses. And a little pussycat 'n the middle."
"What? Who'd kill a pussycat?" demanded the pirate captain, emerging from his cabin.
"N'sir. Pussycat's alive and well. I think she's eat'n one of the corpses, sir."
"Let me see," the pirate demanded, grabbing the watchman's spyglass. Holding it to his eye, he whispered, "Holy mother of cow, that pussycat single-handedly destroyed them policemen that'v been hounding us. With her on our side, we'll be able to take the Italian isles. Pull her up, men, pull her up!"
The men threw down a rope, but instead of waiting to be rescued, Annika leapt over the waves, grabbed the twine, and nimbly climbed to deck. The assembled pirates marveled at her skill and dexterity. Annika rolled at the feet of the captain and purred, then hissed and yowled when the first mate tried to pet her belly.
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"I'm 'fraid she doesn't like you, sonny," the watchman laughed. The captain, adoring, scooped Annika into his arms and set off to fit her with the proper gear.
Once she was dressed in a small mouse-print bandana and two pairs of the finest leather booties, she set to work annihilating the ship's vermin--to the captain's delight--and stashing the tiny bodies in the first mate's clothing--to no one's delight, since no one noticed her doing so. But when morning came around and the first mate lifted his tri-point hat, what should fall splat on his head but a dead mouse?
"Sir!" the first mate declared as he stormed into the captain's room. "That cat–"
"What 'bout our fearsome huntress, who I love so dearly?" the pirate captain asked.
The first mate gulped. "I...I heard the watchm'n say a fat barque is heading our way, loaded with rich old guppies. Let's put our ferocious kitty to the test, and send her t' clear the ship!"
"Jolly good!" said the captain. "Bring the kitty hither!"
And so Annika was sent in a liferaft off across the sparkling blue seas to bring the barque down.
No sooner had the pirate ship become a smudge on the horizon that Annika's boat knocked against the barque. Clambering aboard, she raised up such a catterwaul that all the ship's passengers came running. "A pirate cat? Whatever could this mean?" asked the cook.
"Look! She came in the direction of that ship on the distance! It must be the dread pirates of the warm sea!" cried a little girl, pointing. The passengers began to wail in alarm.
Quickly, then, Annika raced to the far side of the boat and pawed at the liferafts. Picking up her cue, the passengers began to load themselves into boats. Conversation broke about who would remain to lower the last boat, but then all hushed, for Annika lifted her furry paw and began to lower the liferafts herself!
When all passengers were thus saved and rowing towards the distant shores, protected from the pirates' view by the body of the abandoned ship, Annika set to work. She scratched the planks. She scattered the kitchen knives across the floor with flicks of her paws. She drowned the deck in vats of tomato soup, and shred the passenger's leftover clothes until the deck was coated in scraps. When she was done, she loaded the raft with spoils and sped back to the pirates.
"Our pussycat returns victorious!" cheered the captain, hoisting Annika and her raft ashore. "Quick, men! Hoist the sales!" When they were close enough to behold Annika's handiwork, the men whooped and hollered, and tripped overthemselves to lower the gangplank and overtake the waiting, wealth-ladened barque.
The captain ran from room to room, gathering coins and throwing them in the air like rain, and the watchman gorged himself on the rich food stores in the kitchen, but the first mate was far more surely. He paced on the deck, muttering angrily to himself. And then he slipped and fell face-first into a pile of blood.
Only...it wasn't blood. Why did it smell suspiciously like...
"Tomato soup?" he hollered, scrambling to his feet. "That dangnabit kitty tricked us!"
But it was too late. The pirate ship was already a league away, with Annika at its helm. And the pirates' cannons, guns, knives, and all other goodies safely stored beneath her paws.
It wasn't long before the guard arrived at the barque, sent by the passengers who'd washed to shore, and there they found the most sheepish cast of pirates you ever did see. They gave up without a fight, and the whole town came out to see the pirates – dressed in the finest velvets, with the richest of cake crumbs sprinkled across their chests – marched through the streets with iron shackles around their wrists. But that old pirate captain, well, he cursed Annika's name to the high heavens and beyond, lathering so much hatred on her good name that it was said her soul must have withered and died right there!
But she had three more lives left, so it was just another feather in the cap of Annika, the seafaring cat.
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"You're at 4:58, babe," Miss. Hawaii yelled from offstage.
"Darn it. Guess I'll need to figure out what happens in the rest of Annika's lives another time," Miss. Maine said, dropping into a little curtsy for the audience. "It's been an honor, America!" She walked offstage to thunderous applause.