The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook Read Online Free PDF Page B

just one cat.
    â€œâ€˜Where are the other twenty-five?’ asked the villainous Victor.
    â€œâ€˜I’ve only brought one cat, Your Royal Adviser,’ said the farmer.
    â€œVictor’s boa constrictor hissed in Victor’s ear.
    â€œâ€˜
Cat
rhymes with
crows
? NOT!’ declared Victor, narrowing his eyes.
    â€œâ€˜But—’
    â€œThe villainous Victor didn’t let the farmer explain further. ‘Off with his head!’ he shouted.
    â€œâ€˜Ha, ha, don’t be silly!’ exclaimed Prince Fredericko.
    â€œThen Princess Oonella, a good noticer, noticed something incredible.
    â€œâ€˜Why, this cat has twenty-six TOES!’ she exclaimed. ‘
Toes
rhymes with
crows
!’
    â€œâ€˜You’re right!’ exclaimed the queen.
    â€œâ€˜That’s what I was trying to tell you,’ said the farmer. ‘This is a special cat.’
    â€œâ€˜What’s so special about him?’ asked the villainous Victor. ‘OK, he has twenty-six toes. But what does he
do
?’
    â€œAll of a sudden: ‘EE-OW! EE-OWEY!’”
    My dad liked to get a good yell or two in every story to make his audience jump. I like to do that, too. Freddy jumps, but then he laughs.
    So I yell again. “‘EE-OW! EE-OWEY!’
    â€œThat cat had begun to yowl, because he missed his mother and siblings. His yowl was incredibly loud, echoing throughout the Great Main Hall and all the other smaller, minor ones. The yowling was so loud, no one heard the raindrops at first. But then they heard the earsplitting claps of thunder.
    â€œâ€˜HURRAH, HURRAH!’ shouted the Rebusinians. ‘That cat’s yowling caused the rain to fall!’
    â€œSomeone found a guitar, and of course there were those twenty-six piccolos, so they had a fantastic party with singing and dancing and pizza in the Great Main Hall, as well as lots of celebrating everywhere else in the kingdom. The rain lasted for a whole week.
    â€œAnd there’s still more to this happy ending.
    â€œThe zucchini farmer was given a medal at a special ceremony. The queen announced that the cat was to be called Miraculo and have the honor of residing with them in the castle, as the Royal Cat. Also, the villainous Victor was punished for almost spoiling everything with bad advice. His hours as a Royal Adviser were cut quite a bit. He tried to blame his mistakes on the boa constrictor, but the queen didn’t believe him. Anyway, the queen realized she received lots of good advice from her very own children.
    â€œActually, the ending wasn’t
that
happy.
    â€œAll day long, Miraculo lounged in the Great Main Hall on a purple velvet cushion, getting fat. Royal Servants brought him tasty tidbits on a gold platter. His favorite tidbit was pizza, which was especially fattening. But soon Miraculo began to miss his former freedom. It was so boring being a rich cat, cooped up inside the castle. Every now and then he’d do his Royal Job, yowling to bring on a rainstorm. But even that got ho-hum after a while. He couldn’t run quickly anymore, and he no longer had the energy or the appetite to chase mice on account of his weight gain. Anyway, the Royal Mice-catchers had pretty much gotten rid of all the Royal Rodents. Sadly, Miraculo remembered that chasing mice used to be a whole lot of fun.
    â€œHOWEVER, little did Miraculo realize that he was about to get his freedom in an unexpected way!
    â€œThe jealous, villainous Royal Adviser Victor, upon the advice of his boa constrictor, was hatching a villainous plot to kill him.
    â€œIn the dead of a Saturday night, when everyone was sleeping soundly after an exciting Royal Ball, Victor tiptoed into the Great Main Hall, where Miraculo lay on his purple velvet cushion. Victor’s boa constrictor coiled itself around Miraculo, who was deep in a dream about the finest pizza in the land. Then the snake slithered with the cat into the Royal