Intermission: The Matta Fruit Scuffle

 

 

 

Intermission: The Matta Fruit Scuffle

 

ONE day, before Amy had adopted Tigger, she visited him at the Coverdale estate. She had become a regular feature of the house at this point, so as she was taking her usual route to the cat room, the head butler she had come to know well called out to her. He was accompanied by a maid pushing a cart.

He dropped a shriveled-up fruit into the palm of Amy’s hand. It was dried, brown, and roughly the size of a chestnut.

“Gramps, what is this?”

She had asked for his name before, but the dashing silver-haired butler had politely told her, “Please call me Gramps. Everyone does.” Amy, embarrassed and flustered, had nodded without argument.

“It’s a dried matta fruit. Cats love it more than anything else. But I’d suppose one would call it an indulgence. It’s been a while since I’d last procured some.”

Amy guessed it was something like a dried matatabi fruit from her previous life. Although she knew matatabi was much more intense than catnip, she had never seen it in person before, so she couldn’t exactly compare the two… But the names were similar enough.

“It’s an appetite stimulant, too. When I find a cat isn’t eating much, I crush up a small amount and mix it into their food. I used some the other day, in fact, on a cat we just took in.”

“Really?”

Amy noticed that next to the cat food on the cart was a mortar and pestle, which already had a small amount of crushed dried matta fruit inside it.

When she picked up the mortar, Amy detected a plantlike odor, but she wouldn’t call it a particularly strong smell. It did nothing for humans, but the smell and taste were irresistible to cats.

The butler, who knew that Amy was going to adopt Tigger, would sometimes teach her different things about cats. This must have been another one of his lessons.

“It’s similar to alcohol for humans. Even if they want more, you mustn’t give them too much of it.”

Amy nodded obediently and the butler smiled. Then they entered the cat room.

Cats would normally come up to Amy when she visited, but today, as she held the mortar with the dried matta fruit, they ran at her with frightening speed.

“Oh, now, now, kitties!” said the butler, trying in vain to calm them down. “Lady Amy, hand the mortar over here—”

“Ahhh!”

Tigger led the stampede, and as cat after cat climbed up her dress, Amy, with a mixture of elation and panic, was totally overpowered.

She lifted the matta fruit above her head, but just as she tried to hand it to the butler—one of her hands slipped.

Before she could say the word oops, Amy felt something falling—sprinkling—onto her hair.

She saw the cats’ eyes literally start glowing, hypnotized as they were by gluttony.

🐾🐱🐾

“…JUST what is going on here?”

“Oh, young master! There’s been a terrible accident. I was just wondering how we could extract her…”

“Extract who? Where is Amy?”

Alexander had come down because he had heard that Amy was there, but he could never have predicted the astonishing sight that awaited him.

All the cats in the house had piled into a heap. As they chirped happy little meows, they rubbed and nuzzled against something that had fallen on the floor. Underneath the mountain of cats, he could just barely see the hem of a dress…

“I-It’s my fault!” came a muffled voice. “Don’t get upset with the cats!”

“Huh?! Is that thing under there Amy?! Look, tell me not to get upset all you want, but— Oi! Tigger! You get off her, at least! Aren’t you totally squished?”

As cats clung to every single inch of her, it looked like she had been swallowed up by a sleeping bag of cats, her body entirely covered in fur. Amy was in heaven, being nuzzled by cats so ardently and fervidly… But as it got harder and harder to breathe, perhaps Amy was getting closer to that heaven than she realized…

Even though Tigger refused to leave her side and swatted at them, Alexander and the butler somehow managed to peel him off. They were able to pull off most of the others, too, and then when only a few “small” cats (normal-sized cats, but small compared with Tigger) remained, Amy was able to escape from Cat Mountain, totally out of breath.

“Hey, are you okay? I mean…you look like a mess.”

“Y-You’re one to talk!”

The two looked at each other, hair disheveled, clothes totally crumpled and creased, surrounded by cats and tufts of fur…

But Amy, cheeks slightly pink, still seemed happy. Alec looked shell-shocked; he was covered in scratches and holding an overwhelmed Tigger in his arms. Only the butler looked normal, somehow unscathed.

“…How are you totally fine?” Alec asked the butler grumpily.

“I suppose an old-man’s wisdom can be applied to many different situations,” he replied serenely.

Amy finally couldn’t hold it in anymore. She broke out into hysterical laughter, which softened even Alec’s expression. They always remembered the day Amy’s merry laughter reverberated throughout the duke’s estate. It was also the day they learned a very valuable lesson—one should not, under any circumstances, lift dried matta fruit above one’s head.