Rat

Malnutrition
By Elodie Grace Orkin

 
RAT Malnutrition
A Journey through Egypt

A Cat “tail” of two countries

By Elodie Grace Orkin
  

Chapter 1
— George —

Once upon a furry ‘tail,’ there

were three cats: Picasso, Monet, and Scruffy.

Poor Scruffy! She was always somewhat
disgruntled by her ‘cat’astrophic name. Her
two conspiring kitten sisters were, alas, not
very kind. Not only would they make fun of her
name, they would also make fun of her
boyfriend’s name, George, by calling him ‘cat
of the earth.’ They thought they were
‘hiss’terical!
 Chapter II
—Grandma’s scratchins—

In the midst of suffering many low blows from

her sisters, Scruffy received a telegram from

her grandma in Egypt; it was the ‘purr’fect
distraction from her sisters’ abuse. In the
message there was a picture of some of the
hieroglyphics her grandmother had carved eight
long lives ago. The message also stated that
her grandmother had fallen ill with a
mysterious disease. Scruffy immediately
twinkle-toed through the house looking for her
mother and master, Elodia.
“You want to see your grandmother’s
hieroglyphics in Egypt?!?!?!” her mother
remarked, surprised.

“Meow,” Scruffy nodded.

“Okay,” her mum agreed.

You might wonder why Scruffy didn’t tell her

mum why she really wanted to go to Egypt: to
help heal her grandmother. Scruffy knew that
if her sisters found out, they would want to
go, as well, and that would be an a‘paw’lling
burden.
 Chapter III
— Into the portal —

With ‘cat’napsack in hand, Scruffy flew to

Egypt with her mum. During the plane ride,

Scruffy remembered she shared the same genes
with her grandmother and worried that she
might suffer the same illness when she is
older. Upon arrival, Scruffy and her mum hired
two obnoxiously stinky dromedary camels to
carry them to her grandma’s hieroglyphics. On
their bumpy ride, Scruffy and her mum took
lots of photographs of sphinxes and pyramids,
recording the dry, dusty, and vast landscape
of the desert. Unfortunately, along the way,
they got lost. Luckily, Scruffy was a
polyglot; so, she was able to speak the native
language of Egypt (as well as being able to
speak Korean, Gaelic, French, Spanish, Thai,
Polish, Greek, Farsi, English, Pig-Latin,
German, Armenian, and Aboriginal languages of
Australia, in a pinch) and asked for
directions.

Finally, they got to their destination, and

Scruffy revealed to her mother why they had
really gone to Egypt: TO SAVE HER GRANDMA!
Scruffy swiped her paw across the
hieroglyphics; whereupon, the portal to the
Egyptian ‘cat’acombs opened, sucking them into
a dizzying vortex.
 Chapter IV
— Sprawled on the Chaise lounge —

As if awaking from a dream, Scruffy and her

mum, Elodia, looked around and saw a world

unfamiliar to mankind. There were pyramids the
size of bookshelves lining the kitty litter
streets. The sky was a strange eerie purple
and was filled with a mixture of salmon,
halibut, and sea bass-shaped clouds. The parks
were only filled with cat trees, which had
many stories and limbs of scratching material,
‘purr’fect for climbing and enjoying
‘cat’naps.

Scruffy pressed the photograph her grandmother

had ‘scent’ to her to her nose, carefully
following the photograph’s smell of shrimp,
snow peas, and jasmine tea.
When they finally arrived at Minxleon’s
(Scruffy’s grandmother’s) gigantic pyramid,
they found her stretched out aristocratically
on a velvet chaise lounge, covered in a
‘torti’-shell robe.

“Hello, grandma, any news on your diagnosis?”

Scruffy purred anxiously.

“Hello, my sweet dear, and yes, Dr. Meowsers

told me what I’m suffering from. At first,
because of my inflamed stomach, we thought it
was gastritis. But after additional blood
testing we discovered the root of it all: NOT
ENOUGH RATS IN MY DIET.”

Scruffy slapped both paws on either cheek,

“WHAT!?!?!” she shrieked.
Weakly, her grandmother replied, “Yes, my
dear, it is true, for you see, I fancy the
finer diet of shrimp and caviar. How could I
ever bear to consume the lowly, disgusting
creatures called rats! I grim‘hiss’ at the
thought of it!!!”
 Chapter V
— Rodent brew —

Scruffy immediately set off to the local

grocery store, Pet-Cairo, to buy some plump,

dellllllicous, juicy, rats, that in Scuffy’s
opinion looked positively scrumptious.

Back at her grandmother’s, Scruffy worked

furiously to concoct a dish that masked the
taste of rat meat by adding shrimp and caviar
— a simple solution to cure her grandmother’s
illness.

After her grandmother’s evident recovery,

Scruffy and Elodia were able to take some
pictures of the hieroglyphics. And then it was
time to go home.
 Chapter VI
— Three lives —

On the plane ride home, Scruffy was helping

Elodia catch up on her grammar homework on

commas, semicolons, and colons. But Scruffy
wasn’t supposed to be on the flight. After
all, she was a cat and this was a
hypoallergenic plane. When the flight
attendant caught her amongst the sneezing and
wheezing passengers, she tossed Scruffy out of
the plane; coincidentally, throwing Scruffy
directly over Elodia’s house!!! Landing on her
roof, Scruffy luckily only lost three of her
nine lives. (Although, Scruffy did suffer mild
gynecological problems due to the harsh
landing that her doctor, specializing in
female health, had to address).
George, who heard the loud thump on the roof,
went to investigate. Lo and behold, Scruffy
was on the roof licking the dust off of her
fur. After sharing her ‘tail’ of adventure,
George decided it was time to propose.

With whiskers nervously twitching, he purred,

“will you marry me, my heroic Scruffy?!?!?!”

“MEOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

And the two of them lived monogamously ever

after.
 The
End

 
  
 
Greek RootS—Glossary
George Geo—Of The Earth

Telegram Gram—written language/writing

Grammar Gram—written language/writing

Hieroglyphics Glyph—Carving
Hiero—Sacred

Genes Gen—Birth/Beginning

Polyglot Glot—Tongue/Language

Aristocratically Aristo—Best
Crat—Government/rules/power

diagnosis Gnosis—Recognition

Gastritis Gastro—Stomach

ITIS—INFALMATION

Gynecological Gyn—Woman

Monogamously Gam—marriage