I found this prompt from a First Line Generator page. Seriously, how could I not use a first line like this?
This puts me at 13,640 words to date. Only 2000 words per day to go!
Call me Fluffikins and hear my story. This is why I am famous.
Sure I look like your average moggy. Grey fur, splotchy markings, stubby tail. Nasty attitude. But deep down, I really am...
Well, why make the story any shorter than I have to. You'll learn soon enough.
I was born on the streets. I never met my father, that I can remember. My mother tolerated my presence as much as she had to, and then sent me to make my own way in the world.
Fortunately for me, I met a fishmonger. A nice enough guy, with a wife and three kids. He let me stay in his shop if I kept the mice population down, something I was good at so it came about. I got a nice basket of rags to sleep in behind the woodstove, and he got a shop free of mice. I also got all the fish scraps I could eat, which was a delicious bonus.
He called me cat. His three-year old daughter called me Fluffikins.
Yes, it was embarassing. It really was. So was being dressed up by a child in old baby clothes. It kept me warm, dry, and fed, so I didn't complain. Much.
My days were pretty much the same. Mouse. Eat. Sleep. Run away from child. Get caught by child. Wiggle out of bonnet. Mouse again.
For a cat it's not too bad, really. It could be a lot worse.
There were a couple of customers who came in, and looked at me oddly. The idea of a cat in a shop wasn't approved of, even back then, not by everyone. They shooed me out the door, every time.
"Disgusting thing," one old woman always said. "I don't know why you let it stay in here."
The fishmonger laughed then, and gave the same answer. "You'd find the mice a lot worse, Doris. The cat at least earns his keep round here."
So it went for a few years. I started to sleep more, eat more, and mouse perhaps a little less. The daughter grew up, and got better at catching me. I started to wander outside a little more, just to get away from her.
One evening, on my rounds in the village, I noticed there was a strange sound coming from a couple of blocks away, to the east. It didn't sound like a normal sound, nothing I'd heard in my years here, anyway. I started walking in that direction, to check it out.
It sounded metallic, like the knives that the fishmonger used in the shop. The regular clanging was broken only by the sound of words, human words I didn't quite understand. They sounded angry, like when the fishmonger's wife caught me on the table stealing scraps and started throwing pots at me. It didn't sound like a good thing, but I found myself still walking forward, wanting to know why.
This way lay the sea. The salty air stung my eyes, and the smell of fresh fish made my stomach rumble. I began to hear the wooden boats slapping against the docks as they were rocked by the waves from the ocean. There was a bit of splashing, and more voices. I hurried a little, curious as to what coul dbe happening by the water.
I kept to the shadows, and peered out into the dimly lit docks. There were men there, dressed in various items as humans do. They had large, shiny knives, much bigger than what I'd seen in the shop. Several of these men were waving their knives at the harbour master, yelling at him as he cowered in a corner. I wasn't sure why anyone would be angry at the harbour master; he'd always been quick to feed me small fish, and had this great way of scratching behind my ears that...
But I digress.
The men were yelling at the harbour master, and waving their great knives about. Several of them had gotten into his building, and were doing something that echoed with great crashes through the alley. The men came out again waving large sacks that looked to be full of something very heavy.
Maybe they were stealing the harbour masters fish!
I crept forward. The men with the sacks headed out to one of the boats that was tied close to the harbour master's building. They tossed them up over the railing, and several of them followed the sacks up. The rest turned back towards the buildings with knives raised to the sky again.
This didn't seem good. The men didn't smell or look like anyone else in the area. I was used to habit, and this was outside of the ordinary. There was a distinct lack of anything unordinary around here. This had to stop.
I turned tail and ran, glad that my colours let me blend into the night. I moved as fast as I could through the streets back to the store, but paused before going in. The strange men had knives far larger than anything here. Bigger usually won, at least in the cat world. I needed to find someone with really large knives.
I knew who I had to find.
I ran back towards the docks for half a block, and turned right at the butcher's. The cheese shop stood at the corner I needed to turn at next, and it smelled like it was right where I expected it to be. Three steps down, four up, and another right.
This was the place. This building smelled of fear and pain and stale bodies. That made this the building where the humans went to sleep off their yeasty drinks from the pub next door. And this is where the largest knife in the village was.
The door was closed. I tried scratching the wood, but nothing happened. I sat back on my haunches and looked up. The light was on in the top window, so someone was here. I just had to find a way to get their attention whether they liked it or not.
I'm not proud of this. It's not something I do, as it tends to result in old shoes raining down on me. But I tilted my head up and sang. Loudly.
I was only a few bars in before the window flew open.
"SHUT UP YOU BLOODY ANNOYING CREATURE WHAT THE DEVIL ARE YOU GOING ON ABOUT GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I SKIN YOU ALIVE YOU LOUSY..."
I stopped singing. The voice stopped shouting. The knives at the dock clanged loudly, and the harbour master screamed for help.
"What the?" There were more words from the window, but I didn't undersatnd most of them. A few moments later the man who ran this building, the law keeper, ran out past me. He was wearing his boots and breeches, and carrying the largest knife I'd ever seen. He started running down the street, banging on doors as he went.
"Pirates! Sound the alarm! Pirates!!"
Soon most of the men were roused from their beds. A variety of knives, pitchforks, and large pans went tearing by me towards the dock, held in the hands of very sleepy, very angry people.
The racket from the dock grew much much louder.
I headed back down to see what was happening. Some of these people might be my people after all. And most of them did slip me bits of fish or cheese. The least I could do is make sure they were ok.
The town people were fighting the new people pretty well, for humans. I sat on a dry stoop and watched curiously. It was truly amazing how much damage a person could do to someone else with a pot. Or with a broom. Or with an apple basket.
The apple basket was pretty impressive, really. It was thin enough I could scratch through one in a short period of time, but it appeared to be bashing in a stunning number of heads.
I made a mental note to avoid getting hit by an apple basket.
After some time, most of the new people ran back to their ship. The rest were either laying on the ground, or about to be. The ship started to pull away from the dock. Someone ran forward with a torch, and tossed it into the sails as they unfurled. Soon the ship was moving forward, but the top of it was an inferno. The screams from the harbour didn't last very long.
The next morning, the towns people went down to the harbour and got to work. After the sun had hit the high point in the sky, they stopped, and moved to whatever shade there was, eating from baskets and drinking from jugs. The dock looked cleaner and was less smelly than I had ever known it. I wandered over, sniffing everythign as if it was new.
The law maker walked over, a small fish in his hand. He knelt down and dropped the fish in front of my nose. I sniffed it, and started to purr in spite of myself. It smelled fresh and delicious. I started to eat it, and the law maker scratched my ears, something he'd never done before.
The fishmonger's daughter came over and picked me up. She snuggled me close and then raised me over her head. The entire town cheered, a loud and deafening noise that made me want to run. I didn't want to hurt the daughter though. Especially since she smelled like she had fish in her apron for me.
I am Fluffikins, nd that is the story of how I became famous. I couldn't walk down a street without being stopped and given a fish or a bowl of milk for weeks afterwards.
Deep down, I am a hero.
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