Chương 26: Kittypunk Halloween Special

"This is a silly idea," I said. No, I didn't just say it, as a grown woman—stuck in the body of a babe as I may be—I was fully capable of admitting that I was whinging. Not without good reason, however. Sharp had had an idea. I really ought to congratulate her on the fact, except it was a stupid idea.

"It's cute," she said, as if that justified anything.

"It's hideous," I replied. And yet I had no real choice. At the moment, I was being cathandled by Sharp who was holding me up before a high-tech mirror-screen. On it was a reflection of myself and Sharp. It was a perfectly ordinary display, except for one glaring feature. The me in the mirror-screen was wearing a princess costume. It was pink, frilly, and overall quite the eyesore.

"I don't want to be seen wearing that," I finally admitted.

"Oh? That's okay. I think the princess look is kind of weird too," Sharp said.

"I don't know how we'd go about wearing matching outfits anyway? Unless we called you a queen and I can be your princess?" I scoffed. That brought up far too many implications vis-à-vis parental responsibilities. Besides, how would one even convey that the kitten was the queen and the girl a mere princess?

"You're right, that's not a good one," Sharp said.

"What would you like?"

"To go back home," I said.

"Let's try this one," Sharp continued as if she hadn't heard me at all. We were currently in one of the larger shopping mega-buildings in Fenway. The floor was a wide space, dominated by a central shaft that let people look down and up towards the dozens of other floors filled with shops. The air here was filled with a cacophony of music and jingles and just plain advertising, as well as the occasional warning from the mall itself over the loudspeakers, warning would-be thieves of the consequences of their actions.

At the moment, the jingles and songs definitely had a... spooky sort of aura that they were aiming for. Lots of chilling laughter and cackling witches and whatever else some underpaid marketer discovered that screamed 'Halloween' to them. This store in particular on one of the middling floors, the space reserved for shops that were either hyper-specialized, more seasonal, or were just struggling to make enough sales to afford the no doubt insane rent prices in this mall.

"There!" Sharp said as she gripped me with both hands again after toying with a pop-up menu on the display.

"Firefighter!" The me on the screen was wearing a firefighter's outfit. It was black and yellow, with a few numbers on the back. A large plastic helmet—all bright yellow—sat atop my head, held in place by a set of complicated straps that ran under my chin.

"No," I said.

"Aww, okay... what about... sexy dental hygienist?" Sharp asked as she returned to scrolling through the options.

"Who in their right mind would want to disguise their cat as a sexy anything. And why specifically dental hygienist?" If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Sharp shrugged.

"I don't know? Maybe it's to complete a matching costume set?"

"Would the other half be a sexy dentist?" I asked.

"Did you want to try it out?" she asked, her enthusiasm mounting.

"No," I grumbled.

"I absolutely do not."

"Oh, okay. Well, what about police? No? Uh, ninja? See, there's a kunoichi option! Cyborg cop, lawyer, sexy lawyer, judge, flower pot, lamp, oh there's a fan option!" She clicked on that latter, then giggled as fan blades appeared around my neck. She then discovered the 'other animals' section, and my image switched to that of a lion, then a gazelle, then a Pomeranian before it turned into a platypus.

"Sharp, why are we doing this?" I asked.

"Because it's Halloween," Sharp said simply.

"And... and this year I can afford a costume."

"You couldn't previously?" I asked. Shifting a little in her grip, I managed to turn enough to spy upon her face. Sharp was looking rather seriously at nothing in particular.

"No," she said.

"Every year, at the orphanage, we'd made some stuff out of whatever was laying around, then we'd sneak out. It wasn't really sneaking, the caretakers generally turned a blind eye. Anyway, we'd head out onto the streets and try to grab as many sweet as we could. I remember spending a lot of that time looking at people's costumes. Not ours. Ours were all cobbled together and looked kind of... stupid." I swallowed back anything rude I might have had to say.

"You were looking at the costumes of the... other children?"

"The normal ones," Sharp said.

"The ones with families. The princesses and doctors and superheroes, the pretend edgerunners and celebrities. I guess it was just jealousy? Envy, maybe. I wanted what they had, you know?"

"I see," I said. Sharp continued to flick through options, not really saying anything even as I gained a witch's hat, then a nurse's cap, and then a full-faced racing helmet.

"I liked that ninja one," I said.

"From earlier." Sharp blinked, then her eyes met mine in the display's reflection.

"You did?"

"Ninja in fiction are horribly misrepresented and their actions exaggerated, but I did always enjoy their actual history. They understood the basics of subterfuge and assassination. Of course, the very fact that we know of them means that they were hardly all that good."

"We could wear matching costumes!" Sharp said with a gasp.

"I suppose," I said.

"Is there a wise-old-master kind of costume? You could be my ninja apprentice?"

"I bet we can find something to combine. There's no rules against that, right?" she asked. I nodded, and then endured her growing enthusiasm as she flicked through more and more options to search for something in particular. Two costumes for me was just a bigger waste but... it was a few dozen dollars that would make Sharp happy. I could look past the expense when it left Sharp looking this pleased with herself.