Kittee on the Corniss

Mom Sez:

Slowly, Gato made his way along the ledge beneath the window of their small crowded room. All this backing and forthing along the ledge seemed to be taking two weeks. Gato had brought Le Prof’soor’s paper back to the other dogs and told them the special knock to knock so that Le Prof’soor would let them into his room down the hall. Now all Gato had to do was navigate this ledge, which was exceedingly narrow even for an athletic cat like himself. His centimetering around the rectangular circumference of the little inn was making him nostalgic for his the espionage days of his kittenhood.

“Huh,” thought Gato to himself. (We ar tranzlaytin fer yu. Kthxbai.) “I seem to has gaynd som weyt on mai travlz. It musta ben all thoz taystee fishiz that them Greek fishrmen caugt fer us on the boat. I’m goin to has to start dietin wen this partiklr adventchoor is ovr.”

When he was halfway around the building, he heard a sound that sounded…almost…like steel drums and maracas…

But, gosh, were the odds of that?

The Not-So-Borin Ekspozishun Bit, Part I

Musashi Sez:

Our collektiv faysiz is pink, cuz we lost this partiklr tranzmishun from our ajint Gato. We hadz it all along, but we fergot wer we puttid it. So now we catch up fer yu.

Mor of Gato’s Dialog an Doin Stuff (Tranzlaytid):

Wift mai deep bakgroun in espionazh, the prospek of clymin out the windo, cayrfullee trottin across the narro ledj to the windo 3 windoz down from us, an then lickin the glass until the sillee intrlektchurl doggee gets around to notissin me an opnz his windo…well, let’s jus say that I wuz egspektin to get mai tayl froz, eevn in summr, whil I waytid.

But this Prof’soor wuz smarty-pantsier than I egspectid. Wuns he figgrd out the problim wift his radio communicayshun thingy, he egspektid me (ME!) to come to him fer egsplaynin. It’s tru. I almos started likin him. But then I got ahold of maiself.

“Yah,” I sed, “so it obveeus that the stoopid CIA not so gud at thingkin about eelektrikl thingeez. So us, we cleerlee gots to thingk past that. How kin we mayk a diverzhun that don’t rely on our technoljee? I meen, look at whut we gots: me an Perro, egspeeriensd spyz, plus Sabaka, whu’ll drool on anneeboddee whu luks nys, an Paco, oy Santa Maria, Picotero Paco, whu wud sing in front of 2 def mouseez if they sat still long eenuf…”

Le Prof’soor sat suddenlee an lukd lik he wuz thingkin verree hard. Aftr a whil of that, he sed, “So, we ar trying to deestrakt zee peeplez in zee taverno part of ze inn, yes?”

“Of cours…”

“Hmm. So… whut we needs most is…a reezn fer focussin on somthin else…” He sighed. “Whut mayks folks chanj their intenshunz? Akshun? Myoozik? Mor vino?”

“Shur, som of that…”

“Hmm. So problee, whut we needs most is the Perfikt Song.” He went bak to his compyootrz then, as if it wuz me whu hadsd to mayk deesizhunz…

I thogt hard. I did whut that fellr Winnie the Pooh sed: thingk, thingk, thingk. An then it came to me… I sed to him, “So…we needs yu to look up, um, the leeriks to this Barry Mannilow song, in Frentch.”

Le Prof’soor hezitaytid. “An am I goin to reegrret zees partikularr Googl?

“Yah. Problee, yu will. Un million pardonne…”

But then wen he lookd at the strip of paypr in mai paw, he let out a sig of relief. “O, this? I has this on my iPod! Heer! Tayk this! I noe egzaktlee how to halp yu arranj zees partikularr deeverzeeon!”

Not-So-Borin Ekspozishun Bit, Part I

Musashi Sez:

Now, I noe that yu all ar likin that Jimbond-esq “Cat-of-Akshun” vibe that we ben workin on an orf this past yeer or so, but franklee, it has occurrd to me (an mai perdoosrz) that the mooviez an the TV shoz that ar reellee hittin it big laytlee ar the ensombul kind. An I am OK wift that, as annee kittee wud be, cuz when yu is one (verree importint peeple) in a ensombul sho, yu gets to has mor naps. So I am comin to bleev in co-oper-ayshun an lik that. Eventchoolee, I migt eevn see mai way to co-star billin, but we shudn’t get previus.

So yu shud egspekt to heer mor Narrativ Voysiz in the neer fyutchr. Lik now, fer instins.

Gato’s Innr Dialog an Outr Doin Stuff (Tranzlaytid into Inglish Fer Yu):

Ther I wuz in St. Chien de la Compagne, a shady town by nigt, as mos towns is. I sat whippin mai tayl around as the 2 dogeez an the 1 kittee performr confuzzld theirselfs eevn furthr by talking about our lojistiks problimz in Inglish. It’s 1 thing to be confuzzld in yer naytiv tong, but when yu starts tryin to be confuzzld in yer 2nd or 3rd? Huh. Look out.

The plan had ben a gud plan, as planz went, but in mai egspeeriens, plans onlee gotchu in the dor—whethr it wuz the dor of yer laydee-frend’z apartment or of an undrgroun bunkr, it not mayk so much diffrins.

The mayn problim, accordin to mai old buddee, Perro, wuz that we had no gud reezn to go see Le Prof’soor, which wuz bad, cuz his radio freeqwensee wuz blank. Cleerlee, a technoljee malfunkshun, he sed, an I agreed. Sabaka, the Russhin spy-doggee whu I had liberaytid frum the Cairo prizn, wuz still doin the whol, “Oboyoboyoboy! I’m free! I jus luvs yu gyz!!!” An shur, I’m glad I got the kid out, but the drool? I hadn’t plannd on that. Whut is he anneewae? A St. Bernard?

Off in the cornr, the flamenco singr/Bursel sprouts farmr was brooin tea an singin (verree qwietlee, FOR A CHANGE!!!) som vokl warmups about hisself. Which left, as it offn did, me, Gato, the practikl, sensibl kittee, to sayv the dae. I sed to Perro, “I’ll jus go see about this whol raydio thin. Cud yu opn the windo fer me? Kthxbai!”

Settin Up Our Akshun Seenz

Musashi Sez:

That saym night at the Hotel Burgundy, Alex an I dined pertee well, cayrfullee notissin the peeples in the littul restrant whu wuz verree busy not notissin us. This kin be verree con-spic-u-ous if yu noez the signz to luk fer.

We kept ‘em gessin fer a long tim (eevn havin dezzert!!!) whil we blathrd about our tooristee planz until eevn I wuz bord…

Mom Says:

Meanwhile, across the rough-hewn road, a lot more exciting things were going on.

From his room across from Chambre X, Le Prof’soor was busy emptying the pockets of his hoody, muttering to himself. (For ease of narration, we are going to pretend that he was muttering in English. Go along with us here. Kthxbai.)

“Bug Seekayr, sheck! Command poste meecro-laptoppe, sheck! WiFi Chambre Bug v. 3.0, sheck! Radio-communique-tor, sheck! Toothbrush et dentifrice du chien, sheck!”

(OK, Le Prof’soor is big on dentl hyjeen. So soo us. Huh.)

While some very brisk violin music played, harmonizing in surprising ways with the underlying accordion theme, Le Prof’soor swiftly set up the Bug Seeker, Command-Post Micro Laptop and WiFi Room Bug (v. 3.0). Unfortunately, when he went to set up the Radio Communicator, he realized that it had not come with the appropriate set of batteries, and (being CIA equipment) its plug was not equipped with a European adaptor.

“Zut, alors!” said the Prof’soor to himself. “So I can find out what eez going on in ze room across, but I cannot tell anneeone!”

That same night, down the hall, Perro, Gato, Sabaka and Picoterro Paco were settling into small suite. Octavian had tyrannically demanded that everyone “hitch-hikin” in the Citroen “praktiss their Inglish” or be left to walk. So they were still endeavoring to speak the so-called international language, with mixed results.

Musashi Sez:

OK. Let’s be cleer heer. If yu hadsd to fly in a verree littul plane, frum Paris to Versailles, wift 1 hoomin peeple, 3 doggee peeples, and that 1 an onliest othr kittee peeple singin “I Havta Liv” by that John Denvr fellr, egsept in Spannish!, then yah, yu’d be pertee tired of furrin langwidjiz, too.

Huh.

Caysin Le Pen-see-on

Musashi Sez:

Well, we cud tell yu the detaylz about our seekret landin strip in Sothrn Frans an how we lokaytid the fansee penseeon wher the Bad KitteeNapprz had tuk Miz Felicitee, mai damzl in distress. But then we’d hav to kill yu, an we can’t afford to looz our onlee reedrz, so we’d rathr not. Instead, we’ll leev yu to imajin the hi-jinx, wild advenchrz, an yoos of formeedablah technoljee. I’ll wayt whil yu doz this.

La, la, la.

Yu all don? Gud sho! Now yu just has to imajin accordion myoozik, an the fansee Frentch sun settin slowlee on a littul villij….

Mom Says:

Among the gentle sounds of a warm, late-summer evening in St. Chien de la Compagne, crickets, the tinkle of cutlery, accordion music and rough laughter, a new sound, rough against the breeze, stood out.

rumble, rumble, bumpada, arf!, rumble, rumble…

The door of Le Boir du Chien opened, letting out golden light that spilled onto the form—(yu has to luk down a littul)—of a dachshund wearing a hoodie, parking a skateboard by the door. He entered the tavern attached to the little inn and barked (in an unmistakable Belgian accent), “Monsieur! Un chambre, s’il vous plait!”

Across the cobbled street, a little yellow Citroen pulled up and disgorged two dogs and two cats, all thanking the man and cat who remained in the car in English accented by Spanish. As the pack moved off to Le Boir de Chien, the cat in the car stretched irritably.

“Yah, I noe. De rien, de nada, whatevr. I need a nap an som noms!”

The black cat with the plumy tail and the bad attitude rode on the man’s shoulder into the fancier Hotel Burgundy. Then the street was left as before to wait for night to complete its fall.

Best to Avoyd the Yookliptis…

Mom Says:

Last week on Founder’s Day (08/08), our Writer Rabbits indulged in a small celebration involving gingko-infused carrot juice. What they did not anticipate was the group of panda cinematographers from the studio next door and the koalas from the lot down the street.

Now pandas are relatively trustworthy types even when they are cinematographers. But koalas, well, koalas are a different matter altogether. They’re Australian, after all.

Musashi Sez:

OK. Long storree short: By Sundae nigt, the bunneez’ car runnd out of gas an their littul bunnee blodstreemz runnd out of yookliptis likoor an ginko an all that carrit joos.

Which is jus as well if yu aks me, cuz them sekyooritee gardz at MGM (an 21 Cenchooree Fox an Dreemwerks an lik that) gottid reellee crankee about the bunneez zoomin around in their Ken an Barbee car.

I dunno why. It not lik ther wer all that mutch othr traffic to get in the wae.

But from our point of vyoo heer at Ajint 8’s Spy Jurnl, it has led to a sligt delay in the furthrin of our plotz.

Puttin Plot Messiz to Rigts, Part 2

Musashi Sez:

La, la, la. We is bak wift mor of that verree long “mon-tage” the bunneez writid fer us to get all our plot messiz bak in ordr. We ar mos graytful fer their artisitik skillz.

Mom (& the Bunneez) Sez:

“We’ll change all that’s gone before…”

* In the cabaret, Judi Dench, “M,” strolls singing among the tables. In passing, she pats Perro on the head, hands Alex a rose and winks. Alex unfolds the rose petals to reveal a note with GPS coordinates.

Cut to:

“Doing so much more…”

• The Greek boat ties up at a pier in Southern France. The white dog licks the Greek sailor’s face, while the black cat jumps down to the dock. The dog follows. There are many boats nearby. From one, steps a man in a pea coat, carrying a black cat-carrier and looking shifty. Gato and Sabaka nod to each other and follow him.

Cut to:

“Than falling in love…”

We see the cat-carrier on the man’s arms. We come closer and see wide yellow feline eyes look out through the black mesh.

Cut to:

“On an all-time high…”

An airfield by night. A taxi pulls up, lets out Alex and Perro, then pulls away.

Cut to:

“We’ll take on the world and win…”

Out of the darkness a jet-powered skateboard carrying an enormous grey cat, a Dachshund in a bowtie, a grey and white cat, and on top, a black cat with a black plumy tail, comes to a screeching halt, cutting off the music.

Cut to:

Alex says, “Agent Eight, M says that Felicity was last seen near Versailles. We have a Cessna. Perro’s flying us. Gato and Sabaka are already there. Let’s go.”

“Panther” says, “I’ll let my people know.” He trots off.

Eight says, “Meet Prof’soor. He comin too. He halpt me figgr out whu is behind it all. I egsplayn on the wae.”

Paco says, “Yo no puedo creer que corten mi solo.” (I can’t believe that they cut my solo.)

Agent Eight says, “Picotero, this no tim fer solos. This tim fer evrboddee workin together.”