Chapter 1, Holiday Hijinks
Merlin woke with a start. Instinctively he lay frozen on the bed, with the exception of slowly opening his eyes and looking around the room. He allowed the hairs on the tips of his ears to twitch, just a little. He lay quiet, listening, studying the sounds of the darkness. Nothing. He waited. Something had woken him up, he was sure of it. He allowed the end of his tail to twitch, just a little. His eyes were wide open now, the pupils dark and dilated and very, very big. His ears twitched and this time he didn’t stop them. His tail started to jerk and he didn’t try to stop it, either. He was curled into a ball, his chin on top of his feet, but his spine was ready to uncoil like a spring.
“Oof!” he heard. Merlin sprang onto the floor and was in the hallway in less than a second. He stopped, froze, and listened. Oh, there is definitely something going on downstairs, he thought. Merlin slowly crept down the hallway, stopping every few feet to freeze and listen. Rustling. Thumping. Sliding. He reached the top of the stairs. Just go, he thought. Down he ran with blazing speed, not making a sound. He slithered into one of his favorite hiding spots, between two plant pots with lots of leafy coverage from which to spy.
The cat had grasped the life stages and relationships of the two-legged, mostly hairless family called Mandy, Toby, and Ellie. The one called Uncle Lou was the biggest one he’d ever met. Like Uncle Lou, the figure in this room was in every way twice the size of Toby, a youngster. But unlike Uncle Lou, this one had very light skin and shiny white hair, which was also on most of his face. He was wearing a lot more clothing than the others and it looked incredibly soft. The stranger was pulling things out of a sack and placing them under the tree.
Merlin grumbled at this. No one’s scolding HIM for being too close to the tree, he thought.
“I know you’re there, Merlin,” a deep, soothing voice stated as the large figure continued to pull one item at a time out of the sack. Merlin jumped, startled. “You can come out. Santa has a present for you, too. I know how good you’ve been.”
Curious beyond belief, Merlin couldn’t help but emerge from the shadows. It was as if an invisible force was pulling him to… Santa? He’d heard that name before; in fact, he’d heard it lots of times but especially in the last few days. Wait, how did Santa know his name was Merlin? He thought he should be alarmed by this but he could not stop his legs from moving toward the giant. In the blink of an eye, Merlin was snuggled into Santa’s arms. This was the softest cradle Merlin had ever known. He gazed dreamily into Santa’s friendly eyes and purred loudly. Just when he started to drift into a blissful slumber, the smell of catnip reached his nostrils. Santa was dangling a fuzzy toy mouse in front of Merlin’s face! He put them both on the sofa.
Merlin batted the toy a few times before pouncing on it and rolling over and over with it. Santa ate his cookie, drank his milk, grabbed the carrots, and turned to Merlin.
“Merlin. Merlin!” The dazed cat finally looked at Santa. “Merlin, I want you to wear your collar all day and all night until midnight. Can you do that for me?”
Merlin blinked. “Good. Merry Christmas Merlin. I’ll see you next year!” Santa smiled broadly and added “ho ho ho” as he simply disappeared.
Merlin blinked. What just happened here? Where was Santa? What collar? Ooohhh catnip. Merlin poked the toy mouse and forgot all about Santa.