Once, there was a girl named Izumi, and she was an orphan. She missed her parents a lot, and she had only one thing left of them: an emerald ring. Her parents had told her that it would lead her to her freedom, but for the past four years, she had been living on the side of the road, and nothing good ever happened to her.
Chapter 1
It was another day on the side of the road, and Izumi was sitting there practicing her guitar so she could earn money to at least eat some food. She was trying to perfect a song when a cat came and sat down right next to her. She didn’t notice it until she came back from getting food.
“Meoow.”
Izumi looked down and saw the cat. It mewed again. It must be hungry! Izumi thought. She sat down and gave it some ham from her sandwich. It ate like it hadn’t had food in months! It does look very skinny, she thought. She went back to practicing her guitar.
The cat came to visit every day, and then, one day when Izumi had enough money, she bought a little float and a blanket to sleep on. That night, she let her cat sleep on the float with her. The cat—which she had named Jiji—went to sleep right away, but Izumi stayed up for a while thinking about if anything good would happen to her or if the cat could help her. She decided to think about that in the morning and sleep for now.
Chapter 2
Izumi woke up to the sound of loud car engines—they were louder than usual, and the cars were bigger than usual too!
“Wait, maybe it’s not the cars or their engines, maybe it’s…” She looked at her hands, but instead of hands, they were paws! Jet black paws! She looked in a little mirror that she had bought and saw that she had a cat’s face. She stepped back a little to see her full body, and when she looked she nearly fainted! She was a jet-black cat with bright blue eyes! She looked to her left and saw Jiji. She ran over to Jiji and asked why she was a cat.
“When you slept with me, the emerald ring was touching you and me. That emerald ring is not an ordinary ring, it’s a special ring that can turn you into a cat when it’s touching both you and another cat,” Jiji replied.
“Yeah, but is there a way to change me back into a human?” Izumi asked.
“You have to go to the Lord of the Cats, and there she will give you the answer to change back into a human. I do not know the answer to that, but I will help you reach her,” said Jiji.
“Ok, but can we please go now? The cars are loud!” Izumi said.
“Well if you want to get away from the noise follow me!” Jiji yelled. She ran toward some bushes, waiting for Izumi to follow her. Izumi caught up to her and followed her through the bushes.
Chapter 3
“How much longer?” Izumi complained.
“We’re almost there! Now chill out!” Jiji said impatiently. When they finally reached their destination, Izumi was shocked. Right in front of her, there was the biggest tree she has ever seen, and right in the middle of it was a big glowing stone.
Jiji caught her looking at it and said, “That’s where the Lord of the Cats lives. It looks easy to get to, but trust me it’s hard.”
“Why’s it hard?” Izumi asked.
“Because, one: there are a ton of vines. And two: there are a bunch of bodyguards inside the stone and outside,” Jiji explained.
“But I don’t see anyone,” Izumi said, confused.
“That’s because they’re invisible.”
“WHAT?! How are we supposed to get past them!?”
“We’ll have to figure out a plan, dummy!”
“Riiight. So what’s the plan?”
“I can’t think of a plan that quickly!” Jiji said angrily.
“Ok, so can we think of a plan?!”
“I thought you were nice!”
“I am just freaked out because I’m a cat!” While they were arguing a tall, big, gray, poofy cat stood there watching them fight. They clearly didn’t see him.
“Ahem.”
“Ahhhhh!!!” Jiji and Izumi screamed together.
“Oh, it’s just you,” said Jiji.
“Who’s he?” whispered Izumi.
“He’s my friend HairBall,” Jiji responded.
“Ok.”
“Can you help us?” Jiji pleaded, “Pleeease?”
The gray cat finally spoke. “Ok, ok, what do you want?”
“My friend here,” Jiji nudged Izumi, “got turned into a cat accidentally and needs to get turned back, but the only person that knows how to do that is The Lord of the Cats.”
“So you want to sneak into the stone?” HairBall questioned.
“It’s for a good reason!” Jiji said.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“Ok but pleease??”
“FINE!”
“Uh, helloo, I exist,” Izumi said.
“Sorry, I forgot about you,” Jiji said in a guilty voice.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“Ok, let’s just make the plan,” Jiji said.
Chapter 4
It took a while for them to make a plan, but they finally did it. They planned to get some invisibility potion just in case. Then, they got some friends to distract the guards, and Hairball, Izumi, and Jiji snuck into the stone. What they didn’t know was that there was a narrow cliff that they had to go on to get to the stone. Their plan worked to get past the guards, but then when they came upon the cliff, they didn’t know what to do! They decided to hold onto the wall going in a single file line with Izumi in front. Izumi accidentally stepped a little too close to the edge where there was a loose rock. She slipped, but luckily she caught onto one of the rocks on the edge and pulled herself up. From then on, they stayed as close as they could to the wall.
Chapter 5
“Shhh!”
“No, you shh!”
The three cats had successfully snuck into the stone.
“WOW!” they all said together. It glowed not too bright, but it was amazing.
“What are you doing here?!” boomed a voice behind them.
They turned around to see the Lord of the Cats towering above them. She looked like a humongous calico cat.
“We just wanted to know how to change me back into a human,” Izumi squeaked.
“Ohh yeah, about that…” the Lord of the Cats said.
“What, you know how to change me back?” Izumi asked hopefully.
“Umm, you can’t,” the Lord of the Cats said slowly.
“What do you mean?” Izumi asked in a scared voice.
“You can’t change back into a human.”
Izumi started shaking, then couldn’t hold it in and just let it out. She started crying so hard. Jiji and Hairball tried to comfort her, but she knew she couldn’t change back into a human and that was the end of her human life.