Chapter 3: Spice and Woof

As it turned out, the cat knew what she was talking about. Dantes took another bite of bread with jam smeared on it and would have wiggled in delight were he alone, but he had appearances to keep, and such conduct would be unprofessional of a guard dog. If he had his tail still, it would have probably wagged itself off his butt, but as he was, he was able to maintain a stoic façade in front of his long time annoyance. He hesitated to say enemy, as their relationship was fairly formal, and he knew the cat held no specific ill will towards him, but she still got on his nerves at the best of times.

He went to reach for the loaf, but noticed Mitty had picked it up and was sawing it up with a knife. Worrying that cutting the bread would ruin the taste, he inquired.

“You’re supposed to cut food, I think. Or bread at least. Also, you can only make toast with sliced bread from what I know.”

“You said we needed a toast box though. Do you see one around?”

“I don’t remember what they look like. I’ll probably just put it in any boxes I can find and see if that works.”

“Fine, but pass me one of these ‘slices’. Does food taste better sliced?”

“Hmm. I don’t know. Probably the same, though just less messy.”

He mumbled something under his breath, but could feel his phantom tail revving up again. This really wasn’t so bad at all. His house was bigger than ever, and he was eating like a king, and master wasn’t to beat him for being loud. He used the knife like Mitty had shown him awkwardly dipping it into the jam and spreading it on the slice of bread. He got a lot more jam on the slice than the chunk he ripped out of the loaf earlier.

He wasn’t hungry now, so he contented himself with watching Mitty poke around. She was a lot shorter than he by more than a head and a half, with midnight black hair reaching well past her shoulders and blue eyes. Despite a very human figure, her frame was not too dissimilar from when she had been a cat with a very light build.

He watched on as she bounced around, prodding everything with a slice of bread. Surprisingly, despite the surrounding walls, most of the kitchen was unburned, with just the side of the cupboards scorched off, but the compartments under the counters were untouched. Almost literally. The air inside smelled fresh when their doors were opened, which must be the result of some human trickery since everything else smelled sooty. He didn’t recognize anything Mitty pulled out, but it was fun to listen to her mumble under her breath as she rummaged about. He was delighted that even without his old ears and nose, his senses were still just as sharp, sharper even than before.

“This is… butter? Hmmm, this is salty. Oh. It’s salt. Sugar here I think, though it’s all lumpy… Hmmmm what’s this black powder? The label says Al’s Baking Powder. Probably used for baking.”

She pulled out a small ornate box next, and after prodding it with a piece of bread, she opened it up. An explosion of scents I’d never experienced in such intensity filled the room. He recognized only cinnamon. It appeared to be a good find, however as Mitty seemed quite excited about it.

“Very nice. Nutmeg, cinnamon, jackbuck, cloves, ginger, all spice, cinnamon. Yum. Never heard of jackbuck though. This will go nicely with that honey I saw earlier. Now what’s this?”

Mitty bumbled around a bit more, pulling out all sorts of ingredients, everything rather fresh, aside from one cabinet which contained numerous molding vegetables.

Nibbling on the last of his bread, he finally heard a triumphant cry. She’d finally found a box that did something to her bread. It was a stone alcove that appeared to heat up when it came into contact with toast.

“Hmm, I’m pretty sure this is an oven, but we’re going to roll with it. I want toast.”

He watched her place her toast in the ‘oven’ and an orange glow appeared as heat spewed forth seemingly from nowhere. After waiting a couple minutes, Mitty reached into the oven to retrieve her bread, but let loose a yelp and quickly withdrew her hand. He tensed, ready for action, but relaxed as no enemies emerged from the alcove. She came back with a long stick with a flat end and scooped up her bread. Or was it toast now? He sniffed the air. It was most decidedly toast. He could feel drool forming in his mouth as he gulped it down.

Flouncing back to the table with a victorious grin on her face, she buttered the toast and sprinkled some cinnamon on top. To think that toast could be eaten in more ways than one. Incredible. He could tell she saw him staring, so he got up, clearing his throat.

“Would it be- “

“Not a chance fleabag, make your own. Careful with the knife. You’ll be less useful to me crippled.”

She added that last part as he came dangerously close to sawing his finger off trying to imitate what he saw her doing before. He waited for his bread to transform while Mitty continued rifling through the kitchen.

Once the smell was right, he pulled it out with the stick, feeling a little smug about himself for not burning himself like the cat had. The cinnamon smelled pretty good. He wasn’t really paying attention to how much Mitty put on, but loathe to ask her for assistance, he decided to put just enough to cover the whole surface of the toast. That should probably be fine, he thought as he took a bite. And immediately coughed it back up in that unpleasant way where you try not to spit everywhere but it goes up your nose instead and then you spit it everywhere anyway.

Mitty’s laugh filled the empty house as she squealed with mirth, but she handed him a glass of water between gasps and after failing a few times to drink it, finally figured out a passable technique and downed the glass. He eyed her glass, which was filled with something white and tastier looking. She responded to has accusatory glare with a smirk.

“Milk is more of a cat thing, Dan.”

“You’re not a cat anymore, and don’t call me Dan” he growled, not really annoyed, but it wouldn’t do to let the cat take too many liberties with his name.

“Maybe not, but your instincts are still there, aren’t they? I can still feel mine, but it’s like they’re dulled by my human instincts. I always liked milk, but I figured it must be a human food because it always gave me stomach aches.”

He decided that his toast was still salvageable and tried to brush off all the cinnamon, leaving only a small amount still stuck to the butter. He started nibbling as she continued.

“I’ve been thinking. In this form, I can’t really steal food like I usually do. No one chased me far when I stole food as a cat, but I’m pretty sure when humans steal food, they get locked up or something. I doubt they’d need to chase me far anyway, I’m still pretty clumsy on my feet. Which means we need another way of getting food.”

“We have food here though?”

“Not really. The only thing we can eat is that bread, and the baking supplies, but I don’t know how to bake. I only know about the toast because my humans had it for breakfast almost every day when I was a kit. Anyhoo, I’m thinking you should probably find a job or something like that.”

She pre-empted his next question by continuing.

“It’s when people do work for other people, and in return they get meal papers that they can use to buy food. Sometimes they look like shiny discs as well.”

“Why don’t we just beat people up? That’s what my master did I think.”

“I think that gets you in trouble with people. Humans have a list of rules that other humans have to follow, and I think ‘no beating people up’ is one of them.”

That was silly, but Mitty seemed to know what she was talking about, so he pretended he understood these rules. The idea of working for meal tickets was appealing to him. If he worked extra hard, he could get more food tickets and eat as much toast as he wanted!

“Great, where do we work?”

“We? No, I won’t be working. I have to scout the city first.”

“What? I’m not going to give you my food tickets.”

“Tell you what. I find you a job, and you give me all the food tickets you get. And I’ll cook for you. If you make enough, I’ll even bake you a cake.” She added that last part as he was hesitating to accept, and it certainly got his attention. Mitty plowed on. “Humans have cake only on special days. Cake is so good, humans even have a special song they sing when eating it. I’ll need a lot of tickets though.”

It rubbed him the wrong way that he’d effectively be working for the cat, but this cake sounded like something he needed to try. There was no way he would ever be able to make this cake himself.

“It’s a deal. No take backs!”

He said this with great enthusiasm, his newly metaphorical tail swinging wildly, but Mitty’s Cheshire smile put a twinge of uncertainty in his heart.

“A deal is struck” she said, extending her hand.

And so, they shook on it.