The Legend of
Puzzle Cat
and Kiki-Jian
Ever talk to a cat? Okay, sure you have. Ever have one talk back? Maybe?
My name is Yuki-Jian (or Kiki-Jian) and I am (at least part) a white flame-point Siamese cat, and in my most recent lifetime, a little over a year old.
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I lived with my family, two humans we called "Sing" and "Feed." I say "we"; there's also another cat, one who's rather well known (more on that later), named Cutie (that's him, on the left).
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We cats call Sing that because he always tries to get us to speak or sing, which Cutie can do, so-so, but I can't (my voice was hurt by the cold when I was abandoned in my most recent lifetime by other humans during a time Cutie and me called "The Darkness").
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We call Feed that because she gives us most of our food, cleans our toilet place, and heals us when we are sick. Sing is good, but Feed is better, and Sing likes her, a lot.
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It's all very good, especially for Cutie and me, who were rescued from shelters, except that Cutie is always getting into these ... messes ... where he has to use his cat sense and brains to solve mysteries humans can't and I have to help him, and, as the stronger and more aggressive of us, protect him.
As I say, he's famous, so you must have heard of him:
he's called Puzzle Cat.
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Okay, before I tell you any more, I need to tell you a little about how we "talk," like how can you be reading what a cat is "saying." It's not well known, but humans have for years tried to talk with us and other animals and some of you have made it work. Some use science, some use magic, some just try to join our world by trying to be in it like we would.
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What happened to me you'd call magic, although for cats it is a perfectly ordinary way to live. Each cat lives many lives, and when we "die," we go into another life (I died during my time with Feed and Sing, to be reincarnated as Didi ["Cocky Boy"], also a flame-point Siamese--you'll learn more about him later). Lots of us want to "move up" to a higher form, after many lives hoping even to be humans.
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But a certain small group of us (we call ourselves "Optimals") wants to live over and over again as cats, just cats that are...better. As we live each life, we get to be able to do the kind of things humans do, only we choose to do them as cats, because cats are smarter, quicker, stronger and more athletic than humans or just about any other creature.
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By looking and hard work and study, over my six lives, I have gotten to be able to write in the way humans write. Of course, with no hands, I can't pick up a pencil and make marks on paper, so I have gotten to be able to send my words into Sing and he taps those black buttons on that silver box and my words come out on the window he watches.
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Most humans aren't open to me doing that but Sing is special. He believes in us and he knows more about my sending words than others. I know, I've tried to send to others—nobody, not even Feed, knows what I say, no one except Sing. Maybe he thinks what I send comes from inside him—I don't know.
I also (somewhat) control what Cutie the Puzzle Cat does. He's smarter than any cat I know, but he is too into himself, he knows too much how special he is. He looks great, he's slender and fit, and he's very focused.
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But it's a problem, because he is everyone's favorite. Like, when we lived in Chicago, every Thursday night several humans came over to be with Cutie—they called Feed "Dean," and she called them "student," and Sing was never here. Most of the time Cutie was cool with it, but I felt left out, like he wasn't being serious, just sitting there on his cat tree and letting everyone touch him. He and I talk a lot (in Cat language, which I won't even try to tell you about) and I know he wants to help out with things that Feed and Sing get into.
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But he goes too far, thinks he can figure out anything and it has put our family in danger, more than once; then I have to put the brakes on Puzzle Cat, clearing the way for him to solve the case. Here, just check out some of our adventures, below.
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