Tiger Tuesday

 Let the #TigerTuesday story continue and with the Tiger being our mid-week cat of the month- we'll be back tomorrow!

          Remember the tigers that were fighting against censorship?  Well, they have names and Tony and Tommy.  Of course, one was named for the great Tony the tiger and Tommy, well that name just suited him.  These boys were best pals, which of course was purr-ty odd, bepaws according to humans, tigers are loners-blah-blah-blah.  However, sometimes humans aren’t as smart as they like to make themselves out to be.

          Pawing right along…

          These boys grew-up loving to read.  Their mom, Mrs. Toni Tiger, was a teacher who taught every cat imaginable, tigers, snow leopards, Amur leopards, you name it.  Their mom insisted that all of her pupils read as much as they could and all of her pupils grew-up purry and growly all kinds of books.  Tony and Tommy inherited their mom’s large library and made sure to paw through a book each evening.

          Yeah, I know, it sounds strange- bookworm tigers but how in the meow do you and I know what really goes on?  MOL...

          Naturally, these boys were horrified at the humans when they started canceling everything.  Both were crazy about Dr. Seuss and then, one afternoon they had a visitor, and this cat was here to inform them what the humans were mad about now...

          Stay tuned…. every Tuesday, we’ll build on #TigerTuesday!

          Now, if you were with us last week, you were introduced to Tony and Tommy, tiger brothers who were crazy about books thanks to the wisdom of their schoolteacher Mom.  These boys are horrified at the human’s obsession in ‘canceling’ everything and loaded up on what they could when the ruling came down about Dr. Seuss.  Now, they had a visitor, another cat mind you who was here to tell them what was coming next.

          Pals, meet Leo the lion cub.  What?  How can tigers be friends with lions?  Of course, they were, animals are actually a lot smarter than humans because they don’t follow the ‘you have to hate people who aren’t like you’ attitude that a lot of humans have.  In other growls, no matter what the cat the tiger boys were pals with them.  Now, how was Leo in their neighborhood?  Well, Leo’s parents liked to travel and often came up to the brother’s home area for sightseeing.  That’s how Tony and Tommy ran into Leo in the first place.    Now, what in the meow these lions did in terms of sight seeing is a mystery. Lions are as every kitty knows are kind of quirky. 

          Leo, being a young lion, was tough but he was also a sucker for a good story.  “Hey, did you guys here what the humans want to cancel next?”  he asked.

          Tony and Tommy looked at each other in horror.  They had just spent weeks trying to get their paws on every Dr. Seuss book they could.  What would be next?
          “Babar!”  Leo roared.  “They want to cancel Babar the elephant!!!”

          Tony and Tommy couldn’t believe it.  Babar?  Babar was a kid’s story that has been around for many years.  Their mom often read them this story when they were small cubs.  The whole thing was paws-itively horrifying. 

          Eventually, Tony broke the stunned silence.  “What do those stupid humans want to cancel Babar for?”

          Tommy was enraged.  “You gotta be making this up,” he told Leo.  “There is no way they’d get of Babar.”  He glared at Leo menacingly like he was going to start some kind of claw fight.

          Leo didn’t seem fazed by the anger.  “I’m telling you, the humans want tom,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         get rid of Babar.”

          “What in the whiskers is the reason for it?” Tony asked.  He felt sick at the idea of Babar disappearing.  Babar was a classic and Tony could only imagine   what the humans were saying.  Humans were so damned nuts anymore that it drove him nuts.

          Leo seemed to be a fountain of information.  “They said that it’s all about something called colonialism,” he replied, “which is stupid, considering the fact it’s just a story.”

          “That’s just it,” Tommy answered.  “It’s a story.  Why can’t people remember that?”

          “Because they’re stupid,” answered Tony, “They’re really stupid.”

          The boys just stared at each other, nodding in agreement, they knew humans were dopey, especially lately.  It was a source of frustration for Tony and Tommy bepaws they were shocked at how stupid humans have become- in other words- just when they think they’ve reached the ultimate stupid- THEY GET DUMBER.

          “What do you think we should do?”  Leo asked, feeling a bit excited.  He had wanted to hang with the boys for a long time and join in their adventures in trying to save kid’s books.  The dudes were legendary for their adventures in trying to save kid’s books.

          Tony and Tommy eyed him skeptically.  Leo found his tail doing some nervous swishing.  That was just strange being stared down by a couple of tigers.  “What do you mean?”  Tony asked.

          “Well, you two always do something outstanding to save the books,” Leo answered, and it was true.  Somehow the boys managed to save a bunch of Dr. Seuss books that were scheduled to be destroyed by some small town that decided all of the books were bad bepaws of racial overtones.  It was all really silly, and the tigers managed to get a hold of all the copies and put them into hiding.  Nobody knew what they were going to do with them but that’s another story.

          Tony gave a sneaky grin and puffed out his chin some.  The boys knew they were legendary and loved every second of it.  “When you talk about Babar,” he said to Leo, “do you mean the whole USA?”
         

          Leo nodded, feeling proud of himself, bepaws he was providing such valuable tip information. “What are you tigers going to do?”  he asked.

          “We better try to get all the books,” Tommy said.  “We can’t let humans ruin all of them.”

          “Yeah, Babar is too cool of a book to disappear,” Tony said.  “Humans are so dumb.”

          “Yeah,” Leo agreed looking serious.  “What can I do to help?”

          Tony and Tommy glanced at each other and then Tony looked at Leo and said, “We need a serious plan of action.”

          “Yeah,” Tommy agreed.  “We have to get more cats to help.  Can anybody in your pride help?”

          Leo felt really excited.  He had 3 brothers and he knew that they’d love to help.  “Yeah, I can get them here quick.  Now, when are you starting?” 

          “We’ll wait for you,” answered Tony.

          Leo left about 10 seconds later, and the boys just stared at each other for a second.  “Well, should we wait for him?”  asked Tommy.

          “He seemed really excited about the whole thing,” Tony said.

          “Yeah, but we usually work alone,” Tommy said.

          “It wouldn’t hurt to have some back-up,” Tony answered and the second he said that Leo was back, and he seemed more excited than ever.  As a matter of fact, he was so excited that he was sweating heavily. 

          “Let’s go,” said Leo.  “Let’s start.  What do we do first?”

          Tails were swishing at this point.  “We need to hit the libraries, starting with the local ones,” said Tony.  “There’s one that’s about 10 miles away that we could go too, it’s pretty big and a lot of humans go in there.”

          Leo shuddered at the word ‘humans.”  “What do you mean by that?”  he asked.

          “By what?”  Tony asked. 

          “When you say humans,” he answered.  “What kind of humans?”

          “The college age people,” said Tommy.  “Those smart asses,” he added.  “They are the ones who want to ruin everything.  We need to make sure they’re taken down too bepaws they’re really stuck on themselves.”  

          Leo looked relieved by that explanation.  “I’m with you on that,” he said.  “They are a bunch of snobby punks.”

          The boys couldn’t argue with that.  “Are you able to go long distances?”  asked Tony.

          Leo looked indignant.  “Why wouldn’t I be able to paw around?’       

          “Relax,” Tommy said.  “We were just checking bepaws you’re not full grown yet.”

          “Well, you two couldn’t take on that big dude that lives down the street either,” Leo answered.

          Tony and Tommy just looked at each other and shuddered.  The “big dude” that Leo mentioned was actually Growler, an older tiger that was known for his size and strength.  No one knew exact numbers bepaws the dude was just mysterious, but he was huge- strong and had paws known for their length.  “Good point,” Tony said.  “Nobody can compare to that dude.”

          “So, let’s go!”  Leo said.  “There’s no time for messing around.  Let’s go save the books.”

          “You know it could get pretty messy,” Tony said, tail swishing.  “Humans do really weird thing lately- you never know what else they’re up to besides getting rid of a certain book.”

          Now that had Leo somewhat worried.  “Will we be seen?”  he asked.

          “That kind of depends,” Tommy said.  “Humans see what they want to see but they have really weird ideas anymore- you just can’t break away from us bepaws you might be seen and that’s not cool.”

          “I’m not afraid,” Leo answered.  “I’m ready to save the books.”

          That’s all the boys needed to hear.  “Then let’s go,” Tommy said.  “We don’t have any time to waste!”

              So, what exactly were these boys trying to do?  Yeah, I know, you’re confused and to tell you the truth I am too.  They seemed to be a lot of growling and no collective action.  Well, let me tell you what the humans were going to do.

          In the local area and wow wouldn’t they flip if they knew that lions and tigers lived close by?  The power of imagination and human ignorance does indeed keep them safe, but I digress.  The big thing we need to determine here is what exactly were these self-righteous, smart-ass, college-age, I-live-for Twitter humans were going to do?  Well…

          It seems like the humans wanted to take all of the copies of Babar throughout the town and burn them and by Babar, I mean the entire series of books.  Tony and Tommy knew that if this caught on in their area that it would spread throughout the country and more books would head for a giant bonfire.  What they had to do was literally, stop the humans and take all of the Babar books to the safe place.

          See, that doesn’t sound so hard, does it?

          Well, here’s the thing.  The boys had to be careful bepaws separation could really cause hysteria among the masses.  They would only separate when necessary.  Now, the first stop in their Babar rescue plan was a stop at the public library.

          Again, to give a little purr-spective on this, the humans in the community had been so wound up and screamed at by pious humans that they felt compelled to say books, like Babar, were so bad.  The animals didn’t get it and, paw-viously, they didn’t like it.  Tony, Tommy and Leo didn’t get it and just the thought of seeing all of books burning ticked them off.  Why wouldn’t humans want their kids to read a good story?  It didn’t make any sense.

          Then again, humans were so in love with themselves that a lot of them didn’t make any sense.  They were so meowy in love with themselves that they didn’t even realize a great animal community was close by.  Then again when you take away books meant taking away imagination.  Humans were discouraging imagination and that is what was leading to this mess.  Now, with all of this being said, they had to make sure they were together at all costs because one move could lead to a scene of mass hysteria and one of them could either end up shot or put in a zoo.

          Now, the scene in front of the library was strange humans were gathered with their kids and throwing all of these books onto a huge pile in the empty parking lot.  What really bugged all three of the cats was the fact that they seemed really seemed happy at the prospect of seeing a bunch of books of burn.

          “What’s wrong with these people?”  Tony asked. 

          “They seem so happy,” Tommy said wonderingly.  “I’m so glad Mom didn’t live to see this,” he added.

          “Yeah,” Tony nodded with the tail swishing.  “She would’ve been so mad about it.”         

          The boys took a second to think about their mom, a teacher, who loved books.  Time after time she’d tell the boys there was nothing better than reading.  Reading opened up the doors to a lot of magical things that made just about anything paws-ible.  Both boys knew that she’d be roaring her guts out at the disgusting scene going on right now. 

          In the meantime, Leo thought he was going to explode with a major growl.  “C’mon!”  he said.  “Let’s get them!”

          Tommy nodded.  “Okay, tail time, stay together and start batting their legs.”

          “Huh?”  Leo asked.

          “Tail attack!”  Tony answered.  “Stay together and just start batting everything with your tail.”

          That seemed to get Leo even more excited.  “Bat the humans?”

          “Everything,” Tommy said.  “Save the books.  You can’t let them burn the books.”

          “Let’s get started!”  some male human yelled.

          “Down with colonialism!” shrieked some crazy-looking female human with purple hair and glasses. 

          “Save the children!”  another yelled.

          “Damn right we will,” Tommy muttered.  “Let’s go for it boys.”

          The big cats turned leaned into the group and the tails started whacking.

          And you’ll never guess what happened next!

         

          Pawviously, the gang had to stop the humans before saving the books.  A tail attack was absolutely purr-fect bepaws the humans would never know what hit them.  After the dude said, “Save the children,” check out what happened.

          A tail attack was, pawviously, another way for sneak attack and since lions and tigers have purr-fectly long tails the humans were easy to whack right on the sides of their legs, at the knees.  So, as the boys whacked- the humans fell, and the books went everywhere.  It was a paw-mazing sight- humans were falling like dominoes and they were hysterical.

          “The wind!  The wind!”  a woman screamed.  “Don’t light the fire- it’s too windy!!!
          “Wind my stripes.  Take that you whiney human,” Tommy yowled giving her a whack and causing her to fall to the right on top of another human.  The lady was so stunned that the second she got up she ran.

          As a matter of fact, they all ran.  All of them were screaming about the wind, the devil and something about a sign from God.  The big cats didn’t get it and to tell you the truth they were gone.

          The cowards left and all of the books were saved!  Granted they were all over the place, but they really did it!  They saved the books!!!

          “I can’t believe it!!!”  Leo growled out!  “We really did it!”

          Tommy and Tony were just smirking.  What a great feeling it was to smack the humans and save those books.  Their mom would’ve been thrilled by what they did.  Leo was confused though about one thing…

          “What are we going to do with the books?”  he asked.  “We can’t take them all with us.”

          “Oh, don’t worry about that,” answered Tony.  He gave a growl and, believe it or not a couple of leopards walked in with some wagons.  “Come on boys,” he said.  “Let’s get all of these books away from these ungrateful humans.”

          Leo had no problem with that, and all of these big cats picked up all of the books and hauled them back to their neighborhood without the humans even realizing it.  As a matter of fact, the incident was written off by the humans as some kind of windstorm and others called it some kind of sign from God.  What a bunch of idiots and they only proved that they wouldn’t deserved a great book like Babar.  Now, there was only one thing to wonder….

          What were the tigers going to do next?

         

          Well, Tony, Tommy and Leo were actually purr-fectly pleased with themselves.  The Babar rescue was purr-fectly incredible.  The gang managed to take every Babar book that they could, but one question remained:

          What in the growl were they going to do with them?

          “So, what’s up next?”  Leo asked looking at all of the books with awe.  Like the boys, paw-viously, he was an avid reader thanks to his dad.  He actually had the original Babar story in his paws and was anxious to start reading.

          “Read them if you got them!”  Tony announced feeling a bit happy-go-lucky.

          Tommy liked the sound of that well and the boys took the rest of evening and read about a legendary elephant that took their imagination in all kinds of directions.  It was a cool thing to do bepaws well- the lads earned it.  Somebody had to stop these humans from destroying a legend- even if it was 2 tigers and a lion.

          The big question though was- what was going to happen next?

 

          It’s #TigerTuesday and it’s been a couple of weeks.  What in the meow was going on with Tony and Tommy?  What about their friend Leo?  As a meow of fact, what happened to all of those Babar books?

          Let’s take the easy one first.  Tony and Tommy were lucky enough to have a big place so they could easily go into storage.  What in the meow were they going to do with all of them?  No set plan had been pawed out yet, but the boys saved the books and that was the most important.  Pawing on about Leo, he went home and was probably catching-up on his sleep.  After all, lions do enjoy their napping.  As for the boys (Tony and Tommy), they were relaxing but feeling a little bit restless.  After all, summertime was supposed to be a time of adventure and these two were feeling the urge to move. 

          So, they happened to be hanging out in the house when Tommy said out of the blue, “Let’s go outside and see what’s going on in the neighborhood.”

          Tommy brightened at that thought.  After all, it got boring staying in all of the time looking at the computer.  (And you thought the humans were the only ones addicted to the Internet, huh?)  So, he follows his brother outside into the pleasant neighborhood that they’ve lived in all of their lives.

          They were shocked because it was so quiet outside.

          Now, these boys lived in a purr-fect place with all kinds of cats living there.  Usually there was all kinds of activity- what in the growl was going on????

 

          Well, as you know from last week, the boys went outside, and it was really quiet.  These two couldn’t get it- as stated it was usually a busy, active neighborhood but no one was around.  It was crazy, weird and it had the tails swishing.

          “How come no one is out?”  Tommy asked his brother.

          “No clue,” he responded.  “Let’s paw around some more and see if the whole neighborhood is like this.”

          The boys cautiously pawed around as if something really bad would happen if they pawed around regularly.  No matter what though, there was the eerie silence and it got on their nerves.  Finally, Tony even growled, “Where are you cats???”

          But that resulted in nothing except more silence.

          “Let’s just go back in,” Tommy said.  “This is too weird.”

          Tony stopped.  “Wait- there’s a cat coming down the street.”

          It was Bobby, a small Malayan Tiger, (as stated, this was a great neighborhood where all kinds of cats lived.)  “Hey Bobby!”  Tony growled out.  “What’s going on?’

          Something really weird happened, when Bobby saw them, he ran away. 

 

          Tommy wasn’t going to stand for the mystery.  “Hey Bobby,” he growled out, “come back!!!!”

          Bobby stopped, looked back and after about a minute, pawed back reluctantly.  Now, Bobby was small, meaning he was still what humans would call a ‘kid.’   “What do you two want?”  he asked.

          “What did you run away for?”  Tony asked, getting that growly tiger face.  “You know better than that.”

          Bobby looked shocked by this revelation.  “Why wouldn’t I go?”

          “What does that mean?”  asked Tommy.

          “I can’t associate with you anymore,” he said.  “There’s no way.”

          The boys couldn’t believe this.  They were known to be pals with everybody.  Their late mom made sure of that.  “What are you talking about?”  asked Tony.

          That’s when Bobby said something completely shocking.  “You two and all of the other Amur tigers think you’re better than everyone else.  The teachers at school said not to go around you anymore…”

         

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony and Tommy just stared at each other in amazement.  Where in the growl did this come from?  Better than anyone else?  That for one, wasn’t true, and was just one of the dumbest things they ever heard. 

          “Where in the growl did you hear this?”  asked Tommy, looking really mean.  He was ticked-off and he had every right to be.  This was usually a close neighborhood of all kinds of cats and he had never heard anything so stupid.

          “Yeah,” Tony said, looking at Bobby strangely.  “That’s the dumbest thing ever.”

          Bobby looked at them, shocked.  These were the eyes of someone torn.  What in the growl was going on?  Was he being brainwashed?  “That’s what the teacher said,” he said lamely.

          Tony and Tommy looked at each other, stunned.  Teacher?  As you know, their mom was a teacher.  She said never said something like that.  “What does that mean?”  Tommy asked.  “Teachers don’t act like that.”

          Bobby was sitting at this point.  “What’s that mean?”     

          “Schools are about learning,” Tony answered, “not making everyone feel bad.”

 

         

What was unbelievable here was that Bobby didn’t start arguing with him, he didn’t start crying, he looked relieved.  He looked so relieved that it seemed live a huge weight was taken off of his shoulders.  He actually fell to the ground with a, “Phewwwwww…”

The boys were confused.  “What’s up with this?”  asked Tony.

“I knew what she was saying wasn’t true,” Bobby answered.  “There’s no way.  My mom knew your mom.  She said she was a good teacher.  I didn’t like what my teacher was saying- you guys were always nice to me.”

Tony and Tommy were momentarily confused but really relieved to hear all of this.  Whatever was going on in the school wasn’t apparently working on some of the cats but what about the others?  Paw-viously, no one thinks the same and you just had to assume some goofy teacher going on and on about crazy things was working on some.  The question was- how much damage was actually being done?

The boys, deep down, figured, that they probably didn’t want to know but guessed they had to ask. 

          “Do a lot of your pals believe what the teacher’s saying?”  asked Tony. 

          Bobby’s eyes were huge.  It was like he didn’t get the question.  “What do you mean?”

          “Do the other cats actually think that we’re bad and mean?”  asked Tommy.

         

          Here it turns out that the other cats didn’t think that the kitties weren’t mean.  It seemed like that Bobby was playing a practical joke on them.  Tony and Tommy were mad, at first, but in the end they were pretty good about it.  After all, they should’ve known better anyway, cats weren’t as dumb as humans.  Cats got along with one another and still knew the meaning of the word ‘respect.’  Besides that, it was time to move on to something more important.

          Halloween!

          Grrrrr….yeaaah!!! 

          Tigers loved Halloween and that included Bobby but Bobby had a problem.  He hadn’t been able to find the perfect pumpkin for his place.  As a growl of fact, there weren’t any pumpkins to be found anywhere in the neighborhood.

          Tommy didn’t get it.  “How is that possible?  Didn’t Mr. Jack grow some?’

          Jack, for reference, was a jaguar, and was well-known for growing pumpkins.  He was the cat that often supplied the pumpkins for everyone’s Halloween party. 

          “Mr. Jack didn’t have any luck,” Bobby answered.  “He didn’t understand why.”

          Tony and Tommy looked at each other, amazed that they didn’t hear about this sooner.  After about a minute, Tony said, “Wow.”

          “What do you mean wow?”  asked Bobby.  “We need Halloween pumpkins!”

To be continued...