A Spell of Bad Luck

Legend, rumors, and folk tales were often passed down from generation to generation. The Tuxedo Cats, having been city folks, were not well aware of them. Bell and Bellia, Lily and Rose’s good friends, had just about heard every moral story from their parents. It ranged from what happened to the rabbit who broke a coffee cup to why you should never jump on wooden floorboards. They remembered all of them by heart. Today, they happened to be telling Lily and Rose the story of why you shouldn’t trip on your house’s front steps. According to the rabbits, the house was one of the most sacred places. Where most of life would happen in the countryside. To trip on it was very wrong and disrespectful, and would bring the worst luck you could think of.

“Oh, I’m scared!” Lily screamed when the story was concluded.

“I wouldn’t want to be that poor critter who accidentally trips,” Rose added, obviously not helping to calm her twin down.

Bell and Bellia assured the cats that the tale was true, but that they had nothing to worry about; their mother made such a big deal of keeping graceful in those long dresses.

Lily and Rose went home a few minutes later still so worried. Their minds simply couldn’t get the matter off. Ironically, it was as they were thinking of the tale that Rose’s frilly dress caught up on the short front step outside their house. She went down, with Lily falling after tripping on Rose’s foot.

“Rose!”

“Lily!”

Their mother, Natalie Charcoal Cat, heard the loud noises and yells. She opened the door, and went on scolding.

“How could you! Get inside quickly. Let’s see the damage. Oh, wait until your father is here.” (Mason had been showering at the neighbors).

When Natalie had finished her scolding by running out of manageable breath, her daughters told her everything about what the country children had said.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s just a scary tale. Don’t worry about it.” Natalie confidently expressed. She did not believe in such superstitions. Just then, Mason swung their door open and inquired on what was going on.

Skipping over the scolding, he told his daughters that these tales were simply meant to teach children about good posture, habits, etc…

Trying to cheer them up, Natalie set the table for dinner.

“Now I don’t want to hear anymore about those bad luck tales.” she ruled. Dinner went by pleasantly until Lily reached for her glass of water. She took a drink, but clumsily splashed a bit on her dress. Her mother let out an outcry of horror at the transparent stain. Rose attempted to take the cup away from her shocked sister, only to splash some on herself too.

“Oh no!” she cried as she blamed this mess on the superstition.

“I’m sure you were just a bit careless?” Natalie justified.

They went over the rest of the dinner peacefully, until it came late at night. Rose and Lily were organizing their desk when Rose tipped over the pencil cup. The pen and pencil rolled out onto the floor. Lily has been putting the globe back in its respective place when her hands slipped, and the globe rolled in the same direction as the writing implements had.

“Oh, look at all this bad luck we have!” Rose despairingly said.

“What should we do?” Lily wailed.

“No point in doing much but telling Bell and Bellia.” Rose grumbled, very cranky from the series of events and sleepiness.

The sisters went to sleep, or at least tried to. Unfortunately, every single time they flipped underneath their pretty blankets the bed frame creaked and groaned. The sound was creepy with the night’s darkness. The result being that it was only after several hours that the sisters fell asleep. They ended up oversleeping the next morning too!

“Lily, look at the time!” Rose groggily complained. They went down for breakfast, but their mother had already left to go shopping with Teri. That was what Mason told the two girls after having put a kneaded lump of dough in the oven.

“Just get some bread,” he gestured to the rack of bread. They each picked one for breakfast and were in a brighter mood. Their father’s bread was always so pretty, and the smell! As Rose reached for the cute panda shaped bread, her hands flinched away in reaction.

“Hot!”

“Rose, don’t you know that you should use the tongs!” Lily scolded gently.

“It’s this bad luck, that’s why.”

The girls then proceeded to use the tongs and ate quickly. They wanted to go see Bell and Bellia as quickly as possible, but Heidi Choch told them that the girls had gone with their father to help out with the toy shop. The disappointed cats decided that they would only have to pass a bit more than a few hours before Bell and Bellia came home. To pass the time, they played with the babies. To no surprise, that went sour too. No one could figure out why Ginni cried whenever either of the sisters was in the room. She was fed, well slept, and had been in a happy state before the sisters entered.

“Perhaps she just needs a short nap,” Natalie, having returned from her shopping trip, offered when she noticed her daughters’ faces. Both Olive and Ginni were put in bed to sleep. “Now, cheer up. I bought ice cream!”

The girls retreated to their room extremely frustrated when their mother had left. They almost stared blankly at the window before a frustrated Lily decided to kick air. Or at least aimed to. Instead, her left foot hit the leg of the desk.

“Oww!” she squealed.

It was absolute misery until Bell and Bellia could be seen arriving back home. Rose forgot to close the refrigerator door, while her sister left the water ongoing.

They decided to completely sit still in their room. Nothing bad could happen like that. Right? They were wrong when Lily plopped herself down on the floor. Rose got in the way and was smacked with her sister’s tail.

“Lily, watch what you’re doing!”

“It wasn’t my fault. I was just sitting!”

“You didn’t see me?!”

“Ugh! It’s this stupid bad luck.” Lily replied bluntly.

When the girls went to explain everything to Bell and Bellia, it was a hard shock.

“Well, silly cats. Why didn’t you save yourself the whole day of bad luck?!” Bellia questioned like the answer was obvious.

“Um…” Rose stammered.

“Why didn’t you just say sorry?” Bell added, taking on the same tone as her sister.

“Sorry?” Lily said.

“Yes, sorry. Just face the house and say sorry; it will forgive you immediately.” An irritated Bell responded.

“But why didn’t you tell us this bit?” Lily fired back.

“I thought it was obvious. Isn’t it? Trip on the house, so you say sorry to avoid bad luck.”

“Well, thank you.” Rose intervened, so that Lily couldn’t go on debating how obvious apologies were.

The cats rushed to their door, and said a sincere apology.

They didn’t know it worked until the day turned out great. No more accidents, no more clumsy mistakes, no more crying babies. And from that day on, they never doubted any country tales again!