Cats Triumphant Read Online Free

been? The flea must be mightier still than either one of them. Mira giggled. It might even have its own familiar, a microbe or something. What could be next down the line? A supercharged molecule?
    Why shouldn’t she believe in a familiar’s familiar? She’d just spent the last two hours talking to a ghost. What could be weirder than that? Zoomer looked at her with feline insouciance. But why?
    “All right, I’ll buy it,” Mira said. She threw her hands in the air. “I give up. What do you need a flea familiar for?”
    As if in answer, the cat elevated slowly in the air until it hovered at eye level. Mira stared, astounded. Then, with an expression she could only call a smirk, Zoomer rose to the cabinet above the refrigerator, hooked it open with one paw, and knocked down the can of Petreats.

“Too haughty,” the black and white cat said. Marco swished his fluffy tail as prince after royal prince paraded, bowing and smirking, along the flagstone path past the Princess Briar Rose’s blue silk pavilion which stood in the shadow of her father’s castle. “Hmph! A dandy, with not a brain in his head! Oh, look, a barbarian! I can smell the horse’s blood on his spurs from here.”
    Briar Rose, sixteen and beautiful as the flower of her name, sighed at the multitude of handsome men in silks and leather and gold coronets. With lips as red as rose petals and eyes as blue as the sky, Briar Rose had poets getting into fistfights to recite poetry about her glorious attributes. Her knee-length, barley-gold hair fell in silken waves around her molded cheeks, soft, white neck and creamy bosom. She leaned forward and put her pretty chin on her palm, gazing dreamily, and stroked the cat in her lap with her free hand. “But surely one of them would be a worthy husband.”
    Marco turned his round green eyes up to the girl’s face. “Not worthy of you, my dear. Not one. Daffodil, Lavinia and Nocila would strike me blind if I let you choose any of these wretches.”
    Briar Rose appealed to Bruno and Humberto. “What about you?” The brown hound and the gray mouse shook their heads.
    “They don’t smell trustworthy,” Bruno said, putting one big paw on her lap.
    “They admire themselves in the polished shields of the guards before they show themselves to you,” Humberto said. “They’re all as vain as Marco.”
    The cat’s eyes narrowed, but he controlled himself. Briar Rose’s three fairy godmothers had placed him in charge of her well-being.
    “A man, even a prince, worthy of marrying you,” he said, “must have all of the finest qualities. He must be brave, loving, trustworthy, loyal, kind, curious, resourceful and respectful as well as handsome.”
    “Why, then,” Briar Rose laughed, lifting the cat and kissing him on the top of the head, “I’d end up marrying you!”
    A large, black-haired man in red leather came to a halt at the door of the pavilion and scowled as he heard the princess speak. His expression quickly changed to a simpering smile as Briar Rose put the cat down on her lap and looked up. Marco growled a word of disapproval at his hypocrisy. Briar Rose gave the man a polite smile but no word of encouragement. With an angry look, the prince stalked away.
    “Not a genuine prospect in the whole litter,” Marco said, and settled in, folding his white paws under his snowy white breast.
    Briar Rose just stroked him and gazed out at the file of suitors. She could understand the speech of animals, a gift from her godmothers. The king and queen thought it was a fancy on her part, that she could speak to her companions. Bruno was hurt by their disbelief, but Marco had assured him it was better if they didn’t know such communication was possible. Animals would only tell the king and queen the truth about what they thought, and royal personages cannot stomach the truth. Briar Rose only listened to her parents because she had been taught respect by her guardians, the fairy godmothers who had protected