Feline Festivities
| Feline Festivities | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chapter | 28 of 129 (list of chapters) |
| Published | December 29, 2006 |
| Page count | 16 |
| Major characters | Mike, Lucy, Tess, Paulo, David, Chirpy |
| Minor characters | Daisy, Abbey, Sue, Amaya, Yashy, Blur, Lily, Sandy, Katie, Stacy, John |
| Locations | Mike’s house, Roseville High School, Roseville neighborhood, Tess’s house |
| Collected in | Volume One, Omnibus 1 |
| Chapter navigation | |
| ← Lucy’s Birthday | Midterm Time → |
| Read chapter | |
Tess invites the whole gang to her Christmas party, mansion included. Mike spends the night waiting for a dream to come true, Paulo rigs mistletoe to a Santa hat, and little Chirpy ends up carrying the heaviest heart in the room.
Synopsis
The last day before winter break starts with Mike waking from a dream in which Sandy promised that this Christmas might not be without her after all.[1] At lunch, Tess hands out invitations to her Christmas party, and when Paulo flirts with Lucy, she whispers something unheard in his ear that leaves him blushing and remarkably obedient.[2]
On Christmas Eve, Mike and Lucy trudge through the snow with Yashy and Chirpy, and the printed directions lead them to a pillared mansion.[3] Chirpy chases after the other birds at the party, loses them, and winds up watching the moms with their kids instead, looking pretty forlorn.[4]
When carolers arrive outside and the partygoers coo over a girl whose “fur’s as white as snow”, Mike rushes to the window, certain that Sandy has come after all.[5] The girl is a stranger, and David cheerfully confirms it.[5]
Chirpy finds Mike standing alone on the balcony and asks if he is okay.[6] He snaps at her and unloads the whole Sandy mess — being forgotten, never knowing whether someone will actually come through, clinging to a hope he himself calls pathetic.[6] Chirpy, in tears, answers with “My mommy.. She never came back..”[7] She flies off blindly before Mike can finish apologizing, smacks into the back of Lucy’s head, and drops out cold.[7]
While Chirpy sleeps it off in Lucy’s arms, Lucy admits that Chirpy has always wondered about her real mother and blames herself for not being one.[8] “You can long for someone else but still find comfort in the people in your life who love you,” Mike tells her.[8] They both end up blushing and head back inside on notably warm terms.[8]
Back inside, David has spiked the punch in the most literal sense available, with thorns, and Katie finds out face-first.[9] Tess then makes good on her lunchtime promise and kisses Paulo until he collapses, tail wagging.[10]
Near midnight, Tess gathers everyone for gifts, and the group finds Lucy back on the balcony, singing her sleepy pets the Spanish lullaby “Arroz con leche”.[11] As the party winds down, a half-asleep Chirpy thanks Lucy for taking care of her.[12] Mike gets one last surprise on his own doorstep: a present with “Sandy” on the tag.[12]
Character dynamics
- Tess and Paulo: Tess is the older girl who polices Paulo’s flirting, and the party opens with her doing just that, scolding him for crowding Lucy.[2] Her whispered promise buys his best behavior for the whole night. When Tess pays it off with a kiss, the two are on a genuinely new, flirtatious footing.[10]
- Mike and Sandy: The long-distance relationship runs almost entirely on Mike’s hope, which doesn’t take much to inflate or puncture. A dream convinces him Sandy might physically turn up.[1] The white-furred caroler crushes the idea, and by his own admission he has been counting on “some pathetic kind of hope”.[6] The present on his doorstep swaps the fantasy for something he can actually hold.[12]
- Mike and Chirpy: Chirpy has called Mike “Boy-Kitty” since she hatched, and his outburst here is the first time he genuinely hurts her.[13][6] Chastened, he admits he shouldn’t underestimate little birds like her.[8]
- Lucy and Chirpy: Lucy has been Chirpy’s caretaker since the bird was very young, but the party forces her to face how much Chirpy still longs for her real mother. “Some caretaker I turned out to be,” she concludes.[8] By the end of the night, they’re back on solid ground. Chirpy gives Lucy a sleepy thank-you, and Lucy names her pets the ones she trusts without a doubt.[12]
Trivia & observations
- Per Veronica’s commentary, the original version of this chapter’s first page was the first comic ever posted to the earliest version of the BCB website, back when every earlier chapter lived only on DeviantArt. The chapter was later entirely redrawn for the current site.[1]
- Veronica credits the mansion’s design to Tess’s creator, a fan named Lily, who “scribbled up a plan for it in paint”.[4]
- Lucy’s lullaby is the real children’s song “Arroz con leche”, sung in Spanish on the page. Veronica says it was inspired by a song she used to sing to a baby she babysat in college.[11]
- Chirpy’s “.. I love you, Girl-Kitty..” repeats, word for word, a line from her babyhood flashback in Blurry Memories.[12][14]
Related chapters
- Left Behind: Mike first visited Tess’s house here. He traded Lucy’s backstory for a chance to warm up and came away with his scarf.[15] His line on the walk over about being “too cold to pay attention” points back to that evening.[3]
- Flying Lessons: Chirpy hatched here, from an egg Yashy rescued after the mother bird fled and was never found.[16] That abandonment is exactly what Chirpy sobs about on the balcony, and her “Boy-Kitty” naming habit started there too.[13]
- Hot Pursuit: Mike has been through this same kind of evening before. In this earlier chapter, he chased a Sandy look-alike through the mall, convinced it was really her.[17] Both chapters end with him receiving a gift from the absent Sandy anyway.[18]
- Love My Way: The Tess and Paulo flirtation that starts at this party carries on to junior prom. Tess accepts Paulo’s invitation “just as friends”, and the two attend together.[19][20]
- Witch Hunt: Years down the line, Lucy mentions that Chirpy’s mom was eventually found.[21]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 1
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 2
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 4
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 5
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 8
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 10
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 11
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 13
- ↑ Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 12
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 14
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 15
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 16
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 6: Flying Lessons, page 4
- ↑ Chapter 19: Blurry Memories, page 2
- ↑ Chapter 26: Left Behind, page 6
- ↑ Chapter 6: Flying Lessons, page 2
- ↑ Chapter 20: Hot Pursuit, page 8
- ↑ Chapter 20: Hot Pursuit, page 14
- ↑ Chapter 35: Under Pressure, page 7
- ↑ Chapter 38: Rising Temperature, page 14
- ↑ Chapter 105: Witch Hunt, page 7