Feline Festivities

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Feline Festivities
Chapter28 of 127 (list of chapters)
PublishedDecember 29, 2006 (2006-12-29)
Page count16
Major charactersMike, Lucy, Tess, Paulo, David, Chirpy
Minor charactersDaisy, Abbey, Sue, Amaya, Yashy, Blur, Lily, Sandy, Katie, Stacy, John
LocationsMike's house, Roseville High School, Neighborhood sidewalks and streets, Tess's house
Collected inVolume One, Omnibus 1
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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; Lucy needs convincing, and Paulo needs restraining.[2] When he flirts with Lucy anyway, Tess whispers something unheard in his ear, and he spends the rest of lunch blushing and remarkably obedient.[2]

On Christmas Eve, Mike and Lucy trudge through the snow toward the party with Yashy and Chirpy in tow.[3] The printed directions lead them to a pillared mansion with a chandelier in the window, and everyone's jaw hits the floor.[4] 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]

An extravagant house with massive pillars and a decorative arch, a chandelier visible through the window.
Tess never did mention living in a mansion.

Paulo, meanwhile, has fixed a sprig of mistletoe to his Santa hat, planning to kiss his way through the guest list, and Abbey wallops him with a toy reindeer.[5] He aims his charm at Daisy by accident and storms off mortified, leaving her hurt.[5] A later blind grab lands on David, who turns out to be far too willing and chases Paulo clean across the party.[5]

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.[6] The girl is a stranger, and David cheerfully confirms it.[6] Tess, for her part, tries everything from begging to a David-assisted dare to get Lucy on the karaoke stage, and earns herself a karate chop for the trouble.[7]

Chirpy finds Mike standing alone on the balcony and asks if he is okay, which turns out to be the wrong question.[8] He snaps at her, calls her a baby, and unloads the whole Sandy mess — the feeling of being forgotten, of never knowing whether someone will actually come through, of clinging to a hope he himself calls pathetic.[8] Chirpy, in tears, answers with "My mommy.. She never came back.."[9] She flies off blindly before Mike can finish apologizing, smacks into the back of Lucy's head, and drops out cold.[9]

While Chirpy sleeps it off in Lucy's arms, the two cats talk things over.[10] Lucy admits that Chirpy has always wondered about her real mother, and blames herself for not being one.[10] "You can long for someone else but still find comfort in the people in your life who love you," Mike tells her.[10] Both of them end up blushing, and they head back inside on notably warm terms.[10]

Back inside, David has spiked the punch in the most literal sense available, with thorns, and Katie finds out face-first.[11] Tess then makes good on her lunchtime promise and kisses Paulo until he collapses.[12] He recovers on the floor, tail wagging, with "I think I'm in love.."[12]

Near midnight, Tess gathers everyone for gifts, only for the group to find Lucy back on the balcony, singing her sleepy pets the Spanish lullaby "Arroz con leche".[13] Everyone eavesdrops until David bellows "HEY LUCY!! YOUR VOICE IS PRETTY!!" and gets smacked for it.[13] As the party winds down, a half-asleep Chirpy thanks Lucy for taking care of her, and Lucy tells her pets they are the ones she trusts without a doubt.[14] Mike gets one last surprise on his own doorstep: a present with "Sandy" on the tag.[14]

Critical moments

  • Dream-Sandy sends Mike into the holidays with "Keep wishing, Maishul.. Your dreams can come true.." He takes it literally, and spends the whole party half-expecting her to appear.[1][15]
  • Partygoers gush over a caroler with snow-white fur, and Mike rushes to the window sure it must be Sandy at last. The girl turns out to be a total stranger.[6]
  • Alone on the balcony, Mike vents years of Sandy anguish at Chirpy after calling her too much of a baby to understand. Her answer stops him cold: her own mother never came back for her. She flies off in tears and knocks herself out against the back of Lucy's head.[8][9]
  • Tess delivers the reward she whispered about at lunch. The kiss leaves Paulo flat on the floor and, by his own account, in love.[12]
  • Mike arrives home to a present tagged "Sandy" waiting on his doorstep, the one piece of his Christmas hope that turns out to be real.[14]

Character dynamics

  • Tess and Paulo: Tess starts the chapter as the older girl scolding Paulo about boundaries, and her whispered promise buys his best behavior for the whole night.[2] By his own grumbling, the one girl who likes him is off-limits because of her.[12] The reward kiss puts the two on a genuinely new, flirtatious footing.[12]
  • Mike and Sandy: Mike's dream convinces him Sandy might physically turn up.[1] The caroler crushes that idea, and by his own admission he has been counting on "some pathetic kind of hope".[8] The present on his doorstep swaps the fantasy for something he can actually hold.[14]
  • Mike and Chirpy: Chirpy has called Mike "Boy-Kitty" since she hatched, and his outburst here is the first time he genuinely hurts her.[16][8] He comes away chastened, admitting he shouldn't underestimate little birds like her.[10]
  • 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.[10] By the end of the night the bond is back on solid ground, with Chirpy's sleepy thank-you and Lucy naming her pets the ones she trusts without a doubt.[14]
Lucy sings on the snowy balcony while Yashy and Chirpy sleep in her arms.
Lucy sings after all, just not on Tess's karaoke stage.

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.[13]
  • Chirpy's ".. I love you, Girl-Kitty.." repeats, word for word, a line from her babyhood flashback in Blurry Memories.[14][17]

Related chapters

  • Left Behind: Mike's first visit to Tess's house happens in this chapter, where he traded Lucy's backstory for a chance to warm up and came away with his scarf.[18] 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.[19] That abandonment is exactly what Chirpy sobs about on the balcony, and her "Boy-Kitty" naming habit started there too.[16]
  • Hot Pursuit: Mike's evening follows the same shape as this earlier chapter, where he chased a Sandy look-alike through the mall convinced it was really her.[20] Both chapters end with him receiving a gift from the absent Sandy anyway.[21]
  • Love My Way: The Tess and Paulo flirtation that starts at this party carries on all the way to junior prom. Tess accepts Paulo's invitation "just as friends", and the two attend together.[22][23]
  • Witch Hunt: Years down the line, Lucy mentions that Chirpy's mom was eventually found.[24]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 1
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 2
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 4
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 5
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 6
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 8
  7. ↑ Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 9
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 10
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 11
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 13
  11. ↑ Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 12
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 14
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 15
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 16
  15. ↑ Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 7
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Chapter 6: Flying Lessons, page 4
  17. ↑ Chapter 19: Blurry Memories, page 2
  18. ↑ Chapter 26: Left Behind, page 6
  19. ↑ Chapter 6: Flying Lessons, page 2
  20. ↑ Chapter 20: Hot Pursuit, page 8
  21. ↑ Chapter 20: Hot Pursuit, page 14
  22. ↑ Chapter 35: Under Pressure, page 7
  23. ↑ Chapter 38: Rising Temperature, page 14
  24. ↑ Chapter 105: Witch Hunt, page 7
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