“Hello, you fiendish beast!” Ms. Mouse called to Mr. Tom Cat. “Are you going off to eat another helpless creature?”
Mr. Cat looked quite annoyed. “Every animal, whether herbivore or carnivore, needs to eat, Ms. Mouse,” he politely reasoned.
Ms. Mouse didn’t seem to notice him roll his eyes, and she continued insulting him. “Ha ha! Why don’t you go ahead and eat me?” she said sarcastically.
“Maybe I will,” said Mr. Cat, and he walked on.
The next day, Ms. Mouse still hadn’t learned her manners, and practically ran him down with insults.
“Hello again, you cold-blooded killer!” she greeted him.
“Please go away, Ms. Mouse,” he pleaded.
“Off to eat my neighbors, I suppose?” she questioned.
“NO!!!” he cried. “I WOULDN’T EAT YOUR NEIGHBORS, BECAUSE, WELL, THEY’RE MY FRIENDS! JUST BECAUSE I’M A CAT DOESN’T MEAN I HATE AND KILL ANIMALS!” He sighed. “Listen, Ms. Mouse, if you insult me again, I will eat you…and you’ll be sorry!”
The day after that, Ms. Mouse had forgotten what Mr. Tom Cat had said, and once again insulted him.
“What’s cooking, Cat? A rat?”
Mr. Cat’s face contorted from that of a courteous gentle cat, to that of a very disappointed and angry cat. He shook his head, and closed in on Ms. Mouse.
“Uh- uh- can we figure this out? I’ll never insult a cat again!” she peeped as she moved closer and closer to a wall of twisting trees. In a second, the grim scene was over. Cat had eaten Ms. Mouse.
He looked at the crowd that had gathered. “That Mouse had a long, long life ahead of her, but she decided to ruin others’ lives by insulting them. I ate her because I wanted to spare her of a horrible death. There are some big, ominous bears here…big, sensitive bears. Look at them wrong, and they’ll swipe your head off. I just want you all to know, I didn’t want to eat her. You should learn a lesson from this.”
All the animals quietly nodded their heads and walked away. Cat shook his head again, and walked into a new forest…a forest without insults.
THE END