It was early morning, but Frau Earwig felt quite on edge already. She was rolling her eyes, wringing her wings and snapping with her forceps every few seconds. This was beyond her endurance! She, an honoured artist, drama teacher and fourth generation member of the intelligentsia should never have had to bear with the likes of these insufferable dormitory neighbours!

These vagabonds had lost all sense of shame. They indulged in binge drinking sessions every day, and organised vulgar karaoke competitions. They even brought home heavily rouged hussies to join the festivities. Who would’ve thought that such outwardly respectable looking kittens would turn out, in fact, to be lowdown bastard scum?

Frau Earwig sighed and took some valerian drops with her brandy, but this didn’t seem to help. Firmly resolved to end this crap, Frau Earwig flung a boa over her shoulders and took up a reticule. She then wended her way over to her loutish neighbours’ place.

The door was open, and through the crack seeped dirty jokes mixed with roars of laughter. Frau Earwig stepped cautiously past the threshold and let out a squeak. “Hello? Anybody home?” Of course, this tentativeness didn’t pan out as well as she’d hoped. She swallowed nervously. Frau Earwig forced herself to inch along, step-by-step, until she finally reached a spacious—though fuggy—sitting room. The atmosphere made her choke with a sudden fit of coughing.

That was when they finally noticed her.

“Hey, floosie! Get your ass over here and drink with us!”

Frau Earwig’s offense was betrayed by a gasp. It escaped her mouth before she could think to stop it. What? Floosie?! Then she heard another rude voice say, “Leave it, Fyodor! Don’t you see? This ‘hoptoad in fichu’ is a major bigwig! She’ll never hit the bottle with the likes of us! We’re too… lowbrow.”

What?! Hoptoad in fichu?!

It’s hard to say what happened next. After the red mist had passed from her eyes, Frau Earwig shook her head and took in her immediate surroundings. She was holding a Victorian hat pin in her trembling cercus, and a pungent smell of blood pervaded the room…

Dead bodies. Punctured bodies of dead kittens everywhere.

It seemed her Family Psychologist may have been right after all. Frau Earwig really did need to work on her anger management issues. Of course, she could always call the clinic the next day and arrange a follow-up visit with Gal. But as for here and now…

Frau Earwig stepped over to the nearest body and kicked it lightly. Actually, the fur had hardly any holes in it. Nice. It could be the perfect new boa…

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017