Cat Show
Tony DiNozzo's favorite relative had been his grandma DiNozzo. He had spent a lot of time with her when he was a child. She was the only one who ever seemed to pay attention to him and to take him seriously. However, she was of the old school; her discipline was firm even if loving.
Often, when he stayed with her, he would go to her complaining of being bored.
"Idle hands are the devil's playground," she would tell him sternly, and produce a new coloring book or invite him to help her make cookies.
It was one of the devil's days at NCIS. There hadn't been any new cases in days; everyone was as caught up with old cases as they could be, and boredom was rife.
Tony wandered from the bullpen down to Abby's lab to see if she could help him allay his ennui.
"Hey, Abs, whatcha doin'?" he caroled as he entered.
"Tony!" she squealed. "Just the very person. Look at this." She held out a magazine that listed various entertainment events in the D.C. area. "There's a cat show this weekend. Wouldn't it be fun to enter Mikey and see how he does?"
"Abby, are you out of your mind," Tony replied. "I'm trying not to do Mikey stuff any more than I can help."
"But it would be so cool," Abby persisted. "Mikey's so handsome, I'm sure he would win all kinds of awards."
"And besides," Tony pointed out, "shows are for purebred animals with pedigrees going back to the dark ages. Mikey doesn't have a pedigree."
Abby was not to be stopped. "At cat shows not all the cats are pedigreed," she informed him, pointing to the article in the magazine. "They have a class for household pets where you can enter any cat."
"Mikey is not a household pet." Tony was almost shouting. "Ouch!"
Followed closely by McGee, Gibbs had just entered the lab, administering the customary head slap to Tony. "Don't shout," he said. "Don't you have anything to do?"
A chorus of nos answered him.
"So what kind of mischief are you up to?"
Abby enthusiastically explained her desire to enter Mikey in the cat show. Tony was surprised when Gibbs told Abby he thought it would be "interesting." After half an hour of badgering from the others and desperate to shut them up, Tony agreed to do it, much against his better judgment.
On Saturday morning a rather bizarre couple approached the high school gymnasium where the cat show was being held. She was goth, and he was geek. She was bearing a pet carrier that held a sleek brown cat with piercing green eyes who was trying to keep his balance while the carrier was swung to and fro at every step the goth girl took.
Finding the registration table, the young woman filled out the appropriate registration form, paid the entry fee, and received the number of the cage in which her cat would stay while waiting to be judged. As they walked into the gym, they took note of the rows and rows of tables, each bearing cages, many of which were already occupied. Not only that, most of the occupied cages were fitted out with soft carpets and drapes, ribbons and other decorations, along with photos of their occupants. All of the cages without exception also contained cardboard trays filled with cat litter, the supplier of which had helpfully stuck cards on the cages announcing its generosity.
"Uh, Abby," said the young man to the young woman, "we don't have any decorations."
"Shhh, Timmy," she replied. "This is Mikey; he doesn't need any decorations, just his own beautiful self."
The cat meowed loudly, but his human companions ignored him, not wanting to consider the possibility that he might have changed his mind about going through with this half-brained project.
They found the appropriate cage, and while the young woman took the cat out of its carrier, the young man removed the towel they had put on the bottom of the carrier into the bottom of the cage. They concluded their preparations by shutting the cage door and hanging their registration slip on the cage so that passersby could identify them and their animal. They knew that Mikey would stay there; there was no possible way he could Change back into human form within the very limited confines of that cage.
"Um, Mikey," said Abby, "I think we're going to walk around and look at some of the other cats. We've got a few minutes before the household pets class is called. Do you want us to pick up some treats and toys for you?"
The cat's answer was a loud meow, accompanied by a flash of anger in the green eyes.
"I'll take that as a no," Abby said smiling, and she walked off, followed by Tim, who looked back at Mikey with anxiety. "Now that we're here," he told Abby, "I'm not so sure about this."
"It'll be fine," she answered, absently patting his arm while looking around at the activity in the gym.
They returned to the cage shortly, and when the announcement of their class came over the public address system, they removed Mikey to one of eight cages in the show ring. At a table in front of the cages stood a pudgy man armed with a squirt bottle, some rags, and a stack of official looking forms.
When all the cages were filled, the man looked up at the crowd of people who had gathered to watch the judging.
The man told them, "This is class number three for housecats. There are ten classes in all. One cat will be selected as the winner of each class, and then later this afternoon those ten cats will compete for best housecat in this show."
"Abby," Tim whispered, "this afternoon! Tony isn't going to be happy having to stay here that long."
Abby turned to him. "Tim, you are so sweet. You just assume Mikey's going to win this class, don't you?"
Tim groaned, glancing at Mikey in his cage. The cat was sitting down with his paws tucked under his chest, his eyes half closed.
Tim pulled at Abby's sleeve. "Look, he's meditating. Probably the only way he can keep from going crazy here. Why did we ever talk him into doing this?" he finished with a little groan.
Abby just grinned.
One by one, the judge took each cat from its cage to examine it carefully. Setting the cat on the table, he would run his hands over the whole body, look deeply into the eyes, force its mouth open to examine its teeth. He would lift the cat up into the air, stretching it out. His inspection was efficient but thorough, and he didn't spend a lot of time with each cat before putting it back into its cage. He would make some notes on his paperwork, then he would spray the table thoroughly, wipe it down carefully, and wash his hands before going to the next cat.
Once he had looked at all eight cats, he picked up some ribbons and stood back a little to take in all of the cats at once. Consulting his notes one last time, he moved swiftly to a cage to put a green ribbon on it, then repeated the same action at another cage, only this time with a red ribbon.
He opened Mikey's cage and, lifting Mikey out, held him up with one hand under the armpits and the other under his legs. Stretched out in all his glory, Mikey looked at the crowd with what could only be a proud expression on his face.
"This is Mikey," the judge informed the crowd. "Isn't he gorgeous?"
The crowd murmured its approval. By now Abby was clutching Tim's sleeve, almost bouncing up to the ceiling in her excitement.
"He won, he won!" she exclaimed. "I knew he would!"
"So did I," McGee reminded her.
The judge took some time to point out the ways in which Mikey was superior to all the other cats—his beautiful, evenly colored coat; his brilliant green eyes; his superb musculature, his obvious perfect health—even his whiskers were ajudged exceptional.
When Mikey had been returned to the cage, Abby and Tim stepped up to retrieve him. The judge turned to speak to them.
"That's one of the best cats I've ever judged," he told them. "Isn't he a purebred Burmese?"
"Well, um, we're not sure," Abby replied.
"He has all the attributes of the breed—the color, the eyes, the conformation," the judge insisted.
"He is a very unusual cat, that's for sure, but he came to us in an unusual way, too, and that's all I can tell you." She fluttered her eyelashes at the judge.
"Well, it's too bad he doesn't have papers," said the judge. "He could easily be a grand champion."
Without questioning Abby further, the judge offered her his congratulations, and they returned to Mikey's assigned cage. Once he was back inside, Tim tried to get a cooing, burbling Abby's attention away from Mikey.
"Do we really want to stay until the last class is judged?" he asked. "If we do, we'll have to do something about…um…a bathroom break and maybe lunch."
"Timmy, we can do that any time."
"Abby, I didn't mean for us. I meant for T…uh, Mikey. He probably isn't going to want to use that sandbox."
"Oh," she said, her eyes widening. She turned to Mikey. "Do you want to go out for lunch?"
Mikey meowed in reply. Hastily they put him into his carrier and left the gym.
"We're going to take him out to lunch," Abby told the woman at the registration table. "We'll be back for his next class. What time is that, please?"
With their return time settled, they walked to a nearby sidewalk café. Before their arrival Tim had taken Mikey out of the carrier and put him into a gym bag containing Tony's clothes. Once at the café, he carried the bag into the men's room, emerging a moment later, followed shortly by Tony, who sat down at the table, laughing as hard as they had ever seen him do.
"You were absolutely right, Abby," he said when he could finally speak again. "That was the biggest blast I've had in a long time. And it's official now—I'm gorgeous."
"And you're a prize winner," Abby told him with delight.
"Are you sure you want to go back for the next class?" Tim asked him.
"And miss my chance to be crowned a champion? You bet I'm going back!"
After lunch the bathroom visit was reversed; by the time they left the café Mikey was back in his carrier.
As Abby and Tim were sitting next to Mikey's cage in the gymnasium, waiting for the class to be called, they saw Mikey's eyes widen suddenly in surprise. When they turned around to see what he was looking at, they too were surprised to find Gibbs himself watching them and laughing.
Gibbs stooped down, bracing his hands on his knees so his eyes were level with Mikey's. "I didn't think you'd really do it."
Abby tapped Gibbs' arm. "Not only did he do it, but he won a ribbon. Look!"
Taking in the sight of the blue ribbon, Gibbs laughed even harder. "I suppose this means you're going to be impossible to live with, instead of just difficult."
Mikey hung his head.
The championship class for best household pet was finally called. As Gibbs joined Abby and Tim in the spectator section of the ring, they saw that the crowd was much larger for this class, and there was a different judge.
One by one the judge removed each of the ten cats from their cages and examined them closely. As he did so, he discussed each cat's qualities in detail. Once all the cats were back in their cages and his notes completed, he picked up several ribbons. As the other judge had done before him, he placed the ribbons on the cages of the cats he had determined were winners.
With everyone holding their breaths, he held up a huge, white ribbon rosette with long white ribbon tails.
He announced, "This ribbon is for the best household pet at this show."
At least three people in the crowd were not at all surprised when he opened Mikey's cage and picked him up. While the crowd applauded, he stretched Mikey out to best show off his coat and his conformation and announced, "Meet Mikey."
The judge set Mikey down on the table, pushing his hindquarters a little to make him sit down. While the judge held the ribbon next to Mikey, several photographers moved in closer to record the event. Mikey sat proudly, accepting his accolades with aplomb.
Gibbs was draped awkwardly over his chair, holding his ribs, which by now were aching from laughing.
Abby joined the judge so that a photograph of her with her cat could be taken. Finally it was over, and they could leave. With Mikey in his carrier, now festooned with his ribbons, they walked out of the gymnasium.
"Dinner's on me," Gibbs told them, still laughing.
"Gibbs!" Abby said. "You're really going to treat us?"
"This is definitely an occasion to celebrate," he replied with a grin. "It's not every day at NCIS that your senior field investigator earns best in show at a cat show. Even a bastard like me knows that."
He leaned down to address the cat in the carrier. "I have just one question for you, Mikey. Do you want canned mackerel or dry cat chow for dinner?"
Mikey snarled.
Story Notes:
Don't blame me. See Issums Bunny by James and Emetib by Ceindreadh, and blame them.
The usual disclaimers apply.
Author's Chapter Notes:
It's official--Tony is gorgeous.
Chapter End Notes:
Don't blame me. See Issums Bunny by James and Emetib by Ceindreadh, and blame them.
The usual disclaimers apply.
The usual disclaimers apply.