The Annotated Puss in Boots, by High School Senior Jamie Miller, is February’s writing of the month. Jamie Miller won a Gold Medal in Humor for this piece in the 2010 Scholastic Writing Awards.
The Annotated Puss in Boots.
It’s all a load of garbage. Puss in Boots, I mean. You know, poor kid inherits cat, cat wins fortune and a princess for the kid? Well, I suppose you might say that’s true, but it’s rather misleading. The story, when told traditionally, would take up about a page and a half. Told properly, with correct details and explanation, it would take someone at least seven, maybe eight pages. Little kids hear Puss in Boots and think, “Oh, isn’t it wonderful how that cunning little cat tricked these people so easily?” while their parents or grandparents or babysitters or local librarians quietly shake their heads. They aren’t buying it. They can see all of those holes in the story. First off, the cat can talk.
When you picture Puss in Boots, you imagine him speaking like a furry little gentleman, with a proper British accent, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Now, I’ll grant you that Puss was an extraordinary cat, with a stunning comprehension of human language, but he was by no means the articulate little trickster that the fairy tales make him out to be. Puss in Boots could talk in the way that an old woman’s dog can say “I love you.” Sure, it’s rather cute and some people swear that they can understand every word of it, but you really wouldn’t be able to recognize any actual message unless you know what you’re listening for before you hear it. Of course, Puss in Boots didn’t talk like Scooby-Doo. Instead of “Ruh-Roh!” it was something more along the lines of “Nya-Nyo!” You see, cats’ tongues aren’t properly positioned to make the sounds necessary for proper human language.[1]
Another common misconception about Puss is that he was an orange tabby cat. Not so. He was actually a red Maine Coon, which has slightly longer hair and is closely related to the Norwegian Forest Cat. Of course, the name “Maine Coon” is a reference to the fact that the cats were abundant in Maine, often resembled raccoons and therefore wasn’t used until after the founding of Maine, which occurred long after this story’s estimated setting. Until this point, the breed was known as the “Scandinavian Coon,” which is strange, considering that raccoons aren’t indigenous to the eastern hemisphere.
Anyway, on with the story. The correct one. After the death of Greenshire’s finest (and poorest) miller, Mr. William Joseph Miller, his estate was divided amongst his three sons. The eldest received his mill, the second oldest his donkey, and the youngest inherited his cat.[2] Now the youngest son, a lanky fellow whose actual name has been lost to antiquity but was referred to affectionately by his friends as Crabbers, was a real drama queen. The lad had the uncanny ability to see the worst in any situation and vocalize each and every lamentation that popped into his scruffy little head. So of course inheriting a cat was The Worst Thing That Could Have Ever Happened.
“Oh, WOE IS ME!!! I always knew that I was father’s least favorite!!!” the little softy wailed, completely overlooking Rosemary. “Now my brothers will be able to pool their newly-inherited assets and start a fantastic and highly acclaimed donkey circus in the mill, but I will be forced to eat this scrawny cat and then starve to death wearing nothing but rags and a horrid little cat-skin muff.”[3] Never mind that he had one of the largest designer boot and bag collections in Britain, the kid was still convinced that he was going to die poor and hungry.
Now Puss heard all of this talk about him being skinned and eaten. As a matter of fact, everyone in Greenshire did except for Old Man Smith, who had been deaf for quite some time, but no one really cared except for Puss because, well, he was the only one that was threatened with death by the statement.
So of course he had to do something about it. Now this is where one of the biggest holes in the traditional story comes in. According to the classic tale, Puss takes pity on his owner and decides to help him out of the goodness of his heart. Any cat owner could point out the error in this concept. They would tell you that such an explanation is impossible, because cats are created with minimal goodness in their hearts. Even the most obsessive cat enthusiast is well aware that cats are independent little buggers that only care about their owners because they can’t work the can-openers. Someone who truly knows the species would explain that cats are the smartest animals you’ll ever meet, whatever those dolphin-loving hippies may tell you, and that they’d be capable of overthrowing all human civilization in an instant if they ever decide that world domination has priority over naptime. A reasonably logical cat owner may even mention that it would have been entirely within Puss’s abilities to scratch up the kid’s legs and jump out the window before old Crabby knew what hit him.
Although there is some debate among scholars as to exactly why Puss was inspired to begin his journey of cunning and trickery, it is agreed that his motives were probably selfish ones. The most popular theory is that he had already been planning a rise to power and fortune, but needed a human to put the scheme into motion. The suspected catalyst for the plot is a cute little Persian that lived at Richard Miller’s mill down the road.[4]
Once again, I digress. Puss sauntered on into Crabby’s walk-in closet/emotional breakdown room and requested some supplies for his mission: “Nyay nyi naba nairo purruts nyanda nyag nyibba purrawsturrrin?”
“I can’t understand you, Puss.”
Puss grabbed a pen and some parchment from the desk where Crabby inventoried his collection and clarified: My deepest apologies. I was requesting a pair of boots and a bag with a drawstring.
“Ah. Grab something out of my box from last season and leave me be then, will you?”
Thank you. …. Do you still have those knee-high black leather ones with little nickel studs along the top?
“They should be near the bottom.”
Will do.
So Puss went out into the field, armed with a nice little burgundy drawstring bag and a pair of leather knee-highs stuffed with cotton balls and paper to accommodate paws the size of walnuts, off to complete step one of his plan.
He set himself up a little trap, placing a piece of carrot inside of the bag and wading through the bushes in his boots to hide within reach of the drawstring. Puss soon bagged a rabbit, and off he went to deliver his catch.
This required a meeting with the king. Now, the traditional story acts as though anyone can waltz on in and have a chat with the king, including a cat carrying a squirming drawstring bag. In actuality, Puss had to schedule a 10-minute appointment a month later, and he was only able to do so because his brother’s friend’s cousin was a barn-cat at the royal stables. So Puss spent his April chasing small animals and putting Crabby’s old bags up for sale at a nearby auction house.
When his appointment finally rolled around, the king was rather disgusted at receiving a rotting rabbit carcass in a musty drawstring bag, but was still impressed at the cat’s ability to pull off its knee-highs with such panache. Puss bowed politely and told the king that the rabbit was a gift from his master, whom he called the Marquis de Carabas, hoping that the king didn’t keep track of the nobles in the area. When Puss requested another appointment, the king gave him a sooner one, hoping that the cat would deliver its next catch fresh. This went on for some time, Puss catching small game and presenting them to the king, saying that they were gifts from a marquis.[5]
Finally, the day came when Puss’s plan was ready to really get into swing, the day that his entire life had revolved around for months. It was game day. The king had scheduled a nice family carriage ride through the countryside about a year back, and Puss had planned accordingly. He sat in the bushes all morning waiting for a sign of the carriage’s approach, when he finally heard the faint noise of horses trotting along the dirt road in the distance:
Galumph, galumph, galumph.
He scurried to the walk-in-closet/emotional breakdown room to clue Crabby, who was crying over a glass of spilled milk[6] and crunching on a mouthful of dry Oreos, into his role in the scheme.
Crabby, I’m going to need you to go bathe in the lake.
“Wath awe you stalking abou?”
You know that cunning scheme that I’ve been working on for the past few months? Well, the big day has finally rolled around for me to get things going, and I’m going to need to you play a small role. Just head on down to the lake, give me your clothes, and take a nice little scrub. Oh, and would you mind pretending to drown if anyone comes by? I’d appreciate you swallowing those Oreos before you respond.
“Wath? Oh… Why would I want to do all of that, Puss? That sounds cold, uncomfortable, and potentially humiliating.”
I hear that pond scum has excellent medicinal qualities. All those little bacteria are great for the skin, and frog urine is supposedly filled with all sorts of minerals.
“Well, if that’s the case, I’d be happy to oblige,” chirped Crabby, who then grabbed his bathrobe and skipped merrily off to the lake. Puss then grabbed Crabby’s clothes and disposed of them.[7] He rushed outside and listened to for the horses as they approached on the newly repaired cobblestone road.
Clip-clop,clip-clop,clip-clop.
He ran to meet the king’s carriage, meowing at the top of his lungs. A carriage driver wouldn’t have normally stopped for a cat, but one of the wheels was starting to wobble a bit and he was going to stop soon anyway. While the driver tightened the wheel, the king hopped out of the carriage for a bit of fresh air and was pleased to see his favorite boot-wearing, rabbit-catching, calligraphy-writing Scandinavian Coon bowing before him. Communication may have been a problem at this point, as Puss had forgotten his pen and notepad, but the queen had spent two years living amongst the cat-whisperers in the West Quarter of Constantinople, so she was conveniently able to translate. Puss told the royal family that his master, the charming and irreplaceable Marquis de Carabas, was drowning in a nearby lake. After checking to ensure that the wheels had been properly tightened (Mike the driver was new, after all, and was still getting into the swing of things), the group raced off to rescue the faux-nobleman.
Although Crabby seemed to be drowning when the carriage pulled up, he didn’t actually have Puss’s instructions in mind while he was doing so. Getting air into his lungs was actually priority number one at the time. Oh, no, he wasn’t actually drowning in some sort of ironic twist of fate. He was suffocating. You see, he’d slipped while reaching for his soap and had fallen into the water. He’d gotten a wad of pond scum lodged in his throat, and was trying to cough it up when the carriage pulled up next to the lake in a patch of soggy grass.
Slish, slosh, slish, slosh.
While the royal party rescued Crabby and gave him some fresh clothes from the king’s emergency wardrobe cart that had been following the carriage, Puss scurried off to complete the next phase of his plan. He ran off to along the road and came across some peasants who were mowing a field.
Now, the fairy tale version of this story offers a rather weak account of how Puss convinced the peasants to go along with his plan. He supposedly demanded that the peasants say the field belonged to the Marquis de Carabas, saying that things “wouldn’t go well for them” if they didn’t. This is impossible for two reasons:
1. There is nothing that Puss could have possibly done in that moment to make the peasants, armed with scythes, afraid of that little cat.
2. Once again, Puss couldn’t speak in comprehensible English.
He could, however, speak comprehensible Cat. It was his native tongue, as a matter of fact. Conveniently enough, these peasants had also spent a few years learning from the cat-whisperers in Constantinople and could also easily understand Puss. They agreed to help Puss out, and he went on to request the same from the men working at a stable down the road. The stable boys, however, had never learned the art of cat-whispering in Constantinople. They had learned it in Babylon, and agreed to help in accordance with the spirit of Babylonian generosity. How convenient was that?!
As Puss went on to complete the final step in his beautiful plot, the king was becoming increasingly impressed as he drove past the bountiful fields and prestigious stables that he was told were owned by the Marquis de Carabas. Crabby, who had been invited along for the ride, nodded awkwardly as the king and queen complimented him on his properties. He probably would have corrected them, but he was a little woozy from the whole “nearly dying after choking on a wad of putrid pond scum” thing, and the princess kept scooting closer and closer to him and batting her eyelashes.
In the traditional tale, the final phase in Puss’s plan is made out to be far more cunning and dramatic than it was in reality. He supposedly outwitted a shape-shifting ogre that owned a huge castle, a pile of jewels, and the surrounding fields by convincing him to transform into a mouse and then eating him. In actuality, the castle, jewels, and fields were owned by a regular old mouse[8], so the whole climactic monster scene was really more of a quick bat of Puss’s paw and a pitiful little squeaking noise.
Everything really just took care of itself from there. The royal family toured Crabby’s new castle, Crabby was invited to the royal castle for dinner, and he wound up marrying the princess within the month.[9] Puss supposedly became Carabas’s most important lord, but I think that we can all see the fault in that one. Puss’s position as the chairman of the Democratic Greenshire Movement would have preventing him from accepting the position.
[1] They are, however, excellent for grooming fur and holding ink pens at the correct angle for elegant calligraphy, both of which Puss practiced frequently.
[2] This bit is correct for the most part in the traditional story, although it fails to mention the miller’s daughter, Rosemary. She was not considered in Mr. Miller’s will both because of a chauvinistic culture and the fact that Rosemary’s lack of attentiveness while cooking over the fireplace is the reason why none of the sons inherited a house.
[3] This wouldn’t have been so terrible had cat-skin muffs not gone out of style a year prior, or had Puss not been orange, a color that simply didn’t go well with Crabby’s eyes.
[4] Their first conversation went something like this:
Puss: “Hey, Cute Little Persian!”
C.L.P: “What?! Why do you think I’d be interested in a dirty tabby like you?”
Puss: “Ahm… I’m actually a Scandinavian Coon.”
C.L.P: ‘Why would a poor miller have such an opulent cat as a Scandinavian Coon?!”
Puss: “Ahm…. Well….actually….my owner is a….marquis.”
C.L.P.: “Oh really?”
Puss: “Really.”
[5] You may ask why the king had any interest in a weekly quail, rabbit or pheasant from a cat, or why he didn’t question such meager tribute from a supposedly rich noble. Well, the queen had recently decided to go vegetarian, and this was about all the king was getting in the way of protein at the time.
[6] If this were in the traditional tale, I’d mock the use of such a hackneyed expression. But this is cold, hard fact, folks. Clichés have to come from somewhere.
[7] He supposedly threw Crabby’s clothes under a boulder, but his tidy nature has led scholars to believe that he either hung them up in the closet or tossed them in the hamper like a nice little kitty.
[8] Well, no, it wasn’t really a “regular old mouse”. It was a “regular old mouse that had wisely invested in real estate and the stock market.”
[9] You may want me to rip apart how suspicious it was for the princess to fall so madly in love with a man that she’d only just met, but I really don’t have the real story to tell you. The fairy tale says that the king suggested the marriage after “a few glasses of very fine wine”, but its common knowledge that the queen was morally opposed to alcohol. So, I offer you this: The princess was a loony-bird.