The Midnight Archives: The Midnight Library of Equestria

"Scaredy-cat! Scaredy-cat!"

        The taunting voices rang in Octavia Philharmonic's ears as she pedaled fruiously down the alley that divided the new housing development from the old part of town. Her cheecks burning, she sped along between the high wooden fences until she reached the big open field known locally as the "Old Green".

        Octavia shouted defiantly back to Lyra and the rest of the gang: "I'm not scared! I just dont want to do it!"

        "Octavia's a big coward!" Lyra called.

        "Coward!" Colgate and Bon Bon shouted in unison, taking thier cue from Lyra.

        "Shut Up!" Octavia shouted, "Just shut up!"

        Colgate and Bon Bon took up the chant. Now the whole gang was yelling at her. "You're a coward! You're a coward!"

        Octavia pulled on the handlebars, lifting herself off the seat to boost the bike up over the curb and onto the grass. She pressed down hard on the pedals, struggling to keep up speed on the incline. At the crest of the round grassy hill, she brought her bike to a halt and turned around to look back. She was thirteen years old, tall and slim with corn-gold hair and a pale, freckled face -- except that right now her cheeks were flaming red and her blue eyesstung in the chilly wind.

        It had all started when Lyra had dared Octavia to throw pebbles at the Cat Lady's windows and then run off. She had refused. Then Lyra had called her a scaredy-cat and she'd ridden away, humiliated and angry.

        Octavia watched as Lyra and the gang rode thier bikes to the end of the alley. Lyra said something to the others,  and they all brayed with laughter. Octavia's cheeks  burned with embarassment -- Octavia knew they were laughing at her and she hated it.

        As she stared down at the jeering gang, she found herself wishing  she had never distanced herself from Vinyl. Things had been so much simpler when she and Vinyl had been best friends.

        The rift had begun a couple months ago -- due to a stupid fight over a T-shirt. Octavia had borrowed it from Vinyl for a party, and when she gave it back, there was a stain on it that wouldn't come off. Vinyl said the T-shirt had been perfect when she had lent it to Octavia -- but Octavia was convinced that she hadn't stained it. Neither one would back down.

        Octavia had stormed off, telling Vinyl she never wanted to speak to her again. Then, to make Vinyl jealous, she'd started hanging around with Lyra and her gang, partly because everyone thought they were cool -- but also because she knew that Vinyl didn't like them. She thought that they were all stupid sheep -- blindly following Lyra. Octavia didn't like Lyra much: She was sarcastic and cruel -- and she was a bully too. But Colgate and Bon Bon were OK. Except for the way they always did everything Lyra told them to do. That often got really annoying.

        Octavia stared back down the way she had come. The new housing development stretched out, all neat, clean,  and orderly in a big crescent to the left side of the Old Green. To the right sprawled the grubby, old industrial part of town. An alleyway was the dividing line between the old and the new. It was paved and had fencing along both sides. To the left, fancy wooden doors led into the yards of the new development, and to the right were and older, battered set of fences -- decrepit and entwined with vines and long spiky-looking weeds. It seemed to Octavia as if the people who had put the fences up didn't want anyone from the one part of town getting into the other.

        Not that it stopped the cats! There were plenty of cats. They came mostly from Mrs. Sparkle's house, a shabby place tucked away behind the fence that bordered the alleyway on the old part of town. Mrs. Sparkle was a little strange. She was known locally as the Cat Lady. Sometimes Octavia and the gang would look over the tall fence into her garden full of cats. And sometimes, Lyra would bang on the fence and shout to scare the animals. Octavia didnt like that -- she thought it was mean.

        The Cat Lady's house was a sanctuary for what seemed like hundreds of cats. They were everywhere. Black cats and tabby cats, ginger toms and calicoes, fluffy cats and scraggy cats, young cats and old cats -- from sleek and skittish kittens, all gleaming eyes and needle-sharp claws, to ferocious and curmudgeonly old bruisers that hissed and showed thier broken yellow teeth and anyone who came near.

        For as long as Octavia could remember, there had been dreadful stories about Mrs. Sparkle.

        Vinyl had first told Octavia those stories, years ago, when Octavia's family had moved into the neighborhood.

        "It's true -- it's really true," Vinyl had told her, wide-eyed, on that first day at school. "The Cat Lady kidnaps children."

        Octavia had not been convinced "Why would she do that?" she had asked.

        Vinyl's voice had dropped to a whisper. "She takes them down to her cellar and grinds them up to make cat food," Vinyl had said. "How else do you think she manages to feed all those cats of hers?"

        Octavia had stared uneasily at her. "I don't believe it!"

        Vinyl had laughed. "Ask anyone!" she had said. "But you'd better watch out. If you go near her house, she'll come shuffling out and she'll offer you candy to get you to go inside. Then, once you're in there, she'll give you a suspicious drink that will make you feel all sleepy and weak."

        "Then what?" Octavia had asked, her eyes widening in alarm.

        "Then she'll drag you down to her dark and smelly cellar." Vinyl had said. "And your head will go bump, bump, bump on the stairs. And you wont be able to do anything about it. She's got this huge old machine down there -- like a giant blender. And you'll be lying there helplessly while she turns it on. And it will start clanking and churning -- and you'll see a big grinding screw begin to turn way down at the bottom of the funnel. And then the Cat Lady will lower you really slowly into it, hooves first -- and the worst part will bethat although you cant move, you'll still be able to hear the grinder draw closer and closer!"

        Octavia hadn't really believed that the Cat Lady turned children into cat food in her cellar, but all the same she had always kept a watchful distance from the house. The Cat Lady didn't come out very often, but when she did, Octavia would watch her warily as she hobbled down the street, leaning on a thick cane, all shrowded up in a heavy, moth-eaten old coat and kerchief. And after all these years, Octavia still crossed the street to avoid getting to close to her house.

        A little while ago, she had confessed this to Lyra and the gang.

        "I know she's just a sad old lady," she had told them. "And i know the stories about her aren't true, but she still gives me the creeps."

        Lyra had mockeed her. "That's pathetic!" she had said. "What are you -- six years old?" The others had joined in laughing at her, though Octavia was sure that most of them were scared of the Cat Lady, too.

        "You need to grow up a little," Lyra had said. "I now how to cure you of being scared of the Cat Lady." She had mounted her bike. "Come on, everyone. Let's go have some fun."

        "What kind of fun?" Octavia had asked quickly.

        "We can throw stones at her front door for a start," Lyra had said. "That would be hilarious!"

        "I don't want to do that," Octavia had said. "What's the point? It's just mean."

        "Suit yourself, scaredy-cat," Lyra had said, laughing as she rode off.

        The others had followed her, leaving Octavia standing there all by herself. She had been angry at Lyra for making fun of her, and irritated by those two stupid girls who followed Lyra around like a bunch of zombies. She knew Vinyl was right about them, and this made the feelings of isolation and loneliness far worse. She had felt her stomach turn upside down, and hot tears had prickled behind her eyes, though she was determined not to cry.

        And now she was in the same position again, alone on top of the Old Green while the rest of the gang made fun of her.

They're idiots, she told herself as she stared down at them. But if I don't do what they want they're going to make my life a complete misery. She frowned I'm going to put a stop to this once and for all, Octavia resolved, and she turned her bike around and rode back down the grassy slope.

        "Look, everyone! Scaredy-cat's back," Heather mocked.

        "What does scaredy-cat want?" Bon Bon chipped in.

        Colgate piped up as well. "You should run home to Mommy, Octavia," she said. "The Cat Lady might get you!"

        "Oh, shut up," Octavia snapped.

        "Or what?" Bon Bon said. "You're brave all of a sudden."

        Octavia ignored her. "I'll take your stupid dare," she said looking straight at Lyra. "It's no big deal. I think it's totally pathetic."

        Lyra just looked slyly back at her. "You have to go in through the gate," she said. "Right into the front garden."

        "Whatever," Octavia said, trying to sound as if she couldn't care less. I'll make it look good, but i'll miss the window and aim for the wall, she though. "I'll do it once," she said to the group, "but never again. It's totally pathetic and immature."

        Lyra stared at her and Octavia met her gaze for a moment. "Ok -- if you do it right." A slow grin spread over Lyra's face as she looked down at the others. "Did i tell you all about the time i went inside the Cat Lady's house?" she asked.

        "You didn't!" gasped Bon Bon

        Lyra nodded. "Yes, I did," she said. The others gazed at her in awe. "She'd gone out shopping and she'd left the front door open. So, I decided to go in and have a good look aroung."

        "What was it like?" breathed Colgate.

        Lyra looked at Colgate. "Disgusting!" she said. "It was all dark and stinky and really filthy. Every single room was filled up with big moldy heaps of old newspapers and magazines tied up with string. And there were supermarket bags full of garbage -- and black plastic bags with more junk spilling out of them. And there were opened cands of cat food all over the place. And the whole place reeked. It smelled like the cats were using the whole house as one big toilet."

        There were squeals and wails of revulsion from the rest of the gang, but Octavia suspected that Lyra was making all this up just to freak them all out.

        Lyra continued her ghastly story. "The carpets were all sticky and squishy underfoot," she said.  "And the wallpaper was hanging off the walls in strips where cats sharpened thier claws. There were cats everywhere! And they were all staring at me, and some of them hissed at me -- but that didnt bother me. If any of those monsters had gotten anywhere near me, I'd have given them a good kick!"

        "But the Cat Lady might have come back and caught you!" gasped Bon Bon

        Lyra eyed her. "So what?" she said. "What's she going to do? I'm not afriad of her." She glanced again at Octavia -- rubbing it in. "Then I went upstairs," she continues. "I found her bedroom. Only she doesn't have a real bed like a normal person. There was just a big, round wicker basket on the floor, with dirty old blankets in it. That's where she sleeps. And there was a great big box of cat litter by the side of the bed." SHe gave the others a meaningful look. "And it had been used!"

        Colgate's eyes widened. "You don't mean...?"

        Lyra nodded. "It was her toilet!"

        There were yells of revulsion from everyone but Octavia

        "That was so disgusting that I just turned around and left right away," Lyra said. "The whole place made me feel sick."

        "I don't believe it can be that bad," Octavia interjected. "No one could live like that! And i don't believe for a minute thatr she sleeps in a basket!"

        Lyra shrugged "See for yourserlf," she said. "I know what i saw." She gave Octavia a taunting look. "So, when are you going to go?"

        Octavia looked defiantly at her. "After school tomorrow."

        Lyra smirked. "We'll be waiting."

        "I'll be there," Octavia said. She pushed down hard on the pedals and rode her bike quickly down the long alley that led to her home. She was well aware that Lyra was proabaly badmouthing her to the others and saying that she wouldn't turn up.

        Well this time, Lyra was wrong.

        But all the same, Octavia felt just a little bit shaky as she cycled along. Mostly she was angry about Lyra  and her moronic gang, but there was also a small part of her that really wasnt looking forward to what she had agreed to do the next day.