Guest
post – Cool Facts about a Famous Cat by Vanessa Morgan
*Avalon
was a movie star. He played the first victim in the film adaptation of my short
story The Strangers Outside. Cats are known to be uncontrollable on a
movie set, but Avalon did exactly what was expected of him. The crew thought this was highly amusing and took
advantage of the opportunity to film Avalon from as many angles as possible:
lying down, standing, jumping, moving around. Avalon was ready to perform.
*Since Avalon's performance in The Strangers Outside, he
has also appeared in a music video, and now he's cast to appear in the film
adaptation of my short film script Next to Her where he will play a
ghost cat that visits an old woman.
*He also had a major appearance in my story A Good Man. His
part? A vampire cat that bit other kittens instead of humans.
*Like most cats, Avalon was picky about where he vomited. Many
cats would choose the bed or the carpet. Avalon, on the other hand, always
aimed for... my guinea pig's head. As soon as he felt a hairball mounting, he
ran as quickly as he could towards the guinea pig's cage and puked his heart
out.
*Avalon spoke a few words of French. They were well-pronounced
meows that coincidentally resembled the French vocabulary, but it had people
fooled every time.
Whenever
Avalon was hungry, he had a way of calling me that sounded like a French
child’s relentless chanting of Maman.
Maman. Maman. "Is your cat calling you Mom?" friends
or family members often asked.
Returning
from the kitchen with a full bowl of food, I’d ask him,
"Qui veut manger?" (Who wants to eat?) Avalon
would trot off after me saying, "Moi. Moi. Moi."
(Me. Me. Me.)
And he
was a real fashionista too. Whenever I asked him, "How do you like my new
dress?" I got the response, "Wow."
Blurb
Some
cats need nine lives to make a difference. Avalon only needed one.
From
Amazon bestselling author Vanessa Morgan, Avalon is the heartwarming and
once-in-a-lifetime love story of a girl and her neurotic Turkish Van cat.
With
humor, the author details how Avalon made other creatures cringe in distress
whenever he was around, how he threw her dates out by means of special
techniques, and how he rendered it almost impossible for her to leave the
house. Avalon was so incorrigible that even her landlord ordered her to get rid
of him. But beneath Avalon's demonic boisterousness, Vanessa recognized her own
flaws and insecurities, and she understood that abandoning Avalon would be the
worst she could do to him. Thanks to her unswerving loyalty, Avalon transformed
into a tender feline, and even landed a major role in a horror movie. In turn,
Avalon made it his mission to be there for his human companion.
By
turns jubilant and deeply moving, Avalon is a memoir for anyone who has ever
been obsessively in love with a pet.
Purchase
links for Avalon
Amazon.com:
http://amzn.to/1FTC8Ep
Amazon.co.uk:
http://amzn.to/1ImdPRo
Amazon.fr:
http://amzn.to/1JTGIF2
Author
bio
Vanessa Morgan is an author, screenwriter, and blogger. Two of her
works, The Strangers Outside and A Good Man, have been turned
into films. Her short film script Next to Her is currently in
pre-production. When she's not working on her latest book, you can find her
reading, watching horror movies, digging through flea markets, or photographing
felines for her blog Traveling Cats (http://travelling-cats.blogspot.com). Avalon has appeared in several of her books and films.
Social
media links
Twitter: http://twitter.com/eeriestories
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/follow/eeriestories
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Excerpt 1
Ignoring
the neighbors’ cats had diminished Avalon's jealousy,
but with four more beings in the apartment demanding my devotion, Avalon's
reality was still a far cry from his personal utopia, and new pet peeves were
routinely added to his usual problem-seeking behavior.
Small
changes often caused major disturbances. When we removed a DVD from the
cupboard, or put a pen on the living room table that he wasn’t used to seeing
there, Avalon pitched himself near the problem area and vocalized his
complaints as if he was a muezzin calling to prayer. He only stopped if the
space returned back to normal.
Intelligent
and calculating as he was, Avalon had also developed a technique to prevent
Ballon and Tigris from using his
litter boxes. Each time he heard the scratch scratch scratch in the litter, he
settled into attack mode behind the bathroom wall, wiggled his behind, and
leapt onto the other cat as soon as it emerged, making it jump. It worked every...single... time. Proud, Avalon walked
away from the crime scene with his nose pointing airwards.
Borat,
our guinea pig, was initially the best one off, but ended up the most
miserable. What kept him safe at first was Avalon’s fear of rodents. Cats may
be considered deadly predators, killing a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3
billion mammals a year in the United States alone, but whenever Borat had free
range inside the apartment, Avalon went in a large circle around him, avoiding
him at all cost.
Eventually,
Avalon ferreted out a way to make Borat twinge in distress whenever he
approached. It started when I taught Avalon not to throw
up on the bed and carpets. Those lessons must have been meaningful, because
Avalon didn’t vomit in those places anymore.
Instead he aimed for the guinea pig's head. As soon as he felt a
hairball mounting, Avalon ran as fast as he could toward Borat's cage, leaned
in, and puked his heart out.
Excerpt 2
Around
three o’clock that night, Avalon was fed up with the strange man in his bed. He plonked his rear down on
Gilles’ pillow, complaining fretfully in his ear while
tapping him on the face.
After
nearly an hour of incessant wailing and poking, more drastic measures were
required. The new solution: pushing Gilles out of bed.
Avalon
succeeded.
Climbing
back under the covers wasn’t an option. Unable to sleep,
Gilles got up. "I guess I didn't pass the test."
"Give
Avalon some time. Maybe he was just irked because you took his side of the
bed."
But
Gilles had already understood that this wasn't going to be a one-time event.
For
several minutes, Gilles and Avalon sized each other up. Then Gilles
said, "I’d better leave the two of you alone now.
It’s clearly what the little guy wants."
I swear I
could see Avalon smirking when Gilles put on his jacket and left.
Instantly, Avalon leapt onto me, and compensated for the
evening before. He entered a
kiss-induced trance. This cat was all about exclusivity, and when granted that
exclusivity, his love was immense.
"Are
you really that happy that Gilles is gone?"
In reply,
Avalon looked at me with swoony eyes and purred loudly, then swatted out his
paw to urge me to continue to pet him, which I did.
A phone
call interrupted our tender moment. It was Gilles.
"There
won't be any train to Brussels for hours," he said. "Is it okay if I
come back to your place for a while?"
"Of
course." His return would offend Avalon, but I couldn’t possibly leave
Gilles outside in the rain for several hours.
As soon
as Gilles appeared at the front door, Avalon’s pupils widened to a pitch black.
Let's see who's the boss here, he
seemed to be thinking.
Being a
cat of action, Avalon went through his usual attention-seeking routine: making
a selection of irritating noises, scratching the wallpaper, and pushing objects
to the ground.
When that
didn't work, Avalon opened Gilles' overnight bag and threw out a piece of
clothing. His eyes so dark and evil they could be gateways to hell, Avalon
stared at his adversary and waited for a reaction. He
then pulled out a box of gel wax. Again, he looked up at Gilles to make sure he
understood that all this bungling was meant to get a message across. A third
object followed, then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, until there was nothing.
Hell-bent on winning the game, Avalon took Gilles'
coat in his mouth and towed it toward the front door. There, he used his right
paw to tap the keys hanging from the wooden doorframe.
Avalon’s
message couldn’t be any clearer: there was room for only one man in my life. A feline one.
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