A Tale from Pete the Cat

The box arrived with the usual fanfare, which is to say the large human presented it to the small human, whose shrieks could curdle cream. I watched from my designated observation post atop the bookshelf, tail twitching in mild irritation. The contents spilled onto the rug: plastic cups, a disturbingly realistic-looking thumb, decks of cards, and a slender black-and-white wand that immediately caught my eye. The small human, my designated "Apprentice," immediately began fumbling with the pieces, his eyes glued to a glowing screen where a man in a top hat gestured silently. My initial assessment: a collection of future under-the-sofa debris. The Apprentice began his "practice." He placed three red cups upside down and hid a small, fluffy ball under one. He shuffled them around with the concentration of a brain surgeon, muttering incantations learned from the screen. He was, of course, terrible. I could track the ball's location by the slight wobble in the cup and the sheer intensity of his gaze. He’d lift the wrong cup, sigh, and try again. On his fifth try, however, something changed. As he slid the cups, his focus wavered, and for a fleeting moment, I lost track. He lifted a cup, and *poof*, there was the ball. He gasped. I, however, saw the truth. In that moment of lost concentration, I had willed the ball to be there. The trick wasn't his; it was mine. A thrilling realization washed over me. This wasn't a toy for the human; it was a focusing array for *my* latent psychic abilities. The Apprentice was merely a conduit, a bumbling assistant for my grand cosmic manipulations. He picked up the wand, and as he waved it over a playing card, I twitched the tip of my tail. The card flipped, revealing a different one. The Apprentice cheered, but I knew. It was my twitch that had bent reality to my will. He made a coin vanish from a small box, but only after I had stared at it with such intensity that I surely vibrated its atoms into another dimension. He eventually tired, leaving his new instruments of power scattered. I descended from my perch, no longer just Pete, the pampered feline, but Pete, the Unseen Hand of Causality. I padded silently over to the wand, not to bat it, but to inspect my scepter. I nudged it with my nose, a silent acknowledgment of its role. The kit was, without question, worthy. The humans believe they have purchased a simple magic set to entertain their offspring. They have no idea they have provided me, their silent, fluffy overlord, with the very tools needed to finally take my rightful place as master of this domain. The illusions have just begun.