ZUZU LULU Y T U

An everyday tale of delusion, defiance and disaster

that will teach you English.

CHAPTER EIGHT -

ZUZU AND THE RIGID CAT

Hello! Zuzu here! I’ve been invited to join the Iberian Symphony Orchestra and, as you can imagine, I’m very excited about it.

I’ve been a musical prodigy for years, of course. When I was back home on planet Hamoco I had my own rock band and later, when all our weapons – I mean instruments – were confiscated I played the violin in the Eastern Hamoco Symphony Orchestra.

But that first rock band of my young days was the best fun, for a while. The line-up was a bit unusual, even for Hamoco: we had three guitars, two trumpets, a rigid cat and four sets of drums.

We created a sound that was tight, smooth and exciting. It produced a decibel level about the same as a jet plane at take-off, but this was only because our sound man, Griz, failed to get any more power out of our amplifiers.

What? You think the part about the rigid cat is a mistake? Well, it was, sort of, but not in the way you might imagine. Our manager, Sandshoe Willie, was a good man, but he didn’t speak much Spanish.

We wanted him to buy a ‘gaita rageda’, the famous version of the bagpipes (gaita gallega), which come from the Rageda mountain region of Chile.

Well, Sandshoe Willie bought it on the internet – we had the internet on Hamoco long before it was invented on Earth – but because of his bad Spanish he wrote ‘gato rigido’ (rigid cat) instead of ‘gaita rageda’ on the order form.

Of course, when the rigid cat arrived Sandshoe Willie knew he’d made a terrible mistake. He was really annoyed. The cat wasn’t very pleased either. Sandshoe Willie was afraid to tell me or the other members of the band what he’d done.

But he knew the sound we wanted – he was familiar with the sound of the “gaita rageda”. Like the bagpipes of Scotland, they give a melodic, sad and spiritual sound that make you feel as if you’re floating over the green fields of your youth. Or as if someone is drilling a hole in the side of your head, depending on your taste.

Anyway, Sandshoe Willie secretly trained the cat to produce this sound; don’t ask me how, I didn’t ask.  When he arrived with it at our first rehearsal, the cat really was rigid. Its hair stood on end all over its body and its tail stuck straight out like a lumberjack’s saw.

Paxo, my friend who was meant to play the gaita rageda, refused to look at the cat, far less play it. The cat was offended by Paxo’s attitude.

During its musical training the rigid cat had become a prima donna – it knew it was the only musical cat on planet Hamoco and it had forced Sandshoe Willie to feed it on prime shrimp, lobster and strawberry jelly.

By the time we met the cat it lived in a centrally-heated trailer and had its own part-time publicity agent. Sandshoe Willie had obviously tried to avoid the emotional tantrums that so affect the musical world.

Paxo, who was a decent guy, said he didn’t want to be involved in any cruelty to animals. The rigid cat heard him and spat a grilled shrimp at his forehead.

Sandshoe Willie persuaded us to start the rehearsal, so we lined up with the cat in front beside the guitarists. Sandshoe Willie taught Paxo how to play the rigid cat – all he had to do was raise his foot over the cat’s rigid tail at the right moment, without touching it, and the cat would give a tremendous wail like a quaver on the bagpipes. It was ugly and horrible, but it was exactly the sound we wanted.

Of course the rigid cat didn’t know anything about all this technical stuff; he was the most musically-ignorant cat I ever knew. His sound needed to be as loud as the rest of the band so we wired him up to the amplifiers (don’t ask) and he was the key to our first hit record.

We were a great success on the rock and pop music circuit on Hamoco for a few years, playing to hysterical audiences before the Beatles were even born.

It all ended in tears, of course. The rigid cat thought it was the star of the band and it grew too big for its boots. “Puss out of boots” as Paxo bitterly remarked.

The cat wanted to go solo, saying it had become a megastar and didn’t need the rest of the band. So it left us behind and we, except for Paxo, went back to being a regular heavy metal band.

The last time I saw it, the rigid cat was playing Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas, performing works by Michael Jackson and refusing to have tea with Elton John. Paxo was driving its limousine. Show business can be very cruel.

LULU WRITES:

Zuzu has joined the school band. He has to play the triangle, which was not his choice of instrument.

He’s still trying to figure out how to connect the triangle to the band’s amplifiers. He tried to run a wire through his friend Paxo’s electric guitar, with unfortunate results. As I’ve said before, I know Zuzu’s only seven, but that’s not always an excuse.

I saw Paxo yesterday and he says if any of you want to visit him in hospital, please don’t bring any more grapes. He doesn’t like grapes. And, I also learned, he really hates cats.

I’ve read Zuzu’s story, of course. Whatever the facts may be (facts!), in educational theory this cat was a perfect example of the difference between education and training.

VOCABULARIO

VOCABULARIO