(Found this on a old hard drive, circa 1990. I was taking a Children's Literature course and, instead of writing another loathsome
research paper, I convince my professor to let me rework a fairy tale. Now I think I'd like to write more of them.)

Boots on Puss

I recall but a few remnants of the early days. My brother Jack remembers little else. Between the two of us, we stitch together a history. You all know what leather is: humans prepare it from the skin of animals. And you probably can mention a great many uses for which leather is put: coats, belts, gloves—and especially boots, like Jack and me.

I feel I was born in Wellingboro, but Jack remembers us both being in Bermondsey, in the south of London where noisome industries were allowed. It’s possible. Jack is slightly older than I am. But I don’t press the issue. He says the earliest memories are unpleasant, painful for him. The best he can say of them is, “At least we escaped putrefaction.”

Wellingboro was no bovine bliss either. We went through the cutting, the clicking, the closing, the lasting. We were welted, stitched horizontally. Our heels were stacked and nailed. We were further cut, rasped, sanded, and polished. We endured it; those were forgettable pains, temporary discomforts. I wasn’t homogeneous, though. That was perturbing. My lowers didn’t match my uppers. Even in my uppers, the leg differed from the vamp. And the stiffeners… well, those were foreign, a completely different animal.

I felt—impure, adulterated. But it was the same for Jack. If anything, we had an allaying bond because of it. I sensed there was something of me in Jack, something of him in me. We had been commissioned for the son of a prince, a petitte lad who, having looked at us for only an instant, had scoffed: “Dreary. They are reddish brown.” And of course we were; it wasn’t removable polish either. Jack remembered something of our tanning, the distinct hemlock broth we had bathed in.

We were disgraced and left—left unsold and miserable. A spoon-fed son of a prince gets whatever he wishes. And he didn’t wish for us. Almost no one ever did. We sat there month after month in a dingy French shoe shop, accumulating dust and crisp disappointment as occasional ooohs and ahhhs moldered into “You want how much?”

We were too small, too well crafted, too highly priced to attract serious offers. And our merchant was a stickler; miserly, he refused to cut his losses. So, we sat, hollow, hardly daring to dream we might ever house a pair of tiny feet. Feet, we knew, work so hard, especially the little ones, which needed protection and ought certainly be softly held.

We waited a long time, but we were able. We had been tanned slowly in progressively stronger acids. Our durability was assured. Not so the merchant. He soon shriveled into nothingness. Hard work without relaxation had worn holes in him. He rarely took time to enjoy life, and he left behind an improvident widow without children to carry their bloodline or business. The widow had to sell everything then—just to survive a year or two—and she sold at cut-rate losses.

A young man bartered his services with her. He was the third son of a miller and, therefore, penniless, destined to always be penniless, or at best might one day be apprenticed off to someone who was almost penniless. But he was a fine, strong lad, personable and well behaved. He offered the widow his uneducated vigor in exchange for the pair of us. It was the only offer, so she took it. And the lad helped her move and to deliver what was left of the merchant’s life into the hands (and onto the feet) of others.

Jack and I were consoled, finally hoping we could achieve our purpose—until we got a look at the boy’s feet: size 12 at least! We were mortified. Those corpulent leg terminals of his would burst our seams. However, no such ruptures came to pass. The lad instead carried us to his meager home and presented us—to his cat, Puss! I think it was a cat. It stood upright and spoke: “Red? Wonderful. You’ve done well, Young Richard. With these boots, I’ll can now make your fortu— Say, your last name wasn’t Whittington, was it?”
“No,” Richard answered meekly. “Millerson. Why?”

“Ah, good. I forgot which story I was in for a moment. These boots, though,” Puss continued, “these glorious chestnut boots are going to make you rich.” The anthropomorth then opened my throat, forced me to gag down his right hind leg. And Jack was force to swallow his left. The coarse black hairs on the cat, however, tasted clean and sweet. Not at all what we had expected. I noted also his legs contained no sweat glands. But, as he stood his full weight inside us, we suffered his terrible claws, as the cat fought to find an improved balance. Jack and I held ours tongues and suffered in silence.

“Now,” Puss said to the lad, “I can run through the sharp brambles.”

The cat picked up a gunnysack and footed off into the forest, taking Jack and me along. It didn’t make any real world sense. I felt the creature’s strong, powerful leg muscle inside of me, its flexible skeleton, the soft footpads of its paw, the protective fur between its toes. This creature barefooted would have had no problem with brambles. If anything, Jack and I could only slow sucha creature down. Well… we stepped along with him anyway. That was our job.

Puss caught a tender rabbit among the Rosa canina. Not by using stealth and speed as you might expect of a cat. No, he baited the sack with fresh vegetables and dried alfalfa to lure the coney inside, then pulled the opening closed when the foolish rabbit ventured in after them.

Puss marched us along through the cobbled trail to the castle of King Oscar, the ruler of the surrounding lands. Puss presented the rabbit to his majesty, and declared it was a personal gift from the Marquis of Carabas. King Oscar was pleased with the fresh game. I could tell by how he twinkled and curled his toes. He wore a sporty little pair of low-heeled pumps, their yellow leather smiling softly at me and into the reflective floor tile. I also felt Jack trying to appear broader than he was by twisting the cat’s ankle sideways. If Puss noticed, he did not resist or make a scene.

The next day, Puss clomped us off into a nearby barley field. He filled his gunny with golden barley and a pawful of wild dandelion seeds and then headed off into the high grasses just beyond where humans frequented. The more his legs brushed and rubbed against the insides of Jack and me, the oilier they became. It got so bad that Puss had to take us off to air out. He just lounged there then, lazily in the sun, gnawing the nails on his hind legs sharper. After an hour or so, he licked his fur clean, put us on again, and got us back to work. The cat caught a couple of plump partridges. But not by using stealth and speed as you might expect of a cat. No, he hid in the grass and made happy bird noises. And when “other” partridges approached for grain and seeds of their own to eat, they ambled right into his bag.
Puss then presented the birds to King Oscar, another personal gift from the Marquis of Carabas. The King’s feet were grinning then, gently enveloped in a pair of embroidered deerskin moccasins. The King’s men, however, who rigidly stood nearby, had feet banded in cold iron. They weren’t happy at all.

The third day went much the same. Puss caught brown trout from a nearby stream. I half expected him to use a fishing pole—since I had given up on ever seeing stealth and speed. But no, he walked us right into the shallows. He just stood there, motionless. The water rushed against and around Jack and me, but failed to breech. I felt proud of my construction. When some fish moved in to study our glossy red coloring more closely, Puss snapped them out of the water like nobody’s business. And King Oscar was pleased to get them, as usual. His feet were cheering in silent jubilance inside of warm cotton slippers. And Puss made sure that the Marquis of Carabas got full credit once again for the gift.

As we were leaving the castle, we overheard the King’s coachmen talking: “The Ol’ Man wants his carriage ready for a drive along the river this afternoon. He’s taking his daughter along, so we have to wash and polish everything.”

Puss ran us all the way back to Young Richard. “Quick! Quick!” the cat shouted. “Today, your fortune is made! All you have to do is swim naked in the lake.” Richard needed a bath anyway, so he did as commanded, and soon the king’s coach rode near where the lad poked his head out of the water.

“Help! Help!” Puss shouted at the passing carriage. “My master, the Marquis of Carabas, has just been robbed by highway men! The blackguards even took his clothing.”

The king stopped immediately, thrust his head out the window. Recognizing Puss immediately, King Oscar dispatched one of his soldiers to ride back to the castle: “Fetch one of my finest suits for my good friend, the Marquis of Carabas.”

“The who?” Young Richard whispered at Puss.

Puss narrowed his eyes into slits. “Just go with it, boy.”

The horseman soon returned with purple, satiny garments for Richard. The boots were of rugged black leather, functional, but hardly stylish. “Thank you,” Richard said to the king. “Your majesty is too kind.” The lad dressed quickly behind a bush and soon appeared quite regal himself.

“Won’t you ride with us?” King Oscar asked. Richard accepted and climbed into the carriage close to the beautiful Princess Velta. And, while pleasant, but lengthy introductions were being exchanged, Puss hurried Jack and me along the trail. After only a few minutes, we reached a field where several haymakers were fearfully laboring. All of them had skinny ankles and their footwear was appalling, mostly just rags with nothing to support their arches. Puss centered us within their ranks. He began speaking, but, apart from odd nervous glances, they pretty much ignored him and kept on working.

Puss grew angry, laid back his ears, narrowed his gaze, thrust his whiskers out full: “Hay makers!” he shouted, his voice a reverberant clap of thunder. And in that instant, we could no longer feel his claws grasping inside us for support. The claws and fur on his feet retreated; his soft footpads hardening unto bone. “Peasants! If you do not behave exactly as I command, I will personally suck the breath out of each and every one of you while you sleep tonight! Don’t think I won’t.”

The field workers gave notice, especially as the sky darkened a burnt orange.

Puss continued, “When King Oscar’s coach arrives and he asks to whom this field belongs, you will answer The Marquis of Carabas.”
The workers shakily bowed and nodded their obedience. And the cat’s paws and the sky’s coloring returned to normal. Puss hurried us even further along the trail. After another few minutes, we approached a group of reapers working cereal grain fields. Puss wasted no time with them, transformed his paws to bone, darked the heavens, and thundered out: “Reapers! If you do not do exactly as I command, I will perform a variation of the St. John’s Day celebration on each and every one of you—and then scatter your bone ashes to the wind. The fearful reapers quickly agreed that they would be wise indeed to acknowledge these fields belonged to the Marquis of Carabas if questioned by the king.

In actuality, though, the hay and grain fields had been seized by a cruel Jötunn named Pibeth, and the wills of his laborers were already broken, their hearts full of despair. The giant lived in a stone castle and the surrounding lands were disguised from the civilized world. A few learnéd men who knew of such things suspected that Pibeth was a mage specializing in the arcane art of transmogrification.

As Puss hurried us along the trail, the Jötunn’s veils of secrecy weakened. As the otherwise normal path gave way to cobblestones and cement, Jack and I clicked and resounded our master’s approach. When we reached the keep’s door, Puss didn’t hesitate, and he bunted his head loudly against it as if his skull were a giant ram.

The Jötunn, annoyed at the noise, swung wide the door against an adjacent wall. A hoary cloud of dirt and dust smoked off from it. “What do you want… cat?!” Pibeth bellowed his question as he stomped size 32 hippopotamus-skin boots for emphasis.

Puss fidgeted somewhat inside of me, his nails sharp as his wit. “Oh hail, great Pibeth,” Puss spoke politely, removed his feathered hat and bowed before the giant. “I am the Marquis of Carabas. I stand before thee an unfortunate victim of alchemic trickery. I have scoured the lands high and low, and, no matter where I travel, those few in the know have told me that Pibeth is the most powerful mage this mortal world has ever seen. I have spent a full year seeking for you.

The Jötunn grunted and twitched his broad shoulders as if uninterested, but I saw how his feet shuffled inside his thick boots and betrayed their owner’s vanity.

“And,” Puss continued, “if you are truly as powerful as they say, I can reward you with nine tenths of my royal wealth—the fertile lands far to the east and forty iron coffers filled with gold marks—if you can only transform me back to my human form. I must return to my beloved as a man.”

The Jötunn grinned, for this would be an easily task for him. “I am your salvation, friend,” Pibeth said. “For, as you say, I am the master of all transmogrifications. I can alter myself as large as an elephant, as savage as a bear.”

Puss leaned his head back slightly and sighed, “Oh, if only such things were possible, then I would be convinced that you could save me.”
The Jötunn growled his annoyance! And Boom! He stood then as a giant, shoeless elephant. “There!” he trumpeted. “What do you say to that, man-cat!?”

“Amazing!” exclaimed Puss, who fell to his knees but well beyond the range of the elephant’s stomping feet. Suddenly, the elephant growled and there stood a bristling bear. “For that lack of faith, my price for your cure is now all of your worldly wealth!”

Puss crept backward. “Yes, yes, of course,” he said. “I meant no disrespect. These are forms are splendid, grand achievements, and on a scale that’s frightening.” Then he stood again. “But, as you can see by the minuscule size of my royal boots, I was a mere mouse of a man. Can you also transform yourself into something very, very small?”

Pibeth laughed. “Yes,” squeaked the bear, and, in an instant, a little mouse appeared and scurried up to the cat for closer approval. Puss was stealthily waiting for that. With a pounce of speed, Puss caught the mouse, severed his spinal cord with a sharp tooth and then throated down his tiny head. Well satisfied by this mousey morsel, Puss bent down for a few moments and batted at the rest of the Jötunn’s corpse on the castle’s threshold. As he did so, the illusionary veil surrounding the entirity of the keep dissipated.

By the time the king’s carriage had arrived at the castle, Puss had threatened the Jötunn’s retainers and men-at-arms inside into unwavering servitude to Young Richard, whom Puss described as the Marquis of Carabas.

“Welcome to my master’s humble dwelling, your majesty,” Puss said as King Oscar stepped free of the carriage.

“Truly remarkable,” the king said, staring in wonder at a great castle adjacent to his own lands and yet which had so far gone unnoticed. “And you own this splendid keep as well, Son?”

Richard nodded, looking anxiously at Puss who seemed to be nodding both of their heads in agreement at the same time.

The king was very pleased with handsome Young Richard and with his home and with his fertile lands. Richard had done his part as well during the carriage ride, for his pleasant nature and good manners had won him great friendships.

“If she wills it,” the king said, “you may ask to court my daughter, since I see you have grown fond off each other.” The princess agreed this would be a good thing, and they engaged to be married on the Vernal Equinox after the upcoming winter perished and melted away into lovely flowers. There was a great celebration on that spring day, a glorious feast which lasted long into the next morning. Jack and I danced with the cat until dawn.

“Thank you for all of your help,” Richard told Puss when the merriment had finally abated. And, on the next day, Richard had a special throne constructed for the cat, complete with red velvety pillows and replaceable scratching posts.

Puss rarely ever wore Jack and me after that. In fact, he spent most of his time just sleeping on his throne. I preferred it that way, though; there was something unearthly about that cat. And, once when it had been asleep for a very long time, completely lost within the red velvet, we heard it mumble something unpleasant about the miller’s wife, gossip of an extramarital, extra-worldly, affair. But his dreams and memories were the cat’s business, and we were all but done with him.

Young Richard eventually became known solely as the Marquis of Carabas, and the title of Young Richard then passed down to his son. The boy was definitely royalty. When he was offered Jack and me to be his everyday house boots, he said, “Oh, scandalous! They’ve been used.”

And, until the day they died, they all lived happily.

That was excellent, Beachy!

It's such a unique perspective, too. I enjoyed that.

Thanks.