the cat, the hat and the spider had to move to the kitchen garden. the gardener is getting a new lawn and rosebeds ready for spring. ofcourse the bat tagged along to see where they were going, but they pretended not to notice him.
the spider being more used to sudden changes was the first one to settle in. but then again, he's always had that cool, sophisticated, spider-around-town confidence. just along the kitchen wall there is a nice lemon tree and the spider set up its home there. it put up its sixty-four cornered web, weaved in some magenta balsam petals to give it more colour and got some fireflies upside down in his web to complete the low-lighting arrangements. he also hooked up with the crickets in the basil bush to get a surround-chirping system.
the cat and the hat were very impressed with the spider's creative genius. and they agreed that unlike some creative creatures who go on moaning and throwing orders and tantrums at the same time, the spider was quite efficiently creative. however, the hat thought that the magenta was a bit too loud and would disturb the spider's sleep cycle and that stark white would have given the web a modern minimalist look. the cat disagreed. but the cat always liked flamboyance so...
they spent the first two days tearing around the garden, sun-bathing in the vegetable patch, making friends with the sparrows and the insomniac crow who lived on the window sill and who was fed cheese by the cook every night after dinner. and every evening they'd drop in at the lemon tree to admire the spider's new web and carry on talking there till even the insomniac crow fell asleep.
on the third morning, they went back to their old place to find that it has all been dug up. the gardener looked a bit shame-faced but told them that it'd all be worth it when the lawn goes velvety and the roses start blooming. he also promised to put in some white and pink roses to please the hat. the cat was feeling a bit lost. so the hat decided that they needed to get their own tree in the kitchen garden and stay there till the gardener gives them the green signal.
the cat knew they'd have to do that. but it was feeling a bit cross for not having thought of it earlier and it was also not used to moving about. so when the hat suggested the pomegranate tree, it told the hat not to be silly. the hat was a bit put out. see, the problem was that the hat knew the names of only three fruits - pomegranate, mango and lemon (just because the spider lived on it). since the lemon tree was already taken, and there were no mango trees in the garden, the hat didn't know what to suggest. so it punched the cat and asked it to find a tree since the cat was so clever. this last bit was sarcasm - which is when you say a thing and mean quite the opposite to irritate another person. but its not like saying white for black, that's just plain making things up.
now the cat was not much better than the hat at knowing the names of its fruits. it didn't even know what a mango is (and in its defence, cats are mostly not required to know about mangoes), but it did know what a pear is. since there were no pear trees in the kitchen garden either, that was out of question. so it punched the hat back and swished its tail about in a superior manner. they fought a bit more, without knowing that the bat was watching them and eaves-dropping for all its worth. finally, they decided to stay on the tree in the middle of the kitchen garden - a shortish tree with lots of low branches, narrow new-moon like leaves and a nice spicy smell.and the tree had a nice platformish space midway up its trunk, right where the branches started growing out.
however, after wrapping up the fight and a round of saying how sorry they were and that its alright, not to worry to each other, when the hat and the cat got to their tree, they found the bat there. the bat being the horrible creature it is, grinned at them and asked them if they liked his new home. the poor hat and the cat were so distressed that they could hardly speak, they asked the bat why he needed a new home, since its part of the garden was undisturbed. the bat grinned some more and said in sugary tones that it was missing them and when it heard them talking about their tree it thought it would move right in to keep them company.
the hat was so angry that it wanted to kill the bat right on the tree, but the cat dragged it away to the vegetable patch and calmed it down. the cat also pointed out that since the bat had got their first, it had a claim to the tree, whether they liked it or not. the hat said something extremely rude about the bat and its claim and settled in for a nap. this time they needed to count till fifty-three to go to sleep and the cat messed up twice and had to start afresh - once after he'd gotten to eleven and lost it and then the second time after having reached all the way to nineteen.
in the evening, they went over to the spider's as usual and the hat started telling him all about the bat even before reaching the foot of the lemon tree. the spider listened to it patiently and asked a few questions. it started frowning a lot and hummed a tune from one of those top of the chirp numbers that the hat didn't care much about. the spider also agreed with the cat that beating the bat to a pulp was certainly not a good idea. he told the hat that non-violence (which is when you don't beat up a person but make his life miserable anyway) is a better way of living life and gave it quite a bat-like grin. since the cat was still stuck on the idea of fairness, the spider drew the hat aside and the two of them had a long chat. the cat was horribly curious and was dying to know what they were talking about, but sat with its tail straight up and pretended to be above such things.
then the two of them strolled over to the basil bush and when they came back they wouldn't tell the cat anything. the cat begged and pleaded and threatened and left the tree twice to return back from halfway, but still they would only tell it that they'd been talking about fair means. when the cat was almost on the verge of crying , the hat and the spider relented and took him along to the tree. they found the bat sitting there with a sick expression on its face and a new band of crickets who were experimenting with trance and metal rock practising for their next gig. when the bat saw the spider it grew even sicker. the bat had highly sensitive ears and the when the crickets hit a particular pitch , the bat felt its head buzzing and spinning. he was on the verge of throwing up on the crickets and was waiting for them to finish so he could pick up a fight. but when it saw the spider coming, he knew it was pointless anyway.
without saying a word the bat flew away from the tree, though before he left he pulled a horribly rude face at the hat and swooshed down to tug the cat's tail. the crickets who'd stopped in the meanwhile, burst out laughing. but they were mostly laughing at the bat, so the cat didn't mind. they all went back to the kitchen steps for a small party, where the cook had put out milk and cheese bits. though the spider scoffed at the milk and said it was a confirmed dew drinker, it happily packed in the cheese morsels. later on, they went back to the lemon tree for a long discussion about decor and the crickets pitched in with a lot of suggestions because being in the entertainment biz they knew a lot about what's cool.