Pebbles Goes to School

Pebbles has her first day of classes where she finds that her brother is the teacher.

It was the first day of school for Pebbles.  She was a ball of nerves.  She was going to the University for Cats and Kittens.  She was now old enough to be in the adult cat courses.  She walked up the steps of the main university building with her Hello Kitty backpack.  She entered the building and followed the signs to room 123.  It was to be a literature course that was now taught by a new professor.  She hoped that they would read poetry and watch historic movies.  She loved the arts and couldn’t contain her excitement to learn.

She came across Room 123 and entered.  It was a large auditorium with at least thirty rows of seats and a large dry erase board at the front of the class.  She took a seat in the first row, near the middle and got her notebook and mechanical pencil out.

Other students filed into the classroom and took seats around the room with very little empty seats.  It was listed in the course book as being a two hour class worth three credits toward graduation.  Pebbles was eager to take notes and even had a spare notebook on hand since there was no booked listed to buy for the class.

The classroom door flew open and in came a grey and white cat in a tan suit with glasses on.  He was carrying a suitcase that had the initials ‘BB’ inscribed in the leather.  He sat his suitcase down on the teacher’s desk and Pebbles noticed his furry paws.  Pebbles recognized him as her younger brother Bam Bam.  ‘How did he become a college professor?’ Pebbles wondered.

“Hi Bammers!” Pebbles waved to him, only to be ignored.  He as shuffling through some DVDs and programming his computer with material he was going to read from.  He hit a button on the wall and a large white screen lowered itself from the ceiling for the movies to be projected on.  He took the DVD remote and tucked it into his coat pocket.  He got up on the teacher’s chair in the front of the class and raised it up as far as it would go so he could see all of his students.  Once he was high on this throne, Pebbles started waving again.

“Good morning class, I am Professor Bam Bam,” He introduced himself.  “Now you are all here to learn about modern and classic animal literature.  I am not a believer in using books �" too many words on a page to focus on.  We will be watching select films and TV shows that I have chosen for us.”

Pebbles quickly wrote in her notebook, ‘No Books, Only Movies’.  She didn’t know what she would learn from that but it made her feel important to be writing something.  “Now probably the most important piece of film was many years ago.”  Bam Bam got the DVD player remote and hit play.  “It was Tom and Jerry.”  Pebbles watched in awe and then realized that this wasn’t actually literature, it was cartoons.  How was she to learn the history of cats by watching cartoons?

“Now in this scene, you will observe how Tom the cat ties a string to a piece of cheese and tries to lure Jerry into his mouth.  Now as the show advances, we see that Jerry has a plan of attack.  He replaces the cheese with a lit piece of TNT.  Tom closes his eyes and joyfully closes his mouth over the stick of dynamite.  His face then blows up, leaving him with grey singed fur.  The point to this video is don’t let your enemy be smarter than you.  Also, stay away from dynamite,” Bam Bam lectured and then let the class watch more of the cartoon.

“Stay away from dynamite.” Pebbles spoke to herself and wrote it in her notebook.  She still couldn’t figure out how any of this related to their species literature other than there was a cartoon cat in the show.

“Now we move to an episode of Looney Tunes and view yet another reaction to cats by the one and only Pepe Le Pew,” Bam Bam said and hit a button on the DVD player and it began to play.  “Here you see the innocent cat being chased after by a skunk.  The lesson is simple; all other creatures are jealous of cats and want to be like us.”

Pebbles was confused.  She looked around the room to see if any of the other students were following her brother’s lecture.  All eyes were on the video screen and they were frantically taking notes.  “Alright, all other creatures are jealous,” Pebbles spoke aloud and wrote in her notebook.  She quickly raised her paw, eager with a question.

“Yes, young lady,” Bam Bam called on his sister.

“It’s me dummy, your sister.  By the way, you left the toilet seat up this morning and forgot to put the cap back on the toothpaste,” Pebbles reminded and hear some giggles behind her.

“Ok, dually noted.  Your question?” Bam Bam accepted his flaws.

“What about characters like Underdog and even Hello Kitty, who promote peace among animals?  All of these cats you’ve shown have been under attack,” Pebbles said and anxiously awaited to take some notes.

Bam Bam sighed, realizing his sister’s point, though quickly got back into his professor state of mind.  “First, Underdog is not talked about in this class.  Second, Hello Kitty does nothing but look cute.  The only dog we can talk about in this class is Snoopy.  Though, we forgot a very key feline, Garfield.”  Bam Bam turned an episode of Garfield on and began to hang up a blow up newspaper comic of the orange cat.

“He eats nothing but lasagna.  He’s not real,” Pebbles argued.  Bam Bam took his glasses off and laid them on the table.

“I eat pizza rolls,” Bam Bam stated and everyone wrote down that pizza rolls where acceptable.  “We are running out of time, but next class will focus on real life cats, especially those ones in cat food commercials.  Do they really eat the food and do we all know the Meow Mix song?”

“I do!” Pebbles raised her paw.

“Yes, I know you do, sis,” Bam Bam said and shut down his equipment.  “Your homework for tonight is to critique the song “Soft Kitty” from The Big Bang Theory.  Do cats actually cure illness?”