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Lost & Found

By Lockely Fox

What an odd thing to find in the Lost & Found. Janet stared curiously at the long object sticking out of the cardboard box in the dimly lit storage closet. She'd come back here looking for a tea mug she had left in the dishwasher before the weekend, but had completely forgotten about it in her amusement with her find.

"A cat toy?"

She bent down and pulled it out of the box. It was a wand style toy, with a thin plastic handle that was attached to a long piece of wire with colorful feathers on the end. A tiny bell hidden amongst the feathers made a pleasant jingle as she lifted it up. She shook the whole thing around a bit, listening to it and watching the colors dance. There was something... entrancing about it.

"What a weird thing to find in here," she said to herself, "It's not like we have an office cat."

It was at that point that she got a devilish idea. She rolled the long wire into a loop and carried it with her hand obscuring the feathers and the bell. If he heard its jingle, she'd miss her chance to really mess with him, and that wouldn't be any fun at all! Snaking back through the hallways and the mess of tall cubicles, she made her way back to her desk and waited, pretending to work while listening for activity from the other side of the cube next to her.

After a few moments, she heard the tell-tale sound of a chair squeaking and a man clearing his throat as he sipped his water bottle, waiting for his laptop to wake up. Perfect. Time to strike. Janet had a friendly rivalry with her direct co-worker. They'd often toss small foam desk toys they'd received from vendors over the cubicle wall at each other, or harmlessly mess with each other's computers, or tape tiny pictures inside their drawers. Playful fun to break up the workday monotony.

She silently unraveled the cat wand and slowly moved it above the thin divider between their cubes, "Oh Ericccc..." she called to him in a sing-song voice as she playfully jingled the wired feather over the edge into his view.

"Sorry Janet, not now, I have an importa-- oh..." Eric's reply cut off in the middle of his sentence, and there was an odd series of sounds from his cube, like cloth folding in on itself.

She raised a brow and jingled it again, "What's that Eric, get distracted by the kitty toy? ...Eric?"

The other side of the cube was quiet for a few moments, and she began to pull the toy away only for a soft 'mrrrwl' to come from across the divider and something lightly slammed into the top. A soft gray paw with pink beans grabbed at the feather with claws outstretched before it fell behind the faux wall.

"E--...Eric?"

Janet curled the toy back up and slowly stepped out of her cube, moving to walk over to his as she heard a soft pawing on the divider between them.

"Eric, c'mon this isn't funny now."

Tepidly, the stepped out into the common area and around the corner to the entrance of his cube. A pile of clothing sat crumpled in his chair and on the floor, and a small gray tabby was up on his desk, pawing at the divider while looking up.

"... Eric?" she asked once more.

"Mrrwl!" the cat trilled as it turned to look at her, cocking its head to the side. It stood up with its tail raised high and padded over to the part of the desk by the opening, looking up at her expectedly. Did... did Eric turn into a cat? She reached out a hand and the tabby rubbed his face against it, giving a loud purr. He pawed at her arm holding the coiled up toy. This couldn't be real, people didn't just turn into cats, but why were his clothes here? Eric pulled the occasional prank himself but this was way beyond that level.

The cat formerly known as Eric pawed at her again.

"Not now Kitty, I need to find my coworker."

It sat on its haunches and meowed up at her with an almost mournful tone in response, loud enough that she could now overhear several co-workers asking from their cubes if anyone else had just heard a cat. She glanced around, then moved to scoop the cat up. "Quiet Kitty, we don't want you or me to get in trouble. Let's go find your owner, and Eric wherever he snuck off to."

The tabby, however, had other plans. He hopped through her arms and off the desk, falling to the floor and running out into the aisle between the various cubes. Janet gave chase, her eyes focused entirely on the cat who remained just out of her reach as it moved from the main office into the hallway. She came abruptly to a stop as it darted between a pair of portly legs. Her eyes slowly moved up the figure until she found herself staring up at her boss. Mr. Davis wasn't a cruel man, but he was extremely strict about company policy. He once disciplined someone for *not* coming in casual dress on a Casual Friday, and pets were clearly not allowed in the office.

Mr. Davis cleared his throat, "Janet, you know company policy dictates that there are to be no animals in the office, do you not?" He didn't give her a chance to respond, "Come now, time to visit HR, you can collect your cat later."

Janet had already been in trouble with Human Resources after another prank between her and Eric had gone terribly wrong. It had taken them a week to replace all the drop ceiling tiles, and no one was allowed to have Tabasco sauce in the office anymore. She couldn't get written up again so soon... she needed to act, and fast.

Without thinking, she pulled out the wand and unbundled the wire from itself, it sprung open like, well, an uncoiling spring. Mr. Davis opened his mouth to say something, but then stopped, his eyes now focused entirely on the colorful feathers at its far end. She jingled it, and he reached out for it, his hand quickly falling further and further away as his fingers became soft cuddly paws and fur blanketed his arms. Whiskers popped out of his face as he continued to shrink into his clothes and his ears shifted to the top of his head, folding forward into cute triangles. A long, fluffy tail snaked its way out from under his pants as they dropped to the floor. In moments, he disappeared into his shirt and moments later, out crawled an orange striped Scottish Fold cat where her boss once stood.

"Oh-- oh no, I didn't think it would--- Mr. Davis? Are you still in there?"

The scottish fold looked entirely disinterested with her, and instead was staring up at the toy. He chuffed at her expectantly, but as she was no longer jingling the toy, he quickly ran off to another part of the office clearly annoyed by what had just occurred.

Janet, for her part, just stared down at his pile of clothes in shock. What had she done? How could this even happen, magic wasn't real! Was this a crime? Was she going to jail? She was too boring for jail, she wouldn't last a day! Her panic attack, unfortunately, had to go on hold as she felt something rub against her leg. Looking down, there was a third cat, and then a fourth. She slowly looked up and around, realizing that though she was in the hallway between both sides of the office, she was standing right in the middle of the doorway between both, and several of her coworkers had clearly seen her jingling the toy. Though, it was more accurate to say *former* coworkers, as several more cats jumped down into the aisles between their desks and began mingling about the office.

This had gotten out of hand. This thing was dangerous, she had to get rid of it right now! The trash shoot in the lobby fed right into a compactor, she just had to make it there and dump it in, then she could figure out how to explain to HR that she'd turned half the office workers into office pets. Without hesitating, she did as she had done before and rolled it up, lightly coiling the wire around itself and clasping her hand over the feathers and bell. Stepping carefully around the cluster of curious kittens, she moved into the main floor, turned left, and slammed directly into her co-worker Alice, sending both sprawling to the floor.

"Oof, sorry Janet! I wasn't watching where I was going. I was trying to avoid stepping on these cats." Alice said, rubbing her head and pushing herself upright. "Where did they come from, anyway? I didn't see anything about a cat therapy day in the emails this week." She glanced over to Janet, who was also collecting herself.

"Uh, yeah, I don't know, they just sorta... showed up?" Janet lied. She was little more than dazed from her tumble, but she put on a poker face and gave Alice a weak smile. Just had to get the toy to the lobby, and--- the wand! She looked around panicked, it had gone flying when she and Alice had collided, where was it?

Alice brushed herself off, then noticed something felt uncomfortable underneath her. Leaning to one side, she reached under herself and pulled out a pink piece of plastic attached to a long wire with feathers on the end. "Oh how cute, they even brought toys for the cats for us to play with them." She playfully waved it, jingling the bell with glee.

Janet didn't parse the last thing Alice had said, her pupils expanded to be as large as saucers as soon as the feathers began to dance in her hands. The world around her was getting bigger, and she was getting warmer in her clothes. This should have felt wrong, but it didn't. She should have been concerned when her hips shifted to force her to all fours, but she wasn't. She should have been scared when her fingers receded and dainty paws replaced them, but she hadn't been. She struggled out of her clothes and looked up at Alice, now with horror on her face. That didn't bother her either, the only thing Janet was concerned with was the dangling colorful feathers and playing with the cheerful bell.

---

No one had really noticed when the old accounting office was replaced one day, seemingly overnight, with a brand-new cat café that had seemingly too many cats. The dozens of workers who had gone missing without a trace? Wasn't even given a second thought. Magic has a way of fixing whatever chaos it causes, even larger events seemingly go unmentioned in the daily news.

A sleepy calico opened her eyes and stretched out a paw towards the sun shining through the window. She rolled onto her paws and gave a biiiiig stretch before hopping down off the windowsill and down the steps, the bell on her cute collar jingling as she moved. The café would be opening soon, which meant breakfast would be in their bowls in a few moments. She rubbed passed a few other cats on the way, scent bonding with them as she made her way to the kitchen. Cans were being opened and wet food was deposited into each bowl. She padded over to the one with the name matching her tag, Janet.

After a few bites, she seemingly for no reason tried to 'bury' the bowl and turned to head out into the main room. Guests would be arriving shortly, and there would be lots of play time and snuggles to be had. As she turned the corner, a gray tabby pounced sending both of them tumbling to the floor before darting off. This early? Fine. She gave chase across the back rooms of the overly spacious café, up and down cat trees and under stacks of boxes and through those little springy multicolored tunnels until both were tired out from their game, instead opting to curl up together under the warm ray of light coming through the window.

Best job ever.

The End.

#TFTober 2020 Prompt 2: Toy