Focusing On Fear Street - Cat

WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET WITH THERESTHEGIRL

 

Book # 45 of the original Fear Street series

Published May 1997

Cover Art by Bill Schmidt

 

 

This cover is about the closest that an original cover by Bill Schmidt has gotten to rivaling the German cover art with its simplistic yet effective style. A woman with cat-like eyes holds a very mean looking cat with the same green eyes against a reddish-brown background with the book title in that same green. The feline and the cat-like woman look realistic but it also looks like a movie poster and even if there is nothing in the background the detail is wonderful so I like it. Sadly, only Germany has any different take on the cover art because other countries trying their hand would be interesting. The first is the original and the second is from an omnibus collection of Cat with Bad Moonlight but it fits better for the first title more.

 

 

 

The eyes of a cat peak out of the darkness with scratches on the door and a small puddle of blood on the ground while in the second, a black cat is on the stone wall of a cemetery looking like a staple of Halloween. Black cats are bad luck to some but the cat in the book is silver-gray with a black diamond on its forehead but the stereotype is fine for the atmosphere and the detail of both covers is gorgeous!

 

Taglines: On the front is "C-A-T spells murder" Oh my goodness this has to be the cheesiest one yet! because it's just so *erupts in laughter* On the back is "The cat came back..." I like it because it reminds me of the best thing ever:

 



 

Back to business now with the blurb. It gets the point of the story across to us and well it does sound interesting.

 

The First Line: "I never liked cats."

 

 

 

The prologue is being narrated by our main character, Martin "Marty" Harper. He tells us that he is allergic to cats and also confesses that it's mostly because they look so evil when they stare at you...he's just not a cat person. He may not like them but he admits that he never meant to kill that cat and we find ourselves getting a flashback to how this whole mess began.

 

I always thought the woman on the cover looked like actress Melinda Clarke...anyone agree?



 

A cat found its way into the gym at Shadyside High and has been staying under the bleachers, people giving it food and water and of course, the girls of the school love it. The ones who don't are the basketball team as the feline disrupts their practices by running out on to the court and tripping the players...it happens so often chasing the cat is part of practice in itself. On this particular day, Marty and his two friends, Dwayne Clark and Barry Allen, are being ridden pretty hard by their coach and I guess it's just being tough. Marty knows that he and his buddies are the best players on the team since they've been playing basketball since they were kids and he admits it's kind of hard not to get a big ego because of it.

 

Marty describes Barry as looking like "Superman on TV"...sounds good to me. Love Dean Cain ;)



 

Gayle Edgerton and Riki Crawford, two girls who are friends of Marty's, come by the gym to do a story on the "Three Musketeers" as the guys are called for the school paper. Gayle is the reporter and Riki the photographer, who just so happens to have gone out with Marty a few times and is still hung up on him, but they get interrupted when the cat shows up. The guys chase it for awhile until it disappears but when it shows up again, it trips Marty and he lands on his knee...badly

 

Dwayne wears Hawaiian shirts for good luck...Tommy Bahama or Hilfiger?



 

The nurse says it's just a sprain but Coach Griffin benches Marty to keep him from screwing up the leg even more and Marty is not happy. He told his friends he already had a basketball scholarship but he may have jumped the gun as another person is being considered as well but if he can't play, Marty knows he might not get it...and it's all that darn cat's fault.

 

This Darn Cat was the worst cat of 1997 IMHO



 

When he sees it, all Marty can see is red and the guys give chase again to trap the cat on the bleachers which makes Marty's knee even more painful as he grabs the cat. This is not a nice kitty it bites and scratches at Marty but I have to admit it might just be out of fear but the blood in his eyes and his knee buckling almost causes Marty to fall. Reaching out to grab Dwayne's hand, Marty lets go of the cat to see it tumble down the bleachers and fall on the ground with a sickening crack.

 

 

Art credit Casey Weldon



 

Gayle and Riki accuse Marty of throwing the cat off the bleachers with real intent to kill it but Marty admits it was just an accident. Barry and Dwayne are not as remorseful and have no tact saying that the cat was just a nuisance but Gayle is not amused...she is steaming mad. Riki is more shocked but still not happy with what Marty has done even when he pleads with her and Marty seems truly sorry even if he was angry with the cat. Barry and Dwayne say more awful things about the dead cat that send Gayle over the edge and it makes Marty angry how she won't even listen to him.

 



 

The next day, Marty arrives to school and gets hateful glares from a lot of girls and even one student's mom and his female homeroom teacher! Gayle works fast at getting the news about Marty killing the cat all around town that even Dwayne's little sister won't talk to him and it just so happens that Gayle is president of the Animal Rights Club at school. She also has put up a poster about a rally to stop cruelty to animals with not only pictures of said abuse but also one of MARTY for his killing of the cat.

 



 

Now Gayle says she saw what she saw with her own eyes but apparently not as I for one truly think Marty didn't do it on purpose. Even if the story is from his point of view, it was either drop the cat or both the cat and Marty could have fallen and DIED. Not all cats land on their feet but neither do most humans and the cat could have survived in that scenario but Marty most certainly would not have.

 

Back to the story from my little tangent, so...

 

Coach Griffin approaches Marty about the incident, listens to Marty's side of the story, and tells him that if he wants to play in next week's game he will have to go Student Court because basically the Animal Rights Club is putting him on trial for the cat's murder. Marty knows that if word gets to the school where he's hoping to get the scholarship from he most certainly will not get it and agrees.

 

The next day, Barry and Dwayne actually stand up for Marty (better than the other day) as witnesses and none of the boys are treating this as a joke but Gayle says that Marty was part of the teasing and that they even swung it around. I have no idea what this chick's problem is but Dwayne only held the cat's dead body by the tail and then they tossed it in a garbage can...they didn't skin it and throw the pelt at you!

 

After deliberating for fifteen minutes, the jury finds Marty not guilty of murdering the cat but guilty of cruelty to animals. His sentence is to do thirty hours of community service at the animal shelter which seems fair considering even if all he did was chase it with the intent of taking it to the shelter but fate went a little differently. Marty, on the other hand, even tells Coach Griffin that he was cruel to the cat and deserves to serve the full thirty hours when he says he'll try to get Marty's sentence reduced so he can rest up his knee.

 

It's mentioned several times that Marty has a dog named Teddy who is a Shar Pei so here you go!



 

For awhile, things go back to normal as if nothing ever happened except for Gayle and Riki being kind of jerky to Marty still. Riki's attitude is more towards Marty being flirty towards other girls and learning from Gayle that Marty lied about a date he broke off with Riki claiming he was sick. Okay so that might actually be the only jerky thing Marty has intentionally done but he doesn't deserve all this hate. When Marty begins his community service at the animal shelter is when things actually start to get kind of weird. The animals at the shelter start barking and hissing around Marty and well earlier he thought he saw the dead cat back underneath the bleachers and Barry did get attacked and scratched by a similar looking cat but that couldn't be possible...could it?

 

Marty keeps seeing cats following him...hearing them hiss on the phone late at night and long evil yowls...is he cracking up or did a cat just walk over his grave?

 

 



 

 

Body Count: Cats have nine lives...two humans lose their own.

 

 

MY TAKE: Cat is a really good Fear Street book...probably one of my favorites. It has a likeable male lead character in Marty, some actually good red herrings once you pay attention, and those twists...wow! The actual twist reveal is pretty easy to spot by some throw away lines but it is presented with something actually outside of the box that you don't really see in Fear Street books as most are actually more murder-mystery stories. The ending is again something out of Twilight Zone or Tales From The Crypt which is purr-fectly fine with me... I recommend you check this one me-out.

 

 

THE SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE

 

 

Seems Marty is a real ladies man and that he likes going out to the movies...many good choices this certain time of year!

 

 

 

Did you get my last little joke with the final movie? See the actress was in the 1982 remake of Cat People...so you know...it's funny.

 

 

Okay then so how about some music?

 

 



 

 

NEXT BLOG: We're going to dial it backward a little bit and talk about the first sequel to a Fear Street book that wasn't a Super Chiller or part of a trilogy. Time to call back for Wrong Number 2