The Vitch’s Kat in Hollywoodland: starring Ketz and Mika

By Jon Jacks

An animated cat
An animated mouse.
That’s how most people would describe how Ketz and I look.
Yet when we moved from the Land of Vitches to America, we found ourselves involved in a new business called ‘the movies’.
And so for all those wondering how we became successful movie stars, I thought I’d put down our unbelievable story in words.
Little did we know that Hollywoodland had its own Vitches...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Jacks
• Release date: May 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370869091

Jon Jacks

While working in London as, first, an advertising Creative Director (the title in the U.S. is wildly different; the role involves both creating and overseeing all the creative work in an agency, meaning you’re second only to the Chairman/President) and then a screenwriter for Hollywood and TV, I moved out to an incredibly ancient house in the countryside.On the day we moved out, my then three-year-old daughter (my son was yet to be born) was entranced by the new house, but also upset that we had left behind all that was familiar to her.So, very quickly, my wife Julie and I laid out rugs and comfortable chairs around the huge fireplace so that it looked and felt more like our London home. We then left my daughter quietly reading a book while we went to the kitchen to prepare something to eat.Around fifteen minutes later, my daughter came into the kitchen, saying that she felt much better now ‘after talking to the boy’.‘Boy?’ we asked. ‘What boy?’‘The little boy; he’s been talking to me on the sofa while you were in here.’We rushed into the room, looking around.There wasn’t any boy there of course.‘There isn’t any little boy here,’ we said.‘Of course,’ my daughter replied. ‘He told me he wasn’t alive anymore. He lived here a long time ago.’A child’s wild imagination?Well, that’s what we thought at the time; but there were other strange things, other strange presences (but not really frightening ones) that happened over the years that made me think otherwise.And so I began to write the kind of stories that, well, are just a little unbelievable.

Book preview

The Vitch’s Kat in Hollywoodland

starring Ketz and Mika

Jon Jacks

Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks

The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly

The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale

A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)

The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator

Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666

P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque

Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)

Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent

Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak

Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife

Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland

The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas

Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen – Thrice Born – Self-Assembled Girl – Love Poison No. 13

Whatever happened to Cinderella’s Slipper? – AmeriChristmas

Text copyright© 2017 Jon Jacks

All rights reserved

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The Hollywoodland Sun: Stop Press

Presidential candidate Maria Marina, along with Hollywood movie stars Ketz and Mika, has mysteriously disappeared after last being seen heading into their apartment…

Chapter 1

On the great ship taking us all to a new life in America, there were many, many different kinds of people – and yet Ketz and I were undoubtedly the ones receiving the very rudest of probing stares.

‘I have never seen such strange creatures; nor would I have believed it possible for them to exist!’ I overheard the captain say of us: and yet that was one of the politest remarks I happened to chance upon as we wandered aimlessly around the ship.

Naturally, we couldn’t afford to eat in the fine restaurants, of take casual strolls upon the upper decks reserved for more privileged passengers. Even those in the lower berths of steerage, however, tended to shun us, or at least keep their distance.

This, of course, is the attitude we had hoped we were fleeing from.

In America, we had heard, everyone is judged upon their capabilities, not upon how they look, or where they were originally from.

When we first met our first American on board the great ship, it seemed that everything we had heard was true; Maria Marina was a starlet, she told us, working not on the stage as we might have at first supposed (she definitely had theatrical airs about her!) but in a bright new business – ‘Making Movies’.

*

Now anyone reading here of our first meeting with Maria Marina might well regard us as being particularly naïve; how could we not to know anything of a woman who is now not only a US Senator, but may soon also be our first female president?

However, please don’t forget that the country we were leaving had had almost no cultural affiliations or even contact with America, particularly during the early years of the twentieth century that I am recalling here. Moreover, even though Maria would become a world famous beauty and actress, renowned for her appearances in a number of successful movies, at this time she was virtually unknown, for even the movie business was in its infancy.

She had seen us, she would later tell us, as she had looked down towards the lower deck from her far more privileged vantage point of the uppermost deck. We were out walking arm in arm, ‘taking the air’, and we were naturally being left to ourselves.

Desperately wishing to draw our attention, yet feeling it would be unbecoming to cry out to us, Maria had swiftly unclasped a bright, glittering earring and tossed it down towards us, such that it landed and rolled at our feet.

Ketz hurriedly picked up the obviously expensive earring – it was made almost wholly from the most beautiful of gemstones, one glittering with every colour imaginable – wondering where it could have fallen from. As he looked up and about him, he couldn’t fail to see Maria (as we would only later come to know her, of course) waving down to him: she had clasped in her hand one of the long, flowing silk scarves she would later become so famous for wearing.

Of course, she still refused to call down to us: instead, she used a series of hand signals that appeared to us – after a brief discussion between ourselves – to mean she intended to descend at any moment to collect her lost jewellery.

We patiently waited for the beautiful young woman’s arrival, standing hand in hand, ignoring the strange glares we were receiving. We had no thought of taking the sparkling jewel, despite its obvious value, for that would only lead to us constantly berating ourselves for our dishonesty.

Maria arrived quite breathless, she had been in such a rush to reach our level. She was not alone, but accompanied by a wary steward who had insisted on escorting her out on to a deck ‘where all manner of ruffian will be seeking to take advantage of a young lady’.

Ketz politely bowed his head as she approached. I was a little unsure as to how I should great such a fine lady, making a half curtsy in my nervous confusion.

I must have done something wrong, however, for the steward glowered at me as if bewildered by my actions.

Of course, I’m used to such bewildered glares, for few people are prepared to accept the way we look. But in this case the steward seemed completely unfazed by Ketz’s (to most people’s eyes) somewhat similar appearance.

Maria seemed amused when Ketz attempted to hand the earring to her.

‘Oh no, no: I have no need of it anymore,’ she giggled excitedly, her smile so wonderfully bright and welcoming. ‘It's not worth much; please, please keep it, as a reward for being so honest!’

Now the steward appeared completely startled when Maria reached out to gently close Ketz’s fingers on the proffered earring.

And yet he was far less startled than we were.

She had spoken, almost flawlessly, in our own language!

As she had approached with the steward, we had most definitely heard her speaking American. But now we exchanged curious glances, wondering if she was also travelling from our country to settle in America.

She must have seen our confusion, and understood why we were surprised too, for she once again smiled, laughing so delightfully that everyone close by turned to see what could be so amusing and entrancing to her.

When they saw that she was talking to us, they pouted knowingly, as if instantly recognising the source of her amusement.

No one turned away in disgust this time, however.

Now they had seen her, everyone – men, women, children – were charmed by her presence, her gaiety, her freedom of movement, her sense of style. Of course, there was also that charming laugh: a laugh which would soon be entrancing millions, including some of America’s most famous stars and entrepreneurs.

‘My parents – may God bless them – also came from your country, Emarike,’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s why I’m on this steamer: I promised them I would visit the land of their ancestors.’

Thankfully, Maria’s parents must have informed her of the existence of people like Ketz and myself; that would explain her ready and perfectly unstartled acceptance of the way we looked. Perhaps, though, her parents had not informed her of the everlasting enmity existing between Ketz’s people and mine, for she did not appear to be in anyway scandalised that we were obviously lovers.

(Naturally, our love for each other had not even been accepted by our own peoples; we had been disowned by them. Hence our desire to start a whole new life in America.)

‘We cannot accept such a valuable–’

‘You can!’ Maria interrupted Ketz’s protestations that we couldn’t keep her earring. ‘In fact, it’s only half of a good luck charm: and therefore I insist your delightful companion accepts them both from me as a gift!’

Before we could stop her, she was unclasping the other earring, and handing it to me.

‘Please, we can’t–’

She stopped my own protest with a simple raising of a hand, a theatrically stern pout.

‘Please, please,’ she said, clasping my hands in hers,