PRINCE VOLONSKI VISITS HIS NEIGHBOUR PRINCE MOROWSKI

Prince Volonski and theKuppies visit Prince Morowski by Foutoux
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Prince Volonski had to visit his neighbour Prince Morowski to pick up Penelope the Kuppie.  With Ignatius  and,Rodolph (now rather Cogs than Kuppies)  the Prince got into his regal carriage carrying Krystal the Karrot in a cage covered with a black cloth.  The two Cogs poked their heads out of the window as the horses galloped with their long ears flying in the wind.

An hour later they arrived at his neighbour's gate which had written over it "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here".  "One of the Prince's jokes" reflected Prince Volonski,  The vast lawns of the chateau's grounds had a lake on which 12 black swans with orange beaks swam in a straight line.  To the left some marshy land which seemed to bubble and heave with black mud and gave off an unpleasant smell as the carriage passed.  All colour seemed to have drained out of the Spring landscape - everything drooped rather than grew and the daffodils although just in bloom were a faded yellow.  The only good thing about the landscape were the Christmas trees which Prince Volonski had given to his neighbour.  They had ready-made baubles hanging from them as the Prince had crossed red, white and blue berries with apples and grafted it onto ordinary Christmas trees.  The Prince congratulated himself as the carriage passed his invention, and finally they pulled up outside Prince Morowski's Chateau.

The Cogs jumped down barking and purring all at the same time and Prince Morowski came to greet his visitors with Penelope who, overjoyed to see her brothers yelped enthusiastically.

The Prince was a tall, thin man with a bald head from which a fringe of greasy black hair dropped to his shoulders leaving a dusting of dandruff on his black coat.  His legs seemed twice the size of his body and he had large bony hands with long fingers.  He had black eyes, black hair and black teeth much as the Cogs had black paws, black muzzles and black tails.

Prince Volonski handed over Krystal the Karrot who had been sleeping in her cage.  Krystal was the philosophical Karrot and the Prince thought that she might give his neighbour something to think about in his long lonely evenings.

Teas was served in the Great Hall under the eye of dark portraits of Prince Morowski's Russian ancestors.  Conversation was strained - he had found Penelope the Kuppie very trying  In general his conversation was morose and dull and after the formalities were over and a dry biscuit or two had been digested Prince Volonski with the three Cogs got back into his carriage with some relief and returned to his chateau.


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THE PRINCE AND THE KARROT (kitten/parrot)

Krystal the Philosophical Karrot by Foutoux
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A year had past and the Kuppies were now all, reasonably behaved Cogs - the Prince had got used to sliding around the house in large doggy puddles.  His reputation as a Russian aristocrat had been dented by his purring dogs experiment but largely the Chateau had returned to its normal routine.

However, one winter's evening  the Prince was sitting before the Great Fire,  and Ignatius and Rodolph were being particularly unbearable, running around the Great Hall, tearing up the curtains (what was left of them).  How wonderful, the Prince thought, to have Kuppies and Cogs that lived in a cage - it would save him a fortunate in velvet curtains.  It was then that he hit upon his new idea - he remembered that his neighbour, another exile from the Russian Revolution, Count Morowski, had a bird avery and he had seen some rather wonderful parrots there last week.

A few days later, the Prince got to work in his dilapidated glasshouse at the bottom of his Rose Garden where his Crimson Neige variety bloomed all year round and set about crossing Ming's genes, (the Siamese cat) with a parrot.

The following Spring three fine Karrots were born to Ming.  They looked exactly like their mother, except that instead of fur they had feathers of every possible colour - red, yellow, orange, green and instead of two paws they had two claws - ideal for hanging onto a perch thought Prince Volonski.  Ming found the suckling a little uncomfortable, but after a few weeks they were big enough to put in cages.  The three fine Karrots were hung in the conservatory - a glass house filled with exotic plants and looking onto his famous Rose Garden.  "Peace at last" thought the Prince.  The Karrots, with their cats' eyes, cats' ears and whiskers were very colourful and, being in a cage were no longer a threat to the Prince's velvet curtains.  The added bonus was, of course, that he now had "cats" that talked and he began to teach them the rudimentaries, beginning with "whose a pretty boy then?"  What the Prince hadn't bargained for was that unlike parrots who are great imitators the Karrots had the minds of cats - utterly contrary and  not wanting for a moment to obey or please their master.  The responses the Prince got to his "whose a pretty boy then" were rather peremptory, not to say rude "Not you" said Kyle, the biggest Karrot.  

The Karrots grew into fine feathered creatures but as their vocabluary grew so did their disenchantment with being caged and they started to complain to the Prince.    The worst was Krystal, the smallest and most intelligent of the Karrots.  She, like the Prince, had a philosophical turn of mind, and rather than direct insults and complaints she would pose philosophial questions.  To the question "whose a lovely girl then?" Krystal would reply "What's the meaning of a word" or some other philosophical conundrum which confounded the Prince who would then spend an entire evening pondering the questions Krystal posed.

And so a winter passed - with the Karrots complaints ringing in his ears and Krystal's intellectual enquiries disturbing his sleep - the Prince decided that he he had to get rid of the Karrots.    His first visit would be to his neighbour Prince Moroski.

Ignatius as a Kuppie by Foutoux
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THE PRINCE, THE KUPPIES AND THE MOWLS. CHAPTER 3

A Mowl looks at a Beautiful World by Foutoux
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Things were going from bad to worse.  Prince Volonski now had a huddle of Mowls under the Great Oak Tree - a group of sad black creatures who looked up at the tree with tears running down their faces.  They wanted to sit in the tree like their father Woody the Owl and were no longer content to burrow underground like their mother Molly the Mole.  No, the Prince had given them the gift of sight by crossing Woody and Molly and now that the Mowls saw how beautiful the world was they wanted to look at it - and preferably up a tree.

Inside the chateau the Kuppies (a cross between Ming the Siamese Cat and Lenin the Dalmation Dog) grew day by day and the Prince's reputation as a fine aristocratic gentleman was under fire.  The world seemed to be laughing at him with his purring dogs and he was at his wits' end.  The only consolation was that the Kuppies seemed to enjoy playing with the Mowls - and the Mowls seemed to enjoy it too - giving them some relief from their existential misery.

The first Spring days always made the Prince's garden beautiful and his Crimson Neige Rose continued to bloom, as it did all year round.  He had not cut down all of his Grey Pear Trees - his hybrid pear from which he had removed the colour, and whose branches tinkled when a bird sat on one.  He was under this tree when the idea hit him - how to make the Mowls happier.  He would breed a tree which ran along, or nearly along the ground so that the Mowls could climb into their branches and imitate their father Woody the Owl.

The next Spring, sure enough, th Prince had crossed a bonsei tree with a creeping rose and the trunk of the new tree was a mere 6 inches off the ground with long, long branches - easily accessible to the Mowls who gratefully climbed onto the branches.  True, the thorns, softened by the crossing, made the Mowls a little uncomfortable but they clung on with their mole flippers and watched the world from the branches just like Papa who, if he was ever awake during the day, looked proudly down from the Great Oak Tree to his strange offspring.

The Prince had at last his first taste of success.

A Mowl Sees a Beautiful World for First Time by Foutoux
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The Prince and the Kuppies. Chapter 2. The Mowls

Woody the Owl and Molly the Mole by Foutoux
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Prince Volonski was fed up.  His Kuppies Portia and Penelope, the offspring of his Dalmation Lenin and Ming the Siamese cat, were causing havoc in his Chateau.  All his curtains were torn and there were puddles all over the floor.

The Prince went outside to get some peace and quiet in the cold April air.  He sat down on a bench and noticed that the daffodils were still in bud and that the willow trees' branches were no longer brown - somewhere between brown and green.  Ducks bobbed up and down on his lake and turning his eyes to admire his lawns he noticed with some horror that there were at least fifty molehills.  He got up and trampled the earth back into the ground, cursing under his breath.  As if the Kuppies weren't enough to give him indigestion.

Suddenly, the Prince had an idea - if moles weren't blind they would be able to see where they were going and not have to poke their noses into aristocratic lawns.  And then he thought of owls who can see at night.  Wouldn't it be wonderful, he thought, to cross a mole with an owl.  The Prince went to work in his laboratory in the delapidated glasshouse in the corner of his Rose Garden which was famous for the Crimson Niege variety which bloomed all year round

The next Spring, sure enough, the Prince had his first Mowls - they still had the short front flippers but instead of blind slitty eyes they had green eyes three times the usual size - just like their father Woody the Owl.  They suckled the breast of their still blind mother Molly and when the first Spring day came the Prince put them on the lawn.  It was then it became clear to him that there was a fly in the proverbial ointment.  The Mowls with their large seeing eyes liked to look at the world so much that they no longer wanted to go underground.  Rather, they yearned to climb trees and sit in the highest branches like their father.  However, still having mole-like flippers they were marooned and wandered aimlessly around finding the base of trees and looking up at the branches and the birds with tears running down their cheeks.

The Prince was greatly discouraged by this second failure, although his two Kuppies found the Mowls very interesting and liked to sniff them and play with them all day.  Nevertheless, the Prince found consolation in philosophy and realised that there was a good reason why moles couldn't see.

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Kuppies Go Walkies by Foutoux

Kuppies Go Walkes by Foutoux
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Prince Volonski had to get out of the Chateau.  The Kuppies , Rodolph and Ignatius (a cross between Ming the Siamese cat and Lenin the Dalmation) had made a terrible mess the night before.  The Prince's remaining velvet curtains had fallen to the floor after Ignatius had chased one of his phantom mice up the ruined drapes.  Rodolph was more like his father Lenin and had barked loudly all evening and now that he was bigger the puddles he left were getting bigger too.  Ignatius had taken more after his mother, Ming the Siamese cat and purred most of the time - an alarming, loud purf which drowned conversation and made the Prince's guests uneasy.

Exasperated, the Prince put the two Kuppies on a leash and walked out into the spring sunshine in the direction of his Meadow of Red Daffodils which were still in bloom.  To get to the Meadow they had to pass through a small wood where the Prince had planted his Croakuses.  These were the product of another of his experiments.  He had wondered one day why the Crocus, thus named, didn't croak.  So, he went into his glasshouse at the bottom of his Rose Garden where the Crimson Neige variety bloomed all year round, and crossed the genes of a frog and a crocus.  The following Spring he was delighted to find that he had small blue flowers which croaked as you passed.

However, the Prince had not anticipated the reaction of Ignatius.  As the three passed through the Wood several of the Croakuses did just that - they croaked as the Kuppies sniffed them.  Ignatius, terrified, shot up the nearest tree and, balancing on a branch refused to move despite the imprecations of the Prince.  Here again was more evidence of the disadvantages of Kuppies.  Meanwhile, Rodolph barked loudly, playing with the Croakuses - his barking gradually giving way to loud purring.  The Prince already despairing watched as his favourite Kuppie flattened a large patch of his new plant, which dulled the sound of the joyful and pretty plants.


Finally, an hour later Ignatius came down from the tree after all the Croakuses had stopped croaking and Prince Volovski returned tired and miserable to the Chateau where Ming sat before the Great Hall Fire content to see her offspring return.

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The Kuppies Go Walkies and Find the Croakuses

Here is the illustration for "Kuppies go Walkies" my latest blog.  Don't forget to read it.

The Kuppies Go Walkies and Find the Crocuses by Foutoux

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Illustration A Kuppie Takes Its First Step by Foutoux

A Kuppie Takes Its First Step by Foutoux
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Here is another picture of a Kuppie and Ming his mother, the Siamese cat.  Watch this blog for further stories of the Kuppies and Prince Volonski.