Waikiki Kat Conundrum, The

 

"Oh God... Watson, what day is it?" the blanket asked like it had a hangover.

 

"Saturday afternoon, just how long have you been asleep?"

 

"I have no idea" the thing under blanket revealed itself to be Sarah Holmes, now sitting up half naked in just a black bra and pants, with her head in her hands, she'd obviously dyed her hair dark brown recently. "I'm bored Watson, bored."

 

Watson made her way through the detritus in the flat carefully and sat next to Holmes.

 

"Try doing something different, get a different job, see how it feels to do something completely new. I know we've not had a case in a while, I think you need to do this to take your mind off it, and to get some cash, I notice the cleaner hasn't been in" Jane rubbed Sarah's back comfortingly.

 

"You're right, I've just sat here, wallowing in my own self-pity. I need to take charge."

 

Sarah picked up The Islington Bugle, the local newspaper and thumbed through to the job ads, nothing really caught her eye. Watson pointed at a couple of ads. "Coffee Retail Executive at Walla-Walla coffee shop? Sales Assistant at Loadsaways Supermarket?"

 

"No thank you Watson."

 

"Here's one, Public Relations Manager for a new chocolate and cupcake shop opened up on the high street. It says there'll be plenty of interaction with the public, it's a pretty good salary and you do like chocolate."

 

Sarah moaned, picked up her mobile and dialled the number on the ad. "I have a headache." and she sloped off to the kitchen. Watson decided to gather up all the randomly strewn papers while she was on the phone, she couldn't quite make out the conversation.

 

Sarah walked back in confidently "They want me to go down for an interview in 20 minutes." She picked up a black dress from under some old magazines, dusted it off and put it on, brushed and then expertly bunched up her hair into a ponytail, yanked on some tights and some high heels and stormed out of the door. "Bye Watson, there's some tea in the cupboard, you'll need milk." she said on her way out leaving Watson to fend for herself.

 

"Not even a thank you" Watson said to the sleeping cat

 

Sarah burst through the door of the Waikiki Kat Coffee & Cake shop and walked briskly up to the man working the counter, in the process barging a couple of mums with pushchairs out of the way. "I'm here to see Jamie. It's about the PR job."

 

"Jamie is in the back room, just over there, next to the fire exit." he shook his head and laughed under his breath "PR job."

 

Jamie was stock taking in the very well organised stock room. Sarah cautiously walked in "Hi, are you Jamie? I'm Sarah, I've come about the Public Relations job." She shook his hand gently. 

 

"Yes, I am" he looked at the top of Sarah's head, "How tall are you?"

 

"Five foot six" she replied, "Odd question for a job interview."

 

"Just humour me, and what's your clothes size?"

 

"Sixteen. Do I need a uniform for a PR job?"

 

"Sixteen is pretty much perfect" Jamie smiled, "Ahhh. Public Relations Manager is sort of the job title yes, and there is a sort of uniform."

 

Sarah was slightly confused by this, but still, it's money and a change of scene. "OK then."

 

Jamie pulled sellotape from a cardboard box, and got a costume out "This just came yesteday, haven't even looked at it yet", he said. It was large, mostly black and white and looked like it was made of fairly thick rubber, it was pretty shiny and flopped about. Above the box was the large head of a cartoon feline in 3D form. Holding it up you could see vaguely that it was a Hawaiian cartoon cat, complete with hula skirt and coconut bra.

 

"You'll actually be our mascot. So you'd have to wear a costume and go out to hand out leaflets to promote the new ChoccoMocca Cupcake. You could start today if you wanted. It's not exactly office work, but it pays well." he grinned "You might want to take that dress off, the costume's zip is on the shoulders. I'll go out and shut the door." 

 

Sarah pulled her dress off over her head and took off her heels and tights. She unzipped the costume and pulled the rubber over her body, her hands fitted into the paw gloves and her feet into paw shoes fitted to the costume, she struggled to pull the zips up to seal her into the suit. It looked very floppy, over her shoulder she could see a floppy tail. "Done" she said loudly, "But it looks pretty loose on me."

 

Jamie came back into the stock room. "Yeah, that's the other thing, we need to make it look right." he smirked as he pulled out a scuba tank from a shelf.

 

"Right oh" she replied, a nervous smile on her face.

 

Jamie looked around for a valve, there was one hidden just under the tail of the suit and one on the end of the tail. "We'll inflate your tail first." he connected the scuba tank to the tail. Jamie pressed on the filler nozzle and in a whoosh of air the tail inflated in a few seconds, he screwed on the valve cover to stop the air coming out. "We need to inflate the body now, it's got two layers so might get tight, the valve is in an odd place, so don't mind me." he said, and connected the hose from the scuba tank to the valve just under the tail. 

 

Sarah jumped. "Watch it buddy" she slapped his hand playfully away. 

 

"Sorry", he replied and pressed on the nozzle to inflate the suit. The air rushed to the bottom and legs first as the suit was designed to be a cartoon pear shaped cat with short legs. The bum reached full capacity and the tummy started to blow up, rounding out to a pot belly, then the chest whooshed outwards to look like a coconut bra and boobs. Around the waist of the suit was a rubbery Hawaiian style grass skirt. The arms inflated to a bouncy fatness, and the paw gloves popped into shape, then the paw shoes with the last of the air from the tank. Sarah squeezed the coconut bra, there was quite a bit of pressure there, but nothing uncomfortable. Jamie closed off the valve with a dust cap and gave Sarah's arm a squeeze. 

 

"You're perfect. Which is good as we're out of air." he said, with a little nervous chuckle, "Now the head." He pulled the head from the shelf and put it over Sarah's. She could see out of specially places eye hole gauze in the head. There was a full length mirror to one side and Sarah admired her new form and gave a little laugh. "Yeah, perfect." she said muffled by the cat head. She rubbed her big cat tummy, pushed her massive coconut bra boobs together, and bounced up and down a bit. "I love it." 

 

"We'd usually send you out with a helper, but we're short staffed at the moment, if you feel up to it you can just go out the front by yourself, but try not to go too far out of sight." Jamie ushered her out of the stock room, and helped squeeze Sarah and the suit through the door and into the cafe. She waddled through the cafe knocking cups over and pushchairs out of the way as she went, she got some help from Jamie through the front door, the suit was very wide. Jamie stuffed some leaflets into her hand and into a pouch in front of the grass skirt. "Off you go"

 

Sarah waddled out onto the high street, huffing and puffing at the effort of moving in the cat suit. Handing out leaflets to stunned passers by. "Coffee offers, free drink when you buy a new Chocco Mocca cupcake" she bellowed from the suit. 

 

It was really hard work, and she needed a drink already. She waddled back to the cafe and waved at the man behind the counter. He came over. "I need some water please." she said gasping. He got a bottle out of the fridge by the counter and handed it to her. Sarah sat down as best she could on a bench in the high street, arms and legs puffing up as the air shifted in the suit making it difficult to drink. There were quite a few stalls as it was market day. She took the head off her costume and took a good glug of water. Nice and cool. She took five minutes out, put the head back on and got up, leaving the water on the bench.

 

She then wandered off down the high street handing out leaflets. A young man, one of the types who hang around town wearing hoodies, came up to her and prodded her coconut boobs. "You're looking a bit deflated there." Sarah smacked his hand away instinctively. She took the head off again and looked down, she was looking decidedly flat compared to earlier, looking over her shoulder only the tail was inflated, the body of the suit was half deflated.  "Oh I am." she said dejectedly and felt around for the valve under the cat's tail, the dust cap was missing and air was escaping, it had popped off when she'd sat down. Sarah looked around the high street for somewhere to get blown back up.

 

She went over to a stall selling camping gear, they had an array of pumps. "Excuse me, but can I borrow one of those air pumps?" she said to the young but plump looking lady behind the stall. The stall lady chuckled "I'm Erica dear, feeling a little deflated are we?", she got a bellows foot pump out from under the stall. "I use this one to blow up the air mattresses for display. You're welcome to use it."  

 

"Could you um, give me a hand please?" Sarah blushed under the head.

 

Erica, looked at Sarah up and down. "Where do I put it?" she asked.

 

Sarah sighed. "Under my tail".

 

Erica lifted the tail and laughed. "Oh right..." she pushed the pump onto the valve as best she could. "It doesn't quite fit, but we'll try."

 

The scene, a partially inflated cat with a hose that looks like it's stuck up its bottom is being inflated by a plump young lady with a foot pump. A laughing crowd was gathering and getting their smart phones out to take videos of the spectacle.

 

"It's no good" Erica puffed "It's not working you'll have to try something else." and pulled the pipe from the valve. She did have a spare cap for the valve, and let Sarah have it to stop any more air coming out.

 

Just then, Sarah spied a stall selling foil helium balloons and other inflatable tat. "Thanks Erica, at least you tried, I'll try them instead." pointing at the other stall. She wandered over towards the other stall holder. 

 

"Hello" she said merrily, as if this was a perfectly normal thing to do. "Hi, I'm Sarah and I wondered if you had a way to blow me up?"

 

The stall holder looked up from the book she was reading, she looked a bit young, probably 20 maximum, black straight hair in a bob, slim, wore jeans and a red Keep Calm and Carry On t-shirt. She pushed aside some inflatable monkeys to get a good look at Sarah. "I'm Ruby, that's not a request we get every day. I saw you over at the camping shop. Hilarious. Sure I can help, I'm just looking after the stall for my dad." she produced two identical looking air hoses from behind the stall that led off to a van parked behind. "The one with the blue sticker is Helium, the red sticker is air, I think. Not quite sure. Might have been the other way around."

 

Sarah was too impatient. "Do your best, just pump me up please or I'll get fired."

 

Ruby pulled the red stickered hose over the counter, came around from the back and clipped the hose onto the valve on the bottom of the suit, pressed the trigger, and whoosh, the suit started to inflate. She clipped the trigger over to make it stay on and got back to her book. "There you go, might take a little while". She looked from behind her book she was using to stifle a laugh, and got out her phone.

 

Sarah stood there in front of everyone inflating quite rapidly. Her boobs and belly were growing fastest, the suit reached it's originally inflated size in about 30 seconds, then started stretching out, the tummy was getting bigger and bigger, the coconut bra boobs more so. "Ruby...." she panted. "I think. I'm done..."

 

Ruby looked over her phone at Sarah. "Nah. Not yet."

 

Sarah looked down and couldn't see anything but an expanse of coconut bra cleavage, her legs were massively inflated now, like two giant hams stuck to the side of a rapidly rounding pear shaped kitty. Her arms were as thick as tree trunks and stuck outwards. "Ruby" she cried. The pressure was starting to lift the head into a less comfortable position as the ballooning breasts pushed it upwards. "RUBY! HELP!" she shouted, muffled by the cat head as her feet started to leave the ground. The crowd jeered as she left the floor, taking videos and pictures with their phones.

 

Ruby looked up again. "I think that may have been helium" she laughed as she tied off a rope to Sarah's tail and to the heavy stall frame, then disconnected the hose. "This'll be great on TubeTube. Try not to float off."

 

Meanwhile Watson had walked to the Waikiki Kat to find out how Holmes had got on and to tell her about her newly cleaned flat. Only she was greeted by the sight of a vaguely cat shaped sphere floating over the market which seemed to have giant coconut breasts, tiny hands and feet sticking out and was yelling for help. She recognised the voice. "Really?" she said dejectedly, "Not again" and jogged off to rescue her friend.