And don’t worry about the Pancake Skipparr, the restaurant aboard the Plundarr down at the Beach Harbor. A replica of the ship will remain docked, serving up enough delicious pancakes and breakfast food to keep all of HandiLand happy.

When I first heard that Captain Ironhook was heading back to sea, I had to ask him for myself. “Nah, Gossip Queen, you hearrrrd wrong. I’m not setting out to sea, no way,” he said.

“Oh no?” I double checked my notes. All the rumors I’d heard recently were of him packing up ship and heading out of port. “Isn’t the Plundarr leaving, then?”

“The Plundarr’s leaving, aye, but I won’t be on it no moarrrrr.”

“Why not?”

“I’m an old pirate, matey. I want to retiarrrr somewhere sandy and nice, right by the watarrr. I guess this beautiful beach in HandiLand has made me a bit of a land lubarrrrrr.”

“Oh, that’s nothing to be ashamed of.” I thought back to all the times I completely turned green as soon as boarding a boat of any kind. “Not everyone’s got sea legs to stand on.” But I knew that Captain Ironhook loved the Plundarr more than anything. “Who’s going to lead your crew out on the water?”

“Wouldn’t you believe it, we found a sailor, right from Greece. He’s parrrrrfect. Got lots of expearrreance.”

“That’s great.”

“He’s going to take the Plundarr to Greece and bring back olives. Chef Pierre is gonna pay me plenty for that booty!”

“Oooh, the Diner is going to have some great Mediterranean fare now, eh?”

“Yarr, there ain’t nothin’ betarrr.”

Speaking of which, I’ve got a hankering for some hummus.That’s all for meow!

XOXO

Gossip Queen

“What are you doing?” I asked when I ran up and saw Pedro shoveling hay. “Aren’t they going to charge you?”

“Oh no,” he said. “That’s over now. These animals only charge at someone if they really tick them off.”

“Like waving a red cape?”

“That’s right. We also have this dance we do.”

“Show me!” I yelled.

“Oh no, I wouldn’t do that.” He gestured to the cows. “I’m trying to keep peace with them, remember?”

Of course. It was silly of me to have forgotten. “So why’d you quit bull fighting?”

“It turns out I’m a lover, not a fighter. I love these animals and would never want to make them mad or hurt them.”

I looked over to where the cows were grazing. “Well they sure seem to like you.”

“It’s something you learn as a bull fighter, you learn how to interact with the animals. Only now, I’m using it for good instead of just for entertainment.”

Hmm, maybe that’s something the Gossip Queen needs to learn. There are good ways to use your powers and bad ways. Only, I don’t think I’ve misused my powers of super-fast typing and awesome hair. “Well, thanks for showing me around your new gig,” I told Pedro.

“No problem. And hey, look on your doorstep tomorrow. You’ll have a nice, fresh bottle of milk waiting!”

Eeeew! I thought, but, of course, I couldn’t say that. “Thanks so much!” I yelled instead and started back across the field, carefully watching out for cow patties.

Well, that’s all for meow!

XOXO

Gossip Queen

She caled me up and, as usual, got straight to the point. “You know how Romeo and Juliet met?”

“Uh, hi Venetian Belle,” I said, trying to catch my breath.

“Well, do you?”

“They met at a party, right?”

“They met at a ball!” she announced.

Of course, I remembered now. They got together at a masquerade. I had a feeling I knew where Venetian Belle was going with this story. I happened to know that Venice, her home town, was like the Italian capital of balls and masks. Now I just wanted the juicy gossip. “And?”

“Well, there was a ball over the weekend…”

“And?”

“… and I danced,” she said, being completely coy.

“Come on,” I ordered. “Out with it.”

“Okay, fine, and I met a totally wonderful guy who was dressed as Robin Hood!”

I could hear her enthuisasm over the phone, no matter how many miles stretched between us. “Tell me more.”

“His name was Guiseppe and he had the most amazing brown eyes and…” Here she paused. This was totally unlike Venetian Belle, who always had something to say. I thought she was being coy again.

“And?”

“Well, that’s it.”

“What do you mean?”

“His yes were all I saw, come to think of it.”

“Huh?”

“You see, he had a mask on,” Venetian Belle said, sounding completely disappointed.

I laughed. “You know all about masked balls, I thought you’d learned your lesson!”

“Mamma mia!” she cried. “Next time I’ll remember to have him take off his mask at the end of the night!”

“Somehow, I don’t think this is what happened to Romeo and Juliet,” I reminded her. After Venetian Belle went off to sulk into a pint of gelato, I realized that maybe I like boys over here in HandiLand. There are no masked balls to confuse a girl, and you can really meet your Romeo face to face. That’s it for meow!

XOXO

Gossip Queen

“I love the Taj Mahal, it is the most beautiful place in the world,” she yelled into the phone. I was super excited for her to be having this huge trip back to India. Even though she spends most of her time in HandiLand, she goes back whenever she can.

“I only wish I could see it,” I told her, a tiny bit jealous. After all, who wouldn’t want to see that beautiful building.

“And it’s so romantic,” Shahnee added.

“I bet. Those beautiful fountains, the trees, the sunset over those glowing white marble domes…” I let my voice fade. The Gossip Queen has been watching too many romantic comedies again. I wished I had a tomcat to take me to the Taj Mahal.

“It’s romantic alright. The most romantic tomb I’ve ever seen,” Shahnee added.

This almost made me spit out my iced tea. “A tomb?”

“Duh! Have you been living under a marble slab? Emperor Jahan built the Taj Mahal for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, back in the 1650’s.”

“What?” My eyes bugged out of my head and I quickly pulled up some images of the Taj Mahal online. That thing is huge, took 20 years to built and is visited by millions of people every year. “You’re saying the Taj Mahal was for just one woman?”

“Yep. She must’ve been an incredible wife.”

“No kidding.”

“The most I can get my boyfriend to make me is a couple of samosas for lunch!” Shahnee whined.

“Don’t even mention it,” I told her. Not only did my boyfriend not make me a temple or delicious deep-fried Indian food, but I didn’t even have a boyfriend!

“Well, I gotta go. Our tour is leaving in five minutes.”

“Have fun on your trip,” I said. “And be sure to keep an eye out for those cute kids from Slumdog Millionaire!”

I hung up the phone in disbelief. Imagine India, a culture where one amazing chick gets a temple like that for a tomb. I’m buying my plane tickets tomorrow. That’s all for meow!

XOXO

Gossip Queen

“My daddy was the king,” she told me via a long distance call. “And the people simply didn’t want a single king for a ruler. They wanted to be ruled by many people, they wanted a change in their country.”

“So what happened?”

“My family, we ran to our dacha, our summer house, out in the country. We hoped to wait out the change in government and the revolution, but people found us.” Here, her voice choked up with emotion, her faint Russian accent still noticeable, even after many years in exile. “In the middle of the night, they found us and they took us from our home.”

“What did they do?”

Here, Anastasia drops off. “Well, the funny thing is, I don’t remember. I remember us hiding the stables with the horses, then nothing. The next think I remembered, I was here, in HandiLand, going by the name ‘Ana’ and attending the Garfield Academy. Isn’t that wild?”

“When did you find out who you really were?”

“In history class, the teacher was talking about the Russian Revolution and how one princess was never found. Our book had a picture and I almost fainted in class. That princess looked exactly like me!”

“Oh my gosh!” I gasped. “I’d love to find out I was real royalty. Being the Gossip Queen is very nice, but imagine being in charge of a huge country like Russia!”

“Well,” Anastasia said with a laugh, “I’m not exactly in charge. When I came back, people didn’t believe me at first. Then I told them all about my childhood in the palace with my parents, my brothers and sisters, all of who I miss so very much. Then people started to believe me.”

“Now what?”

“This was a short visit, my first, but people have been so welcoming, that I’ll definitely go back. I was so scared to come, but being myself was enough to convince people. They’re happy to have their princess home!”

What an inspiring and royally cool story! Now I can add a Russian princess to my list of friends, and you can get the inside scoop on her life. That’s all for meow!

XOXO

Gossip Queen

She gave me a huge shock when she giggled in response. “I’m not at the snow, silly! This year, I’m spending ski week at Cathattan Beach!”

“What?”

“Yeah. All that snow just got so cold. You know what? I’m getting kind of sick of hot chocolate and draping my socks and long johns on the radiator every night. There aren’t jackets warm enough for some of the coldest days on the mountain,” she complained. “I thought I loved being a ski bunny, but that’s because I didn’t know about beach bunnies yet!”

“But what about your passion for skiing?”

“Skiing?” she laughed. “Are you kidding? I don’t ski or snowboard or ice skate or sled or toboggan or do any of that frosty stuff!”

This boggled my mind almost to the point where I could speak (rare, I know). “But… but… you’re… the… ski… bunny,” I stammered.

“GQ, you know me better than anyone! It’s not snow sports I’m after, it’s all those cute ski and snowboard cats out there on the slopes!” Ski Bunny said with a dreamy air in her voice. “But you know what?”

“What?”

“There are even cuter guys at the beach… and they’re not all covered up in bulky snow jackets! Yum!”

That’s our Ski Bunny for you. Maybe now she’ll be the new Beach Bunny of HandiLand. We’ll see how she feels when she comes home from her school’s ski, er, beach break! That’s all for meow!

XOXO

Gossip Queen

With Christmas over, it just so happened that the Little Drummer Boy was looking for a gig in the new year. “Yeah, drumming gigs after Christmas are hard to come by. Especially for me. It’s like, you get pegged as a one trick pony. Everyone’s like, ‘Drummer Boy can only do Christmas stuff. He’s not into rock and roll!’ Well, they’re wrong. And this January, Milo and Petals finally gave me a chance.”

Milo and Petals gave him more than a chance. They let him run wild and even write his own songs. “He rocks,” Milo told me. “We totally trust him as a musician and an artist, dude.”

What’s up for them next? “We’re in the studio, recording a demo. And then, well, let’s hope we’ll be signing a record contract!”

Milo and Petals sure are something, aren’t they? First, they’re the movie stars of HandiLand, now they want to be the rock stars. Well, that’s all for meow!

XOXO

Gossip Queen

I caught up with him the other day to find out. Even if he was a little shy off the bat and gave me a cool reception, he warmed up pretty quickly. “I tell you, as soon as the rest of this snow drops, I’m going to the beach,” he said.

“Really? I thought you were into the snow.”

“I am, but only half the year. This snowman thing is just my gig for the winter. As long as I can remember, I’ve been turning into these huge lumps of snow. November to February, I’d spend all my time outside, happy under the trees, and Mom and Dad would bring my food out the back door. It was normal at my house. We didn’t really talk about it all that much.”

“How did you know, for the first time, that you were different?”

“I remember my first Christmas without my family. Mom said I melted too much and made a huge mess by the tree, so she couldn’t have me in. All the cats from my litter were sitting around, opening presents, and I was staring in from the outside. That’s when being a Snowman sorta started to suck.”

“What about the cold?” I asked. “Does it ever get to you? I know I’m freezing every time a breeze picks up.”

“Oh, not really,” Frigid said with a laugh. “I could take a dip in the Arctic Ocean right now and probably not even feel it. It’s the hot I can’t really stand. It’s a good thing I grew up in Alaska, right?”

“What about next Christmas? Are you still going to spend it outside without your family?”

“Oh no. We stopped that a long time ago. They built a vestibule right next to the picturewindow where they keep the tree, so I can be right there, dripping all over the floor all I want. I can’t wait until I freeze up again!”

Now I can’t wait for next winter either. I bet Frigid the Snowman could show me some great places to enjoy the cold. That’s all for meow, cats and kittens!

XOXO

Gossip Queen

Imagine… life would be so boring without an awesome pirate parading around the Beach.

Well, now it doesn’t have to be. I spoke to Captain Ironhook this very morning and he told me some interesting things. The first? Tuna are very tricky creatures. The second? He was staying on in HandiLand in the near future. Or, should I say, fut-arrr?

“Yarr, the sea be too rough for sailin’ out right now anyways,” he said, squinting his one good eye toward the horizon.

“But, surely you’re used to rough sailing? I’ve heard the tales they tell about you and your adventures.”

“But that’s when I was a scurvy seadog, young and built like a canon. That’s not quite the case any-marrr. I’m an old man now.”

“You’re not old. Besides, pirates are like a nice, fine treasure. They only get more valuable as they age.”

“You may be right but, arr, these sea legs do ache some nights. And sometimes, when it is darrrrk and quiet ashore, it feels nice not to be pitchin’ and tossin’ below decks.”

“So you think you’ll continue with the Pancake Skipparrr, your restaurant?”

“Yarr, openin’ that place was the best thing I’d evarrr done. Runnin’ a restarrrrant ain’t too diffarrrant from runnin’ a boat, ya know.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Or at least I can’t tell the difference, since I’m the one in charrrrrrrge!” he said with a loud laugh.

So there… or should I say… tharrrrr you have it. HandiLand can now boast a resident pirate, a resident beauty queen, chefs, artists, beekeepers, rock stars and more. Not to mention a whole crowd of totally awesome Cool Cats! That’s all for meow!

XOXO

Gossip Queen

And, of course, this parade featured one of our favorite HandiLand citizens: Mitzy Meowerson… the Top Model of HandiLand! And she looked so pretty in her pageant dress and fancy up-do hair. Who better to lead us into 2009 than this elegant Cool Cat? I can’t think of a soul.

When I caught up with her after the parade she was excited to be there. “What a rush,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, all those people were cheering me on. This was nothing like the pageant when I placed second.”

“But is it true,” I asked, because it’d been on my mind for quite a while, “that you don’t like the spotlight?”

I could tell I’d hit a nerve. “It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s just that it gets overwhelming sometimes. When people look up to you or see you in a parade, they expect something from you. They expect you to perform.”

I felt bad in that minute because I knew I’d treated Mitzy like that before. “Are you mad at me for posting about you?”

She frowned. “A little bit. Sometimes I think you go too far to get a story.”

This hurt to hear but, of course, I didn’t want to do anything to ruin a good friendship with a cat as awesome as Mitzy. “Well, I’m sorry about that.”

And, just to show her I meant it, I turned off my recorder, put down my camera and gave her a hug. “Next time we hang out, I won’t put an article in the Magazine. How about it?”

Finally, Mitzy smiled. “I’d like that. Yeah, thanks.”

Even the Gossip Queen makes mistakes sometimes. I’m just glad that Mitzy is in HandiLand, and you should be, too. But remember, she’s just another Cool Cat, just like any of us. And every Cool Cat deserves a little breathing room. That’s all for meow!

XOXO

Gossip Queen