Easter licked the land with its sweet promise.

Black and white cat Ella slept on six year old Brian’s bed. Slumber soothed his influenza aches and calmed his towering temperature. Ella purred as silent thoughts drifted through her mind. Decision danced in her eyes. She left the house via her catflap.

The shop was silent, early morning errands on a destined delay. A mission beat in Ella’s heart like music. She entered the shop behind a slow customer, the automatic door softly closing behind them. Then she saw a vision of sugar solace … a bottom shelf of Easter eggs. It was so easy to seize one like a mouse, gripping the top of the box in her mouth … It was so simple to turn in to the tuxedo thief supreme.

Brian turned over in bed restlessly. Then as Ella pawed his arm he sat up, a dying dream replaced by cutting clarity. There was an Easter egg on his bed. He smiled, aches and pains running like soldiers to the hills of his disappearing dream. Brian unwrapped the chocolate as his smile shone like an Easter sun.

Ella’s eyes sparkled. The next day, it was back to the shop … and to a stranger’s house, where she knew a little girl cried at night. She left an Easter egg on the doorstep.

Days passed, counting down to Easter Sunday like a chocolate clock on fast forward. More and more Easter eggs mysteriously appeared on doorsteps.

Ella slept and dreamed, Easter eggs in her heart and chocolate power in her soul. The dream travelled far and wide, as other cats awoke with a mission like melted chocolate in their hearts.

For some reason, Ella’s dream only touched black and white cats, tuxedo beauties like herself. And an army of black and white ran forth to steal Easter eggs … The phenomenon reached mainstream news. What was happening to the nation’s black and white cats?

The Tuxedo Thief video footage went viral. A spring story of hope that uplifted the population. And then it was Easter. More eggs than ever appeared on waiting doorsteps, like an offering from a feline Father Easter of the night.

Then Easter was over, and the stolen egg syndrome stopped. The Tuxedo Thieves had retired.

**

It was 2192. Easter eggs shaped as cats in black and white wrapping lined the aisles. No one remembered why tuxedo cats were celebrated at Easter, they just always had been, together with bunnies and the latest Disney characters.

Gareth bought a feline egg with the last of his week’s pocket money. Then a flash of inspiration bit his heart like a jagged edge of Easter egg. He would do his Spring school project on tuxedo cat easter eggs, researching when and why the fashion started …

It was indeed a mystery, with its likely origin an old urban myth about tuxedo cats stealing Easter eggs for sick children. A fairytale turned to legend.

Gareth chuckled. He had the perfect idea. He loved creative writing, and here was a sublime story … So Gareth stayed up late night after night as his manic words turned in to “The Tuxedo Thief,” a children’s novel that would one day be published, in time for Easter and the ideal holiday gift for cat lovers and children everywhere.

Meanwhile Gareth adopted a tuxedo kitten from the local shelter. Tessa became his muse, sleeping at his side as he wrote, feline fairytale after fairytale. And in Tessa’s deep eyes, mystery moved like clouds in the wind. For her story had only just begun …