Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat

“If I left my house in Elba, I could walk to twelve trees, an ant mound, a hornets’ nest, and a bunch of rosebushes. Nature was everywhere.

It was spooky.”

Raj’s thoughts reveal his unease at how close he now is to the natural world. His assertion that the natural landscape is “spooky” reveals his fear of nature and makes it clear that he misses his old home in New York. In this chapter, Raj describes all the places he could walk to from his apartment building, including friends’ apartments and comic book stores. By comparison, his new home feels isolated, and his dissatisfaction with his new circumstances foreshadows the discomfort that he will soon feel at nature camp.

“I don’t think the Humans understood my sophisticated language.

Their own speech was as ugly as their long, whiskerless faces. What came out of their mouths was an incomprehensible mix of slurring and grunting.”

This passage reflects Klawde’s thoughts when he first meets Raj’s family, and the humorous portrayal also indicates The Differences between Animals and Humans. Klawde is horrified by the humans’ language and appearance because they are so different from his, and it is clear that both the humans and the cats of Lyttyrboks tend to fear anything that is different from their own experiences. This section also indicates that Klawde feels superior in all situations, not only as the warlord of Lyttyrboks. He immediately discounts the humans’ language as “grunts,” believing his own yowling and meowing are far more “sophisticated.