Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a small black kitten named Gargamel. Gargamel was clearly not like other kittens. At first the girl thought he was a PuppyCat. He loved water. He loved car rides. He fetched toys she threw over the balcony and galloped upstairs with them in his mouth to drop them expectantly at her feet, switching his tail back and forth in anticipation. And he played tag. He especially liked being "It." And he stole the pillow when they slept. But there was more to the mysterious Gargamel then just his feline puppy-ness.

He rode on the girl's motorcycle across the Bay Bridge to Oakland and to San Francisco, happy in the pouch she made for him in her lap, purring along with the engine of her yellow Triumph, Flicker. He climbed the fabric of the Opium Den where she lived, clinging like a Koala Bear or a Sugar Glider and peering down at her from his "nest". One night, he jumped into the bath tub with a big SPASH! like a Duck-billed Platypus and paddled around, flipping on his back and slapping his tail on the bubble-frother water's surface. When running, he had a cocked loping gallop and a spring to his hindlegs that resembeld something bouncy and yet deer-like... a Kangaroo? The girl grew to suspect he might be a fabled Jackalope. But no, he lacked horns.

Then she discovered what the remarkable thing about Australian native mammals was... they were all MARSUPIALS! Scratching his tummy, she found that ... he had no pockets! He *had to be* a Marsupial!!!! Because Gargamel was a boy, and everyone knows that male marsupials do not have pocketses.