КулЛиб - Классная библиотека! Скачать книги бесплатно
Всего книг - 706129 томов
Объем библиотеки - 1347 Гб.
Всего авторов - 272720
Пользователей - 124656

Новое на форуме

Новое в блогах

Впечатления

a3flex про Невзоров: Искусство оскорблять (Публицистика)

Да, тварь редкостная.

Рейтинг: 0 ( 1 за, 1 против).
DXBCKT про Гончарова: Крылья Руси (Героическая фантастика)

Обычно я стараюсь никогда не «копировать» одних впечатлений сразу о нескольких томах, однако в отношении части четвертой (и пятой) это похоже единственно правильное решение))

По сути — что четвертая, что пятая часть, это некий «финал пьесы», в котором слелись как многочисленные дворцовые интриги (тайны, заговоры, перевороты и пр), так и вся «геополитика» в целом...

В остальном же — единственная возможная претензия (субъективная

  подробнее ...

Рейтинг: 0 ( 0 за, 0 против).
medicus про Федотов: Ну, привет, медведь! (Попаданцы)

По аннотации сложилось впечатление, что это очередная писанина про аристократа, написанная рукой дегенерата.

cit anno: "...офигевшая в край родня [...] не будь я барон Буровин!".

Барон. "Офигевшая" родня. Не охамевшая, не обнаглевшая, не осмелевшая, не распустившаяся... Они же там, поди, имения, фабрики и миллионы делят, а не полторашку "Жигулёвского" на кухне "хрущёвки". Но хочется, хочется глянуть внутрь, вдруг всё не так плохо.

Итак: главный

  подробнее ...

Рейтинг: 0 ( 0 за, 0 против).
Dima1988 про Турчинов: Казка про Добромола (Юмористическая проза)

А продовження буде ?

Рейтинг: -1 ( 0 за, 1 против).
Colourban про Невзоров: Искусство оскорблять (Публицистика)

Автор просто восхитительная гнида. Даже слушая перлы Валерии Ильиничны Новодворской я такой мерзости и представить не мог. И дело, естественно, не в том, как автор определяет Путина, это личное мнение автора, на которое он, безусловно, имеет право. Дело в том, какие миазмы автор выдаёт о своей родине, то есть стране, где он родился, вырос, получил образование и благополучно прожил всё своё сытое, но, как вдруг выясняется, абсолютно

  подробнее ...

Рейтинг: +2 ( 3 за, 1 против).

A Killer Cat 1 - 6 [Anne Fine] (fb2) читать онлайн


 [Настройки текста]  [Cбросить фильтры]
  [Оглавление]

1_The Diary Of A Killer Cat

Introduction
by Julia Eccleshare

Puffin Modern Classics series editor

Can you imagine being right inside your cat’s head? That is exactly where you are in The Diary of a Killer Cat. Once you’ve read this book, you’ll be able to see everything from a new point of view. Think how horrible it is to be stuck in a cage waiting for the vet – especially with a tasty-looking gerbil sitting nearby. Or to be labelled HANDLE WITH CARE. Or to be accused of a crime you haven’t even committed. Poor pussycat! But don’t let the Killer Cat deceive you. Okay, so a cat can be soft and cuddly and furry, but inside every soft pussycat, there’s a cunning little beast.

After I’d read The Diary of a Killer Cat, I never saw a cat in quite the same way again. I now realize that a cat knows what you are thinking – even if you haven’t said it. It knows what you hate and what you like about it – and, mostly, it just doesn’t care! Above all, don’t ever think that you are in charge of a cat. For every plan you have, a cat will have one to outsmart you …

Anne Fine stands up for cats in this hilarious story of humans, cats, gerbils, dogs – and a somewhat unfortunate rabbit …

1: MONDAY

Okay, okay. So hang me. I killed the bird. For pity’s sake, I’m a cat. It’s practically my job to go creeping round the garden after sweet little eensy-weensy birdy-pies that can hardly fly from one hedge to another. So what am I supposed to do when one of the poor feathery little flutterballs just about throws itself into my mouth? I mean, it practically landed on my paws. It could have hurt me.

Okay, okay. So I biffed it. Is that any reason for Ellie to cry in my fur so hard I almost drown, and squeeze me so hard I almost choke?

‘Oh, Tuffy!’ she says, all sniffles and red eyes and piles of wet tissues. ‘Oh, Tuffy. How could you do that?’

How could I do that? I’m a cat. How did I know there was going to be such a giant great fuss, with Ellie’s mother rushing off to fetch sheets of old newspaper, and Ellie’s father filling a bucket with soapy water?

Okay, okay. So maybe I shouldn’t have dragged it in and left it on the carpet. And maybe the stains won’t come out, ever.

So hang me.

2: TUESDAY

I quite enjoyed the little funeral. I don’t think they really wanted me to come, but, after all, it’s just as much my garden as theirs. In fact, I spend a whole lot more time in it than they do. I’m the only one in the family who uses it properly.

Not that they’re grateful. You ought to hear them.

‘That cat is ruining my flower beds. There are hardly any of the petunias left.’

‘I’d barely planted the lobelias before it was lying on top of them, squashing them flat.’

‘I do wish it wouldn’t dig holes in the anemones.’

Moan, moan, moan, moan. I don’t know why they bother to keep a cat, since all they ever seem to do is complain.

All except Ellie. She was too busy being soppy about the bird. She put it in a box, and packed it round with cotton wool, and dug a little hole, and then we all stood round it while she said a few words, wishing the bird luck in heaven.

‘Go away,’ Ellie’s father hissed at me. (I find that man quite rude.) But I just flicked my tail at him. Gave him the blink. Who does he think he is? If I want to watch a little birdy’s funeral, I’ll watch it. After all, I’ve known the bird longer than any of them have. I knew it when it was alive.

3: WEDNESDAY

So spank me! I brought a dead mouse into their precious house. I didn’t even kill it. When I came across it, it was already a goner. Nobody’s safe around here. This avenue is ankle-deep in rat poison, fast cars charge up and down at all hours, and I’m not the only cat around here. I don’t even know what happened to the thing. All I know is, I found it. It was already dead. (Fresh dead, but dead.) And at the time I thought it was a good idea to bring it home. Don’t ask me why. I must have been crazy. How did I know that Ellie was going to grab me and give me one of her little talks?

‘Oh, Tuffy! That’s the second time this week. I can’t bear it. I know you’re a cat, and it’s natural and everything. But please, for my sake, stop.’

She gazed into my eyes.

‘Will you stop? Please?’

I gave her the blink. (Well, I tried. But she wasn’t having any.)

‘I mean it, Tuffy,’ she told me. ‘I love you, and I understand how you feel. But you’ve got to stop doing this, okay?’

She had me by the paws. What could I say? So I tried to look all sorry. And then she burst into tears all over again, and we had another funeral.

This place is turning into Fun City. It really is.

4: THURSDAY

Okay, okay! I’ll try and explain about the rabbit. For starters, I don’t think anyone’s given me enough credit for getting it through the cat flap. That was not easy. I can tell you, it took about an hour to get that rabbit through that little hole. That rabbit was downright fat. It was more like a pig than a rabbit, if you want my opinion.

Not that any of them cared what I thought. They were going mental.

‘It’s Thumper!’ cried Ellie. ‘It’s next-door’s Thumper!’

‘Oh, Lordy!’ said Ellie’s father. ‘Now we’re in trouble. What are we going to do?’

Ellie’s mother stared at me.

‘How could a cat do that?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it’s not like a tiny bird, or a mouse, or anything. That rabbit is the same size as Tuffy. They both weigh a ton.’

Nice. Very nice. This is my family, I’ll have you know. Well, Ellie’s family. But you take my point.

And Ellie, of course, freaked out. She went berserk.

‘It’s horrible,’ she cried. ‘Horrible. I can’t believe that Tuffy could have done that. Thumper’s been next door for years and years and years.’

Sure. Thumper was a friend. I knew him well.

She turned on me.

‘Tuffy! This is the end. That poor, poor rabbit. Look at him!’

And Thumper did look a bit of a mess, I admit it. I mean, most of it was only mud. And a few grass stains, I suppose. And there were quite a few bits of twig and stuff stuck in his fur. And he had a streak of oil on one ear. But no one gets dragged the whole way across a garden, and through a hedge, and over another garden, and through a freshly-oiled cat flap, and ends up looking as if they’re just off to a party.

And Thumper didn’t care what he looked like. He was dead.

The rest of them minded, though. They minded a lot.

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Oh, this is dreadful. Next-door will never speak to us again.’

‘We must think of something.’

And they did. I have to say, it was a brilliant plan, by any standards. First, Ellie’s father fetched the bucket again, and filled it with warm soapy water. (He gave me a bit of a look as he did this, trying to make me feel guilty for the fact that he’d had to dip his hands in the old Fairy Liquid twice in one week. I just gave him my old ‘I-am-not-impressed’ stare back.)

Then Ellie’s mother dunked Thumper in the bucket and gave him a nice bubbly wash and a swill-about. The water turned a pretty nasty brown colour. (All that mud.) And then, glaring at me as if it were all my fault, they tipped it down the sink and began over again with fresh soap suds.

Ellie was snivelling, of course.

‘Do stop that, Ellie,’ her mother said. ‘It’s getting on my nerves. If you want to do something useful, go and fetch the hairdrier.’

So Ellie trailed upstairs, still bawling her eyes out.

I sat on the top of the dresser, and watched them.

They up-ended poor Thumper and dunked him again in the bucket. (Good job he wasn’t his old self. He’d have hated all this washing.) And when the water finally ran clear, they pulled him out and drained him.

Then they plonked him on newspaper, and gave Ellie the hairdrier.

‘There you go,’ they said. ‘Fluff him up nicely.’

Well, she got right into it, I can tell you. That Ellie could grow up to be a real hot-shot hairdresser, the way she fluffed him up. I have to say, I never saw Thumper look so nice before, and he lived in next-door’s hutch for years and years, and I saw him every day.

‘Hiya, Thump,’ I’d sort of nod at him as I strolled over the lawn to check out what was left in the feeding bowls further down the avenue.

‘Hi, Tuff,’ he’d sort of twitch back.

Yes, we were good mates. We were pals. And so it was really nice to see him looking so spruced up and smart when Ellie had finished with him.

He looked good.

‘What now?’ said Ellie’s father.

Ellie’s mum gave him a look – the sort of look she sometimes gives me, only nicer.

‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Not me. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.’

‘It’s you or me,’ she said. ‘And I can’t go, can I?’

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘You’re smaller than I am. You can crawl through the hedge easier.’

That’s when I realized what they had in mind. But what could I say? What could I do to stop them? To explain?

Nothing. I’m just a cat.

I sat and watched.

5: FRIDAY

I call it Friday because they left it so late. The clock was already well past midnight by the time Ellie’s father finally heaved himself out of his comfy chair in front of the telly and went upstairs. When he came down again he was dressed in black. Black from head to foot.

‘You look like a cat burglar,’ said Ellie’s mother.

‘I wish someone would burgle our cat,’ he muttered.

I just ignored him. I thought that was best.

Together they went to the back door.

‘Don’t switch the outside light on,’ he warned her. ‘You never know who might be watching.’

I tried to sneak out at the same time, but Ellie’s mother held me back with her foot.

‘You can just stay inside tonight,’ she told me. ‘We’ve had enough trouble from you this week.’

Fair’s fair. And I heard all about it anyway, later, from Bella and Tiger and Pusskins. They all reported back. (They’re good mates.) They all saw Ellie’s father creeping across the lawn, with his plastic bag full of Thumper (wrapped nicely in a towel to keep him clean). They all saw him forcing his way through the hole in the hedge, and crawling across next-door’s lawn on his tummy.

‘Couldn’t think what he was doing,’ Pusskins said afterwards.

‘Ruined the hole in the hedge,’ complained Bella. ‘He’s made it so big that the Thompson’s rottweiler could get through it now.’

‘That father of Ellie’s must have the most dreadful night vision,’ said Tiger. ‘It took him forever to find that hutch in the dark.’

‘And prise the door open.’

‘And stuff in poor old Thumper.’

‘And set him out neatly on his bed of straw.’

‘All curled up.’

‘With the straw patted up round him.’

‘So it looked as if he was sleeping.’

‘It was very, very lifelike,’ said Bella. ‘It could have fooled me. If anyone just happened to be passing in the dark, they’d really have thought that poor old Thumper had just died happily and peacefully in his sleep, after a good life, from old age.’

They all began howling with laughter.

‘Sshh!’ I said. ‘Keep it down, guys. They’ll hear, and I’m not supposed to be out tonight. I’m grounded.’

They all stared at me.

‘Get away with you!’

‘Grounded?’

‘What for?’

‘Murder,’ I said. ‘For cold-blooded bunnicide.’

That set us all off again. We yowled and yowled. The last I heard before we took off in a gang up Beechcroft Drive was one of the bedroom windows being flung open, and Ellie’s father yelling, ‘How did you get out, you crafty beast?’

So what’s he going to do? Nail up the cat flap?

6: STILL FRIDAY

He nailed up the cat flap. Would you believe this man? He comes down the stairs this morning, and before he’s even out of his pyjamas he’s set to work with the hammer and a nail.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

I’m giving him the stare, I really am. But then he turns round and speaks to me directly.

‘There,’ he says. ‘That’ll fix you. Now it swings this way –’ He gives the cat flap a hefty shove with his foot. ‘But it doesn’t swing this way.’

And, sure enough, when the flap tried to flap back in, it couldn’t. It hit the nail.

‘So,’ he says to me. ‘You can go out. Feel free to go out. Feel free, in fact, not only to go out, but also to stay out, get lost, or disappear for ever. But should you bother to come back again, don’t go to the trouble of bringing anything with you. Because this is now a one-way flap, and so you will have to sit on the doormat until one of the family lets you in.’

He narrows his eyes at me, all nasty-like.

‘And woe betide you, Tuffy, if there’s anything dead lying waiting on the doormat beside you.’

‘Woe betide you’! What a stupid expression. What on earth does it mean anyway? ‘Woe betide you’!

Woe betide him.

7: SATURDAY

I hate Saturday morning. It’s so unsettling, all that fussing and door-banging and ‘Have you got the purse?’ and ‘Where’s the shopping list?’ and ‘Do we need catfood?’ Of course we need catfood. What else am I supposed to eat all week? Air?

They were all pretty quiet today, though. Ellie was sitting at the table carving Thumper a rather nice gravestone out of half a leftover cork floor tile. It said:

Thumper

Rest in peace

‘You mustn’t take it round next-door yet,’ her father warned her. ‘Not till they’ve told us Thumper’s dead, at any rate.’

Some people are born soft. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

‘There goes Next-door now,’ Ellie’s mother said, looking out of the window.

‘Which way is she headed?’

‘Towards the shops.’

‘Good. If we keep well behind, we can get Tuffy to the vet’s without bumping into her.’

Tuffy? Vet’s?

Ellie was even more horrified than I was. She threw herself at her father, beating him with her soft little fists.

‘Dad! No! You can’t!’

I put up a far better fight with my claws. When he finally prised me out of the dark of the cupboard under the sink, his woolly was ruined and his hands were scratched and bleeding all over.

He wasn’t very pleased about it.

‘Come out of there, you great fat furry psychopath. It’s only a ’flu jab you’re booked in for – more’s the pity!’

Would you have believed him? I wasn’t absolutely sure. (Neither was Ellie, so she tagged along.) I was still quite suspicious when we reached the vet’s. That is the only reason why I spat at the girl behind the desk. There was no reason on earth to write HANDLE WITH CARE at the top of my case notes. Even the Thompson’s rottweiler doesn’t have HANDLE WITH CARE written on the top of his case notes. What’s wrong with me?

So I was a little rude in the waiting room. So what? I hate waiting. And I especially hate waiting stuffed in a wire cat cage. It’s cramped. It’s hot. And it’s boring. After a few hundred minutes of sitting there quietly, anyone would start teasing their neighbours. I didn’t mean to frighten that little sick baby gerbil half to death. I was only looking at it. It’s a free country, isn’t it? Can’t a cat even look at a sweet little baby gerbil?

And if I was licking my lips (which I wasn’t) that’s only because I was thirsty. Honestly. I wasn’t trying to pretend I was going to eat it.

The trouble with baby gerbils is they can’t take a joke.

And neither can anyone else round here.

Ellie’s father looked up from the pamphlet he was reading called ‘Your Pet and Worms’. (Oh, nice. Very nice.)

‘Turn the cage round the other way, Ellie,’ he said.

Ellie turned my cage round the other way.

Now I was looking at the Fisher’s terrier. (And if there’s any animal in the world who ought to have HANDLE WITH CARE written at the top of his case notes, it’s the Fisher’s terrier.)

Okay, so I hissed at him. It was only a little hiss. You practically had to have bionic ears to hear it.

And I did growl a bit. But you’d think he’d have a head start on growling. He is a dog, after all. I’m only a cat.

And yes, okay, I spat a bit. But only a bit. Nothing you’d even notice unless you were waiting to pick on someone.

Well, how was I to know he wasn’t feeling very well? Not everyone waiting for the vet is ill. I wasn’t ill, was I? Actually, I’ve never been ill in my life. I don’t even know what it feels like. But I reckon, even if I were dying, something furry locked in a cage could make an eensy-weensy noise at me without my ending up whimpering and cowering, and scrabbling to get under the seat, to hide behind the knees of my owner.

More a chicken than a Scotch terrier, if you want my opinion.

‘Could you please keep that vile cat of yours under control?’ Mrs Fisher said nastily.

Ellie stuck up for me.

‘He is in a cage!’

‘He’s still scaring half the animals in here to death. Can’t you cover him up, or something?’

Ellie was going to keep arguing, I could tell. But, without even looking up from his worm pamphlet, her father just dropped his raincoat over my cage as if I were some mangy old parrot or something.

And everything went black.

No wonder by the time the vet came at me with her nasty long needle, I was in a bit of a mood. I didn’t mean to scratch her that badly, though.

Or smash all those little glass bottles.

Or tip the expensive new cat scales off the bench.

Or spill all that cleaning fluid.

It wasn’t me who ripped my record card into tiny pieces, though. That was the vet.

When we left, Ellie was in tears again. She hugged my cage tightly to her chest.

‘Oh, Tuffy! Until we find a new vet who’ll promise to look after you, you must be so careful not to get run over.’

‘Fat chance!’ her father muttered.

I was just glowering at him through the cage wire, when he spotted Ellie’s mother, standing knee-deep in shopping bags outside the supermarket.

‘You’re very late,’ she scolded. ‘Was there a bit of trouble at the vet’s?’

Ellie burst into tears. I mean, talk about wimp. But her father is made of sterner stuff. He’d just taken the most huge breath, ready to snitch on me, when suddenly he let it out again. Out of the corner of his eye, he’d spotted trouble of another sort.

‘Quick!’ he whispered. ‘Next-door is just coming through the check-out.’

He picked up half the shopping bags. Ellie’s mother picked up the rest. But before we could get away, Next-door had come through the glass doors.

So now all four of them were forced to chat.

‘Morning,’ said Ellie’s father.

‘Morning,’ said Next-door.

‘Nice day,’ said Ellie’s father.

‘Lovely,’ agreed Next-door.

‘Nicer than yesterday,’ said Ellie’s mother.

‘Oh, yes,’ Next-door said. ‘Yesterday was horrible.’

She probably just meant the weather, for heaven’s sake. But Ellie’s eyes filled with tears. (I don’t know why she was so fond of Thumper. I’m the one who’s supposed to be her pet, not him.) And because she couldn’t see where she was going properly any more, she bumped into her mother, and half the tins of catfood fell out of one of the shopping bags, and rolled off down the street.

Ellie dumped down my cage, and chased off after them. Then she made the mistake of reading the labels.

‘Oh, nooo!’ she wailed. ‘Rabbit chunks!’

(Really, that child is such a drip. She’d never make it in our gang. She wouldn’t last a week.)

‘Talking about rabbit,’ said Next-door. ‘The most extraordinary thing happened at our house.’

‘Really?’ said Ellie’s father, glaring at me.

‘Oh, yes?’ said Ellie’s mother, glaring at me as well.

‘Yes,’ said Next-door. ‘On Monday, poor Thumper looked a little bit poorly, so we brought him inside. And on Tuesday, he was worse. And on Wednesday he died. He was terribly old, and he’d had a happy life, so we didn’t feel too bad about it. In fact we had a little funeral, and buried him in a box at the bottom of the garden.’

I’m staring up at the clouds now.

‘And on Thursday, he’d gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Gone?’

‘Yes, gone. And all there was left of him was a hole in the ground and an empty box.’

‘Really?’

‘Good heavens!’

Ellie’s father was giving me the most suspicious look.

‘And then, yesterday,’ Next-door went on. ‘Something even more extraordinary happened. Thumper was back again. All fluffed up nicely, and back in his hutch.’

‘Back in his hutch, you say?’

‘Fluffed up nicely? How strange!’

You have to hand it to them, they’re good actors. They kept it up all the way home.

‘What an amazing story!’

‘How on earth could it have happened?’

‘Quite astonishing!’

‘So strange!’

Till we were safely through the front door. And then, of course, the pair of them turned on me.

‘Deceitful creature!’

‘Making us think you killed him!’

‘Just pretending all along!’

‘I knew that cat could never have done it. That rabbit was even fatter than he is!’

You’d have thought they all wanted me to have murdered old Thumper.

All except Ellie. She was sweet.

‘Don’t you dare pick on Tuffy!’ she told them. ‘You leave him alone! I bet he didn’t even dig poor Thumper up. I bet it was the Fisher’s nasty, vicious terrier who did that. All Tuffy did was bring Thumper back to us so we could make sure he was buried again properly. He’s a hero. A kind and thoughtful hero.’

She gave me a big soft squeeze.

‘Isn’t that right, Tuffy?’

I’m saying nothing, am I? I’m a cat. So I just sat and watched while they unnailed the cat flap.

2_The Return Of The Killer Cat

1: How it began

OKAY, OKAY! so slap my teensy little furry paws. I messed up.

Big time!

And okay! Tug my tail! It all turned into a bit of a one-cat crime wave.

So what are you going to do? Confiscate my food bowl and tell me I’m a very bad pussy?

But we cats aren’t supposed to hang about like dogs, doing exactly as we’re told, and staring devotedly into your eyes while we wonder if there is some slipper we can fetch you.

We run our own lives, we cats do. I like running mine. And if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s wasting the days and nights when the family are on holiday.

‘Oh, Tuffy!’ fretted Ellie, giving me the Big Farewell Squeeze. (I gave her the cool blink that means: ‘Careful, Ell! Stay on the right side of cuddle here, or you’ll get the Big Scratch in return.’) ‘Oh, Tuffy! We’ll be away for a whole week!’

A whole week? Magic words! A whole week of sunning myself in the flower beds without Ellie’s mother shrieking, ‘Tuffy! Get out of there! You’re flattening whole patches!’

A whole week of lolling about on top of the telly without Ellie’s father’s endless nagging: ‘Tuffy! Shift your tail! It’s dangling over the goalmouth!’

And, best of all, a whole week of not being scooped up and shoved in next-door’s old straw baby basket and stroked and petted by Ellie and her soppy friend Melanie.

‘Ooh, you are lucky, Ellie! I wish I had a a pet like Tuffy. He’s so soft and furry.’

Of course I’m soft and furry. I’m a cat.

And I am clever, too. Clever enough to realize it wasn’t Mrs Tanner coming to house-and-cat-sit as usual…

‘… no, she suddenly had to rush off to her daughter in Dorset … so if you hear of anyone who could do it … only six days… well, if you’re sure, Vicar. Yes, well. So long as you’re comfortable with cats…’

Who cares if the vicar’s comfortable? I’m the cat.

2: Home not-so-sweet home

UH-UH! MR Houseproud!

‘Off those cushions, Tuffy. I don’t think you’re supposed to be lolling about on the sofa.’

Excuse me! Had the vicar not noticed it was me he was talking to? So what was I supposed to be doing? Mopping the floor? Tapping away on the computer? Digging the garden?

‘Tuffy! Don’t scratch the furniture.’

Hell-oooo? Whose house? His? Or mine? If I want to scratch furniture, I’ll scratch it.

Worst of all: ‘No, Tuffy! I’m not opening a fresh tin until you’ve finished this.’

I took a peek at ‘this’. It was hard. It was lumpy. It was yesterday’s grub.

And I wasn’t eating it.

I walked away. The last thing I heard was Reverend Barnham calling after me: ‘Gome back and finish your supper.’

In his dreams! I was off out. I met up with the gang – Tiger and Bella and Pusskins – and told them I hadn’t had supper. They were hungry too, so we sat on the wall and had a bit of a yowl about where to eat.

‘Fancy peeling the pepperoni off a leftover pizza?’

‘Fish without chips?’

‘I could murder a nice bit of steak.’

‘Who’s thinking stir-fried beef strips with scraped-off soy?’

In the end we went Chinese. (Love those ducks’ feet!) Tiger strolled off on a smell tour down the alley to find the right place, and then we played ‘Rip the Bags’. (We all won that one.) Before you knew it, it was a pleasant supper on the wall.

‘Very tasty.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Nice choice. We must remember to eat here more often.’

‘And generous portions. Here is a family not afraid to waste food properly.’

Unlike my friend, the vicar. Next morning he was still shoving the dried-up grub in front of me. ‘Tuffy, I’m not opening a fresh tin. If you were truly hungry, you’d eat this.’

Oh, would I? I didn’t think so.

While he was waiting, the vicar stared out of the window. ‘Look at that mess in the garden! Greasy paper wrappings! Ripped-up takeaway food cartons! And that awful yowling kept me awake for hours. Don’t think I’m letting you out again tonight.’

I might be deaf to nagging, but I have ears. Thanks for the warning, Reverend! I crept upstairs and patted at the latch on the small bathroom window until it was the way I like it: far enough down to look as if it was still closed from yesterday; far enough up for one good paw push to open it.

As for that mess in the garden – don’t knock it! It was breakfast.

3: Mistake!

OKAY, OKAY! So it was a bit mean to hold that night’s Talent Contest right under the vicar’s bedroom window. Bella sang ‘Beoooooooooooooooooootiful Dreeeeeamer’. Tiger sang ‘Rolling Along to New Orleeeeeeeeeeeeans’. Pusskins did his ‘Yodelling Song’, and I did my brilliant imitation of Ellie when the car door slammed on her finger.

Still, no need for the vicar to get his knickers in such a twist. ‘If I catch a single one of you, I’ll have your guts for garters!’

I didn’t come home early. But everyone needs their sleep, so in the end the gang and I split up, and I strolled back. It was a beautiful morning. The only thing spoiling it was his voice. I could hear him three streets away.

‘Tuff-eee! Tuff-eeee!’

I crept along in the shadow of next-door’s hedge. Melanie was leaning over it. ‘Please, Reverend Barnham,’ she interrupted him. ‘Does praying work?’

He stared at her as if she’d asked him something like, ‘Do trains eat custard?’

Melanie tried again. ‘You’re always saying to people, “Let us pray”. Well, does it work?’

‘Work?’

‘Yes. Do people get what they pray for? If I prayed really, really, really hard for something, would I get it?’

‘What sort of thing?’ Reverend Barnham asked her suspiciously.

Melanie clasped her hands together. ‘A pet all of my own to cuddle. A pet who is soft and furry and warm, just like Tuffy behind the hedge here.’

Well, thank you, Melanie! I took off, fast. And he was chasing me. That’s why, instead of going up the apple tree as usual, I took that flying leap on to the handle of the lawn mower, and then up in the pear tree.

But when you get to the top of that, you find you have only two choices…

1. You can jump from the top branch through a closed and locked bathroom window. (Uh-uh! My best escape route rumbled!)

2. Or you can go back down, then jump from the lowest branch on the mower handle, and down on the grass again.

Which – since my flying leap upwards had sent the mower spinning – turned out to be impossible as well.

4: Stuck up the tree

GIVE HIM HIS due, he tried everything. He cooed. He cajoled. He wheedled. (There’s not much difference between cajoling and wheedling, except wheedling’s more whiny.)

Then he tried threatening. ‘You’ll miss your supper, Tuffy.’ (Scarcely a threat to make me tremble, given what was on offer.)

Then simple nastiness. ‘You can stay up that tree till you rot, Tuny!’ (Charming.)

The fact is, I wasn’t faking it. I was dead stuck. Don’t think I would have chosen to spend half of my morning on one side of the tree, listening to him getting rattier and rattier…

‘Come down at once, Tuffy! Get down here!’

… and the other half on the other side, listening to Melanie on her knees, with her hands together and eyes closed, praying and praying…

‘Oh, please, please send me something soft and furry, just like Tuffy next door, to put in my straw basket and cuddle. I’ll give it my comfiest pillow to sleep on, and feed it fresh tuna and cream.’

Fresh tuna! Cream! Didn’t the little lady know I had missed my breakfast?

After a while, I couldn’t stand listening any longer. I moved back to the other side of the tree. (Who could blame me?)

The vicar was clearly getting hungry too. After a while, he left off threatening me and went inside to make his breakfast. (No yesterday’s grub for him, I noticed. Through the window came the sweet smell of sausages and bacon.)

They always say that breakfast is good for the brain. It certainly stoked up his little patch of grey matter because, a few minutes later, he came down the garden carrying a stool.

And climbed on it.

And he still couldn’t reach me.

I wasn’t being difficult. I really wanted to come down. If he had managed to reach up even nearly high enough, I would have been prepared to drop in his arms. (I might have scratched him a little, but hey! Cats are famous for being ungrateful, so why worry?)

In fact, I actually tried to help, creeping towards him along the branch. But then the branch started sinking. (That’s diets for you. Hard to keep to.) And as the branch got thinner towards the end, I weighed it down more and more, till it practically turned into a dry ski slope.

I didn’t dare go further, so I stopped.

But watching the branch sink under my weight did seem to have given the vicar an idea…

5: Genius!

HE WENT IN the garage, fetched out a length of tow rope and came back under my tree. Climbing on the stool, he tossed one end of the rope over my branch.

‘Right!’ he said grimly. ‘Slip knot!’

I yowled. Was he planning to hang me? I don’t often wish I could talk, but I admit that at that moment I wished I could rush back to the other side and drop a suggestion to Melanie: ‘Hey, Sugar! Give over praying for something soft and cuddly, and phone the cops. This vicar is trying to kill me.’

He muttered his way through the slip knot. ‘Round and through, then round and through again.’

(I kept up the yowling.)

He tugged the knot tight, then pulled on the rope. I dug in with my claws. The branch came down, but not quite far enough for him to reach me.

He tried again. This time, he managed to pull the branch a little further down. (I nearly fell.) But it still wasn’t quite far enough.

‘Jump!’ he said. ‘Jump the last bit, Tuffy!’

I gave him the blink.

‘Jump, Tuffy!’ he said again.

I glowered at him. (If you had taken a rolling pin to my eyes, and flattened them, they couldn’t have got any slittier. The look I gave him could have crawled through a closed Venetian blind.)

‘Chicken!’ he said.

Okay, okay! So I spat at him. What are you going to do? Throw your woolly at me? He called me a chicken! He was practically begging for it. He as good as said, ‘Spit in my eye, Tuff!’

So I did.

He glowered back at me.

And then – oh, creepy, creepy! The glower turned into a little smile.

‘Ah-ha!’ he said.

I’ll tell you something. People who don’t really like you shouldn’t say ‘Ah-ha!’ It makes those who know they aren’t liked very nervous.

Especially if they’re stuck up trees.

‘Ah-ha!’ he said again, and hurried back to the garage.

The next thing I knew, he was backing the car out. For one horrid fur-shivering moment I thought he was planning on knocking my tree down. But then he stopped, put on the brake and got out again.

He stood at the back end of the car and knotted the other end of the rope round the bumper.

‘Right!’ he said, admiring his handiwork. ‘I think that’s so strong it’ll pull the branch down low enough.’

I stopped my pitiful yowling. I suddenly had hopes of getting down before I died of old age in that tree.

If I am honest, I thought he’d hit upon a brilliant idea to rescue me.

I thought the man was a genius. I was impressed.

6: More fool me

WELL, MORE FOOL me. Don’t get me wrong. The plan went well at first. Tickety-boo. He got back in the car, switched on the engine and drove away from the tree at almost no miles a hour –

– carefully –

– carefully –

until the rope went taut. The branch went down as planned –

– lower –

– lower –

until my way back to the ground was practically a gentle downward stroll.

‘Brilliant!’ I told myself. ‘I can manage that. Leftover sausage and bacon rinds, here I come!’

And I picked my way down the branch –

– tippety –

– tippety –

– and that’s when his foot slipped on the pedal.

The car shot forward. The rope snapped under the strain. The forked tree branch became a giant leafy catapult –

– and I became a flying cat.

Wheeeeeeee! Watch me go! I flew in one beautiful rainbow-shaped arc right over the tree top. (I tell you, I wouldn’t want to do it again, but the view from up there was spectacular. Spectacular! You could see as far as the gasworks.)

But, after that, of course, the only way was

d

o

w

n.

7: Splat!!!

SPLAT!!!

Straight into Melanie ‘s little straw basket.

Okay, okay! No need to sob in your pillow! I may have splatted some of the not-so-cuddly little creepy-crawly things that were scurrying about on the cushion. I didn’t actually end up picking any tiny crushed corpses out of my fur; but still, it would amaze me if all those ants who saw me coming got away in time.

Hearing the thwack! of my landing, Melanie broke off her prayer. She opened her eyes, and, seeing me in her straw basket, looked up to heaven.

‘Oh, thank you! Thank you!’ cried Little Miss Stupid and Soppy ‘Thank you for sending me exactly what I asked for – something all soft and furry to cuddle, just like Tuffy.’

Just like Tuffy?

Did she think I was sent from heaven? How soft is this girl?

But hey! Let’s not be nasty about Melanie. I could have fetched up in a lot worse places than a cosy soft cushion in a little straw basket.

She carried me inside and kept her promise. Cream! Tuna! (Were you expecting me to slide off home to nose through some three-day-old pellets of catfood?)

Then she sat down and stroked my fur while she chose a name for me.

‘Pussywussykins?’

Sure, Melanie. If you want me throwing up on your pillow each time you say it.

‘Little Baby Munchywunchykins?’

Just try it, and I’ll scratch you. Hard.

‘I know. I’ll call you Janet!’

Janet? What planet is she from? For one thing, I’m a boy. And, for another, have I – have you – has anyone, anywhere – ever heard of a pet cat called Janet?

But the cream was fresh. The tuna was delicious.

So Janet was staying. Oh, yes. Janet was warm, well fed and comfortable.

Janet was staying.

8: Sweet little pussy

GO ON, THEN. Snigger. So I looked a bit of a pussy cat, wearing that lacy bonnet. And the doll’s frilly nightie was too big for me. What are you going to do? Ban me from Fashion Week?

I had a good time, being Janet. The meals came three times a day. (Three times a day! That nightie was headed for being a perfect fit, any time next week.) I had steak bits, and haddock, lean chicken, sausage ends. You think of what you really love to eat most, and then imagine soppy little fingers feeding you, mouthful by mouthful, and you’ll see why I stayed.

The only problem was the endless yelling from next door.

Tuffee! Tufff-eeee! Where ARE you?’

Melanie settled me back down comfortably in the straw basket, and stood on tiptoe to peep over the hedge.

‘The vicar’s still looking,’ she told me sadly. ‘Poor Tuffy! He’s still missing. I hope, wherever he is, he’s warm and dry and comfy and well fed.’

I purred.

She turned back. ‘Oh, Janet! I’m so glad to have you.’

She squeezed me so tight, I gave a little warning yowl. Not a smart noise to make, just over the hedge from someone looking for a cat.

His head appeared. ‘You’ve found him!’

I stayed well down in the basket.

Melanie’s kind, but she’s not bright. ‘Who?’

‘Tuffy!’

‘No. That was my own cat yowling. That was Janet.’

‘Janet?’

‘She was a gift.’

I’m glad that Melanie didn’t say ‘A gift from heaven’. That would have made him even more suspicious. As it was, he narrowed his eyes at me.

Disguise! I thought, and simpered in my basket.

The bonnet and nightie obviously confused him a little, but he did have a go. ‘His face looks very like Tuffy’s.’

I purred in a friendly fashion.

‘But Tuffy never made a noise like that.’

(No. Not in your presence, Buster!)

The vicar’s eyes gleamed. ‘Melanie,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I do one tiny little test to assure myself it’s not Tuffy?’

He came through the gate, and picked me up.

Talk about tests! Some have to walk through fire. Others are sent on seven-year-long voyages. Some have to go and make fortunes. Others kill dragons, or set off to find the Holy Grail.

Nobody’s ever had a test like this.

He scooped me out of the basket.

He held me up.

He looked me in the eyes. (I didn’t blink.)

He said, ‘Nice pussy! Pretty, pretty, pussy!’

He said, ‘Sweet, sweet pussy!’

He said, ‘Who’s a clever little girl pussy, then?’

And all I did was purr.

He put me back in the basket.

‘You’re right,’ he said to Melanie. ‘It isn’t Tuffy And I can’t think why I ever thought it was in the first place.’

Phew!

More cream. More tuna. Here we come!

9: Rumbled

GO ON. Admit it. You wouldn’t have gone home either. You would have stayed the whole week, just like I did, stuffing your face and getting fatter and fatter.

By Saturday night, I was as big as a barrel. There were splits down the sides of my seams. I was bulging out of the nightie.

And that’s when the gang came looking for me.

They peeped in the basket.

‘Tuffy? Tuffy, is that you?’

I was a bit embarrassed. I disguised my voice.

‘No,’ I explained. Tm Janet. Tuffy’s cousin.’

Bella stared at the fur bulges bursting through the nightie.

‘So what happened to Tuff? Did you eat him?’

I gave her the blink. ‘No.’

‘So where is he?’

I shrugged. Maybe it was the most energetic thing I’d done in nearly a week. Anyhow, the seam of the nightie split, and a whole lot more of my bulges fell out at the sides.

‘Doing a striptease, are you?’ Pusskins said, then added rudely, ‘Fatso!’

That set them all off.

‘Furball!’

Tub o’ lard!’

I narrowed my eyes. I made the tiniest little noise. The tiniest.

Everyone said afterwards that I was the one who started it. But I wasn’t. It was hardly a hiss at all. It was more like a purr really.

I blame Bella. She should never have put out her paw and patted me. ‘Come on, guys! Until Tuffy turns up, let’s have fun with this great furry beachball!’

So I thwacked her.

So she thwacked me back.

And that’s how the fight started. It was quite a big flurry, with flying fur and shreds of nightie floating all over. At one point, the bonnet ribbons nearly strangled me, but I wriggled free, and took all three of them on again.

But suddenly, with my disguise in tatters round the lawn, everyone cottoned on.

‘Hey, guys! It is Tuffy after all! It’s Tuffy!’

‘Yo, Tuff! At last!’

‘Found you!’

And that’s the moment Melanie came down the garden, carrying my third meal of the day.

The others stepped back respectfully.

‘Fresh cream!’ sighed Bella.

‘Real tuna!’ Tiger whispered.

‘Lots!’ said Pusskins.

But Melanie didn’t put it down as usual.

‘Tufty,’ she said to me sternly.

‘What have you done with Janet?’

I tried to look all Janety. But, without the lace bonnet and nightie, it didn’t work.

Melanie looked around. And, I admit, if you were expecting to find your precious new pet, it did look a bit bad. Shreds of fur and nightie and bonnet all over.

‘Oh, Tuffy! Tuffy!’ she wailed. ‘You bad, bad cat! You’ve torn Janet to pieces and eaten her! You monstert!’

The others turned and fled and left me to it.

‘You monster, Tuffy! Monster! Monster!’

10: How it ended

SO THAT SORT of explains what all the fuss was about when the car drew up at the roadside, and out spilled the family.

‘Tuff-eee!’ yelled Ellie, catching sight of me through Melanie ‘s open garden gate. She rushed in to greet me. ‘Tuff-eee!’

Then she spotted Melanie, sobbing her eyes out.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Your cat ought to go to prison!’

Melanie shrieked at her. ‘Your cat’s not a cat. Your cat’s a pig. And a beast.

And a murderer!

I went back to trying to look all sweet and Janety.

Ellie’s eyes had gone huge. She looked at me sternly and her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Tuffy!’ she whispered, horrified. ‘What have you done?’

I like that. Very nice! Aren’t families supposed to stick up for one another? Charming of Ellie to believe the worst, just because her best friend is watering the lawn with her tears, and there are bits of shredded nightie all over.

I was pretty put out, I can tell you. I stuck my tail up in the air and started the huffy strut out of there.

Wrong way! Straight into the vicar’s arms.

‘Gotcha!’ he said, scooping me up before I’d even spotted him lurking behind the pear tree. ‘Gotcha!’

And that’s how, when Ellie’s mother finally strolled through the gate, she found the vicar holding me the way that a cat lover doesn’t hold a cat.

And staring at me the way a cat lover doesn’t stare.

And saying things I don’t believe a vicar ought to say.

Ever.

He won’t be asked to cat-sit in our house again.

Anyone sorry?

No. I didn’t think so.

Byeeee!

3_The Killer Cat Strikes Back

1: Not the best photo

OKAY, OKAY. SO stick my head in a holly bush. I gave Ellie’s mother my mean look. It was her own fault. She was hogging my end of the sofa. You know – that sunny spot on the soft cushion where I like to sit because I can see out of the window.

Down to where the little birdy-pies keep falling out of their nests, learning to fly.

Yum, yum…

So I gave her this look. Well, she deserved it. All I was trying to do was get her to move along a bit so I could take my nap. We cats need our naps. If I don’t have my nap, I get quite ratty.

So I just stood there looking at her. That is ALL I DID.

Oh, all right. I was glowering.

But she didn’t even notice. She was busy flicking through the new brochure from the College of Education. ‘What class shall I take?’ she kept asking Ellie. ‘What would suit me best? Art? Music? Great books? Dancing? Yoga?’

‘Do they have classes in fixing up old cars?’ said Ellie’s father. ‘If they do, that’s the one to take.’

He’s right. That car of theirs is an embarrassment. It’s a disgrace. It’s just a heap of bits that rattle along the road sounding like a giant shaking rocks in a tin drum, spewing out smoke. And they will never, ever have the money to buy a new one.

The best class for Ellie’s mother would be a ‘Build A New Car Out Of Air’ class. But I doubt if the college offers that.

I upped the glower a little – not out of nastiness, you understand. Simply to let her know I wasn’t standing there admiring her beauty. My legs were aching.

She looked up and saw me. ‘Oh, Tuffy! What a precious little crosspatch face!’

I’m like you. I hate being teased. So I just glowered some more.

Oh, all right. If you insist on knowing all of it, I hissed a bit.

And then I spat.

And, guess what? Suddenly she was diving into her bag and had whipped out her camera and taken a photo.

It didn’t show me at my best, I must admit. I looked a little grumpy.

And you could see a bit too much of my bared teeth.

And perhaps my claws looked a shade too large and pointy. And a bit stretched out, as if I were about to lean forward and take a chunk out of someone’s leg unless they shifted along the sofa a bit to let someone else on to the sunny patch.

No. Not the best photo of me.

But she seemed to like it. And it gave her an idea.

‘I know!’ she said. ‘I’ll take the art class. We do painting and pottery. But the first thing I’m going to do is a portrait of Tuffy just like the one in the photo. Won’t that be lovely?’

Oh, yes. Very lovely indeed. Lovely as mud.

2: Whoops!

SHE DID IT, too. Can you believe this woman? She actually managed to get that heap of scrap metal they park outside our house to burst into life. Then she drove off in it, waving, to her first art class.

And came back with a portrait of me.

I watched from the warm spot on the garden wall where I do a lot of my thinking.

‘Marvellous!’ said the traffic warden as Ellie’s mother was pulling the painting out of the back of the car. ‘A most realistic tiger.’

‘I say,’ Mr Harris from next door called over the hedge as it was being carried up the path. ‘I like that. Is it a poster for the new horror film they’re showing in town?’

‘Lovely!’ said Ellie’s father. ‘You’ve captured the look perfectly.’

Ellie said nothing. I think, if I’m honest, the painting frightened her a little.

Then Ellie’s mother started wondering where to put it. (Pity she didn’t ask me. I would have told her, ‘How about straight in the dustbin?’)

But, no. She looked around. ‘What about up on the wall in here?’

I stared.

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘It will look splendid. And everyone who visits the house can admire it.’

(Oh, yes. At their peril.)

But that’s what she did. She found a hook and nail, and hung her ‘Portrait of Tuffy’ just above the back of the sofa where everyone could admire it.

And where I could just reach it.

If I really stretched…

Whoops!

3: One little biff

OKAY, OKAY. SO clip my claws. I scratched the cat to pieces. For pity’s sake! If anyone had the right to scratch that painted cat’s eyes out, it was me.

And it was an accident. All I did was put out one of my sweet little paws to give the painting one little biff. Just to make myself feel better about it, you could say. How could you argue it was my fault that one of my claws caught in the thread of the canvas?

And got stuck.

No one could blame me for trying to pull my own paw free.

Over and over…

The picture did end up looking a bit of a mess, I have to admit. But I felt a whole lot better.

I sat on the wall outside and waited. The explosion came soon enough.

‘Look at this mess! My “Portrait of Tuffy” has been torn to bits!’

‘It’s in shreds! There are bits of painting all over the carpet!’

‘Not just on the carpet! Isn’t that a painted ear up on the dresser?’

‘And a bit of tail hanging off that lamp?’

‘I’ve found a paw on the window sill!’ wailed Ellie.

Oh, I certainly spread that ‘Portrait of Tuffy’ about. If anyone was ever going to hang what was left of it on the wall again, they’d have to give it a new name.

They’d have to call it ‘Battle’s End’. And guess who won?

Ellie picked up the frame with all the stringy bits hanging down. ‘Tuffy!’ she scolded as sternly as she could. ‘Look what you’ve done to Mummy’s very first painting! You’ve destroyed it.’

What a tragedy – I don’t think. And if you want my opinion, they won’t be howling with grief down at the Art Gallery, either, when they hear the news. Ellie’s mother might be clever enough to bring a dead car back to life for long enough to drive to her art class and back, but she can’t paint for toffee.

I can paint better than she can with my paws. And next time she leaves one of her nice new expensive blank white canvases about, I might just prove it to her.

Oh, yes. Indeed I might.

4: ‘A riot of beauty’

SO WHITEWASH MY whiskers! I took a short cut over her precious new canvas. I was in a hurry. How was I to know she’d left it for only a minute while she went back in the house to look for her paintbrush?

There it was, lying on the patio, all nice and flat and neat and white and clean and – well, yes – blank.

Ready to go, you could say.

I expect I just wasn’t thinking when I stepped in the tub of blue paint – by mistake – before running over the canvas to the gate.

And anyone could have been clumsy enough to knock over that tub of red paint when they ran back to check out that smell of fish round the dustbins.

How could it be my fault that one of my paws slid in the tub of yellow before I took a swipe at that butterfly? How was I to know I was going to get paint droplets all over?

And you certainly can’t blame me because my tail just happened to flick in the tub of green before I prowled round the ruined canvas a few times, dragging my tail behind me as I worried about the splatters.

Colourful, though. Cheerful. Rather fresh and ‘modern’.

Mrs Famous-Artist-To-Be wasn’t at all pleased. A brand-new canvas! Totally spoiled! Look at this mess! And I was planning to paint a lovely sunset on a lake under a hill of buttercups!’

Ellie stuck up for me. ‘Tuffy wasn’t being bad. He just got to the canvas first.’

I took a look at my handiwork. Ellie was right. Fancy a sunset? I had that giant streak of red. You want a lake? I had a splodge of blue. Buttercups? Plenty of droplets of yellow in that painting. On a hill? No worries. Tons of green.

I gave Our Lady of the Paintbrush a lofty stare. ‘That’s not a mess,’ the look said. ‘That is proper art.’

And Ellie clearly thought so too. She didn’t dare say a word until Mrs Picasso had driven off to her class. (Bang! Rattle! X@%?%$! Phut! Cough!) But then Ellie said to her father, ‘I really like it. Can we hang it on the wall?’

Usually, he’d have more tact. But he’s still mad at her ladyship for not taking useful ‘Fix Your Rubbish Heap Car’ lessons instead of art. And he hates wasting anything, even a hook in a wall. So he picked up the painting and hung it up over the sofa.

Ellie stared at it with her hands clasped in wonder. (You have to hand it to that girl, she may be wet, wet, wet – but she is loyal.)

‘I’m going to call it “A Riot of Beauty”,’ she said.

I turned a critical eye on my first-ever work of art.

Not sure about the ‘Beauty’ bit. But liked the ‘Riot’.

Yes. Liked the ‘Riot’.

5: A droplet of advice

SO MRS Watch-My-Fingers-Weave-Enchantment comes home that afternoon with three manky lumps of dried mud.

(I kid you not. Dried lumps of mud. If they’d been green, you would have thought of them as giant bogeys.)

‘I didn’t have a canvas,’ she explained. (Frosty look at me – I just ignored it.) ‘So I moved on to pottery.’

Pottery?

Potty, more like, if you want the opinion of that talented pussycat who painted ‘A Riot of Beauty’.

I put my paw out to stroke one of the lumps.

Accident! It fell to pieces before it even hit the ground.

‘Tuffy!’ she said. ‘How could you! First you tread paint all over my lovely clean canvas, and now you’ve broken one of my pretty new pots.’

Pretty new pots? Puh-lease. They are not pretty. The mud comes from a primeval swamp. And if you dropped so much as a pin into something that lumpy, you’d never find it again.

She put the other two pots safely up on the shelf. ‘There!’ she said. ‘Not even Tuffy can get up here and knock them off.’

A tiny droplet of advice: don’t ever challenge a cat. It may have been a bit of an effort. (I don’t keep as trim as I should.) But finally – finally – I managed to rise to the occasion and get up on that shelf.

Those pots up there were even worse than the one I’d knocked on to the floor. (By accident.) Talk about ugly! They had lumps hanging off here, and extra lumps sagging off there. One of them even had a kind of wart on its bottom, so every time I gave it a tiny little push, it wobbled horribly.

Uh-oh!

I’d like to tell you that it shattered into a thousand pieces. (That would sound good.) But it was such a lump of old rubbish it only fell into two halves.

Never mind. Be fair to me. At least the thing was gone.

Two down.

And one to go.

6: Little Miss Last Ugly Pot

I WASN’T THE only one in the house to hate those ugly pots enough to want to be rid of all of them. Next morning I strolled into the living room at my usual time to find Ellie’s father sitting on the sofa, right next to my sunny spot.

There was a look in his eye I’d never seen before. For a moment I couldn’t work out what it was, and then I realized he was pleased to see me.

Weird, or what?

He put out a welcoming hand. ‘Come on, pussy. Here, pussy.’

Well, stretch my stripes! ‘Come on, pussy’? The man’s never pined for my company before. Do I recall many a happy hour spent on his lap being gently stroked and petted?

No, I do not.

Clearly he wanted something. I took a quick look round the room and –

Voila! He’d moved Little Miss Last Ugly Pot down to the coffee table. Aha! So that’s what he was hoping for! An action replay of yesterday’s excellent result: one little soft paw out prodding, one quick cry of ‘Whoops!’, and a freshly smashed pot in the rubbish bin.

I won’t say I wasn’t tempted. That was one nasty pot. The world would be a prettier place for being rid of it. If I am scrupulously honest, I think that pot would have looked nicer in bits on the floor than it did as one lump on the table.

And I’m an obliging family pet, always keen to help out when I can.

I stuck my paw out, ready.

Then he made his big mistake.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Good boy!’

Good boy? What does he think I am? A stupid dog?

I gave him the cool slow blink. If he’d had anything but cloth for brains, he would have known what it meant. That blink meant: Excuse me. Which of us is the one who’s trained like a dog? Do I do what you want? No, I do not. Do I come when you call? No. I go my own sweet way. I am a cat.

You, on the other hand, are perfectly well trained. If I am hungry, all I have to do is walk round your legs a few times, half-tripping you, and you open a tin. If I want to go out, I stand by the door and yowl as if I’m about to throw up, and you’re over in a flash to open it.

Who is the one who should be saying, ‘Good boy!’ round here, Buster?

Yes. Not you. Me.

More than one way to make a point, of course. I chose to do it by giving him the runaround. I kept him on tenterhooks, padding up and down the coffee table. (He is such a hypocrite. Usually he’d push me off.) I let my fur graze the pot more closely every time I passed, and every now and again I even stretched out a paw as if to stroke that nasty pottery lump he was so hoping I would break.

I even gave it a little push so it toppled a little.

Almost fell off the side.

Almost.

Not quite.

‘Come on,’ he urged me. ‘You can do it. You’re a clumsy enough cat.’

Clumsy, eh? So things were getting nasty. I could have told him: not a thing gets smashed by me in this house unless I choose to smash it. Call us cats clever. Call us cunning. Call us caterwauling.

But never call us clumsy.

And then he really blew it. He changed tack.

‘Come on,’ he wheedled. ‘Smash it for me. Please. Sweet pussy. Sweet, sweet pussy.’

How dare he! What a nerve! Can you believe this man? Five years we’ve lived together, and he calls me ‘sweet’.

It is an insult.

I felt like scratching him, I really did. Instead, I took revenge. I made my eyes go huge, and sent my fur up on end. I did my Just-Seen-a-Ghost-in-the-Doorway’ act. (It’s very good.) And then, to put the icing on the cake, I shot backwards along the coffee table at about a hundred miles an hour until I’d knocked the pretty china dish he loves so much off at the other end, shattering it to pieces and spilling all the coins he keeps in there on to the floor.

He was still chasing money round the room when the doorbell rang.

Mr Harris from next door. And, as usual, he was selling raffle tickets.

‘Sorry,’ said Ellie’s father as he always did. ‘Unfortunately, just at this moment I happen to be out of spare change.’

Mr Harris looked at the money spilling out of Ellie’s father’s cupped hands.

‘All that will do,’ he said. ‘All that will buy at least one ticket. And it’s a really good prize – especially for your family. It’s a brand-new car.’

(Clearly we cats are not the only ones round here who are fed up with coughing for an hour or two each time anyone in my family sets off on a car trip.)

So what could Ellie’s father do? He had to buy a ticket or look the cheapskate he is. By the time he came back, he was in a real temper.

I find unpleasantness in others a terrible trial. We cats do have our dignity. All that I chose to do was push the last ugly pot well away from the table edge. I shifted it this way a bit. Then I shifted it that. And then I left it sitting very safely indeed, right in the middle, where no one could ever knock it over and break it by mistake.

Then I stuck my tail up, proudly high, and I stalked out.

7: Cat and mouse

SO THEN WE ended up playing a sort of Cat and Mouse game. (Guess who played Mouse!) He put the ugly pot back on the shelf in case The Budding Artist got suspicious. But he still wanted it gone, and to be able to spread his hands – Mr All Innocence – and swear to Ellie’s mother that it was I who broke it.

Over the next few weeks, he must have tried everything. And I mean everything.

First, he tried wheedling and begging. You know the sort of stuff.

‘Dear pussy. Kind pussy. Won’t you do one tiny eensy-weensy thing for me?’

(Well, as my old granny used to say, ‘Please pass the sick bag, Alice!’)

Then he tried picking me up and putting me on the shelf and pushing me along it.

That’s right. Actually putting his hand on my bottom and trying to push me. (He’s still nursing the scratches from that one.)

After that, he smeared whipping cream on the pot, hoping that I’d be greedy enough to jump up and lick the pot so hard it would move along the shelf and fall off the end.

How stupid is that? Cream? On a shelf? I had a really good time skating up and down, kicking drips over the edge. It took him days to get the sour smell out of the rugs.

I spent a lot of time that week out in the fresh air, amusing myself by chasing next door’s Gregory out of our garden. Each time the poor boy came through the gate, clutching a note from his mother, I’d leap out from behind the holly bush and stick all four paws in the air as if I’d flattened myself against an invisible wall right next to his face.

Gregory would scream, drop the note he was holding and rush off home.

I’d kick the note out of the way under the holly bush (hiding the evidence) and go back to sleep on the wall.

A stupid game, maybe. But I enjoyed it and it passed the time until Ellie’s father had spent enough time scrubbing the rugs to make the living room smell pleasant again. Then I came back inside, to find my adversary in the War of the Last Ugly Pot getting even more cunning.

He’d dropped a fine fresh prawn inside the thing.

‘There!’ he crowed. ‘Try to resist that, Tuffy! Try to get that out without knocking the pot over the edge!’

Well, I was tempted. If there’s one thing that I love, it’s a fresh prawn. But then I thought, nobody, not even a mothwallet like Ellie’s father, has the nerve to buy only one. There must be others!

I went off to the toolshed and found the rest of them still in the bag, hidden from Ellie’s mother, waiting for the secret little luxury snack he was planning for himself later.

Things worked out nicely. I ate those instead.

8: Before six o’clock tonight

ON MY WAY back through the garden, Bella and Tiger and Pusskins yowled at me from the wall where they were sitting watching Ellie’s mother trying to park.

‘That car of your family’s!’ said Bella. ‘It’s a real disgrace. ’

‘Pouring out smoke,’ agreed Pusskins.

Tiger was even more grumpy. ‘We could all choke to death. ’He was still moaning as Ellie’s mother came up the path with her most recent triumph. ‘And what is that? A heap of knitted twigs?’

‘That’s her new work of art,’ I had to admit. ‘She’s given up on pottery and moved on to “garden sculptures”.’

‘Those manky old bits of trailing raffia are going to get everywhere,’ grumbled Bella. ‘And is that a flag on the top? Or did some lavatory paper get stuck to whatever it is on the way home?’

Ellie’s mother staggered through the gate and dumped her new great work of art on to the lawn. Smoke was still pouring out of the car, but she didn’t notice. She was waving at Ellie.

‘Come and see my new piece. I’m calling it “Wigwam in Summer”!’

Ellie came rushing over, clasping her hands. ‘Oooh!’ she cried. ‘It’s lovely. It’s beautiful! Can I have it as my own little house? Then I can sit inside it and play Let’s Pretend!’

Tiger just rolled his eyes and Bella pretended kindly that she hadn’t heard. I mean, everyone’s embarrassed by their family. That is the Way of the World. But Ellie is more than a few steps beyond soft. She has become Essence of Mush.

But all that ‘sitting inside it’ talk had given Bella an idea.

‘Excellent loo for cats, that wigwam,’ she couldn’t help observing. Just the right size. Very private. And you could fly that loo paper flag on top to let people know whenever it’s in use.’

‘And how it’s in use,’ added Tiger. He turned to me. ‘That’s Symbolism, that is,’ he explained. ‘I know because someone in my family took the Great Books course at that very same college.’

‘Let’s hope she moves the wigwam on to a flowerbed,’ said Pusskins. ‘That’ll make for easier scratching in after.’

I do live in a family. ‘Hey, fellas!’ I rebuked them. ‘What about poor Ellie? She won’t want to sit and play Let’s Pretend in a public lavatory.’

We were still arguing when the car that had been sitting there busily puffing out smoke suddenly burst into flames. It was a good show, what with the fire engines.(Nee-naw! Nee-naw! ’We’ll all bepractising that noise on the prowl tonight.) And at the end, Bella said, ‘A pity Ellie’s father can’t find that winning raffle ticket of his, and get his new car.’

‘Sorry?’ I said.

She turned my way. ‘Didn’t you know? The raffle draw was a whole week ago. According to the book of ticket stubs, Ellie’s dad has the winning number. But Mr Harris says that, according to the rules, the winner has to show up with the ticket to claim the prize.’

‘Before six o’clock,’ added Pusskins. ‘This evening. On the dot. Otherwise the new car goes to the runner-up.’

‘All this is news to me,’ I said, a shade uneasily.

‘I can’t think why,’ said Tiger. ‘Everyone else knows. And Ellie’s mother and father must know as well because Mr Harris has sent Gregory round at least a dozen times with notes to tell them.’

I felt even more uneasy. Glancing guiltily towards the litter gathered under the holly bush, I couldn’t help muttering, ‘Dear me. Oh, dear me. Oh, dear.’

‘I expect the raffle ticket’s been lost,’ said Pusskins. ‘Those things are very light and small. It must be terribly easy for everyone in the household to forget where they put it.’

I found myself staring at a cloud sailing over my head, and saying nothing.

Everyone round me sighed.

‘We’d all have a better life if your family had a new car,’ said Bella. ‘They would go off on more day trips. Leave us to ourselves a bit.’

We all fell silent, thinking of the good times we used to have racing around the living room, ripping up the cushions and scaring the goldfish silly.

‘Oh, all right !’I said.

Take it from me, it is no joke, sticking your head in a holly bush. I had to stretch really far to find a note that wasn’t badly ripped. Bella’s a tubby tabby, so she helped me roll it flat. (We quite enjoyed that idle hour on the warm flagstones.)

And then I slid it under the back door.

It was Ellie’s mother who picked it up, of course. ‘George! George! We’ve won a car! In a raffle! All that we have to do is find the ticket you bought from Gregory’s dad, and the car will be ours!’ She rushed towards him. ‘So where did you put it to keep it safe?’

She skidded to a halt. ‘George?’ she said. ‘George? You do remember where you put it, don’t you?’

Ellie and I turned round to look at him.

He had gone green.

9: ‘Run, Daddy! Run!’

OF COURSE, THE POOR sap hadn’t got a clue. I watched them turn the house upside down, up-ending sofas, peering under rugs, sticking their noses into old envelopes.

By the time the clock ticked round to a quarter to six, they were quite desperate.

‘It must be somewhere !’

‘Where did you put it? Try to remember!’

He clutched his hair and wailed, ‘I don’t know! All I can recall is coming back into this room with the raffle ticket in my hand.’

I tried to give them a hint. I kept on strolling up and down along the shelf, and giving little purrs. But they had no time to pay attention to me.

So, in the end, with only five minutes to go before the deadline, I had to do what he’d been trying to get me to do for several weeks.

I didn’t choose to do it, you understand. It was an Unselfish Act, purely for the Good of the Community. Left to myself, I would have happily broken my own front left leg rather than please him by damaging that last ugly pot.

But needs must when the devil drives. I stuck out my paw and pushed the thing firmly off the end of the shelf.

I won’t say it smashed. Fat chance. This pot was such an ill-made lump, it simply fell apart in mid-air.

Out tumbled, first, one fresh prawn, then one small raffle ticket.

The bits of pot hit the carpet. Blop! Blop! Blop!

‘What on earth is that prawn doing there?’ said Ellie’s mother.

He didn’t take the time to blush. He simply snatched up the raffle ticket and made for the door.

‘Run, Daddy! Run!’ cried Ellie.

10: A moral victory and a good result

THE GANG TOLD me all about it afterwards.

‘Didn’t go round by the pavement. Simply jumped over the fence.’

‘Amazing! No doubt about it, it was an Olympic-standard leap.’

‘He practically bust his truss doing it.’

I was sorry to have missed the show. But I was too busy being cuddled and praised by sweet little Ellie. ‘Oh, Tuffy! You’re the cleverest, most wonderful cat in the whole wide world. You found the ticket! Just in time. And now we’re going to have a brand-new car. I love you, Tuffy. I love you. You’re a sweetie, peetie, weetie –’

Okay, okay! Enough! I can’t take too much of the soppy stuff. I shook her off and I went out. I wanted to be alone. I had a thing or two to think about up on my wall. After all, I’d had to make a giant sacrifice. I’d had to do what Ellie’s father wanted all along, and break the pot.

I hate doing things for that man. Normally I’d rather tear off my own left ear than try to please him. But it was for the best. Bella was right. Now they had a better car, they’d go out a whole lot more. I might have lost the battle, but at least, in doing so, I had won the battleground.

It was an honourable defeat.

A moral victory and a good result.

4_The Killer Cat's Birthday Bash

1: Not my fault

OKAY, OKAY. SO spank my furry little bum. I held a party.

And, go ahead. Stuff me with sorry pills. It all ended up a bit of a mess.

Well, more than a mess. A disaster.

Well, more than a disaster. A real riot.

But it was not my fault. If Ellie hadn’t got so bored she rooted through the cupboard and found that old photograph album, I would never have known the date of my birthday. None of it would have happened.

So you blame Ellie. Don’t blame me.

2: ‘You talkin’ ’bout me?’

IT WAS A horrible day. Horrible. The rain was splattering against the window panes. The wind was howling. So Ellie lay face down on the rug and flicked over the pages of the album.

‘Oooh, Dad! Here’s one of you the day you tumbled in that muddy ditch.’

(Best place for the man, if you want my opinion.)

‘Oooh, Mum! Come and look at this photo. Your hair looks lovely.’

(On Planet No-Style, maybe. But not here.)

On and on Ellie went, squealing away like that baby mouse Tiger and I gave such a good fright behind the wheelie bin. In the end I decided I couldn’t stand it any more, and made for the door.

Just then she squealed again. ‘Oh, here’s one of Tuffy! Doesn’t he look sweeeeeeeet?’

I turned to give her one of my ‘you talkin’ ’bout me?’ looks. She didn’t even notice. She was too busy oohing and aahing and fussing and cooing. ‘Oh,

come and look at this, Mum. Tuffy looks so cute!’

I’m not going to hang my head in shame and make excuses for myself. Back then I was a ball of fluff. I was a kitten. Baby kittens are sweet.

Ellie picked out another photo. ‘Oh, look! Tuffy is gorgeous!’

I couldn’t help it; I was curious. So I strolled back to take a look. And sure enough, there was this photo of me, all huge and trusting eyes, and fur around me like a fluffy cloud. I looked like something off one of those soppy birthday cards your great-aunt sends to your mother.

I nearly threw up. But Ellie was pointing to the writing underneath the photo as she read it aloud.

‘Our enchanting new kitten. Born on 31st October.’

She looked at her mother. ‘It’s October now,’ she said. ‘That means it’s nearly Tuffy’s birthday.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Ellie’s mother.

I thought so too. But Ellie’s father had to introduce a sour note into this warm family moment.

‘31st October?’ he said. ‘Isn’t that Halloween? The time when everything evil and ugly and dangerous crawls out to stalk the land.’ He snorted. ‘A very suitable day indeed for Tuffy’s birthday!’

Rude man. But did I bother to give him the blink? No. I was too busy thinking.

31st October. My birthday, eh?

Then why not hold a party?

Well, why not?

3: No dogs

‘RIGHT,’ BELLA SAID. ‘First we must decide on where we’re holding this birthday bash of yours.’

‘My house, of course,’ I told them.

‘It’s my birthday and my party, so we’ll have it at my house.’

Bella sighed. ‘Have you forgotten what day it’s going to be?’

‘No,’ I said, and couldn’t help turning sarcastic. ‘Unless I just happened to step out tonight without my brain, it’s on 31st October.’

‘That’s right,’ said Bella. ‘And that’s the night your family plans to hold a big Halloween party for everyone on the street.’

‘Really?’ I was astonished. ‘News to me.’ I turned to Tiger. ‘Did you know that?’

‘Sure I knew,’ Tiger told me. ‘This morning I was just sitting minding my own business on the front door mat when the invitation came through the letter box and fell on my head.’ He ran a paw over his fur. ‘I can still feel the lump.’

‘I knew too,’ Snowball told me. ‘My family have already fetched their dressing-up box down from the attic.’ She scowled. ‘And Tanya thought it would be amusing to put a bonnet on me.’

‘What did you do?’ asked Tiger.

‘Scratched her, of course,’ said Snowball. ‘Really hard. She won’t try that again.’

Everyone chuckled, except for me. I wasn’t in the mood.

‘I don’t believe it!’ I grumbled. ‘You live in a house for years. They feed you, try to cuddle you and make you think that you’re a member of the family. And then they send party invitations all round the town without even mentioning it in front of you!’

Bella could tell my feelings had been hurt. ‘Perhaps you simply weren’t around to hear them talking about it,’ she suggested soothingly.

I thought back over the week. It’s true I had spent most of every day out scaring squirrels. And every evening out with the gang. In fact, when I thought about it, I’d only stepped inside to see what sort of grub they’d put in my dish before deciding whether I’d rather stroll down to the fish shop and knock the lid off their waste bin.

But still, I felt a bit sore. If my own family had decided to hold a party, you would have thought they might choose to celebrate my birthday, not stupid Halloween.

No. I was miffed enough to take a stand.

‘Right, then,’ I said. ‘We’ll have my party somewhere else. How about round therecycling bins?’

‘Bit dangerous,’ warned Bella. ‘All those cars backing up in the dark to dump their papers and bottles.’

‘Under the scout hut?’

‘You’re joking,’ Tiger said. ‘It’s really hard to squeeze in through that hole, and then it’s freezing.’

So that settled it.

‘All right,’ I told them. ‘We’ll hold my birthday bash in the Fletchers’ barn.’

‘That means we’ll have to invite the horses too.’

Everyone groaned. Horses. Just think about them. Cloppy great feet. Giant black nostrils you could climb up inside and then get lost. Legs as knobbly as Granny’s furniture. Basically, a horse is just a huge pudgy barrel on great long matchstick legs, with feet like upturned teacups.

Party animals? I don’t think so! But you can’t hold a party in someone else’s home, and not invite them.

‘Okay, then. Horses it is.’

‘What about dogs?’ asked Bella.

We all turned to stare.

‘Dogs?’ Tiger said, and shuddered. (He’d only just got down from the last tree young Buster had chased him up.) ‘No. Absolutely not.’

Snowball is more of a softie. ‘Not even that harmless little thing from Laurel Way that looks like a tiny toilet brush on legs, and is so soppy it can’t even jump off a bed?’

‘No,’ Tiger said. ‘Not even that one. If any dogs are invited, I’m not coming.’

So that was settled, then. No dogs.

4: Ghosts in the closet

ON THE WAY home, I hatched a little plan to pay my family back.

More fond of ghoulies and ghosties than of their own pussy cat, were they?

Well, I’d show them.

I sidled through the back door, then up the stairs and into Ellie’s bedroom. Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes was sitting up in bed, reading a book.

I jumped up beside her and snuggled.

‘Oooh, Tuffy!’ she said. ‘You are so nice and sweet and cuddly.’

I kept my temper. It nearly choked me but I even managed to cough out a purr.

‘Oh, Tuffy,’ she said again. ‘I love it when you’re all contented and cosy, and fall asleep in my arms.’

I kept my eyes closed and I counted to ten. Then, just as she lifted her arm to turn her page, I sprang to my feet and stared at the closet.

Ellie raised her eyes from the book. ‘What is it, Tuffy?’

I arched my back, and kept up the mad stare.

‘Come on, Tuffy,’ Ellie soothed. ‘It’s just the closet. The only things inside it are clothes and shoes.’

I gave her a quick ‘don’t you believe it’ blink, and made my hair shoot up on end.

Now she was getting nervous. ‘Tuffy?’

She slid out of bed and went towards the closet.

‘Yoooooowwwwwwwwllllll!’

It was the clearest message not to go a single step closer. You didn’t have to be a cat to understand: Whatever you do, don’t open that closet door!

Terrified, Ellie fled downstairs.

I took a break. Then, when she came up again a few minutes later, holding her parents’ hands, I sprang back into ‘Terrified Cat Staring At Ghosts In The Closet’ mode.

You could tell from the look on Ellie’s father’s face that she had dragged the two of them away from something rather good on telly. He gave the most perfunctory glance around the room, then glowered at me.

I kept up the arched back and the stiffened fur, and stared at the closet.

Ellie’s mother slid the closet door open. She pushed the clothes hanging from the rail to one side and peered in. ‘Nothing strange in here.’

‘Check the other side,’ begged Ellie. (She was really scared.)

Ellie’s mother checked the other side. ‘Nothing.’

‘Check both sides at once,’ insisted Ellie. So under her orders Mr Grumpy-Wumpy poked his head in on one side and Mrs A-Whole-Lot-Nicer poked her head in on the other, and they flapped all the clothes about.

‘Ellie, there’s nothing unusual in here.’

I gathered myself up, did a frantic little ‘I am terrified’ dance and spat at the closet.

Ellie burst into tears and shouted angrily, ‘Well, Tuffy doesn’t seem to think there’s nothing in there! And animals are famous for seeing ghosts.’

‘Because they’re stupid,’ Ellie’s father said, still glaring at me.

Oh, very friendly. So I spat again, taking good care to make it land on his trousers.

Ellie’s mother could see that, at this rate, we would be up all night. ‘You’d better come and sleep with me,’ she said to Ellie. ‘And Dad can go in the spare bed.’

Ha, ha. I spend a lot of time on that spare bed. But I can curl up. I wouldn’t care to sleep in it if I was long and thin like him. It’s just Lump City, that old bed.

He knew it too. On his way out, he gave me a pretty mean look. I put on a snooty air and tried to show him by the way I stalked past that that is what you get for choosing not to hold a party for your own precious pussy.

Ghosts in the closet and lumps in the bed. That’s what you get. And serves you right.

5: When poodles fly

THE COUNTDOWN BEGAN. If you’re a friend of mine, it was a countdown to my birthday. If you are not, it was a countdown to Halloween.

I did a good bit of sulking.

Okay, okay! So I did more than sulk.

I brought in dead things while they were eating lunch, and shed hairs over their pillow cases, and scratched great holes in all their precious carpets.

All in all, I had an excellent week.

Finally the big day came. Early that afternoon, the family drove off to get the stuff for their party. I’d seen the list. Food. Scary decorations. Halloween masks… I’d scoured it from top to bottom several times but hadn’t seen the very important words ‘A present for Tuffy’. And that could not have been because they didn’t have the money, because when they came back with armfuls of expensive shopping I saw they’d splashed out on something that wasn’t even on the list.

A floodlight for the front of the house.

He’s not the world’s best handyman. So when I saw him going to the tool cupboard to find the things he needed to wire it up, I thought it wiser to leave.

It was a bad time to be out and about. Just before dark. Dogs everywhere, all being taken out for the last proper walk before their families sit down to supper. That’s the worst thing about dogs. Everything they do makes trouble for others. Think about it. When they get bored with staying home and doing all the stupid things they do — ‘Come!’ ‘Beg!’ Fetch!’ ‘Down!’ —they have to make a nuisance of themselves fussing and whimpering to get their owners to take them out. Me? I just stroll out of the door.

Dog owners have to find the lead, and then untangle it. They have to find a couple of plastic bags in case the dog leaves a mess. (Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!) Half of the owners even have to stuff their pockets with treats just to get the dog to the park and back.

Dogs hate it when we laugh at them. But, really! It’s a bit pathetic to be that size and not be trusted even to cross a road all by yourself. Or find your own way home.

Still, it was daft of me to get in that argument when I saw Mrs Pinkney dragging Buster away from the nastiest lamppost in town.

‘Diddums still wearing his baby rein?’ I couldn’t help jeering.

Whoops! I hadn’t noticed Buster’s great-aunt Tilly coming the other way.

‘Just watch it, Fatso,’ she growled.

‘Don’t pick on Buster or I’ll pick on you.’

I looked down my right side. Then I looked down my left. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t see myself trembling with fright. But that may be because I think I have the edge on anyone being tugged around on a long piece of string.’

‘You think you’re so clever?’ she snarled. ‘If cats are so wonderful, where are the guide cats for the blind? Why don’t the police have sniffer cats?’

‘Yeah!’ Buster jeered. ‘All you lot do is go around stalking songbirds.’

‘Better than barking at them all day like a squirty little lame-brain.’

He lunged and, startled, Mrs Pinkney dropped the lead.

I took off like a rocket.

‘You wait,’ threatened Buster’s great-aunt Tilly as I shot past her. ‘Our gate isn’t always properly shut. I’ll get you one day.’

‘When poodles fly!’ I yowled back from the safe side of the wall. But I was glad that Tiger had put his paw down about having no dogs at the party.

6: Not long now

I DIDN’T FORGET to invite Misty.

‘Yo, dude!’ she yowled. ‘A party! Excellent! That rocks.’

Then I remembered Muff and Puff. ‘Why bother to call it a party?’ they asked me when I told them. ‘Isn’t that what we do all the time? Stay out all night and make a noise?’

‘You’re not invited,’ I reminded Pudge the terrier. ‘No dogs at this party.’

‘Oh, boo woofing hoo,’ he jeered.

‘Will there be games?’ asked Fluffball.

‘Only the usual,’ I said. ‘Hide in the Hay Bale. Shred the Straw. Cry Mouse! Oh, and we’ll probably have races round the rafters.’

Together we strolled along to the barn. Up in the hay loft, Georgie was ignoring the spiders’ grumbling as he scooped up their cobwebs and draped them around the rafters in attractive festoons. ‘I’m going for a natural, no-frills look,’ he explained to us. ‘Folksy. Naive. And I am tending to stick with the earth tones.’

‘Do you mean brown?’ asked Fluffball.

Georgie gave her a stern look. ‘Come on!’ he scolded. ‘Look around. We’ve a style rainbow here. Khaki and chestnut; oatmeal; toast, mushroom and rust; biscuit; bran and tobacco leaf; coffee and fawn–’

We left him reeling off his precious shades of muddy brown and went to look at the food.

Snowball was standing proudly in front of a hay bale spread with delicious goodies. ‘Most of it comes from KeenKost,’ he explained. ‘Today is their clear-out day. And I have laid my paws on some excellent pate only a day past its date stamp.’

I peered into one of the tubs. ‘Well, whisk my whiskers! Is this double cream?’

‘Nothing’s too good for the birthday boy!’

I peered over the edge. Below, the horses were shifting from hoof to hoof.

‘Getting excited, guys and gals?’ I asked them. ‘Well, it’s not long now!’

7: Spooking the horses

IT WAS A brilliant party. It absolutely rocked.

First we played Boomerangs.

Then we did races round the rafters. I chose Tiger’s cousin Marmalade as my partner for the doubles because she looked as if she’d corner well. And I was right. We won our heat by a mile, and then we waltzed away with the main race.

We ate all the grub. Boy, was that tasty! Better than anything they were eating back at the Halloween party. And when we were all feeling totally stuffed out and bloated, we played Spook the Horses. That was a little mean, considering that it was past their bedtime. But it’s a good laugh. All you have to do is wait till the poor old dears are nodding off in their stalls, and then you drop on their big fat bottoms from a great height.

No claws. That would be cheating.

They wake up, startled, and they neigh.

Neeeeigh! Neeeeeeeigh!

Five points for a single neigh. Ten for a double. Two extra points for any hoof clattering. And there’s a bonus of ten if all the horse’s hooves lift off the ground at the same time.

Great game!

The problem is we played it for much too long, and woke the farmer. She wasn’t in the world’s best mood when she came stomping into the barn in her boots and pyjamas.

We all laid low while she went down the line of horses in their stalls, patting and soothing. ‘Hey, fellas? What’s the problem? Are you all right, Dolly? What’s all the fretting about?’

She glanced up at the loft. I thought she might climb the ladder and see the mess we’d left on our makeshift hay-bale table. But we were lucky. She just stood listening.

Not hard enough, if you want my opinion. If she’d been doing a proper job, she would have heard those tiny footfalls across the straw.

She would have turned, to see what we saw.

Buster and two of his rough little terrier mates creeping in through the stable door that she’d left open.

And by the time the farmer turned to leave the barn, they were as safely hidden behind the wheelbarrow as we were up there in the loft.

8: Here comes Ugly Club

HATE ME FOREVER if you like, but I’m still going to say it.

I hope your mum and dad keep you inside on Halloween!

And if you manage to nag them long enough to let you go out to show your brand-new monster mask to all the neighbours, I hope they’ve taught you how to shut a gate. The kids in our town must have let out every dog for miles around while they were Trick or Treating. By the time we cats sneaked out of the barn to get away from Buster and the terriers, the place was swarming with dogs of every shape and size and description, all running up to join the fray and all barking their heads off.

‘Hey, pussies! Don’t even bother trying to escape! We’re going to eat you up and spit you out as fur balls!’

‘Quick, Rusty! Head them off!’

‘Grrrrr!’

‘Max! Wolfie! Don’t let the wee sleekit beasties get away over that wall!’

I tell you, if I had known that I was going to have to leg it all the way back into town at that speed, I would never have finished up that tub of pate.

Or the last three fish heads.

Or that cream puff.

We took the shortcuts, over the walls those four-footed slugs can’t jump. Most of my party guests peeled off as we shot past their homes.

‘Night, Tuff! Thanks for an ace bash!’

‘Volcanic night, Tuff! See you around!’

‘Roll on same time next year!’

By the time we turned the corner into our street, there were only me, Bella and Tiger left.

Bella glanced back over her shoulder to check for dogs. ‘I think we lost the dandruffy little creeps.’

‘Way, way behind,’ agreed Tiger. We skidded to a halt in front of my house and stared. The place was humming – bursting with party people. We could see them all through the windows, holding their glasses high, and talking and laughing.

We watched for a moment, and then I asked the other two, ‘What do you reckon? There’s bound to be someone in there who’s allergic to cats. We could have a good laugh. Shall we creep in?’

But they were no longer looking at the people inside the house. Tiger and Bella were staring at the big bright circle thrown on the house wall by our brand-new floodlight.

‘Groovy!’ said Bella.

‘Seriously cool,’ Tiger agreed.

I looked at the gleaming ring of light.

‘It is good, isn’t it?’ I found myself admitting.

‘Hey!’ Tiger said. ‘We mustn’t waste it. Let’s play Guess the Shadow.’

‘Me first!’ insisted Bella.

Standing beside the little floodlight set in the grass, she stuck out her tail and curled it round, till just the tip was sticking up at the top.

Sure enough, inside the circle of light on the wall of our house fell an enormous shadow.

‘A Mister Softee ice cream?’ guessed Tiger.

‘Dog doodoo!’ I suggested.

I won that round. Then it was Tiger’s turn. He stepped in front of the floodlight and curled himself into a perfect oval. When he was steady, he stuck the very tips of his paws out at the top.

Bella and I stared at the silhouette he’d made on the wall.

‘A sack of coal?’ suggested Bella.

‘Two slugs having a race down a rubbish bag’ was my guess.

I think we might have stood there guessing all night. (It was an owl.) But just at that moment the hysterical barking and baying noise that had been getting closer and closer finally came round the corner.

‘Oh, oh!’ said Tiger, hastily unravelling himself. ‘Game over. Here comes Ugly Club.’

‘No, no,’ I reassured him. ‘None of that pack of ratbags is fit enough to jump over our fence. We’re perfectly safe.’

Forget playing Guess the Shadow. Let’s play Guess Who Was Superwrong.

Yes. That’s right. Me.

Because that rattlesnake-eyed Alsatian who thinks she’s such a star for winning gold cups at the Dog Agility Class swept over the fence, screeched to a halt, then, getting up on her hind legs, jammed her paw down on the gate latch.

And suddenly every dog in town was in our garden.

Ugly Club had arrived.

9: Terrifying Beast

OKAY, OKAY. so feed me worms all week. The dogs got into the house.

How is that my fault? How was I supposed to know that when I sprang back like that, with my claws sticking out and my hair up on end, this giant shadow of me would appear on the wall.

I didn’t realize I would end up looking quite so fierce.

And huge.

And scary.

I didn’t know my shadow was going to frighten all those wussie dogs that much.

Nor was it my fault that they all ended up running around in circles, yelping and whining. Bella and Tiger only leaned against the gate by accident. They didn’t know it was going to swing shut, and trap the whole pack. (All except Miss Dog Agility, of course, who made it back over the fence and home to her stupid collection of fancy gold cups.) As soon as the rest of them saw that they were trapped, they slunk on their bellies round and round our garden – a pack of wimperoonies, all desperate for any way to escape from that Terrifying Beast that was so Fierce and Huge and obviously coming out of somewhere to get them.

Okay, so spank me. How was I supposed to know that one of those great lard-butted Labradors was going to back up so hard against our front door that it flew open.

In they all rushed, to get away from the monster.

The whole pack.

Straight into the party.

There was some angry shouting, a good few screams and the ugly thump of overturned furniture. We heard a lot of breaking glass, and then the party guests began to tumble out of the house into the garden, to get away from the demented dogs.

I looked at Tiger and Bella. Tiger and Bella looked at me.

I glanced up at the silhouette. I had become a giant pussy cat.

Now that was simply boring.

‘What do you reckon?’ I asked the others. ‘Party on, dudes?’

‘Why not?’ said Tiger. ‘Once you’re on a roll …’

‘Absolutely,’ agreed Bella. ‘Go for it, Tuff. Command Performance!’

So I went for it.

10: The very best of shows

I DON’T THINK any group of people, ever, in the whole history of the world, can have been frightened so easily.

Of course, it helped that it was Halloween. What had Ellie’s father called it? ‘The time when everything evil and ugly and dangerous crawls out to stalk the land. A very suitable day indeed for Tuffy’s birthday.’

Well, it was a very suitable day indeed for Tuffy’s greatest performance.

Except, of course, that it was not day. It was night. Dark, with almost no moon. The trees were bending in the wind, and all those dogs howling and whining and whimpering made an excellent soundtrack.

So I stood in front of the little floodlight set in the lawn and I went for it. I clawed the air. I arched. I spat. I writhed. I bent my head sideways and gave a host of evil leers. I stood up on my back legs and scratched the air. I spun round. I bared my teeth.

My word, it was the very best of shows. Tiger and Bella kept up a soft, ethereal, other-worldly yowling that would have made my fur stand up on end if it had not been up on end already.

People and dogs spilled out of the door. They were all fighting one another like starved rats in a bag. It was the perfect moment, and down came the claws in my shadow like a velociraptor snatching at prey.

Snatch!

Snatch!

Snatch!

Snatch!

The party guests screamed. Everyone – people and dogs – took off in a shower of sparks, shrieking hysterically. There was much wailing and rolling of eyes. There was a lot of banging of the gate. There were a lot of terrified cries. We heard them growing fainter down the street.

Fainter and fainter.

Fainter.

FAINTER, STILL.

In the end, there was silence.

Out over the heaps of flattened sausages on sticks stepped Ellie and her father. I leaped aside, but it was just a shade too late. They’d spotted what I was doing – turning my last ferocious velociraptor pounce into a final bow.

Mr No-Sense-Of-Humour didn’t take it very well.

‘You!’

Tiger and Bella don’t much care for the man when he’s in one of his tempers. They scuttled off home, fast.

I was left eyeing The Master.

He’d worked himself into a frightful froth. He looked as if he’d like to take a cattle prod to me. He looked as if he’d rather like to tie me into a reef knot, and whirl me round and round his head.

‘You vile, destructive little beast! You’ve ruined our party! Absolutely ruined it!’

I was about to give him the blink, turn on my paws and stroll off – after all, I’d had my supper – when Ellie turned on him.

‘Don’t you blame Tuffy! Don’t you see? All he was trying to do was scare off those nasty dogs who burst in after the food!’

She scooped me up and buried her face in my fur. ‘Dear, kind, sweet, clever Tuffy. He saw the mess the dogs were making of our house, and then remembered all about the ghosts in my closet.’

‘There are no ghosts in your closet!’ Ellie’s father roared. ‘There are no ghosts at all! And there are definitely none in your closet!’

‘If Tuffy thinks there are, there are,’ said Ellie. (I will say this for the poor noodle-brain. She really is loyal.) ‘And if he thinks there aren’t, there aren’t.’

An excellent tip. I really hoped he would remember it. But, frankly, he didn’t look as if he was in the mood to try to remember anything while he was cleaning up after the party. It took all night. In the end, Ellie and I went off to bed, of course. But I was woken several times by all the tinkling and muttering and cursing and banging as he swept up broken glasses and pulled the furniture the right way up to shove it back in place.

But, let’s face it, Ellie’s father has never had much thought for others. Selfish and inconsiderate, that’s him.

At least, thanks to Ellie, I now have a good way of taking revenge on him whenever he’s mean to me. What did she say? ‘If Tuffy thinks that there’s a ghost in the closet, then there is.’ So if I feel like giving him a good night’s sleep, I settle down on Ellie’s bed and yawn and close my eyes. And so does she. Within a minute or two, she’s fast asleep.

And, if I feel like paying him back for any of his petty meannesses (like having a party to celebrate Halloween instead of my birthday), I stare at the closet most uneasily, until Ellie hurries off to sleep in her mum’s bed.

Then he gets sent along the hall to have a bad night in the Bed of Lumps.

And I feel great.


5_The Killer Cat's Christmas

1: Horrible, horrible, horrible!

OKAY, OKAY! SO run off sobbing, but I did not kill that moth on purpose. It was not my fault. I do agree that I reached out to biff it once or twice. But it was annoying me, flapping round and round my face.

And I’m not sure that it’s dead anyway. I mean, I saw it sort of flapping off, looking a bit lopsided. But after that it disappeared. For all I know, the thing’s still somewhere in the house, minding its own business and mucking about wherever it wants.

Unlike me, locked in this garage in disgrace, after a horrible Christmas.

So go on, ask me. ‘Dear, dear Tuffy, why was your Christmas so horrible?’

And I’ll explain: because it is a festival that wasn’t made for cats. Just think about it. There’s a tree we’re not allowed to climb.

And there are tempting dangly decorations we’re not allowed to touch.

And there are glorious glittering strands of bright, bright tinsel hung far too high for us to reach. Shiny wrapped presents we have to keep our paws off.

And, if we’re really unlucky, horrible cold white snow all over the garden.

No. Not my favourite time of year.

So go on. Ask the next question. ‘But, Tuffy, what on earth happened? How come you’ve ended up locked in the garage?’

I’ll tell you. It was because this Christmas was even worse than usual. This Christmas was terrible.

Frightful.

Awful.

Miserable.

All wrong.

Horrible, horrible, horrible. That’s what it was.

I’ll tell you the whole story.

2: ‘Oh, goody gumdrops! Hoppers!’

THE CAR DREW up outside and out they all spilled, as usual. Our Christmas visitors. That’s Ellie’s Aunt Ann, her husband, Brian, and the soppy twins.

I hate having visitors. They park their bottoms in the comfiest chairs. They dump their suitcases in all my favourite corners. They rattle their clothes around in the cupboards I like to use to take a quiet nap. Their stupid great feet keep stumbling over my food dish.

But Ellie loves company. She couldn’t wait to rush out of the house to greet her cousins. ‘Lucilla! Lancelot! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!’

She might have been glad they were here. I have a forkful of brain inside my head so I wasn’t quite so keen. As she ran one way, I sneaked off the other to find somewhere good to hide.

I heard them wheel their suitcases inside. ‘Where’s Tuffy? We must say hello to darling, darling Tuffy!’

They searched the house. But I was stretched out flat on top of the cupboard in the hall. They couldn’t find me, so they finally gave up.

‘Forget Tuffy for a moment,’ said Lancelot. ‘Let’s do something else. Let’s play on the bouncy hoppers.’

‘Oh, goody gumdrops! Hoppers!’

The three of them rushed off. Phew! I jumped down from the cupboard and went upstairs. The bathroom window was ajar, so I crept out and spent a quiet half hour on the garage roof, secretly watching the three of them bounce up and down the drive, clutching the sticky-up ears. It was a laugh. Ellie kept falling off. But then Lucilla started to sing some half-baked bouncing song that she’d made up about ‘sweet little mousies in housies’.

It got on my nerves, so I took off. I picked my way along the tree branch and jumped down on the fence.

Lucilla saw me. ‘Tuff-eee! Tuff-eee!’

She bounced towards the fence so hard she couldn’t stop. Is it my fault the fence is wobbly? I didn’t mean to stick my sharp little claws out quite so far to get a grip as I swayed this way and that.

Or keep them out when I fell off the fence, on to her hopper.

Poooooooooooooooooooooof…

Okay, okay! So pump me up with air, and tie a knot in me. I clawed a hole in her hopper. For heaven’s sake, it was an accident! How was it my fault that it sort of shrivelled under her, and she fell off?

I hurried under the thorn bush. Lucilla rolled over on to her hands and knees and started wheedling into the greenery. ‘Oh, Tuffy, dearest! Don’t you remember us? It’s me, Lucilla. Lancelot’s here too. Oh, please come out so we can cuddle you.’

‘Yes,’ Lancelot echoed. ‘Oh, darling Tuffy. Please come out.’

Oh, I came out all right. But on the other side, and straight back up on the fence. From there, I jumped on the garage roof, and into the house through the bathroom window.

So go on! Boil me in bubble bath! Maybe I wasn’t quite as careful as I should have been, walking along the sill. Perhaps some of the fancy bottles of shampoos and lotions did get tipped on to the floor. But it wasn’t me who left the tops off. So how was I supposed to know that they were going to make a mess like that – a huge, foaming, slimy puddle of froth and goo and gel? All I was trying to do was get away to somewhere I’d be left in peace.

And maybe choosing to hide under Ellie’s mother’s best silver party frock was not the smartest idea. But I didn’t pull the stupid thing off its hanger. It fell off by itself as I rushed in the closet. Okay, so maybe I did root about a bit, trying to make myself comfy. But how was I to know I’d pop off all those sequins? All I was doing was trying to take a little nap. Can’t a pet take a nap in his own house without Ellie’s mother ending up sitting in a heap on the carpet, picking the cat hairs off a ruined frock and sobbing her heart out?

I ask you. Honestly! How wet is that?

3: ‘The whole of Christmas in a cattery!’

IT WOKE ME up, though, all that boohooing from Ellie’s mum. Then Mr Grumpy rushed up the stairs to find out what was going on, and things turned nasty. There were some harsh words.

‘You furry vandal!’ Ellie’s father snarled. ‘You foul and spiteful beast!’

I played it cool, raising an eyebrow at him.

He hates it when I put on my ‘not bothered’ look, and flick my tail at him. ‘Look what you’ve done!’ he fumed. ‘You’ve turned a beautiful and expensive frock into a filthy rag!’ He waved it in my face. ‘Look at it! Torn to shreds!’

Now Ellie had arrived, with Lucilla and Lancelot in tow. They all stuck up for me. ‘Oh, please don’t blame Tuffy!’ begged Lancelot.

‘He didn’t mean to spoil the frock!’ insisted Lucilla.

‘He’s just unsettled from having visitors,’ Ellie explained to her father.

But Mr Blame-The-Cat-For-Everything was not having that. He wagged his telling-off finger. ‘Don’t you believe it! This whiskery little waster knows full well what he’s about. And I tell you this house would be a far, far better place if we just made the sensible decision to ask the vet to simply –’

I didn’t catch the last few words. Ellie had let out a fearsome screech, and clapped her hands over my ears.

I wriggled free in time to hear the end of his next threat: ‘– or spend the whole of Christmas in a cattery!’

Up came Ellie’s hands again. This time, when I tugged back my head enough to hear, the only words I caught were: ‘– in some strong cage!’

Ellie was almost in tears. And so were Lancelot and Lucilla.

‘Oh, please don’t say that, Uncle George!’

‘No, don’t say that!’

But Ellie’s father was still in a rage. ‘Well, it’s my view that –’

‘No!’ Ellie cried. ‘We three will look after Tuffy! You needn’t worry. We’ll keep him well away from you.’

Her father was still scowling. ‘And well away from all the clothes in the cupboards? And the tree? And all the food? And all the presents and the decorations?’

‘Yes! Tuffy won’t spoil anything, I promise!’

Ellie pounced on me. And since for once I felt I would be safer out of there, I let her scoop me up and carry me off, down to the living room, well away from Mrs Still-Red-And-Weepy-Eyes, clutching the torn shreds of her ruined frock, and Mr Total-Grump.

4: Surprise, surprise!

SO THAT’S HOW I ended up sitting like Goody-Two-Shoes on the sofa in the front room, while Lucilla and Lancelot drooled and drivelled over my brains and beauty.

‘Oh, Tuffy! You’re so lovely.’

‘Your fur’s so soft.’

‘And you’re so clever.’

‘I wish we had a cat.’

‘Oh, Ellie! You’re so lucky!’

It just went on and on. I stood it for about a minute or two, and then I reckoned it was time to leave, so I stood up.

Quick as a flash, all three of them reached out to stop me. I was trapped.

‘No, Tuffy! We promised!’

‘Just to keep you safe!’

‘You have to stay!’

I tried to wriggle free. Lucilla shut the door and Lancelot checked the window latch. Ellie could see that I was getting nervous, so, ‘Never mind,’ she soothed. ‘Let’s think of something to play.’

Play? What does she think I am? Some newborn fluff ball? But it is always best to know what’s going on, so I stopped struggling long enough to listen. What was it going to be? Hide and Seek? (I hoped not. Most of the hiding places in this house are mine, mine, mine.) How about Murder in the Dark? (Step on me by mistake, and I will scratch a good chunk out of you!) Perhaps they’d choose Tiddleywinks. (Better take care. Flick just one wink at me, and you are dead.)

Surprise, surprise!

‘Let’s put on a show!’ Lucilla said.

‘Yes!’ Lancelot echoed. ‘Let’s put on a little show!’

Ellie was bouncing up and down, clapping her hands. ‘Oh, goody gumdrops! I love doing special little shows!’

I was embarrassed. (Ellie’s such a drip.) But I did think I might at least be left to sit up on the dresser and sneer. I mean, you can’t train cats to act or dance. No one would even try. You might be able to boss dogs about. But never cats.

So I thought I’d be safe with special little shows.

Well, more fool me.

5: Frog in a wedding dress

SO GUESS WHAT The Three Softies finally decided that they were going to do.

Yes. Just my luck. A show of nursery rhymes that have a cat in them. Is that tattered old book that you grew out of years ago still on your shelf? Shall we run through some of the sweet little baby songs your granny used to warble to you when you were still in nappies?

There’s ‘Ding Dong Bell, Pussy’s in the Well’, of course. Then there’s that merry old favourite, ‘Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle’. After that, there is the tragic tale of ‘Three Little Kittens who Lost their Mittens’. And ‘Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been?’

Not to mention the sickly, revolting, soppy and Ellie-ish one I really, really hoped they had forgotten: ‘I Love Little Pussy, Her Coat is So Warm’.

Guess which they started with.

That’s right. The one I hate the most. ‘I Love Little Pussy’.

Ellie was star of this show. The twins started bossing her about. ‘Ellie, sit in front of the tree so all the sparkly decorations twinkle around you.’

‘Be careful not to let Tuffy go. Remember what your dad said.’

‘Tip your head to one side, and smile.’

‘Spread out your skirts. You’ll look like a princess!’

Oh, I don’t think so! Ellie was dressed in that frilly-dilly party frock she grew out of years ago. If you want my opinion, she looked more like an overgrown cream puff than a princess.

The Two Big Dafties kept on rearranging her. ‘Put that arm more closely round Tuffy.’

‘And show your pretty ring. That’s right. Oh, Ellie! Now you look like something out of a fairy tale!’

(She did too. Like a frog in a wedding dress.)

They started in on me.

‘Stop struggling, Tuffy. Try to look happy for the show!’

I didn’t see why I should try to look happy. There I was, held too tight, and stuck under that stupid tree. Pine needles kept falling in my fur, and I was worried that the great fat lump of a Christmas fairy on the top would tumble through the branches on to my head. She’s far too big and heavy for the tree. But Ellie made her, way back in nursery school, so everyone has to pretend she isn’t the same shape as an exploding lavatory roll, and doesn’t have a face that makes her look more like a squashed tomato than a pretty fairy.

6: Screams and tears

ALL RIGHT, ALL right! So spank me! I lost my temper. You would have lost yours too. (Faster than I did, probably.) I was so sick of being petted and fussed over and sung to by Ellie.

The trouble is that Ellie has a voice like one of those corncrake birds that are so famous for singing like two sticks being rubbed together. In fact, if you want my opinion, two sticks being rubbed together would make a much, much nicer noise than Ellie does when she sings.

Folding her arms round me, she began that stupid song for the ninetieth time.

‘I love little pussy, her coat is so warm,

And if I don’t hurt her she’ll do me no harm.’

Well, she was dead wrong, wasn’t she? Because it was a nasty scratch I gave her. (Mind you, it was not deliberate. I was just putting up a paw to try to stop her stroking me. So how was I supposed to guess that she had just decided her show would be much better if she suddenly leaned down to kiss me on the nose?

Me. A cat! Kissed on the nose! If you ask me, she was pretty well asking for trouble.)

As you can imagine, there were screams and tears. Her mum and dad and Uncle Brian and Aunt Ann rushed in to find out what was going on. And suddenly everyone was peering at this teensy-weensy little bead of blood on Ellie’s arm – you practically had to have a microscope even to see it – and Uncle Brian was running round and round in circles, shouting about rabies.

Rabies! I was a bit put out, I can tell you. For one thing, Ellie’s had her shots. And, for another, it’s mad dogs and bats and things that give you rabies, not a musically gifted cat who’s simply had enough of hearing someone singing like two sticks rubbed together.

I tell you I was so fed up that I walked out. Nobody noticed because they were all still fussing over Ellie. And that’s how I ended up inside a cupboard. All alone in the dark. Just two big staring eyes hiding from everyone, misunderstood as usual, and not at all looking forward to Christmas Day.

In fact, I was hoping that the whole idea of special little nursery rhyme shows would go away forever.

7: Twanging the spider’s web

BUT NO SUCH luck. All that they did was stick a plaster on to Ellie’s arm and move on to a safer nursery rhyme.

‘Ding Dong Bell, Pussy’s in the Well’.

It wasn’t a real well they planned to put me in, of course. Lucilla and Lancelot made it while Ellie was trying to tempt me out of the cupboard with some of Aunt Ann’s quite delicious bitesized salmon tarts. (She is so posh she calls them ‘canapes’.)

The twins used the box the coffee table came in. The two of them pulled out the staples and flattened it. Then they cut off the top, folded it into a circle and stapled it up again.

After they’d painted grey squares all over it, it looked like a stone well. They carried it into the living room. It seemed that Lancelot was to be the star of this part of the show. He found some red velvet knickerbocker trousers in the dressing-up box and pranced around singing, ‘Who put him in?’ and ‘Who took him out?’ over and over.

They didn’t dare put me inside their stupid well.

‘Wait till we’ve practised the song,’ said Lancelot, giving me a worried look. ‘It might be safer.’

‘Yes,’ Lucilla agreed. ‘Let’s not put Tuffy in there until we’re sure that we’ve got everything right.’

Ellie looked down at the plaster on her arm, and then at me. ‘Yes, Tuffy. You can be in the show later.’

I’d had enough of people telling me where I could or couldn’t go in my own house. I gave a mighty squirm in Lucilla’s arms.

Terrified, she let go.

I jumped straight in their silly well.

They were all thrilled. ‘Oh, Tuffy! You’re a genius!’

I raised my head and yowled.

They were all so excited. ‘Look! Tuffy can act! He can pretend that he’s stuck down our well!’

‘Oh, he’s so clever!’

‘Quick! Sing your song, Lancelot!’

So Lancelot started off again. ‘Ding dong bell. Pussy’s in the well. Who put her in?’ he warbled.

The girls sang, ‘Little Tommy Lynn.’

‘Who took her out?’ sang Lancelot.

‘Little Johnny Stout,’ sang Lucilla and the Corncrake.

‘I get the next two lines!’ said Lancelot, and started singing, ‘What a naughty boy was that –’

But the girls butted in, ‘– to try to drown poor pussy cat.’

Lancelot was getting cross. ‘I am the star of this show! So I get to sing the last two lines all by myself.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Lucilla argued. And she and Ellie sang together to try to drown him out:

‘Who never did him any harm,

But killed the mice in his father’s barn.’

I was so bored with listening to them singing and arguing that I settled down to watch a great fat hairy spider climb out of a staple hole inside the cardboard well, and start on a new web.

The spider was good fun to tease. I let it spin a couple of lines, and then reached out to twang one – not so hard it broke, but just enough to set the spider bouncing.

Spin, spin.

Twang, twang.

Bounce, bounce.

It was a laugh. I kept on doing it. But the spider was stubborn and kept on spinning. I was so busy twanging, I hardly noticed when The Three Bad Singers finished their stupid argument and started up again.

‘Ding dong bell!’ Lancelot sang loudly. ‘Pussy’s in the well!’

‘Who put him in?’ chirruped Lucilla.

‘Little Tommy Lynn,’ gargled the Corncrake.

‘Who pulled him out?’ warbled Lucilla.

And that’s when Lancelot reached over the side of the well to pull me out.

Well, don’t blame me for everything that happened next! I already told you twice. I wasn’t really listening. I was much more interested in twanging the web – a little harder each time. I don’t see how I was supposed to know that suddenly I’d twang too hard, and the spider would lose its grip on the web and fly up in the air.

Or that it would be Lancelot’s turn to sing the next line of the nursery rhyme.

So that his mouth would be open wide.

Very, very wide.

Okay, okay! So scream the house down, everyone! Lancelot swallowed a spider. What’s the big deal? I’ve seen him eating fish. Fish are a whole lot bigger than spiders. (And they have creepy eyes.)

And he ate pork last night. That is a lump of dead pig’s bottom. So why make such a fuss about an eensy-weensy spider? And anyway, it was already deep down inside him, getting mixed up with his lunch. So there was really no point in reeling round and round the room, screaming and gagging and spluttering.

That spider was inside to stay.

If anyone had any reason to make a fuss, it was the poor old spider, not fussy Lancelot.

Lucilla and Ellie were on my back, of course. ‘Tuffy, that was so mean!’

‘That was a horrible thing to do, flicking that spider into Lancelot’s mouth!’

‘Poor Lancelot!’

Poor Lancelot? I like that! Why should Lancelot get all the sympathy? Who is it who has spent the whole day locked in a room with the The Three Show-Offs?

Me, that’s who.

So how about feeling sorry for me?

8: Chasing half-dead mousies

NOW IT WAS Lucilla’s turn to be Star of the Show.

‘Which nursery rhyme will you choose?’ they asked her.

Lucilla hugged herself with glee. ‘I’m going to sing Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, where have you been? I’ve been up to London to visit the Queen. Then I can wear that lovely, lovely crown in the dressing-up box.’

(These three can get excited about anything. The jewels on that ‘lovely, lovely crown’ are stuck-on wine gums. I know that for sure because I’ve licked them.)

Ellie wasn’t happy with Lucilla’s choice. ‘Oh, please don’t let’s do that one! I always cry when it gets to the bit that says, Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there? I frightened a little mouse under her chair.’

‘Why?’ Lancelot asked.

There was a silence. They all looked at me as if I was a criminal – as if I spent my whole life chasing half-dead mousies round the house.

I was offended, if you want to know. They wouldn’t open the door, so I just went and sat under the Christmas tree, next to the presents.

Okay, okay. So I was sulking. But how is it my fault that my tail was flicking from side to side? I am a cat, and that’s what happens to our tails when we get cross. My tail’s a part of me. From my point of view, it’s just the end of my bottom. You don’t spend all day looking to see exactly what’s going on at the end of your bottom, do you? Well, neither do I. So how was I supposed to notice that it was acting like a little furry brush, and flicking all those silly little labels off and out of sight, under the carpet?

It took them ages, but finally, finally, they managed to choose another rhyme for their show.

‘“Three Little Kittens, They Lost Their Mittens”,’ decided Lucilla.

‘Yes! Perfect!’ Ellie said. ‘We can use Tuffy and my two soft cat toys.’

‘Use’ Tuffy? Excuse me! What am I now? A kitchen towel, or something?

Nobody ‘uses’ me.

Now Lancelot was pitching in. ‘And we’ll need twelve little mittens.’

I looked up. Mittens? On my paws? Oh, no. No, no, no, no. Not even if they made me Star of the Show.

But they were already rushing off to look for what they needed. While they were gone, I had a laugh, reaching up to bat a few of the glittery balls off the tree. Just like last year, I gave myself five points if they fell down among the presents, and a bonus of five if they rolled on to the carpet.

I got a hundred and twenty points in all.

Excellent score! Even better than last year. But that’s practising for you. You know what they always say: ‘Practice makes perfect.’

9: Bare at the bottom

OKAY, OKAY! SO no one warned them when they rushed back in. Three pairs of feet can trample on an awful lot of decorations before skidding to a halt. So there were crispy bits of glittery ball everywhere. All trodden in. Ellie’s father had to get out the vacuum cleaner, and Ellie’s mum spent ages picking tiny silver slivers out of the fluffy slippers Aunt Ann had left by the sofa.

Things were quite quiet after that, apart from Ellie’s father’s constant grumbling. ‘I knew we should have kept Tuffy behind bars. Look at that tree! What a mess! Practically bare at the bottom now. And overloaded at the top. It looks quite shocking.’

You could tell Ellie was worried I might end up in the cattery. She said, ‘We could move some of the glittery balls that Tuffy couldn’t reach down to the lower branches.’

But Mr Didn’t-Get-His-Way was in a giant snit. ‘Why would you do that? Just to help the fiendish little beast smash all the ones he couldn’t reach before?’

Did you hear that? I get accused of everything. I didn’t smash the glittery balls. All that I did was set them rolling where they got trodden on. Is it my fault if people can’t be bothered to look where they are putting their big fat feet?

I just gave him the cold cat stare as he went out. Then, sticking my paws over my ears, I tried not to listen as Ellie and Lancelot and Lucilla pranced about all afternoon, singing that great long boring nursery rhyme about the three prissy little kittens who spent their whole time losing their mittens, and finding their mittens, and getting their mittens dirty, and washing their mittens, and drying their mittens and –

Oh, excuse me. Their life’s so dull I fell asleep just telling you about it.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

10: Chocolate coins and sausages

THAT NIGHT, IN Ellie’s bedroom, The Three Ninnies couldn’t stop whispering excitedly. ‘Yippee! Christmas Day tomorrow!’

‘We’ll wake to find our stockings on our beds!’

‘And we’ll have sausages for breakfast!’

‘Then we’ll unwrap the presents under the tree!’

‘Eat a lovely big lunch!’

‘And super-duper Christmas pudding!’

‘Then everyone will come in the front room to watch our show!’

‘It’ll be magic!’

I settled down on Ellie’s bed. She put her arms round me. ‘Oh, Tuffy! I do love you so.’

She’s not so bad. I gave her a brief purr. I was quite looking forward to the stockings myself.

No such luck. Right in the middle of the night a huge hand scooped me up and dumped me out on the landing. ‘I think these stockings will be safer away from you.’

Well, thank you, Santa! All the other doors were closed, so I just settled on a nice warm towel I pulled down from the bathroom rack. It wasn’t a bad night, though I was woken ridiculously early by frantic squeals. ‘Look! Santa’s left our stockings!’

‘Chocolate coins!’

‘I’ve got a little jumping frog.’

‘I’ve got a clockwork mouse.’

Oh, please! How old are Ellie and the twins? Three? You wouldn’t catch me playing with a clockwork mouse – unless it was to push it into Aunt Ann’s furry slippers and give her a heart attack.

But I still reckoned it would be more fun to watch them unpacking their stockings than to hang around the bathroom on my own.

So I jumped up on Ellie’s bed.

She threw her arms round me. ‘Oh, Tuffy! Christmas is magic, isn’t it? You think so too, don’t you, even though you don’t like chocolate coins.’

Who says I don’t like chocolate coins? They’re bright and gold and shiny, and fun to bat off the bed.

Okay, okay! So twist my tail! Some of the ones I batted went down that giant hole that Mr I-Can-Fix-It-All-By-Myself made in the floor when he was sorting out that leaking pipe. Is it my fault the hole’s so deep she couldn’t fish them out again?

No. It is his.

But not having quite so many chocolate coins as usual meant Ellie got hungry sooner. So we all went down for breakfast. There didn’t seem to be too much Christmas Spirit coming my way. Nobody offered me a special breakfast. To get some sausages, I had to creep up beside Lancelot and jump in his lap, knocking his elbow.

Success! The sausage he was trying to cut flew off on to the floor.

If it had been a mouse, I couldn’t have pounced faster.

Got it!

I reckoned it was safer to take my prize out in the garden. So I rushed through the cat flap.

The last thing that I heard behind me was Mr Not-Very-Nice bolting it closed behind me.

Well, happy Christmas to you too!

11: Showers of falling food

WHILE I WAS looking for a way back in, the grown-ups must have cleared away the breakfast things and started to prepare for Christmas lunch. By the time I had found the only bedroom window that was unlatched, and squeezed inside, the turkey was already stuffed and trussed, and sitting forlornly in its tray, waiting to go in the oven.

I ask you. Honestly! They all go on and on about the way that I chase sparrows. But I would never treat a bird like that.

Hypocrites!

Anyhow, once it was safely in the oven (out of my reach) the four of them went through to the front room, to join the children, and unwrap the presents.

I had forgotten about the labels my tail had accidentally flicked away, out of sight under the carpet.

Uh-oh. The trouble started almost at once.

‘Who is this gift for? It doesn’t say.’

‘This one doesn’t have a label.’

‘Neither has this one. Or this.’

I couldn’t help but look a bit uncomfortable. (I hadn’t realized I’d flicked off so many.) The children rooted around, lifted their heads and wailed, ‘We’ve looked at all the presents, and not one has a label.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘We’ll simply have to guess.’

That didn’t work too well, and arguments broke out all over. ‘I think this one is probably for me.’

‘No, dear. I think that Santa brought that one for Lucilla.’

That set Lucilla off. ‘But I don’t want it, Mummy. I like this present much better.’

‘But that one was meant for Ellie.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do, dear.’

‘You can’t read Santa’s mind!’

‘Neither can you!’

We were a little short on Christmas cheer. And then a scuffle started when Lancelot tried to snatch back a present that Ellie’s father said was not for him. The carpet rucked up underneath his shoe, and there they were – all of the labels.

And one or two telltale ginger hairs, off my tail.

‘A-ha!’ cried Ellie’s father.

Everyone turned to look at me. I turned to look at the door. I don’t think it was my fault that, just at the moment that I fled towards it, Ellie’s mother was coming in carrying a giant plate of tiny tarts and titbits and fancy little things on sticks.

I just think I was lucky that, in the showers of falling food, I managed to get clean away.

12: Star of the show

I SKIPPED LUNCH. And the washing up. And all that fuss when Aunt Ann realized that there were lumps in her cake icing, and she would have to keep stirring.

I wasn’t going back outside. Cold, wet and miserable. So I stayed out of sight, hiding in one of Uncle Brian’s welly boots till I heard Ellie walk past.

‘Tuffy! Tuff-eee!’

I stretched up in the boot to see which way she was headed. That was a big mistake. The boot began to wobble and I lost balance.

Out I spilled, on to the floor.

She scooped me up. ‘Time for the show,’ she told me. ‘And guess who’s going to be the star!’ She nuzzled her nose in my fur. ‘You are! You’re going to be the very best of all of us because you’re so clever.’

The best of them all! So clever! How can you run away and hide when someone as caring as Ellie thinks that you’re the bees’ knees? Call it the Christmas Spirit if you will, but suddenly I felt mean, trying to sneak away after they’d worked so hard painting the well, and practising their songs, and making paper mittens for the two toy cats.

They’d even gone next door to borrow two tiny pairs of real woollen baby mittens they could fit on me.

How could I let them down?

So I gave up and let Ellie carry me into the front room. The cardboard well was on the rug. Lucilla and Lancelot were ready in their costumes. Aunt Ann had even stopped stirring her icing and put the mixing bowl safely down on the floor behind the sofa.

All of the grown-ups settled on the sofa, ready to watch. Even the huge fat fairy on the top of the Christmas tree seemed to be peering down and waiting for the show to start.

‘Ready?’ Lucilla asked.

Why not? I thought. Why not do something nice for Ellie? Why not make the best of things, and turn their stupid little betsy-wetsy show into a triumph?

WOW them! Amaze them with my wonderful acting skills! Help out The Three Soft Noodles, and give the grownups the surprise of their lives!

Tuffy, the Acting Cat. Star of the Show.

Everything started brilliantly. We did ‘I Love Little Pussy’ first. When Ellie tipped her head winsomely to one side, I tipped mine even more winsomely to the other. I stared so lovingly into her eyes. I even purred. It was a shame the only decorations left on the tree were all up at the top, so they won’t show up on the photographs. But, still, Ellie and I made a nice pair, and if it wasn’t for her awful corncrake voice, that bit of the show would have been perfect. Certainly I was

excellent. I think I totally surprised her dad. And Uncle Brian and Aunt Ann and Ellie’s mother clapped like mad when the song ended.

Then it was ‘Ding Dong Bell’.

That was a triumph too. I let them put me in the well, then I crouched down and hid, as if it was really deep. I yowled a bit through the first verse, making my voice sound tragic yet musical. The scene was very moving.

Then we got to the bit where Lancelot pulled me out, and as I reached up to nuzzle him under his chin in pretend gratitude, I even saw Aunt Ann brush away a tear.

We all took a bow after that one. When the applause from the sofa finally died down, we moved on to the third and last show: ‘Three Little Kittens’.

Lucilla set the two toy cats in place on the carpet. She and Ellie made sure their paper mittens were on straight. Then they pulled Next-door’s baby’s woollen mitts on to my paws.

I was such a star! I didn’t even struggle. I actually held out each paw in turn to help. I could tell Ellie’s father was pretty surprised to see me acting so sweet and easy-going. But he said nothing, just sat there, looking suspicious as usual.

And off we went. First I pranced around in my mittens to show I was wearing them. Then Ellie, Lancelot and Lucilla started on the first verse:

‘Three little kittens, they lost their mittens.’

They tugged the paper off the toy cats’ feet while I slipped behind the sofa to kick my own off by myself.

The trouble was, I kicked my mitten booties off so hard, they slid under the sofa.

All the way under. Where I wouldn’t be able to get at them later, when I needed them back.

No time to stop the show, so I came rushing back in time to rub my eyes with my paws as Lucilla and Lancelot and Ellie sang, ‘And they began to cry.’

Now it was Ellie’s turn to act the Mother Cat, scolding us.

‘What? Lost your mittens? You bad little kittens!

Then you shall have no pie.’

Time to get back in my mittens. I scuttled round behind the sofa. But it was hopeless. Even if I stretched, I couldn’t reach them.

So go on, all you big-heads out there, reading this. So what would you have done? Just given up?

Not me! I wasn’t going to spoil the show. All that I needed was four white mittens. And there beside me was the bowl of icing for the cake.

Snow-white. Not too shallow. Not too deep.

And I was Star of the Show.

(Unlucky) 13: The fairy on the Christmas tree

OKAY, OKAY. SO I went paddling in the cake icing. Brilliant idea, I thought. When I walked into the show, I looked exactly as if I’d put the white woollen mittens back on perfectly, all by myself.

Nobody noticed at first. Ellie, Lucilla and Lancelot were busy singing.

‘Three little kittens, they found their mittens.’

I pranced about. That was my big mistake, for Ellie’s mother couldn’t help noticing that I was leaving footprints – snow-white icing footprints – all over the carpet.

She pointed. ‘Look!’

The singing stopped.

‘Look at the mess Tuffy is making!’ said Ellie’s mother. ‘What’s that all over his paws?’

‘It looks like –’ Aunt Ann stood up and hurried round behind the sofa. We heard a shriek. It sounded like an express train screeching to a halt when a green light turns red.

Aunt Ann picked up the bowl and held it out for all to see. ‘Look! Look at my icing! It’s ruined! All churned up, and full of paw marks!’

Ellie’s dad went mad. ‘That pest of a cat! This time he’s gone too far! I warn you, the moment the vet’s office opens up again after Christmas, I’m taking Tuffy down there to –’

‘No!’ Ellie hurled herself towards her father but, blinded by tears, she bumped into Lancelot. He knocked his sister, who fell in the well. I knew that, if Ellie’s dad got hold of me, he’d have my guts for garters. So while Ellie’s and Lancelot’s legs and arms were madly flailing about, getting tangled, I tried to make it to the door.

But Mr I-Have-Had-Enough was blocking the way. So I rushed out of sight behind the sofa. Then, while Ellie pulled herself free and started to shout at her father – ‘You leave poor Tuffy alone! You’re always picking on him!’ – I slid away, under the tree. There were no glittery balls to hide me in the bottom half, so I climbed up the back, branch by branch, higher and higher, while everyone was busy picking themselves up, and comforting Aunt Ann, and rushing off for cloths to clear up the icing footprints.

Now I was almost at the top. Only Ellie’s fat cardboard fairy was higher.

And then I suddenly thought of a brilliant way to hide myself. I looked up at Ms Tomato-Face on top of the tree. ‘This is the end for you, Sunshine!’ I muttered to her. ‘You have had your days of glory. Now move over. I am going to be the new Christmas fairy.’

I poked a paw up through her big fat cardboard roll. Her stupid red tomato face fell off and bounced a few branches down.

Creepy!

But I’d no time to hang about shivering. Hastily I shoved my head up through the space she’d left, and tried to put on the same snooty simpering look she’d worn for years.

Personally, looking back, I think the white frills probably suited me, and I looked nice in them. I rather wish they’d had the time to take a proper photo of their dear Tuffy as the new fairy at the top of the tree. I would have liked to show it to my friends.

But Ellie’s dad was right. The tree was not just bare at the bottom; it was overloaded at the top.

Too overloaded.

What they call ‘top heavy’.

It started toppling. It was far worse than being in the welly boot because I was much higher. It was like being in the crow’s nest of some ancient galleon when it keels over in a storm.

It took a long time for the tree to fall. They were all fussing and yelling. ‘Step back!’

‘The tree is crashing down!’

‘Watch out!’

‘Look at this mess!’

‘Our lovely well! Totally squashed!’

‘There’s not a single decoration left! Smashed! Every last one of them!’

‘I’m bruised all over.’

‘Where is that damn cat?’

Well, I was on the floor, of course. Pretty well splatted flat, still trying to be the Christmas fairy. It was the ears that gave me away. Christmas-tree fairies don’t have pointy little furry ears like mine.

So that explains how I ended up spending the rest of that day, and the next, locked in the garage. Ellie was only allowed to have me in her bedroom overnight, and then I was put back in here until the visitors go this afternoon and Christmas is over.

I don’t mind. In fact, I think I’ve come out of this spat with her father quite well. After all, when you consider that Mr Let’s-Take-Tuffy-Down-The-Vet’s is stuck behind in the house, still picking bits of Christmas decoration out of the carpet, and doing all the washing up, I think I’ve got it easy. Popped hoppers are quite comfortable to laze around on. And now that moth’s come back, I even have someone to play with. Certainly it’s been a whole lot better than being in the house.

But, still, I won’t be counting the days till 25th December comes round again. Remember that question you asked me at the start? ‘Dear, dear Tuffy, why was your Christmas so horrible?’

Well, you won’t have to ask again, will you?

Because now you know.

6_The Killer Cat Runs Away

About the Book

Tuffy no longer feels loved. All the family ever seems to do is fuss about his tiny mistakes – like spitting at next door’s baby and knocking over the new TV. Even Ellie’s too busy cooing over fluff-ball kittens to pay him any attention.

Who wants to hang around where they’re not wanted? There must be somewhere in town where Tuffy will be treated properly . . .

1 Silly Pink Babies

OK, OK. So twist my tail. I spat at the stupid baby. But it was annoying me, lying there in its frilly basket, chuckling and gurgling. The thing was laughing at me. And no one likes being laughed at. Especially not me. I’m not called Tuffy for nothing. And I didn’t earn the nickname of ‘the killer cat’ from sitting purring on a cushion.

And then this baby poked its finger in my eye. For heaven’s sake! It could have hurt me. So it was lucky, really. I could have bitten it. Or scratched it. But I only spat. Spit doesn’t hurt at all, so why’s everyone picking on me?

‘Tuffy!’ said Ellie. ‘Get away from the baby at once!’

She rushed to scoop it up. I don’t know why. It wasn’t even yelling. The baby didn’t mind. It was still laughing as if the whole thing was a giant joke. And there was only a tiny bit of dribble running down its face. Nobody in this house has any sense of humour at all. They all go mad about the slightest thing.

‘That cat is not to be trusted,’ said Ellie’s father. ‘He’s the most jealous creature under the sun.’

I like that! Jealous? Me? Of something that can’t even walk or feed itself? I gave the man the slit-eyed stare. But he just stared right back and said to Ellie, ‘Remember poor Tinkerbell?’

Ellie went pale. Of course she remembered. Tinkerbell was a small kitten the family had to look after for four whole days. You wouldn’t believe the fuss they made of her.

‘Isn’t she pretty? So fluffy! And so sweet!’

‘Look, Ellie! Tinkerbell’s learned how to flick her tail!’

‘See her tiny pink tongue! Look, Mum! Look quickly, while she’s lapping up her milk!’

‘She’s not cold, is she? If she’s cold, push Tuffy off the rug and let Tinkerbell sit near the fire instead.’

‘I think she’s hungry. Shall we offer her a dish of cream?’

Offer her cream? She didn’t even live with us! We were just kitten-sitting for a day or so. And I was their real pet, not Tinkerbell. I’d lived with them for years, ever since Ellie got old enough to nag them into getting me. Is it surprising that I got a little testy?

And that I wouldn’t let Tinkerbell sleep in any of my favourite places.

And that I accidentally pushed her off the windowsill.

And ate her special, juicy baby kitten food, all by mistake.

And all the other stupid, petty things that they complained about. No, I don’t think that Tinkerbell will be in any hurry to come and stay with us again.

And there’s no room, in any case. Because they clearly prefer silly pink babies now.

If they’re not careful I shall spit at it again.

2 Parasite

OK, OK. So cover me with jam and put me in a box of wasps. I broke their new television. It was an accident! I didn’t mean to tip the screen over like that. I was after a bumblebee, and if that stupid television hadn’t been in the way, I would have got it too. No one likes being stung by bees. They should have been grateful to me.

And whose fault was it that the new, slim, wide, high-definition screen wasn’t fixed on its stand more safely in the first place?

Yes! That’s right. It was Ellie’s dad’s fault, not mine. You only had to watch Mr Oh-That’ll-Probably-Be-All-Right fixing the screen so loosely onto the base to know that it was almost bound to fall off. Even without someone like me crashing into it hard.

And whose fault was it that I didn’t manage to get over the screen in my amazing leap?

That’s right. It was Ellie’s mother’s fault. She is the one who feeds me. If she has got it wrong and let me get a smidgeon over my ideal jumping weight, who is to blame?

Clearly not me.

You should have heard Ellie’s dad when he came in and saw the damage. Talk about wild! ‘This screen is ruined! Ruined! Claw marks all over, and both the top corners chipped! Look what that great, fat, stupid, tiresome, idiotic, unpleasant, vicious, dangerous parasite has done now!’

Excuse me? Parasite?

Now that’s not nice. In case you don’t already know, parasites are all those nasty things like nits and tapeworms and fleas and ticks that do nothing except sponge off other people to stay alive. I am not like that. I let myself be stroked. I let myself be fed. I let myself be cuddled. (Only by Ellie. And only sometimes. But you take my point.)

I’m not a parasite. How dare he? I won’t put up with rudeness like that. I tell you, next time he looks in his chest of drawers, he’s going to find hairs over everything. On all his socks. And on his pants and vests. Don’t think I can’t lick quite enough hairs off me to make his underwear disgusting.

I can pay him back.

3 The Same Old Boring Cat-Chat

He was a whole lot crosser than I thought. I slipped out for a quick smell tour around the wheelie bins with Tiger and Bella and Snowball. But when I strolled back in, what should I come across but what he calls ‘a family conference’ and I call ‘The Same Old Boring Cat-Chat that I’ve heard over a thousand times’.

‘What shall we do about Tuffy?’

There they all were, huddled together in the living room: Old Mr Grumpy. The Kitten-Loving Queen. And Ellie.

I hung around outside the door, eavesdropping as usual.

‘So,’ says Mr Football-on-Telly-Addict-Gone-Mad, ‘I say that was the last straw, and we should find another home for Tuffy.’

Just like she always does, Ellie burst into tears. ‘No! No! You can’t! Tuffy’s my pet!’

Her mother usually sticks up for me. But not this time. ‘But he’s not safe with babies. Or with kittens.’

‘Or televisions,’ Ellie’s dad added bitterly, still harping on about his own sad loss.

Now Ellie stamped her foot. ‘But he’s my pet!’

That’s when her father turned even more cunning than usual. ‘Ellie, I know you’re very fond of Tuffy. But we could always find you another pet.’

‘Yes,’ said her mother. ‘One that’s a bit more gentle and doesn’t cause quite so much damage.’

‘Perhaps a kitten . . .’ said her dad.

‘Like Tinkerbell . . .’ her mother said hopefully.

‘But what about Tuffy?’ Ellie said through her tears. ‘What will happen to him?’

‘Oh, you know cats,’ said Mr Get-What-You-Want-Whichever-Sneaky-Way-You-Can. ‘They’re not like dogs. They don’t adore their owners. So long as they’re warm and comfy, and the grub’s good, cats can be happy anywhere. And there are plenty of other places Tuffy could go.’

I took a peek round the door and saw Ellie’s mother shaking her head at the pulled threads on her sofa where I like to scratch to keep my claws in trim. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Homes that are far more suitable than ours.’

‘That’s right,’ said Ellie’s father. ‘We’ll find a home where he’ll be just as happy.’

This is the moment when Ellie always hurls herself face down on the sofa, sobbing and wailing, and threatens to run away if they get rid of me, her precious pet. This is the moment when she’s supposed to shout at them: ‘If you don’t love dear Tuffy enough to keep him, then you don’t love me!’

But there was silence.

Just a long, long silence.

The longest silence ever.

I peered round the door again and couldn’t believe my eyes! Ellie was dashing away her tears and looking hopeful.

‘Really? Another home where Tuffy will be just as happy?’

‘That’s right!’ said Mr I-Never-Did-Like-That-Cat-Anyway.

‘And I could have another pet? A pretty kitten, just like Tinkerbell?’

‘Why not?’

Shall I tell you what I did then? I sat behind the door and waited. And I didn’t just wait. I counted to myself. One, two, three, four . . .

And would you like to know how long it took before Ellie burst into tears again and started sticking up for me?

It took eleven seconds! Can you believe it? Eleven whole seconds before that disloyal child finally remembered who is supposed to be her amazing, precious Tuffy. The Tuffy she even thinks she will be taking to the special ‘My Wonderful Pet’ show in her school hall next Thursday evening. (Ho, ho! She’ll be lucky!) The Tuffy she loves ‘so much and always have and always will, for ever and ever and ever’.

Eleven great long seconds!

What a cheek!

4 One Good Reason to Stay

That night I told the gang, ‘I’m going to run away.’

They all stared. ‘Run away? But why?’

‘Because I’m not happy at home.’

‘What’s wrong with your home?’ demanded Tiger. ‘The place is warm, isn’t it?’

‘Well, yes,’ I had to admit. ‘The place is warm.’

‘And comfy enough,’ said Bella.

‘Yes, I grant you it’s comfy enough,’ I said reluctantly.

Snowball said, ‘And the grub in your house is very good indeed.’

‘Obviously the grub is good,’ I said, ‘or I wouldn’t still be there.’ I waved an irritable paw. ‘But give me one good reason why I ought to stay.’

‘Apart from the fact that it’s warm, and comfy, and the grub is good?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Apart from that.’

They all had a good long think. But none of them could come up with a single reason why I ought to stay (apart from the fact that the house is warm and comfy, and the grub is good).

‘Well, there you go,’ I said triumphantly when they had racked their brains. ‘Not one of you can think of anything. So I have no choice but to run away.’

5 A Chapter of Sad Farewells

I went around saying fond farewells to all the things I’ve loved so long.

‘Goodbye, dear Pot Plant,’ I said. ‘I expect that you’ll miss me scratching around in your soil when it’s too cold and wet for me to bother to go outside to do my business.’ I brushed away a tear. ‘And I shall miss you too.’

I went into the kitchen.

‘Adieu, my beloved Frying Pan,’ I sighed. ‘How many times have I stood beside you on the counter, licking your leftover bacon fat when no one else was about! We have been friends for so long, Frying Pan. But this is the end.’

I went upstairs.

‘This is the parting of the ways,’ I told Alarm Clock. ‘But we have shared so many happy moments. How often I have crept in here by moonlight when Mr I-Must-Not-Be-Late has set you carefully for seven o’clock. How often I have braved his rattling snores to jump on the bedside table and reach out a silent paw to push your ON button to OFF. And how the two of us have enjoyed his desperate shrieks of panic when he wakes late in the morning. Oh, I shall miss you, Alarm Clock!’

I slid under Mr I-Do-Not-Snore-I-Just-Breathe-Heavily’s side of the bed.

‘So long, Bedroom Slippers,’ I said. ‘If I had a single tear for every dead mouse I’ve slipped into your toes to frighten Mr Oh-My-Lord-What’s-This?, then I could weep a river to say goodbye to you. Please don’t feel lonely and neglected without my little gifts. Goodbye! Goodbye!’

I went downstairs to the piano.

‘Adios, my musical friend! After today I shall walk up and down your keys no more, making you plink and plunk and driving everyone mad. Our happy hours are over. I’m off into the world, and we shall sadly never finish our masterwork: The Tuffy Piano Concerto for Four Paws.’

I thought it would be nice to leave with that sweet tune still ringing in my ears. So I walked up and down the keys a bit. (I like to stick to the black ones. They sound more plinky-plunky. And every time one of my paws slides off onto a white key, I tend to get a little cross, and stamp.)

‘What is that dreadful noise?’

Whoops! Mr Not-At-All-Musical poked his head round the door. ‘You! Well, you can get off that piano at once!’

He pushed me off. I hate that, so I spun round in the air on my way down and scratched him hard.

‘Yeee-ouch!’

He glared at me, and I glared back at him.

That is one person in this house to whom I won’t be saying any fond farewell.

6 So Spank My Bum

So spank my furry little bum, I didn’t say goodbye to Ellie. I meant to. That’s why I went back up the stairs and into her bedroom. That’s why I jumped up at her side and started to purr in her ear.

Then I saw what she was looking at on her computer screen.

Kittens!

Cute baby fluff-balls. Sweet little winsome things with huge eyes staring out. You wouldn’t believe their names. Sugar-Pie. Binty-Minty. Pansy-Wansy. Prissy-Missy. (Excuse me while I stick a paw down my throat.)

Ellie stopped at the photo of a kitten called Titania. (I ask you! Titania! For a cat!)

‘Look, Tuffy. Isn’t she cute?’

Sometimes I think it’s a good thing that Ican’t speak. Because if I could, I would have told young Ellie just what I think of idiotic, brainless balls of fluff that can’t clean their own fur or creep up on anything taking a quick nap in a nest. Why, some of them can’t even find the way to the litter tray on their tenth day.

So it’s a good job I don’t talk. I wouldn’t have liked the last few words that I exchanged with Ellie to be unpleasant.

So I never said goodbye.

7 Dead Mice and Birds?

Eee-yuk!

Out on the wall, the gang were waiting.

‘So,’ Bella said. ‘You’re really off?’

‘Yes,’ I said proudly. ‘I’m not going to stay where I’m not wanted.’

They were still anxious. ‘But, Tuffy, if no one in Ellie’s family is there to put your food in front of you, what are you going to eat?’

I had a think. In the end I said, ‘I am a cat, so if I don’t find anything else, there’s always the old traditional stand-by.’

They all looked blank.

‘Dead mice and birds,’ I said.

I don’t think I have ever seen three faces look more disgusted.

‘Dead mice and birds? Eee-yuk!’

‘You’re joking!’

‘What, pick off all that hair and fur and feathers and stuff, and actually eat the things?’

‘Revolting!’

‘Horror-show idea!’

‘Full gross-out!’

‘What a sick plan! You must be off your head.’

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Dead mice and birds is what cats used to eat.’

They weren’t convinced. ‘Yes. Back in the Stone Age!’

‘Before cat food was invented.’

‘About a million years ago.’

‘Don’t be such wimps,’ I told them. ‘Why, I can remember my mother telling me proudly that my own great-grandfather was known as a splendid mouser.’

‘I bet he didn’t eat the things he caught.’

‘I bet he did,’ I argued.

Tiger was determined. ‘No way. He’d have been sick.’

‘I’d have been sick just watching him,’ added Snowball.

I wasn’t going to hang around and argue. It was getting dark. So I got Bella and Snowball to hold my collar tight while I slipped out of it.

Then, ‘Farewell, gang!’ I said. ‘I’m off to seek my fortune. Wish me luck!’

They all came further along the wall to watch me go. Tiger waved a forlorn paw. ‘Don’t you forget us, Tuffy!’

‘No, don’t forget us. We won’t ever forget you.’

‘No, never.’

8 Tuffy the Busker

I thought it best to go where no one knew me. After all, I didn’t want nosy people peering down at me. ‘Aren’t you that cat from Acacia Avenue that dug up all my petunias? I’m going to take you home.’

So I went further into town than I do usually. It was quite busy. There were a lot of people standing at bus stops and hurrying across the streets. I wandered up and down till, from round the corner, I heard someone playing a tune I like on a mouth organ.

I stopped to listen. Whoever was playing began to sing the words:

‘Scooby-scooby, swish-swish

Fishy in a dish-dish

Make a little wish-wish

That it tastes delish-lish.’

Just the thought made me feel peckish. I turned the corner, and there in a doorway stood a young man. He’d put a paper plate on the pavement, and passers-by were putting down their shopping bags and fishing in their pockets to toss in coins.

A busker!

He had been given quite a lot of money. I watched for a while, and every few minutes he’d scoop up a few coins and put them in his pocket. Then he’d start singing again.

I could do that! I could sing too, and maybe some of the shoppers would open their bags and drop me a tiny chunk of chicken from their ready-cooked suppers, or peel a slice of smoked salmon off the top of their pack.

Yum, yum. Delish-lish!

So I went round the next corner to find a doorway for myself, and to collect the little gifts that I expected to get I dragged a fairly clean takeaway dinner tray out of the gutter.

And then I sang.

I sang my little heart out. First I tried charming them with that forlorn old song about the kitten whose paws get frozen in the snow.

Then I sang that song that makes soft people weep about the tabby cat who starves to death up a tree. (Per-lease! How old are you? And how many cats’ skeletons have you seen dangling from high branches so far in life? None. That’s right. None.)

And then I gave my all to my own favourite, The Wild Cats’ Chorus.

None of them worked. Not one. People just clutched their heads and hurried by. Some of them even glowered. Nobody bothered to stop to say, ‘What charming melodies! And what a lovely voice!’

In fact, they were quite rude. I kept hearing snatches of what they said as they rushed past.

‘. . . horrible yowling noise . . .’

‘. . . shouldn’t be allowed . . .’

‘. . . perfectly ghastly . . .’

‘. . . clearly in misery. Ought to be put down . . .’

Then one man had the cheek to pick up my collection tray and drop it in the litter bin along the street.

I gave up singing then, and just walked on. Time for another plan.

9 The Wild Cats’ Chorus

This time I was smart. I walked up a nice-looking road and found a nice-looking house with a nice-looking lady unloading nice-looking groceries from her nice-looking car.

She looked a tiny bit familiar. But then, I get about. I’ve met a lot of people. So anyhow, I thought, This place will do.

First thing: get introduced. I wrapped myself round her legs, all the time purring madly.

The woman reached down to stroke me. Suddenly she looked a little nervous. ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘Haven’t I seen you before? Wasn’t it you who got in a flying fur fight with another cat in our school playground once, and upset all my tiny Year Ones?’

Uh-oh! Now I remembered who she was! Ellie’s head teacher!

But I was hungry, and they were nice-looking groceries. So I turned the purring up to Regulo 8. It worked a treat. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘I must be wrong. You’re such a sweet and friendly cat, and that one was downright horrible. Why, our school crossing guard still has a scar where that vile animal scratched her.’

I tried to look sympathetic as I followed her inside the house. I kept up the heavy purring while she put away her shopping. Then she bent down to feel around my neck.

‘No collar.’

Of course, no collar. I am a good deal smarter than that!

She sighed. ‘Oh, dear. I suppose I’d better feed you.’ She shook a finger. ‘But it’s just this once!’

Just this once? Ho, ho, ho. Everyone knows if you feed a cat once, it has you on a string for life. So I was in. She fed me tuna from a can, and picked me up to carry me around. I didn’t struggle at all. It was an act of will, but I kept purring.

Even when she showed me her parrot.

‘Look,’ she said, pointing to his cage. ‘Meet Gregory.’

Gregory the Parrot gave me the blink, and I blinked back.

‘I hope you’ll both be friends,’ she said.

I purred my hardest.

‘Gregory’s very clever,’ she told me. ‘I’m going to shut you in the kitchen. But if you hear lots of odd noises and voices while I’m out, you mustn’t be afraid. That’ll be Gregory imitating things he’s heard.’

I purred and nodded.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now I’m afraid I have to nip back to school to sort out a few things for the special “My Wonderful Pet” show we’re holding on Thursday evening. I’ll find your owner tomorrow. But just for tonight, you can stay here.’

She picked up her briefcase and left.

So I sat in the kitchen.

Just a kitchen.

Boring. Dead boring.

Then Gregory started up. First he did ‘creaking door’ and ‘the wheelie-bin rumble’. After that he did ‘Fireworks Night’. Then he did his owner saying, ‘Oh, Gregory! You know I get headaches from horrid noises. Can’t you do something quiet and nice?’

OK, OK. So boil me in bunny juice! I taught him The Wild Cats’ Chorus. I yowled it from the kitchen, and Gregory the Parrot picked it up in no time. Soon we were yowling away together so it was twice as loud, and he learned how to do that too. And by the time I’d had enough of singing along with him, Gregory could sound like four cats singing, not just one, all by himself.

Stellar!

The problem was that he was so excited with his new trick he kept it up for two whole hours after Ellie’s head teacher came back.

So naturally I got thrown out.

10 The Perfect Home

I spent the night in the tool shed. Then, in the morning, I set off to find a better home. I had a tiny thought that I might go back to Ellie. I was quite sure she would have realized her mistake by now, and be lying face down on her bed, sobbing her poor broken heart out and wailing my name to the heavens.

But as I strolled along the street, what should I see but a notice stuck on a lamppost.

And then another.

And another.

And more and more. All the same.

I stretched up to take a look. It was a ‘lost cat’ notice, with a photo of the roughest, toughest, sourest, grumpiest-looking moggie you’ve ever seen in your life.

I couldn’t help but think: Who’d want to have that thug back?

Then I peered a little closer.

It was me.

I took a long look down the street. Sure enough, far in the distance I could see Ellie’s mum, stopping at every lamppost to stick up yet another of her insulting posters.

The cheek of it! For one thing, I am not a ‘lost cat’. I am a cat who has moved on to better things! And for another, they’d picked the worst photo ever. Not my best side. I mean, I do not look like that! Not all the time, anyhow! Not every day. Sometimes – perhaps – if I am in a really fed-up mood. But hardly ever! Almost never!

No one would recognize me from that photo. No one. Not in a million years!

So I strolled on quite happily – though it was odd how many people I saw glance at the posters then bend down to try to pick me up. (I simply spat them off.)

And then I found what I was looking for.

The perfect home.

It had wide windowsills to lounge on. The garden was a jungle. (Good hunting there!) Some of the windows were unlatched. The wheelie-bin lid was off. And, best of all, there was a fish pond with sweet little goldfish darting about in it.

Oh, bliss! Oh, sheer and perfect bliss! If there’s one thing I love to do, it’s stretch out along the side of a fish pond in the sun and idly dip in a paw to try to—

No. No time to think about that now! I went to meet the owner. He was washing up. We had a conversation. It went like this:

Him: Hello, puss. Where did you spring from?

Me: Purr, purr. (I’m slinking round his legs to let him know I’m feeling peckish.)

Him: Hungry? Fancy some leftover fish?

Me: Purrrrrrrrrrrr!

Him (putting down a dish): There you go. Finish that lot and you’ll feel a whole lot better.

Me: Chomp, chomp, chomp.

I thought I was in heaven. I ate the fish. (A little too much dill, I thought. But, hey! not everyone’s a master chef.) I had a nap on one of his windowsills. When it got chilly I slipped back into the house through one of the unlatched windows, and when I felt like a snack at lunch time, I set off for the little pond.

Shame! He was out there, hanging out the washing.

Well, never mind. Fish fresh as that will keep. I took a turn round the side of the house and had a poke through the recycling bins.

Half a fish finger. Delish-lish. Just like the song. Yes, I’d found The Perfect Home.

Or so I thought. But then, at half-past three, my world caved in. There was a stampede up the garden path. A pack of carrot-topped hooligans, all shrieking and yelling.

‘Look! On the windowsill! A cat!’

‘Daddy’s got us a real pet! Not just those stupid goldfish, but a real live cat!’

‘Bagsy I cuddle it first.’

‘No! I’m the one who saw it, so I get first cuddle.’

‘Then me.’

‘Then me.’

‘Then me!’

‘Well, if I’m last, I want to be the one to take it in to school for the “My Wonderful Pet” show!’

Nice to be wanted, of course. But really, the noise was horrendous! While they were crowding round, I counted them. Five carrot-tops! Five horrid noisy children all reaching out to grab me. I tell you, it took a good bit of hissing and spitting to get off that windowsill.

Didn’t they change their tune then!

‘The horrid thing!’

‘It’s scratched me! Look! I’m actually bleeding!’

‘It must be wild.’

‘Who’d want to take that into school? I’d rather show everyone our lovely goldfish.’

‘We didn’t really want a new pet anyway.’

‘Well, we certainly didn’t want this one.’

A good thing too, because I wasn’t staying. The Perfect Home, indeed! I don’t think so.

11 ‘Come Home So I Can Strangle You.’

I took a nap in next door’s garage. (OK, OK! So twist my tail! I left a dent in the fancy new hat some man was hiding in there till his wife’s birthday. But anybody napping in there would have used it as a little bed. That hat was comfy. It wasn’t my fault that the ribbon round the brim got tangled and torn. All I was trying to do was brush off the cat hairs that I shed on it while I was having my snooze.)

I woke up starving. Back at my old house, when I was hungry I simply parked myself on my big furry bottom somewhere really inconvenient and stared at Ellie’s mum till she remembered to feed me.

Sadly, that does not work with strangers who are hurrying by. I had to keep stepping in their path and wrapping myself round their ankles (the way I used to do with Ellie when I was getting bored).

But strangers are so clumsy. I got tripped over and stumbled into several times. And snarled at quite a lot. Some people were quite rude. In the end I gave up and went to check what had been thrown out by the nearest pizza place. (Don’t you adore pepperoni?)

Just as I came round the corner, who should I see stamping past in a tantrum but Mr I’ve-Been-Sent-Out-To-Look-For-Our-Cat.

I didn’t fancy being carried back by him, so I slunk out of sight.

‘Puss, puss!’ I heard him calling to the wind. ‘Tuff! Tuff-eee! Where are you? Come home so I can strangle you! Come home so I can boil you in oil! Tuff-eee! Do you know what’s on telly at this very moment? Yes! The Best-Ever Penalty Shoot-out Show! And am I sitting watching it? No, I am not! Partly because the television is ruined. And partly because I’ve been sent out to find you! So come home, Tuffy! Puss, puss, puss! Come home so I can spoil your life the same way that you spoil mine!’

I ask a simple question. If you heard that, would you be stupid enough to pad out from the shadows and show yourself?

No, you would not.

I wouldn’t, either. All thoughts of going home had vanished once again, so I turned round and slunk off fast the other way.

12 I Did Not Kill It!

(Here is a warning. Those of you who are ‘of a nervous disposition’ – and that means wet – had better skip this chapter. It isn’t nice.)

I tramped the streets. The hours went by. And I got hungrier.

And hungrier.

And hungrier.

Everyone’s wheelie bin lids were fixed on tight. I went through one garden after another on the prowl, hoping that someone had at least put out a dish of milk for a hedgehog to keep me going.

But there was nothing.

I made my way right to the end of a row of gardens.

Nothing.

Sighing, I made my way back again. That’s when I saw it lying on the grass under my feet.

A baby bird.

I did not kill it! Understand? It must have fallen out of its nest after I went by the first time. (Possibly from fright.)

But it was dead. (And fresh.)

And I was hungry.

I gave the thing a little poke. ‘Come on!’ I told myself. ‘Don’t be so mimsy! It’s meat. It’s fresh. It’s nice and traditional. And you are very hungry.’

Alas! Nowhere near hungry enough, my friend. Nowhere near hungry enough.

Bella and Tiger and Snowball were right.

Eeee-yuk!!!

13 ‘A Photo of My Beautiful Tuffy!’

So there I was, still trying to persuade myself that baby bird would taste as good as pepperoni, when a shadow fell over me.

A woman had come out of the house.

I stared at her. She stared at me. I stared at her because she’d done her hair so that it looked like one of those whippy ice-cream cones.

She stared at me as though she thought I were a gift from heaven.

‘A cat!’ She looked at the sad little mess between my paws. ‘And clearly a hunter! Are you a mouser too? Because there’s a rustling somewhere near my kitchen door. I think I might have vermin!’

You could tell she was fussy just from the way she said ‘vermin!’. But I was tired and hungry, so I thought – why not? Some cats do earn their keep. I could give it a go.

And I was right to try. Because life there could have been perfect bliss! Ms Whippy thought that she was keeping me hungry enough to eat mice, but what she didn’t know is that I’m good with kitchen bins. Every time she went out, I’d step on the pedal, and when the lid flew up I’d reach inside to hook out some half-eaten chop, or the last of the chicken. After I’d had enough, I’d carry the leftovers out into the garden and kick them out of sight behind her precious lupins.

She didn’t get suspicious because the rustling stopped. (It only came from some dried leaf trapped under the kitchen door. I poked that out and – hey, presto! – all the vermin gone.)

For three nights in a row, she sang my praises. ‘You’re brilliant, Pusskins. I could do with a mouser like you in my villa in Spain.’

Her villa in Spain? Was she a millionaire?

You’d think so. First she bought me a fancy jewelled collar and a swansdown cat bed. (Purrrrr!) Then she bought me a classy water bowl. On the next day she even took me into town to have my photo taken. Yes! None of that cheap, ‘Hold still while I fetch my mobile!’ stuff that I’d been used to back in Ellie’s house. Ms Whippy took me into town to get a proper studio portrait! The photographer sat me on a cushion and asked me most politely to face the camera. ‘Pusskins! Please look this way! Yes! That’s much better.’

A dozen different shots were taken, and I must say they came out very nicely indeed. (Much better than those horrid ‘lost cat’ posters.) I was so pleased I thought I’d take one round to show my old ungrateful family what they were missing. I picked one up by the corner and (trying not to drool) carried it carefully across town to my old home.

Ellie was sitting on the doorstep, weeping bitterly.

I shot behind a bush.

‘Oh, Tuffy!’ she was whimpering. ‘Oh, Tuffy! You’ve been away so long! And how I miss you! Oh, Tuffy, I wish you’d come home!’

Home? Ha! Excuse me, but I have a new home now. A much, much better home where I dine on the finest foods, and people truly know how beautiful I am.

I spat the photograph out of my mouth and watched it slither in the breeze up the path towards Ellie.

Curious, she picked it up, dashing away her tears so she could peer at it more closely. Then she began to wail. ‘Oh, no! A photo of my beautiful Tuffy! And it’s not one I’ve ever seen before!’

Too true, it wasn’t. It was far smarter and glossier than any photo they’d ever had of me.

Ellie rushed into the house. I jumped up out of sight behind the laurel bush and peered in through the window. Ellie was waving the photo in her parents’ faces. ‘Mum! Dad! Look! Tuffy must have been catnapped! See? The catnappers have sent a photograph to prove it.’

I will admit that Ellie’s mum looked most concerned. But Mr Don’t-Expect-Me-To-Put-My-Hand-In-My-Pocket just muttered something most unpleasant along the lines of, ‘If that pesky cat’s worth even a handful of loose change, I’m a banana.’ If I’d not been in hiding, I’d have spat at him. Right in the face.

Ellie burst into tears again, and I jumped down. Don’t you feel sorry for Ellie! Don’t you dare! It’s her own fault! She should have thought about how much she would miss her precious Tuffy before she started mooning over soppy kittens on the computer screen.

So don’t you get your knickers in a twist worrying about Ellie.

You worry about me.

That’s what I did. I suddenly thought, If I don’t get back quickly, fussy Ms Whippy will have emptied the pedal bin before I’ve had time to rescue my supper.

So I hurried off.

14 Nightmare Stuff!

Ms Whippy talked a lot on the phone to her friends about her villa in Spain. It sounded horrible. I’d find the weather far too hot, I am not overly fond of garlic, and I hate walking on tiles because they make my claws click.

Also, why would I care about her lovely private pool? I’m not a swimming cat. No, every time I heard her talk about that villa of hers, I shuddered quietly and thought how glad I was that I live here.

That’s why finding the papers was such a shock.

I wasn’t snooping. It’s just a well-known fact that, if there is a bit of paper lying on a table, that’s what a cat will sit on.

Even if it’s as small as a bus ticket, that’s where we’ll sit.

And this paper was full-size. I sat on it for quite a while. (OK, OK! So dip my paws in soap suds! I had been trying to spread the leftovers of my supper out a little bit behind her lupins and my paws were still chickeny. I made a mess.)

That’s why I glanced down at the paper I was sitting on – to see if there were any more tiny scraps of chicken that had dried enough to be flicked onto the floor.

That’s when I saw the word PASSPORT.

I looked a little closer and saw PET.

I lifted my bum and stepped back so that I could read the whole thing. TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR PET PASSPORT APPLICATION.

Aha! The truth was out! Ms Whippy hadn’t taken me to get a photo simply because of my good looks. She wanted it for a passport so she could take me to her villa in Spain to be a mouser there!

I read the small print. It was nightmare stuff! First, there was a rule about carrying a letter from the vet that proved your pet was up-to-date with injections. (Injections! In case you live on Mars, I’ll have you know that that means needles. Not my favourite things. And vets! Not my favourite people.)

Then came a rule about the size of the wire cage. ‘Cage’, you notice. Not ‘comfy basket’ or ‘cosy box’. Wire cage!

There was a bit about how long your pet would spend in the baggage hold. The baggage hold! Like some old suitcase!

There was a rule about the photo of your pet having to be full-face.

A full-face photograph? Well, didn’t all that sweet-talking, ‘Pusskins, please look this way. Yes, that’s much better,’ sound a bit different now!

And then I read the last line, just above Ms Whippy’s flowery signature.

The date of travel.

5th May, she’d written.

5th May? I looked up at the calendar.

It was the 4th!

15 A Blur of Fur

Ever seen a tornado?

Even if the answer’s yes, you’ve not seen anything as fast as me getting out of that house. I was a rocket. I was a blur of fur that shot through that open window and up the garden path in less than half a blink. I moved so fast that I looked back to see myself pretty well still leaping out.

That was my big mistake. I should have kept my eyes ahead because, before I could even catch my breath, I felt myself being snatched up and heard a man’s voice. ‘Aha! Trying to make a getaway, are you, Pusskins? Well, tough luck! Gotcha!’

I swivelled my head round to look. Yee-ow! The man was dressed in one of those short white coats our vet wears at her surgery.

I wriggled frantically, but all he did was hold me even more tightly. ‘Stop struggling, Pusskins! No point in my driving all the way here for a special home pick-up if my patient has fled.’

Patient? Victim, more like! I’ve had my shots already! I don’t need any more. So I kept struggling madly. I scratched. I hissed. I yowled. I put up a tremendous fight. But this guy was clearly a master at hanging onto squirming animals. Before I even realized what was happening, he’d carried me round to Ms Whippy’s suntrap patio, and used his teeth to pull a towel down from her rotary washing line to wrap me up in it.

Me! Held fast in a roll of fluffy pink! I looked like a struggling sausage.

Small wonder I hate vets. They’ll get you every time. I bet they even take classes in rolling harmless little pussy cats up in old towels so they can shove pills down their throats and stick needles into them.

He carried me back to the front of the house and rang the bell. Ms Whippy must have torn herself away from packing all her fancy clothes because she came to the door.

My captor held me up. ‘Your cat’s a smart one. He was trying to get away.’

Ms Whippy clasped her hands under her chin. ‘Oh, no!’ she said. ‘Thank heavens you stopped him. If he doesn’t have his shots we can’t go, and the flight is tomorrow.’

‘No problem,’ smarmed our most unwelcome visitor. ‘I’ll have him back to you tonight with all the paperwork you need.’

I tried to tell them I had had my shots. All of them. Way back in March. But it came out as one enormous yowl.

And then a ghastly thing happened.

Ms Whippy leaned forward suddenly and kissed me on the nose.

Me! Tuffy! On the nose! A sloppy kiss!

Only one word for that. ‘Yee-uk!’

16 No Hope of Rescue. None.

Whistling cheerfully, the vet carried me back down to his van and unfurled me out of the fluffy pink towel into a cage. He dumped the cage down on the passenger seat.

So boil me in bunny juice. I hissed and spat.

‘Temper, temper,’ he said reprovingly.

We drove a mile or two and then his mobile rang. The vet pulled off the road and rang the number back. I only heard his side of the conversation. ‘Hi, Arif. What’s the problem?’

Arif must have explained because the next words were, ‘You need a cat?’

Excuse me? Was he talking to a madman? Who on earth needs a cat? I mean, we don’t do anything useful. We cost a lot to feed. We ruin the furniture. We do exactly what we want.

I ask the question again. Who needs a cat?

But clearly this Arif did, because when I tuned in again it was to hear the vet ringing Ms Whippy to check she didn’t mind if he lent me to some other vet he knew. ‘It’s only for half an hour, and I must say your Pusskins would be perfect for the job.’

Hear that? ‘Perfect’.

Obviously Ms Whippy agreed. So I admit that, by the time we met Arif somewhere around the park five minutes later, my head was already swelling.

‘Watch him!’ the vet warned as he handed my cage to Arif. ‘He’s in the foulest mood. But he’s the only cat booked into the surgery this evening. I have to give him all his shots tonight, so he can fly to Spain tomorrow.’

‘If the plane gets off the ground!’

I didn’t get the joke, but they still shared a laugh and then the vet climbed back in his van. ‘Be careful,’ he warned Arif, just before driving off. ‘That cat is horribly fierce so, whatever you do, don’t let anyone open his cage!’

Oh, thanks a bunch! What happened to my being ‘perfect’, I wondered as we set off down the street. I can’t say that Arif was the most considerate cat-cage carrier. He swung it till I was slipping from side to side like someone on board a ship in a gale. I paid him out by spitting through the bars and reaching out a paw to pull so many woollen threads out of his fancy jumper that I was practically hidden behind the tangles.

But my heart wasn’t in it. I was miserable. You know me. I am not one to wallow in despair and live my life in fear of what might lie round the next corner. But I admit that I was feeling really glum. I had set off with such high hopes: a better life, a nicer home and more appreciative company. People who recognized my true worth. People who saw me for the handsome, valiant, resourceful cat I am.

Now look at me. Stuck in a cage. Halfway to getting a heap of horrid injections I didn’t need, then lent out for all the world as if I were some rusty loft ladder, or a set of car jump leads.

Not to mention the insults. Ellie had never in all her life called me ‘horribly fierce’ or ‘in the foulest mood’. (She called me ‘spirited’ instead.) She’d never lent me out, or swung me in a cage, or wrapped me up like a sausage in a fluffy pink towel. Or threatened to take me off to Spain for ever, far away from my old friends.

My friends! Dear Tiger! Fun-loving Bella! Sweet Snowball! Where would they be right now?

Mucking about, no doubt, as happily as usual on Acacia Avenue.

Having a good laugh.

Without me.

Oh, how I wished I’d never got all huffy and run away! Why had I let that grumpy Mr Glad-To-See-The-Back-Of-That-Cat drive me away? How silly of me to have allowed myself to become jealous of that tiny fluff-ball Tinkerbell, and even that tiny human baby.

A baby! Why, the sweet little poppet had probably not been laughing at me at all. She had probably been laughing with me.

That is so different.

I had been so wrong! And I had nobody to blame but myself and my own foolishness. And now there was no hope of rescue. None.

17 ‘Haven’t You Heard?’

Suddenly, through the tangles of unthreaded wool covering half the cage, I thought I saw somewhere I recognized.

Yes! Mrs Patel’s grocery shop. (She hates me napping on her vegetables.) Arif kept walking and I thought I recognized the pizza parlour. (No need to ask. My order’s pepperoni.) And then I reckoned that we must be getting near to Ellie’s school because I saw the crossing guard. (Since that fur fight in the playground, she’s tried to shoo me off each time we’ve met.)

Behind me, I heard voices. Children were gathering to cross the road, all chatting merrily.

‘What’s in that box you’re carrying?’

‘That’s Harry, my stick insect. What’s in your jar?’

‘Bertha, my beetle.’

‘I saw George bringing his rabbit.’

‘Surina is bringing her mice.’

My heart leaped. Thursday! ‘My Wonderful Pet Show’ evening. So maybe Ellie would be walking along the street. I could yowl really loud, and maybe she would recognize my voice. I might be rescued after all!

Almost at once my hopes were dashed. The very next thing I heard was, ‘Isn’t it a shame about poor Ellie?’

‘Poor Ellie? Why? Isn’t she coming tonight?’

‘No. Haven’t you heard? Her pet’s been catnapped.’

‘Who, Tuffy? That wonderful cat she used to talk about all day?’

‘Yes, that’s the one.’

‘So beautiful, she told us.’

‘And strong.’

‘And clever.’

‘She misses him so much! She’s spending all her pocket money on “lost cat” flyers, and hands them out everywhere she goes.’

‘Perhaps she’ll come tonight so she can give a flyer to everyone in the audience.’

‘Maybe she will. But I don’t think so. How could she bear to watch us all walking out of the hall so happily with our own pets? Surely she can’t do that? Not even for her most beloved Tuffy!’

‘Poor Ellie. Oh, poor Ellie!’

My heart sank in my boots. If Ellie couldn’t bear to come, then it would be ‘poor Tuffy’ too!

18 All the Usual Rubbish

The children all rushed off into the school. Then, through the tangles of woolly bits, I saw Ellie’s head teacher. She was hurrying out to greet Arif.

‘There you are! I was just getting worried. Everyone’s here, with their pets. I’ve even brought my parrot Gregory to be part of the display. And all the children are keen to listen to your little talk about how important it is to care for animals properly.’

Yes, I thought bitterly. Care for them properly. Not swing them about in a cage.

Arif only grinned. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It took a bit of time to lug this great big lump all the way from the park.’

Did you hear that? ‘Great big lump’. Nice!

The head teacher was in too much of a hurry to bother to peer through the strands of tangled wool and take a look at me. So we went into the school hall together. Arif the Insensitive, Ellie’s parrot-loving head teacher. And me.

Arif dumped my cage on the table, beside a few other pets. I took a look along the line. Pathetic! A couple of scaredy-baby mice who cowered in their cage. (I only looked at them. I did not pretend to grab.) A bowl of brainless fish scooped out of the garden pond by that rough carrot-top gang. (The boy who’d tried to catch me was still sucking his scratches, I was glad to see.) A rabbit so old it was nearly dead. Gregory the Parrot. (At least, I guessed it was him. His cage was covered with a cloth.) A guinea pig or two. A snake. A family of hamsters. Some stupid dog that wasn’t even half my size. Two whimpering gerbils.

All the usual rubbish.

Well, I consoled myself, at least I’m bound to be Star of the Show. After all, Arif was giving the talk and he’d brought me. He must have thought that cats were something special.

And then Arif started, lifting up each cage and bowl and box in turn along the line. He praised the fish: ‘Nobody’s overfed these so they’re in quite splendid condition.’ He cooed over the gerbils: ‘Lovely cuddly things, but you must handle them gently.’ Dogs: ‘It is so important to train them properly.’

Bleh, bleh, bleh. On and on and on about how to care for your pets. (Try this, Arif! Don’t swing them in a cage!) His talk was so, so boring. All that stuff you’ve heard a million times before about keeping the cage clean, and making sure all these pathetic pets who can’t look after themselves have nice, fresh water. (Tip from myself. Save all the trouble. Get a cat!)

I could have yowled. But I was determined not to make a single kittenish mew in case he got annoyed and shoved me under the table, out of sight. You see, I hoped that, even though Ellie wasn’t there, when Arif finally got to my cage and pulled off the tangles of wool, someone else from Acacia Avenue would recognize me and shout, ‘Catnapper! That is Ellie’s cat! You have to give him back!’

Then I’d be rescued.

At last it was my turn. Arif tugged all the bits of wool away from the wires of the cage so everyone could see me better. And then he held me up.

‘See?’ he said, shaking his head in sorrow. ‘See what can happen if you aren’t careful?’

I blinked. Sorry?

He kept on. ‘Take this cat here. He’s obviously been brought up in a good family. His fur is thick and glossy. His eyes are bright. His paws are in excellent condition.’

Well, thank you, Arif. Thank you for pointing out the obvious. I am a fine, fine specimen of a cat.

‘But,’ said Arif.

Excuse me? But?

I turned my head to stare. Would you believe it? He had the nerve to carry on.

‘But this pet is the perfect example of what we all want to avoid in our pets. This cat has been allowed to let himself go. Recently he has been horribly, horribly overfed, and doesn’t it show?’

He swung the cage around so that everyone could gawp at me! Cheek! I know Ms Whippy’s pedal bin is a fine cornucopia of splendid grub; but surely no cat can put on that much weight in a few days . . .

Surely . . .

You wouldn’t think so to listen to Arif. He was still swinging me about. ‘Look at the size of him! Just look! No doubt this feline fellow has always teetered on the edge of getting tubby. But take a proper look. The cat inside this cage is a dire warning of what can happen if you don’t keep tabs on your pet’s diet. I hate to say it, but this cat is downright fat.’

19 Reprise

OK, OK! So put on your crossest face and shake a finger at me. I scratched him. Very hard and deep. While he was busy going on and on about how fat I’d let myself become, and how I’d get an early heart attack if I did not slim down to what I’d been before, I sneaked my paw through the cage bars and raked my claws right round his wrist.

That was a laugh. He yelled his head off. ‘Yee-oww, yee-oww, yee-oww, yee-oww, yee-oww!’

He dropped the cage. That hurt. I bumped my head on the bars. So naturally I did exactly what you would have done.

Scratched him again. On the ankle.

This time he yelled even louder.

‘Yee-oww! Yee-oww! Yee-oww! Yee-oww! Yee-oww!’

And guess what happened next. He woke up Gregory the Parrot! Don’t blame me. How was it my fault Gregory got confused under his cover and just assumed he was at home again and we had started on a quick reprise of our wonderful Wild Cats’ Chorus?

So Gregory started up, singing all four parts, all at once.

Loudly. Very loudly. So loudly that some of the more unmusical people in the hall actually put down their juice and biscuits and clapped their hands over their ears. Beside me, the hamsters started burying their heads in their bedding, trying to block out the noise. The dog was whining and drooling all at the same time. Even the snake looked rather as if it was wincing.

I thought I might as well join in and sing along. After all, it is my favourite song.

And that’s when one or two of the audience appeared to crack, grabbing their coats to rush out. (I call that very rude.) Gregory kept up the singing. In fact, he was now showing off, singing eight parts at once. And that’s when even the people who had pets in the show began to block their ears with their fingers and rush towards the stage to snatch up their cages or boxes or fish bowl. There was a small commotion at the door because two people in the hallway were blocking everyone’s path, trying to slow up the people who were hurrying out long enough to hand them a flyer.

And one of them was Ellie! Yes! Ellie! I heard her calling as the crowd forced their way past. ‘Please!’ she kept saying. ‘Please take away with you one of these photos of my precious, lovely lost pet so you can call me if you find him.’

I didn’t even crane my neck to check it was my picture that was being handed out, and not a photo of some brand-new fluff-ball kitten she’d been given called Sugar-Pie or Pansy-Wansy. I simply trusted her and saw my chance, threw back my head and yowled even louder.

‘YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW. Yowwwwwl, yoWWWWL.’

Ellie knows that song! She’s heard it often enough on moonlit nights. In any case, she recognized my voice. Everyone else was running the other way, but suddenly Ellie was pushing against them, scattering flyers all over as she ran.

Straight towards me.

‘Tuffy! Oh, Tuffy! I’ve found you at last! Thank heavens!’

I purred at her like mad.

She reached for the latch to my cage, but before she could open it, Arif stopped sucking his hand and brought it down on hers. ‘Stop! Don’t let this cat out. He’s vicious.’

Ellie stared. ‘He is not vicious! I should know. He’s mine.’

Arif shook his head. ‘No, no. You’re wrong. Lots of cats look alike, and this one can’t be yours. He is called Pusskins and he’s on the way to have his shots before he goes to Spain.’

Ellie laid her hand on the cage. ‘No, he is not,’ she said. ‘He is called Tuffy and he’s had his shots already. And he belongs to me and he’s so clever he was singing his favourite song just so I’d recognize him.’

‘He’s not yours!’

‘Yes, he is. And I can prove it.’

Quick as a flash, she’d lifted the latch and swung the cage door open.

I’m not a cuddler, on the whole. But I wasn’t going to put my pride before a rescue. I didn’t muck about. I simply jumped straight into Ellie’s arms and purred and purred and rubbed and rubbed, and did all those soppy and embarrassing things some hungry cats do when they don’t have the guts to give you the cold blank stare that means, ‘Get on with it, then. Feed me.’

‘See?’ Ellie said. ‘Tuffy’s not vicious at all. He is a wonderful, gentle, clever pet. And you can’t have him.’

Arif was going to argue. But just at that moment Ellie’s mother panted up behind and said, ‘Yes! That is definitely our cat. And he was stolen over a week ago. We put up photos all over town. Ask anyone you like.’

Ellie squeezed me even tighter. ‘See?’ she told Arif. Then she slid off my fancy jewelled collar and dumped it on the table. ‘But you can keep the collar and the cage.’

I owed her one, and so for once I didn’t struggle. I just gave Arif the look that says, ‘And you and your friend the vet can both go and boil your heads!’

Then, after Ms Whippy admitted down the phone that she had practically kidnapped me only a few days before, Arif did give up arguing, and I let Ellie and her mum take turns in carrying me home in triumph.

20 My Precious, Wonderful, Amazing Tuffy!

The moment we got near to our front door, I wriggled out of Ellie’s arms. (No point in letting the child get into bad habits.)

Then, acting super-cool, I strolled back into the house. As I passed underneath a brand-new spray of glossy, waving leaves, I nodded companionably. ‘Looking good, Pot Plant!’

I waved at Frying Pan and Piano – ‘Hi, fellas! I’m back!’ – and went upstairs, planning to say hello to Alarm Clock and Bedroom Slippers. Ellie was chasing after me, carrying my old collar. ‘Oh, Tuffy! I’m so glad you’re back!’ She slid it over my head. It was still damp from all her weeping, but I thought I could be gracious about it. After all, the child had saved me from worse.

I let her give me the most gentle squeeze. She buried her face in my fur. ‘Oh, Tuffy!’ she said. ‘My precious, wonderful, amazing Tuffy! The Tuffy I love so much and always have and always will, for ever and ever and ever! Thank heavens you’re home and safe!’

I let her squeeze me one more time before I shook her off and went downstairs to check on Frying Pan. (After all, Ellie and her mother were both outside when that rude vet was going on about how fat I was. And I was peckish.)

21 ‘You Promised You’d Never Forget Me.’

Tiger and Snowball and Bella were having a laugh playing see-saw on the wobbly drain cover a few houses down.

‘Hi,’ I said, stepping onto Bella’s side to even the game up a bit. ‘It’s me. I’m back.’

‘Who’s this?’ asked Tiger.

‘Do we know him?’ Bella asked.

‘No one I know,’ said Snowball.

‘Oh, come on, guys!’ I told them. ‘You promised you’d never forget me!’

So they knocked off the teasing and we mucked about. I told them all about my great adventures and my narrow escape. They helped me get the collar off.

‘Look at the state of it,’ said Tiger. ‘Sodden! Mind you, I’m not surprised. Ellie has spent an awful lot of time these last few days howling her head off.’

‘That’s right,’ said Snowball. ‘Her mother kept on trying to cheer her up by offering her a fluff-ball kitten just like Tinkerbell.’

Tiger finished the story. ‘And all she did was howl louder.’

Good stuff to hear.

We played quoits with the collar for half an hour or so while it was drying. Then the gang helped me put it on again. I think I’m safer wearing it, just for a while, until the hue and cry has all died down and Ms Whippy’s found herself another mouser and flown off to Spain.

Yes. Safer here till then.

And nicer too.

At my real home. With Ellie.

The Wild Cats’ Chorus

YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW,

YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW

Yowwwwwl, yoWWWWL,

Yowwwwl, yowwwl

YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW,

(piano – softly)

YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW,

YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW

Yowwwwwl, yoWWWWL,

Yowwwwl, yowwwl

YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW.

(fortissimo – very loud)

YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW,

YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW

Yowwwwwl, yoWWWWL,

Yowwwwl, yowwwl

YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW, YEE-OWW.

© Tuffy " Gang

About the Author

Anne Fine has been an acknowledged top author in the children’s book world since her first book was published in the mid 1970s, and has now written more than forty books and won virtually every major award going, including the Carnegie Medal (more than once), the Whitbread Children’s Award, the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, the Smarties Prize and others. Anne was appointed the Children’s Laureate from 2001-2003.

Also by Anne Fine
Corgi Yearling

THE MORE THE MERRIER

EATING THINGS ON STICKS

TROUBLE IN TOADPOOL

CHARM SCHOOL

BAD DREAMS

FROZEN BILLY

Corgi

ON THE SUMMERHOUSE STEPS

THE GRANNY PROJECT

THE STONE MENAGERIE

ROUND BEHIND THE ICEHOUSE

UP ON CLOUD NINE

THE ROAD OF BONES

THE DEVIL WALKS

BLOOD FAMILY

Poetry Collections

A SHAME TO MISS 1:

PERFECT POEMS FOR

YOUNG READERS

A SHAME TO MISS 2:

IDEAL POEMS FOR

MIDDLE READERS

A SHAME TO MISS 3:

IRRESISTIBLE POETRY

FOR YOUNG ADULTS

For Junior Readers

THE KILLER CAT SERIES

THE ANGEL OF NITSHILL ROAD

HOW TO WRITE REALLY BADLY

LOUDMOUTH LOUIS

BILL’S NEW FROCK

THE CHICKEN GAVE IT TO ME

IVAN THE TERRIBLE

ANNELI THE ART HATER

SAVING MISS MIRABELLE


Оглавление

  • 1_The Diary Of A Killer Cat
  •   1: MONDAY
  •   2: TUESDAY
  •   3: WEDNESDAY
  •   4: THURSDAY
  •   5: FRIDAY
  •   6: STILL FRIDAY
  •   7: SATURDAY
  • 2_The Return Of The Killer Cat
  •   1: How it began
  •   2: Home not-so-sweet home
  •   3: Mistake!
  •   4: Stuck up the tree
  •   5: Genius!
  •   6: More fool me
  •   7: Splat!!!
  •   8: Sweet little pussy
  •   9: Rumbled
  •   10: How it ended
  • 3_The Killer Cat Strikes Back
  •   1: Not the best photo
  •   2: Whoops!
  •   3: One little biff
  •   4: ‘A riot of beauty’
  •   5: A droplet of advice
  •   6: Little Miss Last Ugly Pot
  •   7: Cat and mouse
  •   8: Before six o’clock tonight
  •   9: ‘Run, Daddy! Run!’
  • 4_The Killer Cat's Birthday Bash
  •   1: Not my fault
  •   2: ‘You talkin’ ’bout me?’
  •   3: No dogs
  •   4: Ghosts in the closet
  •   5: When poodles fly
  •   6: Not long now
  •   7: Spooking the horses
  •   8: Here comes Ugly Club
  •   9: Terrifying Beast
  •   10: The very best of shows
  • 5_The Killer Cat's Christmas
  •   1: Horrible, horrible, horrible!
  •   2: ‘Oh, goody gumdrops! Hoppers!’
  •   3: ‘The whole of Christmas in a cattery!’
  •   4: Surprise, surprise!
  •   5: Frog in a wedding dress
  •   6: Screams and tears
  •   7: Twanging the spider’s web
  •   8: Chasing half-dead mousies
  •   9: Bare at the bottom
  •   10: Chocolate coins and sausages
  •   11: Showers of falling food
  •   12: Star of the show
  •   (Unlucky) 13: The fairy on the Christmas tree
  • 6_The Killer Cat Runs Away
  •   About the Book
  •   1 Silly Pink Babies
  •   2 Parasite
  •   3 The Same Old Boring Cat-Chat
  •   4 One Good Reason to Stay
  •   5 A Chapter of Sad Farewells
  •   6 So Spank My Bum
  •   7 Dead Mice and Birds?
  •   8 Tuffy the Busker
  •   9 The Wild Cats’ Chorus
  •   10 The Perfect Home
  •   11 ‘Come Home So I Can Strangle You.’
  •   12 I Did Not Kill It!
  •   13 ‘A Photo of My Beautiful Tuffy!’
  •   14 Nightmare Stuff!
  •   15 A Blur of Fur
  •   16 No Hope of Rescue. None.
  •   17 ‘Haven’t You Heard?’
  •   18 All the Usual Rubbish
  •   19 Reprise
  •   20 My Precious, Wonderful, Amazing Tuffy!
  •   21 ‘You Promised You’d Never Forget Me.’
  • About the Author