The Killer Cat Strikes Back

by Anne Fine

  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 pu
t 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.