by Ged Gillmore
‘Not telling until you finish the story,’ said Tuck.
Bunk stopped walking, put his head down, and sighed.
‘A fly got into the room,’ he said, ‘during my briefing. The Director of Black Ops started telling me what I was supposed to do. The agency had discovered the Pongs were up to something, and they thought King Rat might be involved to.’
Tuck gasped. ‘King Rat!’
‘They were going to drop me into the garden of the Pongs. As a pure black cat, they knew I’d be taken. Now we know why. The Director started to explain the rest, but then a fly got into the room, and I couldn’t stop watching it. It buzzed and buzzed and buzzed, like it was about to land where I could catch it. It was big and thick and slow, but eventually it just flew out of the window again. By that time the Director had finished talking. “All clear?” he said, and I was too embarrassed to admit I hadn’t listened to a word. It was all about the Pongs and what I was supposed to do, but I’ve no idea what he said. The agency dropped me off that evening, and I still don’t know what I was supposed to be doing.’
‘Ooh,’ said Tuck. ‘That is embarrassing.’
He and Bunk stood looking at each other across the snow.
‘Still, though,’ Tuck continued cheerily. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I once vomited up half a crow and forgot to tidy it up. I left it lying there for days until Ginger told me to do something about it. It was sooooo embarrassing. Doesn’t that make you feel better?’
‘Much,’ said Bunk. ‘Thanks so much for sharing.’
‘And that’s the smokehouse,’ said Tuck. ‘Or at least it used to be. It’s where we kept all the winter stores, but they were stolen at the same time Ginger disappeared; but she didn’t do it, because she’s not like that; although, as Minnie said, you do have to admit it is a bit of a go-in-sea-dance.’
Bunk looked at Tuck, his yellow eyes wide.
‘You had food stolen? This cat who disappeared, Ginger, is she black?’
‘No, she’s ginger,’ said Tuck, who thought it was a bit of a stupid question, but was far too polite to say so.
Bunk walked over to the smokehouse and blinked at it hard. Then he walked inside it, which Tuck thought was almost as brave as going inside the caravan. Again, Bunk blinked in every direction. Then he walked blinking all around its outside, before disappearing behind it once again, this time sniffing carefully at the ground. Finding himself alone, Tuck looked back at the caravan. As he did so, he thought he saw it rock gently back and forth on its wheels.
‘Can we go now?’ Tuck whispered. ‘What if the humans wake up and find us and decide to skin us now? Bunk?’
When there was no answer from behind the smokehouse, Tuck called again.
‘Bunk? BUNK?!!’
He ran around the back of the smokehouse, following Bunk’s tracks through the thin layer of snow, to find the American staring at him furiously.
‘Cat!’ hissed Bunk. ‘If you are to join me on this mission you must remain quiet and calm at all times. I will allow you to accompany me only under these circumstances. You clear?’
Tuck stuck out his bottom lip and nodded sadly. He wanted to say ‘No verb,’ but he didn’t dare.
‘Good,’ said Bunk. ‘Now follow me, the trail leads this way.’
And he led Tuck across the grass, through the tunnel under the ruins of the milking shed and into the overgrown field.
WHAT A GANG!
Miaowntime, down in the city, Ginger was waking up. Oh, come on, you didn’t think she was going to go down that easily, did you? She might have given up one of her nine lives, but being middle-aged she had another three or four left. So once she’d had a little break, she carried on kicking until, at last, her back legs kicked into something. She gasped, kicked again, and found the something was still there. Oh curdled cod-breath, she’d only kicked herself all the way to the river bank! With a surge of energy—which a minute before she would have thought impossible—she pushed against the ground below her, harder and harder, until first her tail, then her bum ran aground. Then, and only then, did she retract her claws from the skateboard, letting the far end of it fall—splat!—into the shallow water.
Ginger turned onto her paws and dragged her raggedly bedraggled bellies out of the dark water and onto the mud beside the river. She lay there for a while, panting heavily, the shallow water still lapping at her tail. Then she forced herself to her feet and looked into the night air around her. There weren’t many lights here, just a few weak streetlamps that barely lit the old warehouses around them or the ancient wooden ramps which ran down from the warehouses into the river. Here and there, shadowy rotten staircases with half their steps missing ran up from the mud to deserted piers, but, otherwise, there was little but litter in sight. Ginger wanted to lie down again, right where she was, and sleep in the dark, but she knew many rivers are tidal and this mud might not stay above water for long. So she forced herself up one of the rotten sets of stairs, using the last of her energy to jump over the missing steps. She was exhausted, hungry and cold, but she was alive. Thanking her stars for that, as soon as she got to the top of the steps she lay down on the wharf and slept.
Several hours later, still damp and cold and desperately tired, she awoke to the sound of voices.
‘She’s dead,’ said the first voice, a smoky, croaky, hokey-cokey kind of voice. ‘Let’s throw her into the mud and let the tide take her.’
‘Nah, she’s breathing,’ said another voice. ‘Look, that belly there is moving.’
‘Let’s chuck her in the mud anyway,’ said a third voice. ‘That’ll teach her not to stray into our patch.’
Ginger opened one eye as narrowly as possible, so narrowly that, at first, all she could see was her own ginger eyelashes in the pale light of a streetlamp. Soon enough, though, other things became clear, and none of them were pretty. Three very rough cats were standing around her. One was a dirty tortoiseshell with a torn ear; one was a tabby with a pink-and-black splodgy nose, and one was an evil-looking white cat.
‘She moved!’ said the tabby, the owner of the smoky, croaky, hokey-cokey voice. ‘I told you she was alive. Let’s kill her.’
Then a fourth cat, a stumpy little thing, whose fur could best be described as poo-brown and vomit-orange, came into view and gave Ginger a rather unpleasant kick in the ribs. Still Ginger didn’t react. Not because she was too tired, and certainly not because it didn’t hurt, but because she was waiting for the right moment.
‘Dead,’ said the stumpy one who’d kicked her. ‘Chuck her in. Let’s go.’
Ginger waited until all four cats were out of her sight and had their noses underneath her back, nudging her towards the edge of the wharf. Then she sprang into action.
‘Skkeeeeowwwll!’
She jumped up onto three paws to face east so that as she slashed out with the fourth it was an unexpected southpaw. Without waiting to check if she’d made contact, she immediately slashed in the opposite direction with her other front paw. Then she arched her back, spiked her hair to make herself look huge, and checked on the situation. The tabby, the white cat, and the orange-and-brown stumpy one all had paws up to their faces. The tortoiseshell stood and stared and only then seemed to notice she now had rips in both ears. There was a split second before, as one, they all bared their teeth and yelled ‘Get her!’
Ginger turned on her tail and ran with all her might, but she only made it a few metres before realising her error. By turning east when she’d first jumped up, she’d put the pier behind her, so that now she was running along it. But the pier stuck out over the mud and the river for only a few dozen metres before it came to a sudden end. Ginger stopped and turned to look at the four furious female felines between her and the shore.
‘You maleficent moggy,’ said the tallest of them, the evil-looking white cat.
‘You’re going to regret that,’ said the tabby with the splodgy nose and the smoky, croaky, hokey-cokey voice.
‘You’re f
or it!’ said the tortoiseshell with two ripped ears.
The fourth one, the stumpy little poo-brown-and-vomit-orange cat, didn’t say anything. She just scowled at Ginger, bared her teeth, bristled her tail and ran full pelt at her. Ginger waited until the last minute and then ducked out of the way, giving the brown cat a sidekick in the ribs that almost sent her off the side of the pier. But no sooner had she done so than the white cat was on her, biting the back of her neck until Ginger felt her skin pierced. Then she felt the others on her too, felt them scratch her legs, back and tail, all of them screaming and yowling as Ginger scratched and kicked and bit back. But then—louder than any of the noise they were making—a sharp caterwaul broke the night air. Ginger felt the other cats instantly retract their claws and teeth. Instinctively, she jumped up and saw, to her surprise, all four of them standing calmly around her. Then the white cat and the tabby stepped aside to let a fifth cat through. An old grey-and-white mottled cat with faded green eyes and no more than three or four whiskers that drooped towards the ground.
‘Stranger on our territory, Sue,’ the white cat said to her. ‘Attacked us without provocation. We were just seeing her off.’
‘So I saw,’ said the old grey-and-white cat. ‘Although I wouldn’t say trying to push her into the mud wasn’t a provocation. And I wouldn’t say you were seeing her off. Wipe the blood off your face, Killa, you look a sight. And you, Ivana, fix your ears before I rip you a new one.’
The white cat and the stumpy tabby did as they were told.
‘You,’ she said to Ginger. ‘What’s your game?’
Ginger looked at the old grey-and-white cat called Sue, then at the other four cats, and considered her options. The truth felt like the best idea.
‘Came down the river on that,’ she said, pointing over the side of the pier at the skateboard stuck in the mud below them. ‘Nearly drowned. Didn’t know this was a territory. I’ll be off, if you don’t mind, don’t want any trouble.’
‘Not so fast.’ Sue held up a grey paw. ‘You can fight. You wouldn’t be from Citrus Street, would you? No, don’t worry, I can see you’re not. Still, you can fight. What’s your name?’
‘Ginger Jenkins,’ said Ginger, waiting for the normal reaction. ‘Not the Ginger Jenkins?!’ or ‘Ginger Jenkins, it can’t be!’ But none of the cats on the pier showed any reaction at all.
‘So, Ginger, you think you can wander into the Gertrude Street wharves, pick a fight and just saunter on out, do you?’
‘Like I said, I didn’t know it was your territory,’ said Ginger. ‘And, like you said, it wasn’t me picking the fight.’
Sue looked at Ginger and Ginger looked at Sue and what neither cat saw in the other was fear. It was Sue Narmi, leader of the Gertrude Street Fur Girls, who spoke first.
‘Well then, Ginger, I’ll do you a deal. Me and the girls will let you go on your way, but first you have to do us a little favour. Sound fair enough?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ginger, careful to keep her nervousness from her voice. ‘Why don’t you tell me what the favour is and then I can decide.’
WHAT A SHOW!
Ginger wasn’t the only one feeling nervous just then. Minnie, getting ready for her late-night debut at The Scratching Post, also had the jitters. Now, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that Minnie didn’t often feel this way. Don’t you just hate that about some people? The way they can do anything with confidence? If not, then it’s probably because you’re a confident person yourself, and if that’s the case, then I hope you’re very grateful. Because most people absolooooootely hate the idea of standing up and giving a speech or being in any way the centre of attention. And some cats are the same way. Needless to say (but I’m going to say it anyway), Minnie wasn’t one of them. Normally, she lurrrrrved being the centre of attention. And yet, that night, as she peeked through the curtain from behind the stage and watched the milk bar get busier and busier, she found she had butterflies in her stomach. This was probably because she’d caught and eaten several butterflies that afternoon. But, on top of that, she was also a little bit nervous.
Minnie had thought a cold winter’s evening would find The Scratching Post fairly empty, only a few friendly locals and friends of Mr Soffalot’s showing up. But now, as she peeked through the curtain, she saw almost every stool at the bar held a very rough-looking tom, whilst the booths were full of equally rough-looking groups of toms and females.
‘Why’s it so full?’ she squealed at Mr Soffalot when he passed her on the way to fetch some extra saucers.
‘I put word out we had big star in town. “Minnie, The Toilet Brush”, I called you on the posters. That alright, girly?’
Mr Soffalot laughed so hard that the black lines in his fur wiggled all along his sides. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Minnie didn’t like the oscillating ocelot Mr Soffalot’s scoff a lot. She gave him a withering glare and stuck her chin up in the air.
‘I am a star,’ she said. ‘I’m just working here undercover so I can get back to my roots and remember what slumming it feels like.’
And with that she pulled the curtains apart and strode out onto the stage.
Now, as you can imagine, Minnie had spent an awful lot of time that afternoon—when not cleaning, eating butterflies and practising her songs and dances—on her appearance. She’d given herself a full caticure: polishing and painting every one of her eighteen claws. She’d also polished her teeth with a rag from the cleaning cupboard and backcombed her tail in a way that even Ginger had once said looked pretty. She’d put sugar water in her whiskers to make them springy, and a dash of glitter in her fur to give herself extra sparkle. Of course, at the end of all this she thought she looked absolutely gooooooooorgeous, and therefore she expected everyone in The Scratching Post to think so too.
‘Ta-da!’ she sang as she walked out onto the stage, flicking her tail back and forth like it was a furry snake doing a dance. ‘It’s me, Minnie!’
There was a second’s silence as every cat in the place turned to look at her, then the previous hubbub of chatter and mewling and even some rather loud bum sniffing started up just like before. Minnie didn’t know what to do. She’d thought everyone would clap and cheer, shout and rear up on their back legs, pummelling their paws in the air.
‘I’m Minnie!’ she miaowed again.
Again, no one reacted apart from a crotchety old bagpuss seated at the bar who yelled ‘Get on with it, or get off!’
Minnie swallowed hard and walked over to the stereo. There she started up the backing track she’d chosen for her first number, a bass-heavy break beat with a jazzy melody over the top. She coughed nervously and started singing in a timid little voice.
‘I can’t help that I’m so pretty,
But I come from the big city,
So just you listen to my ditty,
Even though you’re feeling gritty.’
‘Rubbish!’ shouted the old bagpuss at the bar. ‘Get her off!’
‘Yeah, terrible,’ shouted someone else, who Minnie couldn’t see. ‘Boo!’
Minnie tried another verse, her voice trembling with nerves.
‘It’s awful being me,
I’m such a great beauty,
But, oh, why can’t you see,
Your love could set me free?’
But this verse didn’t help at all. A few other cats in the bar started booing and the grumpy old bagpuss on the stool threw a milk-bottle top which whistled through the air and hit Minnie on the nose. Well, Minnie wasn’t standing for that! She jumped from the stage right onto the bar, ran along it, knocking saucers of milk and bowls of nuts to the ground as she did so, until she was standing above the old bagpuss and could scream down at him.
‘Shut ya gob, you whiskerless old moron! You wouldn’t know a good tune if it came out of ya bum!’
The old bagpuss below her sat staring at Minnie as if he were turned to stone, but all the cats around him laughed.
‘Yeah,’ shouted one of them, a severely
shorn female. ‘You go, girl!’
Well, Minnie didn’t need telling twice. She jumped down to the floor and, trailing her fluffy tail across the faces of the most handsome toms, launched into a much more upbeat gangsta-rap version of the same song:
‘Don’t mess with the Min, yo!
Not even from the back row!
When the Min is miaowing,
You should be bowing,
Or you’ll get a scratch on your chin, yo!’
More by luck than by judgement, the backing track now came in with ‘Yo, yo, yo, miaow. Yo, yo, yo, miaow.’ Minnie jumped back up onto the stage and started rapping again.
‘My name is Minnie and I bring with me thunder
Heavier than the house which I was born under
I got love you can’t tear asunder
Messing ‘bout wiv’ me would be a big blunder.
I’m not yet thin, but I’m making a din,
Remember my name, cos I am the Min.’
And again, the backing track sang ‘Yo, yo, yo, miaow’, except this time half the audience was singing along with it. Minnie went on:
‘Don’t you ever take a stance with me,
Don’t you ever take a chance with me,
Voulez-vous go to France with me?
Well, get up on your paws and dance with me!’
And soon all the cats in the milk bar were doing just that: dancing on the floor, dancing on benches, dancing on tables and even dancing on barstools while Minnie ran between them shaking her fur furiously in all directions.
‘I am the Min and I got fur,
Look at me and you got to purr,
Am I the best? Well, durrh!
Come up here and hear my grrr.’
And the audience screamed in response:
‘Yo, yo, yo, miaow.
Yo, yo, yo, miaow.’
