by Ged Gillmore
Minnie followed ‘I Am The Min’ with a human-house remix of ‘Scritchy Scritchy Scratchy’ which made the audience do nothing but caterwaul for more. But she left them begging until Mr Soffalot dragged her back onto the stage for an encore. Being a total star she had, of course, left the best for last, bringing the house down with a big-band bombastic blowdown version of ‘I’m Too Furry For Your Love.’
Well! The noise from the audience was so loud Mr Soffalot was worried the cat cops would come and shut The Scratching Post down. He told the audience if they wanted more of Minnie they’d have to come back the next night, and they had to leave now or there would be no more performances ever. With that he ushered them all out into the night, pressing himself against the door to keep out a group of underage kittens who’d had too much milk and were still singing, ‘Yo, yo, yo, miaow!’ Once that was done, he bolted the door behind him and turned to find himself face-to-face with Minnie. She was twirling her whiskers with a wicked look on her face.
‘The price just went up, innit?’ she said. ‘Two saucers of warm milk a night, my own dressing room, an assistant and twenty per cent of the takings.’
Mr Soffalot stared at her wide-eyed. Minnie’s winning grin put him in a spin, but he recognised pulling-power when he saw it. After tonight he’d soon be able to charge entry, maybe even extend The Scratching Post to get more cats in.
‘Done,’ he said. ‘But I want an exclusive twelve-month contract. You perform five nights a week, every week, for a year.’
‘Oh no,’ said Minnie, aghast. ‘I can’t do that. There’s an audition in the city I’ve got to get to—’
‘Take it or leave it,’ coughed the bossy ocelot, who was cross because he knew Minnie would cost a lot, but hadn’t made the toss as to whether he’d make a loss or not. ‘Either you take a twelve-month contract this minute or you take nothing. You decide.’
WHAT A FRIGHT!
I want to point out, right now, that this story is not a series of ‘who-was-facing-the-biggest-dilemma’ competitions. If it were, I would suggest that Ginger and Minnie had already won one each. But, worry not, Tuck is about to win one too. Not that it was his wont to want to win one that winter.
‘No!’ he was saying to Bunk, as Minnie was being heeded in The Scratching Post and the Fur Girls were seeing who needed patching most. ‘I can’t! You can’t make me! I won’t go in there!’
For just as Ginger had stared fear in the face that night and had decided to remain calm, so Tuck was now staring fear in the face and deciding to panic and cry.
‘Cat,’ said Bunk, ‘you don’t have to go in there. We’ve been through this twelve times now. I’m going to go in there and you can either stay here, or go back to the lorry, or maybe try and hide on the farm.’
‘I can’t,’ said Tuck. ‘You can’t make me! You said I could come with you.’
‘So come with me.’
‘I can’t! You can’t make me! I won’t go in there!’
‘Thirteen times,’ said Bunk.
Tuck looked at Bunk fearfully, then even more fearfully at the frightening sight behind him, before swallowing hard and bracing himself for the shouting. It was always at this stage in the conversation—when it had gone around more than ten times—that someone started shouting at him. Minnie tended to shout and snarl and walk off, whereas Ginger was more likely to shout and sigh and roll her eyes and walk off. Bunk, however, remained where he was.
‘You’re not shouting,’ said Tuck.
‘A raised voice is generally not helpful to a stressful situation,’ said Bunk in his quiet American accent. ‘I detect you are unable to make a rational decision and will therefore help you determine the best outcome. Are you more scared when you are with another cat or when you are by yourself?’
‘By myself,’ said Tuck. ‘There’s no one to shout at me when I’m by myself.’
‘Then the choice is made. You will accompany me into the Great Dark Forest.’
‘But what if I go fungal in the jungle?’
‘I will remain by your side at all times,’ said Bunk. ‘You clear?’
Tuck nodded, so shocked at what he was agreeing to that he forgot to say ‘No verb’. Instead, he stood, his legs trembling beneath him, and walked close by Bunk’s side as they left the overgrown field behind them and entered the GDF. He looked up to the sky, where heavy snow clouds were forming once more, and knew this would be the last time he saw it until the forest was behind them. If they ever got that far.
‘Do not be afraid,’ said Bunk, as if reading his thoughts. ‘All we have to do is remain on the path, then we cannot get lost. You clear?’
‘But what if we lose the path?’
‘As long as we stay on it, we can’t lose it. Stay close beside me, and you’ll be fine.’
Soon the forest canopy closed above them and the air around them was darker than ever. Tuck was happy to stick close to Bunk’s side, not only to stave off fear, but also to stave off the cold. He remembered how, on his previous journey through the forest, he and Ginger had often had to snuggle close together for warmth. Strangely though, Bunk didn’t feel warm at all, so being beside him didn’t feel as comforting as it should have done.
Now Tuck had—I need not remind you (but I’m going to anyway)—all the physical attributes of being frightening himself. Indeed, if you were a little bird or a rat or anything edible to a cat, he probably was frightening. But, of course, Tuck wasn’t self-aware enough to realise this. Like a human who screams at the sight of a spider, he had no idea he was far scarier than the things he was scared of. Like leaves, for example.
‘Agggh!’ Tuck screamed, as an oak leaf drifted down from the windblown canopy and brushed his right-cheek whiskers.
‘Eeek!’ he yowled, as another fell and brushed him on the left.
‘Oh, someone save me, save me,’ he cried as two more leaves dropped. ‘Save me from this long and torturous death by a thousand flutters!’
‘Stay calm,’ said Bunk beside him. ‘As long as we stay on the path—’
But just then a strong breeze lifted a whole crowd of leaves from below their feet and swirled them all around them.
‘Ooh, ooh, ooh, it’s a torn-hay-doe,’ shouted Tuck. ‘It’s a whirly-wind; a Thai-phone; a cycle-own.’
And he ran as fast as he could to escape the flurry of leaves. Well, let’s not forget how fast a cat Tuck is at the best of times; and let’s not forget, either, how much faster we all are when we are scared. It was two minutes before Bunk caught up with Tuck in the shadowy undergrowth beneath the trees.
‘Calm down,’ Bunk said again. ‘I am here. All is well.’
‘All is well,’ Tuck repeated. Then he repeated it another ten times, until even he was bored and thought it might be a good idea to say something else. So he said ‘Stay calm. All we have to do is stay on the path.’
As he said it, he watched a strange expression appear on Bunk’s face. Then he watched Bunk look down at the ground below his paws. Not only were they not on the path, neither of them knew in which direction the path lay. As Bunk looked up at Tuck again, his underbite rather more pronounced than normal, a gust of wind opened the forest canopy and heavy snowflakes began to fall from the sky, landing heavily on the two black cats.
Have you ever seen a blizzard? It’s like the heaviest windstorm you’ll ever see combined with the heaviest snow you’ll ever see. A snowstorm, you could call it. In fact, you could probably replace the word ‘blizzard’ with the word ‘snowstorm’ in most situations and no one would ever notice. Unless, of course, you’re playing Scrabble, in which case I want to know where the second ‘Z’ came from in the first place. Bennyhoo, for the rest of that night the snow fell so fast and so thick and in such huge great flakes that had Bunk and Tuck not stuck to each other’s sides, they would have lost each other for sure. At the same time, the wind howled and blew and blustered. It shook the great dark trees of the Great Dark Forest like they were long-armed monsters, angry with the world and keen to do nothin
g but shake the snow off their shoulders and onto whoever was below. Tuck and Bunk had to shout to each other over the howling wind and the complaining trees, and they had to blink and shake their heads to keep the snow out of their eyes. Progress was slow, and they had no way of knowing which way they were heading, or indeed if they were heading in a particular way at all rather than going around in circles. After an hour or so, cold and wet and tired, they found a slope with a large rock jutting out, and Tuck begged Bunk to let him rest underneath it.
‘I know we have to tell the Agency about the evil Pongs as soon as we can,’ said Tuck as they crawled in beneath the rock. ‘But I also want to sleep and rest my frozen paws. Ooh, this is all my fault. If I’d only stayed on the path, we’d be in the warm and snuggly Agency headquarters by now.’
At first Bunk said nothing. He looked out at the snow, which was blowing horizontally between the creaking trees. Then he said, ‘Negative. The path has the probability of being the fastest way through the forest. But we would not be in the CIA HQ yet.’
When Tuck asked why not, Bunk hesitated again.
‘The headquarters moves,’ he said at last. ‘For security reasons.’
‘Ooh,’ said Tuck, shaking the snow off his back. ‘That’s so Mr Reeyus! Where is it now?’
This time Bunk’s hesitation was longer still, and Tuck thought maybe he’d said something wrong. He too looked out at the blizzard raging outside until Bunk turned back to him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘It was part of the brief I was given by the Director when I was distracted by that fly. He told me the precise location they were moving to but … I wasn’t listening.’
Tuck gasped. ‘But who does know?’
Bunk shook his head sadly, then flinched as a brief change in the wind brought some snow in under the rock, dusting his back white again.
‘Nobody,’ he said. ‘There was nobody the Cat Intelligence Agency could trust. We used to have a contact in the forest—an underground digger with a velvety coat—but he turned out to be a mole.’
‘But … but … somebody must know!’ said Tuck. ‘What about Santa? Or the fairies? Or the elves and the mushrooms? What about the wise old owl? Or the magic wishy-washy tree?’
Bunk turned to him again, his yellow eyes suddenly bright in the shadows.
‘What did you just say?
‘But … but … somebody must know! What about Santa? Or the fairies? Or the elves and the mushrooms? What about the wise old owl? Or the magic wishy-washy tree?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Bunk, ‘it was a rhetorical question used as an expression of surprise. There was no actual need to repeat what you said. However, Tuck, I am very grateful you accompanied me on this mission. For now I know exactly where we must go.’
WHAT AN EFFORT!
Downriver, in the mean and gritty streets of the big bad city, Ginger was working hard. But unlike Tuck and his frozen toes and no-doze woes, Ginger wasn’t confused. And unlike Minnie and her prohibitively perk-packed contract, she wasn’t facing a dilemma. After all, when a vicious street gang offers to let you go, but only if you do them a favour, what choice do you have? (Here’s a clue: none!)
And what was the favour? Stop, stop, it was another rhetorical question! Who do you think is writing this story after all? You’re just the reader, don’t forget. Well, not ‘just’, I mean, the reader is a pretty big part of a book, I’ll give you that. Without you, dear reader, these pages are only nicely-bound litter. Or a convenient bundle of paper for stopping your table from wobbling. Not that Ginger or Minnie care, of course, not as long as you paid full retail price, but Tuck is very sensitive about such things.
Anyhoo, the favour wanted by the Gertrude Street Fur Girls—a gang so fearful that Ginger had heard of them even if they hadn’t heard of her—was this. They wanted her to represent them in a duel against their sworn enemies from across the wasteland: the Citrus Street Sourpusses.
Oo-ee, I know! Doesn’t the very mention of these two gangs strike fear into your heart?
Doesn’t it?
Really?!
Man, you are as hard as nails! Unless of course—and I suspect this is the case—you’re not up-to-date with feline street wars. If this is the case, then trust me, these two girl gangs are meaner than a cleaner from Argentina. I get nervous just typing their names! For, whereas everyone (apart from you) knows the Gertrude Street Fur Girls—and particularly their leader Sue Narmi—are the most malevolent, malicious and meanest moggies in the metro area, everyone (apart from you) also knows the Citrus Street Sourpusses—and their leader, Anna Fellactic—are more vicious, villainous and vile than vermin. And that’s saying something. (Isn’t that an annoying expression? I mean, of course it’s saying something! Did you think I hummed it?)
Sennyhoo, every year, the Fur Girls—Oh! I should introduce them, I think. Remind me, I’ll get back to what happened every year in a minute. First of all, here are the FG’s.
The big white cat with the evil face was Killa Heels, one of the well-known cracked Heels, always angry at being downtrodden. The tabby with the splodgy black-and-pink nose and the smoky, croaky, hokey-cokey voice was Shutya Face, as foul-mouthed a feline as ever you might meet (with the exception, of course, of our own darling Minnie). The tortoiseshell, now with two ripped ears, was Juliet Balcony, and the stumpy brown-and-orange cat who had kicked Ginger in the ribs was Ivana VeeVee. Ivana VeeVee was a proud ex-fighter herself and often carried around her old boxing gloves. She’d scrawled records of all her old fights on the gloves and had even written on a mitten that she’d bitten a kitten. But the meanest of all the Fur Girls, and the boss of all them, was old grey Sue Narmi.
They were nasty to the bone, the Fur Girls, but above all they were a team. Or, you could say, a gang. Each of them had their own reasons for ending up on the street, but, once they joined the Fur Girls, none of them ever looked back. The gang became the family they’d never had, and they swore to gladly die for each other, or kill each other, depending on the time of the month.
Now, every year (you were supposed to remind me) at the start of winter, the Gertrude Street Fur Girls and the Citrus Street Sourpusses would settle their territorial disputes with a duel. This was a battle not only for pride, but also for survival. Whoever won the duel won the greatest territory and therefore had the greatest chance of finding food through the winter months. Scraps in rubbish bins, open windows to enter houses and steal dinners, rats and mice, even humans to beg food from. The gang which lost the annual duel, on the other paw, would go hungry and not all of its members would make it through the winter. Oh yes, folks, it’s tough on the streets, and don’t you forget it.
So each year the Gertrude Street Fur Girls and the Citrus Street Sourpusses would put forward their best fighter for a one-bout-wins-all catfight. You may have seen one of these? If not, I must warn you before you read on, they are gruesome. The two cats involved stare at each other, ears flattened back on their heads, screaming with their mouths closed until— Oh, oh, I can’t bring myself to write it! There are scowls and fouls and howls and yowls with multiple vowels, which would empty your bowels if you heard them.
‘You up for it, Ginger?’ asked Sue Narmi that day on the wharf, with a lack of verbs Bunk would have been proud of. ‘You willing to represent the Fur Girls?’
Well! What choice did Ginger have? Oh, come on, I know you know the answer to this one. And yet, Ginger was torn, for she thought of Tuck and Minnie waiting for her back on the farm. Their chances of making it through the winter if she returned empty-pawed were worse than those of a losing city street gang. On the other paw, if she didn’t do this favour for the Fur Girls, maybe she wouldn’t return at all.
‘Bring it,’ she said, pretending it was an easier decision than it really was. ‘But first I’ll need a training montage.’
Now, for those of you who’ve never seen a film, I must explain what a training montage is. It’s what happens when the main character wants to achieve
something reeeeeeally difficult and they have very little chance of succeeding. What happens next is this: a song starts up in the background and you see a series of scenes where the character is working reeeeeeally hard to get fit, or work in a team, or learn to dance, or whatever it is. So now I must cut to a scene of Ginger running up and down the biggest flight of steps in the city, carrying a bag of flour on her shoulders, while Sue Narmi yells at her to work harder. Then (don’t forget to put on some music while you’re reading this bit), let’s see her running along the street, the cold winter air fogging her breath as she tries to keep up with tall white Killa Heels. Now here she is, practising her flying hook kicks over Ivana VeeVee’s head, while Sue Narmi sits in the corner with a critical look on her face. Dum! Dum-dum-dum! Dum-dum durrh! That’s the music fading away as we see Ginger is fitter, firmer and more fluid than ever. The old girl has got her game back. Why, she’s even down to two bellies!
But what’s this? Sue Narmi and the Fur Girls are not the only one’s watching Ginger’s progress. As she struggles up and down the stairs, a pair of beady eyes is watching her from the shadows. As she runs alongside Killa, those same eyes observe her from a gutter across the road. And as she practises her hook kicks, they stare at her from a nearby drain. Who could it be? We will have to wait and see, for with the music they too fade away, disappearing into the fade-out of the montage.
Once the music had fully faded, and Ginger’s heavy breathing from her latest super-tough workout could be heard, Sue called her over to the corner where she was sitting.
‘I’ve got news.’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Ginger, wiping the sweat from her face with the towel that was draped around her shoulders. ‘What’s that?’
‘Word on the street is the Sourpusses have a new member. I didn’t believe it at first but we’ve checked it out and it’s true. They’ve brought in a pro. It’s … it’s Kimberley Diamond-Mine.’
‘Not Kim DM, the world champion professional street fighter?’ said Ginger.
