by Ged Gillmore
From the darkness on her left, a huge grey rat appeared in a Riff Raff jacket, jumping through the air with his teeth ready to snap at her neck. She didn’t waste time in fighting him, just dodged him and ran on. She had stopped listening to her bellies and didn’t know what time it was, but she could hear the crowds in the darkness and prayed that would be enough to save her. Maybe Bumfluff and Fleabomb had got the message wrong, or maybe she had underestimated the distance? But just as she was wondering how much further she could actually run, she heard a tannoy system turn on and the unmistakeable voice of Sue Narmi booming from the speakers.
‘Toms and she-cats. I give you … Ginger Jenkins!’
At that very moment, as planned, the streetlamps circling the wasteland were turned on, illuminating the snow-covered ground below. A huge cheer went up from the darkness all around as the amassed cats of the city watched Ginger run into the light. And then, a huge growling started as the amassed cats of the city saw the amassed rats of the city, who, at last, took their focus from Ginger and looked around in confusion, wondering what all the light and the noise was about.
WHAT A WAKE-UP CALL!
Meanwhile, back at the farm, the thick clouds that had hung heavy all night, began to break up, revealing plinky stars in the inky-black sky. It was as if the clouds had chickened out of snowing after all, and had scattered in all directions before anyone could accuse them of even thinking about it. They left behind a freezing night, lit by a dull and tired moon. Tuck had dragged Bunk as far as the stables, leaning against its new glass front wall, barely glancing at the shiny machinery that stood inside. He couldn’t explain why he’d dragged Bunk out of his cage. He just couldn’t bear to see his friend’s poor limp body lying there in captivity.
Tuck listened to the sad chimes of distant church towers over the hours and spoke to his poor dead friend. He wondered out loud where all the cats they’d helped now were, or where they were going. If they were cold too, or if running home was keeping them warm. He spoke of how he hoped their owners would welcome them back, and imagined the warm welcomes each of the cats would receive. But that subject made him feel more lonely than ever, and so he tried to think of happier things. This became easier when the dark in the eastern sky began to fade, and the birds began to sing and, before Tuck knew it, a beautiful pink-and-gold sunrise had started to form in the sky above the Great Dark Forest.
Then Tuck heard a sound that was new to him. It came from the farmhouse to his left, high up in the attic. It was a clanging, ringing sound, which was suddenly silenced and soon followed by the loud yawning of a female human and the nasty nasal tones of a male human. Tuck had forgotten all about the Pongs. They must have been sleeping up in the attic of the farmhouse, where he and Minnie used to sleep.
‘Uh-oh,’ he thought. ‘Now the Pongs are going to come and find what Bunk and I have done. And they’ll probably kill me. Oh well.’
He was so depressed and tired and upset that this thought didn’t spur him into any kind of action. Instead he just sat there, still making the odd comment to Bunk’s limp and lifeless body, as he listened to the Pongs moving around and making their breakfast.
Sooner than he had expected, he heard footsteps on the stairs of the farmhouse. Then, the tall and skinny frame of Mr Pong appeared in the gap left for a front door in the half-built farmhouse wall. He was wearing a pair of pinkish spotty pyjamas. Mr Pong looked at Tuck, and Tuck looked at Mr Pong. Before either of them could say a word, Mrs Pong appeared wearing a flame-proof nightie patterned all over with fire-breathing dragons. She gave a huge yawn, the rays of the early morning sun glistening on her yellow teeth, and then, like her husband, she spotted Tuck and Bunk. As Tuck watched, both Mr and Mrs Pong looked towards the barn.
WHAT A CURIOUS PHENOMENON!
At roughly the same time, miles across the Great Dark Forest, down the river and to the left a bit, cat owners across the city were experiencing a strange phenomenon. Every single one of them was used to waking up and finding their cat alert and ready—not to mention somewhat impatient—for their breakfast. But on this morning, every single one of them found their cat—if they found their cat at all—snoring away, content and seemingly well-fed. In every street of every suburb, in houses, apartments and converted warehouses, in studios and flats and bungalows and townhouses; anywhere where cats and humans lived together, there was nothing to be heard but the sound of forks tapped on tins and shrill cries of ‘Din-dins!’ All to no avail. This sound was then replaced by the noise of cat food scraped back into tins and—in a thudding that sounded like distant thunder—fridge doors closed in disappointment. Because not a cat in the city needed breakfast that morning. Rats, after all, are very filling.
Other parts of city life went on as normal. Humans went to work as normal (albeit a little concerned for the health of their puddy-wuddy darlings and making notes to call the vet); dogs peed on lamp posts as normal; the birds tweeted about everything and nothing as normal. And, at half past five, the first number 37 bus set off from the central bus depot as normal. It had only one passenger: a rather large ginger cat who barely said hello to the bus driver as she paid her fare, and who wore a large pair of sunglasses throughout the journey. She didn’t say much, just one word the entire trip. This was when the bus driver, a chirpy, chummy, chubby chatterbox called Charlie from Chichester asked if she was going far.
‘Home,’ she said.
Then she turned, sighed, and looked out of the window.
WHAT A GRUESOME WAY TO GO!
‘Nooooo!’ screeched Mrs Pong in her thick and throaty tones. ‘Nooooo, noooo, noooo!!!’
‘Horrors!’ yelled Mr Pong in his nasty nasal voice. ‘What horrible awful evil cats! How dare they be so devilishly dishonest about their deserved deaths!’
Tuck sat listening to the Pongs screech and scream and watched the sun rise in the pale blue sky. Maybe it was the reflection of the sunshine off all the glass behind him, or more likely it was the increasing fury of the Pongs as they cursed, clamoured, and kicked cages around the barn, but he was beginning to feel rather hot under the collar. Then he remembered he wasn’t wearing a collar. All the same, he felt little nervous.
‘My coat!’ he heard Mrs Pong screech to the accompaniment of a cage being thrown against a wall.
‘My plans!’ he heard Mr Pong yell as another cage was smashed to the floor. ‘Those furballing felines will tell everyone! How can I give out free tasty treats if everyone knows they’re toxic?’
‘My coat has escaped!’ wailed Mrs Pong. ‘The ungrateful evil cunning and wretched thing. Every sleeve, every cuff, ever lapel, all gone! Not even a pocket left behind.’
Then there was a sudden silence from the barn which made Tuck look towards it. There, in its huge doorway, stood tall and skinny Mr Pong with short and dumpy Mrs Pong panting beside him.
‘All except two!’ they said together. And with that they marched across the farmyard in their nightwear towards Tuck and Bunk. Tuck let them pick him up. After all, what else could they take from him, but a life he didn’t care about? Ginger was gone, Minnie was gone, Bunk was gone. Then Tuck saw Mr Pong kick Bunk’s body roughly to one side and he scratched and spat at him. But ow-ee! Even when you’re happy to die, it still hurts like billy-o when a human gives you a shake to stop you scratching. And ouchy-oo!!! It hurt Tuck even more when Mrs Pong snatched him from Mr Pong, holding him at arm’s length so he couldn’t scratch her.
‘Turn on the skinning machine!’ she shouted to her husband.
‘Oh, Frances, what’s the point?’ said Mr Pong sadly. ‘We’ve only got one cat left.’
‘It’s better than nothing,’ said Mrs Pong, breaking into a smile which revealed her horrible yellow teeth. ‘I’m going to skin this little monster. If I can’t have a coat, I can at least get a fetching little belt.’
‘Oh, darling!’ cried Mr Pong, his eyes alight. ‘How I love you. You’re right, let’s do it!’
Tuck struggled and kicked, wiggled and w
rithed, but Mrs Pong had held him in such a way that his legs kicked only at cold fresh air and his claws caught only the morning sunlight. He watched helplessly as Mr Pong opened a glass door in the glass wall of the stables and walked inside. Then he heard the huge silver machinery inside begin to throb and hum.
‘How will we kill him first?’ Mr Pong shouted out over the noise.
‘We won’t,’ laughed his wife. ‘We’ll throw him in alive!’
Then, skipping with surprising grace, she followed her husband into the glass-walled stables and held Tuck over a huge funnel which stuck out of the end of the silver machine. Tuck looked down into it and saw blades slicing in a circular motion below him.
‘One last look at the farm,’ he thought to himself, lifting his head to look out through the glass wall before Mrs Pong dropped him to his certain death. ‘I just want to see … WHAT THE—??? WHAT??!!!!’
Now, admittedly, it wasn’t often Tuck managed to think of anything for long enough to finish his sentences, but on this occasion he had interrupted himself quite deliberately. For outside, in the farmyard, he had seen a sight he had given up on ever seeing again. Not the farmyard itself, he’d been staring at that all night. And not the barn, that looked the same as ever, perhaps a little more upright than it used to be. But, there, where the farmyard met the driveway, he saw nothing other than a fit ginger cat arriving home. And not just any fit ginger cat, but a cat called Ginger who was fitter than he’d ever seen her, looking around at all the changes that had taken place since she’d been away. Tuck blinked and blinked again until he was super-duper certain it really was her.
‘Oh!’ he thought. ‘Oh, there is a reason to live! Phew, just in time.’
And with that he sunk every one of his teeth into Mrs Pong’s podgy right hand, which she had let linger conveniently close to his mouth.
‘Agh!!’ she yelled. ‘The little monster’s dealt me a welt. Let’s melt him into a belt of pelt!’
But she wasn’t able to drop Tuck into the skinning machine. Oh painful pincers, no. For Tuck was still attached to her by his teeth. Mrs Pong waved her arm around in all directions, whizzing Tuck through the air as he tried to extract his teeth from her hand.
‘Do something, William!’ Mrs Pong screeched at her lanky husband, who was hopping from foot to foot at the sight of his irritated wife and her gyrating strife. ‘Get him off meeeeeeeee!!’
But Mr Pong didn’t need to do anything for, exactly at that moment, Tuck managed to excise his incisors and went flying through the air. Now, if this scene had happened in your house (or in your stables come to that), Tuck would have slammed straight into the large wall of glass through which he’d spied Ginger. But this is a fantastic adventure book, and, as we all know, in fantastic adventure books heroes go smashing straight through glass. Which is exactly what Tuck did. And if this had been your glass, or my glass, come to that, Tuck would have cut himself to pieces almost as much as if he’d been thrown into the skinning machine. But this is not your glass, nor mine; this is the glass in a fantastic adventure book, and so, no sooner had Tuck smashed through it, metallic cross-frames and all, than he executed a roll which Bunk would have been proud of and stood up with barely a scratch on him.
‘Ginger!’ he yelled as he ran towards her. ‘Ginger, don’t come any closer, it’s dangerous!!’
Well, smashing smithereens, imagine this from Ginger’s point of view! There she is, sauntering up to the farm and wondering how on earth she’s going to explain all her adventures to her friends who, in the meantime, have only known a simple life in the countryside, when Tuck comes smashing through a window which wasn’t even there when she left, executes a roll like he’s in the FBI or CIA or something, and then comes running towards her telling her not to come any closer. Goodness. I think that’s the longest sentence in this entire book. (Not the ‘Goodness’ one, the one before that—do keep up!) Well, even Ginger struggled to remain calm in the face of such an unexpected welcome. Struggled, but succeeded.
‘Yeah, hello Tuck,’ she said, sighing and rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t be so dramatic. Have you been eating mushrooms again?’
‘Run, run, RUN, RUN, RUN!!!’ said Tuck. ‘Oh hi, by the way. You’re looking good. Now run, run, RUN, RUN, RUN!!!!’
And with that he pelted past her. But, after all she’d been through (i.e., a long bus journey), the last thing Ginger felt like doing was running. She thought Tuck had probably been frightened by Minnie scowling at him, or a big snail, or his own shadow on the farmyard. Which was strange, Ginger thought to herself, for now as she looked at the farmyard, it looked like there was a shadow of Tuck still lying there, almost completely still.
Tuck had run almost a quarter of the way up the drive before he realised Ginger wasn’t with him. He turned to see her sitting there, squinting towards Bunk.
‘Come on, Ginger, please!’
But no sooner had he shouted this than he regretted it. For Ginger turned to face him and remained that way, rolling her eyes and sighing again, not noticing at all the tall skinny form which now stepped out of the stables holding a large black-cat-catching net.
‘Don’t be so silly, Tuck,’ said Ginger. ‘After all I’ve been thro—’
‘Ginger, look out! Behind you! Oh, please, run! Everyone else managed to escape, apart from poor Bunk; why can’t you escape too? Please! Or, at least, look behind you!!’
Tuck watched Ginger roll her eyes again and, then—as if only to keep him happy—she turned and looked. But it was too late. She had barely drawn a breath to say ‘Really?’ when Mr Pong swooped and caught her up in his net.
‘No!’ Tuck yelled. ‘No, take me, take me. Let her go!’
Without a second thought, he ran straight at Mr Pong and climbed up him with all his claws until he reached his long and skinny face. Tuck opened his mouth wide and was just about to sink his teeth into Mr Pong’s huge nose, when he felt himself grabbed from behind.
‘Thought you’d bite, did you?’ he heard Mrs Pong say. ‘Well, we’ll see who’s biting who!’
And with that she sank her horrible yellow teeth into Tuck’s back leg.
‘Yeeeowww!’ he screeched. But then, before he could screech again, he found himself thrown into the net beside Ginger.
‘Much happen while I’ve been away?’ she asked.
WHAT A TO-DO AND A HOO-HA!
Yes, yes! I know! I’m supposed to keep you in a more stressful state of suspense than a boy who’s forgotten to wear underwear and is relying on a very old pair of braces to keep up his trousers. But, ooh, I just can’t bear to do it. I’m desperate to find out what happens next. After all, let’s admit, it doesn’t look good. True, the weather’s picked up a bit, which is always nice, especially when you’re out in the countryside and the birds are singing like there’s no tomorrow. Which—if you think about it—is weird, because if there was no tomorrow, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t feel like singing; but there you are, that’s birds for you.
Manyways (to end the story), let’s fast forward to two minutes later. I warn you, though, it ain’t pretty. Stringy Mr Pong has still got the skinning machine going; tubby Mrs Pong is chortling in a somewhat deranged manner and each of them is holding a cat. Mr Pong has Tuck by the scruff of his neck and Mrs Pong has Ginger by the scruff of her neck. Youch! Being held by the scruff of your neck is fine when you’re a kitten, but no fully-grown cat likes to be held like that, let alone lifted like that, let alone dangled over the funnel of a throbbing skinning machine like that.
Poor Ginger. After everything she’d been through, taking on King Rat and his entire army and beating them, busting the biggest underground crime syndicate the city had ever known, escaping the clutches of not only the Gertrude Street Fur Girls, but also the Citrus Street Sourpusses. To have managed all of that, only to return home to be skinned alive.
And poor Tuck. Thinking he had nothing left to live for, thinking his death would be a sadness to no one, and now having Ginger die too.
‘Ho, ho, ho,’ chortled Mrs Pong over the noise of the skinning machine. ‘I’m going to make a black belt and ginger mittens! It will be soooooo tasteful.’
‘Then we’ll run away and deny we were ever here,’ said Mr Pong, revealing his plans in the way baddies always do. ‘We’ll adopt new identities and be free to develop and distribute our delicious, deadly din-dins and free the world of cats forever!!!!’
The throbbing from the skinning machine seemed to grow louder still, as if there were two machines now running, and Tuck and Ginger each looked through the broken glass wall at the beautiful day outside. Then they looked at each other.
‘Goodbye Ginger,’ said Tuck.
‘Goodbye Tuck,’ said Ginger.
And then, as the second throbbing noise got even louder and seemed to change a bit, and then got even louder still, they each closed their eyes. Then they heard a voice neither of them had heard in a very long time.
‘Welcome to a special addition of Back To Your Roots,’ they heard this voice shouting through a megaphone. ‘You are live on national television!’
Ginger was the first to open her eyes. Immediately she shut them again because she thought she must already be dead and dreaming. Then she remembered you can’t dream when you’re dead (so do it now, folks!) and opened them a second time.
