Cats on the Run

by Ged Gillmore

  ‘What are we going to do?’ he asked Ginger, thinking, ‘Don’t say cross it, don’t say cross it, don’t say cross it.’

  ‘We’re going to have to cross it,’ said Ginger.

  ‘Couldn’t we just walk along for a bit to see if we can go under it?’

  ‘We looked from the pine tree, Tuck. We looked as far as we could see in both directions. There aren’t even any tunnels, just cuttings and places like this where it sits on the ground. This is our only chance.’

  Tuck didn’t say anything. What could he say? There was no point in saying he wanted to go home. And he couldn’t say he was hungry because they had, of course, eaten the annoying turkey in the tree. And he couldn’t say he was cold because it was going to get even colder before it got warmer, as Ginger kept reminding him. So he just hunched down with his legs underneath him; curled his tail tight round himself, making sure he didn’t touch the huge supporting wall; and whimpered as quietly as he could. Ginger rolled her eyes and walked a few metres away to look up at the motorway again.

  ‘Gorgonzola,’ she said. ‘This is going to be fun.’

  They stayed like that for hours, Ginger looking at the motorway, Tuck looking at Ginger, the wind growing stronger so that the noise of the traffic swelled and shrank in waves. Here beside the wall the trees had been cleared when the road had been built, and only small bushes and thin saplings popped up from the rocky ground. Between them lay ancient litter and new leaves, the wind catching them occasionally and whirling them around before letting them settle in a new mess. It was a dead and depressing place, neither man-made nor natural, just the worst of both worlds. As the sky grew dark and the cold of the night became more of a threat than a promise, Ginger suggested they move back into the trees.

  ‘It’ll be warmer there,’ she said, ‘and maybe we’ll find some food.’

  ‘Humph,’ said Tuck. ‘You going to hunt for us, then, are you?’

  Ginger looked at him. ‘You got a problem, Tuck?’

  Tuck said nothing and followed her towards the trees, but halfway there he spotted a movement. Not a potential supper movement either, something bigger than that.

  ‘Ginger,’ he said. ‘Ginger!’

  She turned and he motioned towards the movement, but Ginger ignored him.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘You’re just a scaredy-cat.’

  ‘Am not!’ said Tuck, who couldn’t believe how brave he’d been ever since they’d left the flat.

  ‘You are,’ Ginger said. ‘You’re scared of everything. You’re scared of your own shadow, you’re scared of every noise and every new thing, and you’re going to be too scared to cross that road when we need to.’

  ‘Am not!’ said Tuck. ‘You’re just fat and horrible and lazy, and you can’t hunt, and you’d have starved to death by now if it wasn’t for me. You couldn’t even catch that turkey stuck in the tree!’

  ‘Yeah, whatever. But at least I wasn’t scared of it like you were, Tuck. Listen, if you really think there’s something over in the trees, go and find out what it is, you chicken.’

  Well, that was just about enough for Tuck. He’d had it up to here with Ginger (which isn’t very high for you and me, but for a cat it’s above their limit). Without another word he pushed Ginger out of the way and ran directly towards where he’d seen something moving in the trees. He dodged a dandelion, pushed past a pile of pine needles, and threw himself straight into the shadows. Ginger was about a third of the way through a mysterious smile when she heard the strangest noise she’d heard since she’d toured with the Chinese opera. It went, ‘Aghimiawebb itoooooorcroke!!’

  And then it went quiet. Very, very quiet.

  ‘Tuck?’ said Ginger. It was properly dark now, and she could see only about a metre ahead of her. ‘Tuck?’

  But there was no answer. ‘Tuck, please,’ she said. ‘Don’t play games. You’re not really a coward. If anything, I’m the one that’s scared now.’

  And it’s true, she was. But being brave isn’t about not feeling fear, it’s about feeling fear but doing something anyway. So Ginger walked slowly in the direction where she had seen Tuck disappear into the shadows.

  ‘Tuck?’ she miaowed softly every so often. ‘Tuckerby?’

  Suddenly a huge pair of yellow-green eyes appeared beside her. ‘You called me Tuckerby!’ he said, smiling to reveal his shiny white teeth as well. ‘You’ve never done that before!’

  ‘Agh!’ yowled Ginger, every hair on her body standing on its end and her tail bristling like a giant sea sponge. ‘Cheeses, you frightened the furballs out of me. I was really worried.’

  ‘Worried? About me?’

  ‘Worried that maybe you needed my help,’ said Ginger, licking herself back into shape.

  ‘Well,’ said Tuck. ‘Maybe. I’m not sure. This thing, what is it? Is it poisonous?’

  Ginger followed Tuck’s gaze down to his feet and was not all that surprised to find a huge toad lying on his back, pinned to the ground by one of Tuck’s front paws. The toad was a very dark green with big brown splodges all over except on his tummy, which was somewhere between white and grey. He was kicking uselessly with his four legs in the air.

  ‘You want let me go?’ he hissed at them.

  ‘Are you poisonous?’ said Tuck.

  ‘Why you no lick my back and find out, hairball?’ said the toad.

  Ginger put her nose down and sniffed the toad. He held her eye in a very menacing way.

  ‘Why were you watching us all day?’ she said.

  ‘All day!’ said Tuck.

  ‘Yeah, he’s been sitting under the trees all day watching us. What’s the game, Slimey?’

  ‘You want talk, you let me go,’ said the toad. ‘Maybe I can do something for you. Maybe I get you to other side.’

  ‘You mean where the dead people live?’ said Tuck.

  ‘I think he means the other side of the motorway,’ said Ginger. ‘Let him go. Let’s hear what he has to say.’

  ‘Can’t we just eat him?’ said Tuck.

  Ginger looked at the toad. The toad looked at Tuck. Tuck looked at Ginger. A classic Mexican standoff.

  ‘No,’ said Ginger. ‘For one thing, we have no garlic, and for another, I want to hear what he has to say.’

  His name was Juan Carlos, and like them he was a long way from home. He had grown up in a lagoon on the far side of the country.

  ‘But no future there,’ he said. ‘Developers buy the land and they reep it up.’

  ‘Oh, that’s awful,’ said Tuck. ‘Can’t someone do something?’

  ‘They could but they don’t. My family, they have no power. They just sit and glower hour after hour watching mowers devour the flowers. Alone I can do nothing, so I leave. I travel north of the border to the land of opportunity. Big ponds, endless flies. I not to want read about a better life, I want to leev a better life. So I hit road, travel long, long way. All OK until here. I no get across. I wait here two weeks. I watch you, think maybe you find way across. Normally, I no speak to cats—no offence—but I think we help each other, no?’

  They were sitting under a rock ledge where Juan Carlos had set up his camp. It was protected from the wind and conveniently close to a large puddle, from which Juan Carlos encouraged them to drink and in which he sat to tell them his story.

  ‘Oh, that’s awful,’ said Tuck again. He was touched by the story of the road toad far from his abode breaking his code to share his load.

  ‘What do you mean, “help each other”?’ said Ginger.

  ‘I watch traffic for two weeks. I see patterns,’ said the toad. ‘Traffic seems endless but is not. There are breaks in traffic. But you need see them coming. Me, I no see so far. I climb tree, I see break in traffic, but then is too late when I get to road.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Ginger. ‘I get it.’

  ‘Aha,’ said Tuck. ‘I don’t.’

  So Juan Carlos explained it again. ‘I watch traffic for two weeks. I see patterns. Traffic seems endless but
is not. There are breaks in traffic. But you need see them coming. Me, I no see so far. I climb tree, I see break in traffic, but then is too late when I get to road. You geddeet?’

  Tuck nodded and smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘I watch TRAFFIC for TWO weeks,’ said Juan Carlos. ‘You no speak English or sometheeeng?’

  ‘Tuck,’ said Ginger. ‘J.C. wants us to go up the tree while he waits on the side of the road. We tell him when there’s going to be a break in the traffic and then he crosses the road.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Tuck. ‘I get it! But why doesn’t he just come up in the tree himself?’

  ‘Jose Maria Joseph!’ said Juan Carlos. ‘Este gato es tonto!’

  ‘Ah, lo se,’ said Ginger. ‘Pero por favor no lo diga.’

  ‘So,’ said Juan Carlos. ‘What you think? You help me, I help you?’

  ‘Why should we?’ said Ginger. ‘Tuck can tell me when I can cross, and then on the other side I’ll find a tree from which to signal him.’

  ‘Ginger!’ said Tuck. ‘But it was Wham Carlos’s idea! He’s already helped us. Now we have to help in return, or else it won’t be fair. Tell him you’re joking.’

  Ginger rolled her eyes. ‘Of course I was joking. I was just in road-toad goad mode.’

  And for what seemed like the first time in a long, long while, Ginger let a huge smile crease her face. There was little in life she ever found as amusing as herself.

  Jimmy the Sagacious, I mean Brother Stink, oh, you know who I mean, led Major and Minnie to an inner courtyard of the monastery where he now lived. It was called the Temple of Feline Fine, and like the Furom, like much of the world of alley cats, it was well hidden from human eyes. But there the similarities ended. Where the Furom was a musty, towering place with a subtly aggressive energy, the temple, or at least this courtyard of it, was fragrant and calm. Even though it was fully dark by now and the first spots of rain lighted on the breeze, Minnie wanted to lie down and stretch as if she was in the sun. She wanted to hear how on earth Jimmy the etc. had moved from one place to the other, but Major wasted no time in bringing them to the point, and of course there was nothing she could do about it.

  ‘Jimmy,’ he said, ‘you can probably guess why we’re here.’

  Jimmy the Stink aka Brother Sagacious gave a little cough and looked Major in the eye. ‘I’m guessing I’m looking at a cat who’s calling in a debt,’ he said.

  ‘I need a favour, Jimmy.’

  ‘Well, I’d be neutered before denying I owe you one, my brother. How can I help?’

  So Major told Jimmy about his life with Ginger and how good it had been and then how one day she’d left. About how he’d presumed she was gone for good until an angry witch turned up and kidnapped him. About how he’d read the location spell and smelled Ginger and another cat there and how the—Oh really, do I have to tell you all this? It’s not like you might have missed last week’s episode or something.

  ‘That’s heartbreaking,’ said Jimmy when Major had finished. ‘I only wish I could guide better energy towards you. But how can I help?’

  ‘I need to get back to the stables and fast. I reckon Ginger’s on the way there. If she finds it empty, I don’t know how we’ll ever find each other again.’

  Jimmy looked at Major sagaciously but said nothing.

  ‘I need a car,’ said Major. ‘A good car and a good driver.’

  The old monk opened his grey eyes wide, coughed again, and frowned. ‘I see. … The thing is, Major, I’ve been out of the game a long time. I don’t have the connections I used to.’

  ‘If it’s too much to ask …’ said Major.

  He caught Jimmy’s eye, and they looked at each other a while. Each of them with memories of a foreign battle and a sacrifice made in friendship.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ said Jimmy slash Sagacious at last.

  ‘TIME’S UP!’ said Minnie. ‘Look! Twenty whole minutes, I did it, I did it. Woo-hoo! Double dinner and victory smugness! Now, where’s my plates of nosh? Sagacious? Sagacious! I bet you’ve been sagging for ages, look at ya, ah ah ah ah ah.’

  Without a word between them, Major and Jimmy the Stink (definitely not Brother Sagacious right at that moment) pinned Minnie to the ground, each with a paw over her mouth. Jimmy looked at his old friend across the writhing ball of fluff beneath them.

  ’Major, I will do everything in my power to reunite you with Ginger. But it will be dangerous. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  A BIT OF A MESS ON THE MOTORWAY

  Juan Carlos sat on the side of the motorway. Zoom! Zzzoooom! Brrr… brrrr… BRR… ZOOM! went the cars and lorries and buses and vans and trucks and motorbikes as they passed him. Have you ever been near a motorway without being in a car? I wouldn’t if I were you. It’s different from a normal road. The cars are travelling twice as fast, for one thing, and they’re not looking out for lights or corners or pedestrians or toads or anything at all. A motorway is a very frightening place to be if you’re not in a car. If you don’t believe me, wind down the windows next time you’re driving along one. Exactly. And that’s how it feels for you and me.

  Imagine how much worse it would be if you were wet and slimy and the size of a toad. Poor Juan Carlos. But he stuck it out because he was a determined amphibian. He blinked the raindrops out of his eyes and stared not at the traffic, not at the roadkill which had croaked it making earlier attempts at crossing the road, but at a large pine tree at the edge of the forest. ZooommmmmMMM! wwwwwWWWOOOWwungggg went the traffic behind him. Still no movement from the tree. Juan Carlos didn’t let himself wonder if the cats had done a runner on him, and of course he didn’t succumb to the temptation to hop across the road until he got his signal. No. He just sat and waited.

  Meanwhile up in the tree Ginger and Tuck were—surprise, surprise—having a fight.

  ‘I’m not going out there,’ said Tuck. ‘You go!’

  ‘I have to stay here and watch for the gap in the traffic,’ said Ginger.

  ‘Why can’t I stay here and watch for the gap in the traffic.’

  ‘Because you’re too st-st-strangely heavier than I am.’

  ‘I’m not. You’re fat and I’m fin, fine, and fit.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Ginger. ‘You’re full of muscle.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And as everyone knows, muscle is one-third heavier than fat.’

  Tuck didn’t have an answer for that.

  ‘How about a compromise?’ said Ginger. ‘You go out to the end of the branch, and when I give the signal you jump up and down on it. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll go out and try again, and if you’re right, well, you can call me fatso for the rest of the journey.’

  Tuck thought about this for a while, but then he remembered he’d already been thinking about something a minute before and too much thinking made his head hurt.

  ‘Oh, go on then,’ he said. ‘But I’m doing this for the toad, not for you.’

  And so Tuck left the relatively dry shelter of the greenery near the trunk and walked out onto the branch which Juan Carlos and Ginger had agreed would make the best signalling point. It felt like a long way out. It felt like he was walking the gangplank in a not-very-true-to-life pirate movie. When he and Ginger had been climbing the first tree, they’d stuck close to the trunk all the way up. This tree wasn’t quite that high, but out here, towards the end of a branch, things were a lot wobblier.

  ‘Oo-ooh,’ said Tuck. ‘Ee-ee.’

  ‘You need to get further out,’ Ginger yelled from behind him. ‘You need to be able to bounce the branch. Unless you’re too scared?’

  Well, as we know, Tuck didn’t like being told he was scared of anything (even though he was scared of everything, especially vacuum cleaners), so he pushed himself on.

  ‘Aa-aah,’ he said. Then ‘Uu-uu’ as the branch got wobblier still. It was wetter out here, and the wood beneath his feet was slippery. The ground seemed a very long way down.

  ‘F
urther,’ he heard Ginger shout. ‘All the way!’

  And then Tuck slipped. He felt it happening but could do nothing about it. His two right feet fell to the right of the branch, and his two left feet fell to the left of it. He landed heavily on his stomach, and the whole branch bounced beneath his weight, the ground coming slightly closer and then going slightly further away again.

  ‘That’ll do,’ said Ginger. ‘Now just wait there.’

  Tuck was too scared to tell Ginger what he thought of her just then. He pulled his feet back onto the branch and sat crouching there, mewling quietly. After a while he summoned up the courage to turn around. He could see Ginger staring from her safe, dry, and relatively comfortable vantage point down at the road.

  ‘Hurry up!’ he said. ‘I don’t like it here.’

  Ginger ignored him at first, but then she seemed to see something further up the motorway in the direction from which all the traffic was coming.

  ‘What’s the capital of France?’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was just wondering if anyone knew what the capital of France was?’

  ‘I know!’ said Tuck.

  ‘You see, I really want to know, but I just don’t know what it could be.’

  ‘I know!’ said Tuck sitting up tall with one paw in the air.

  ‘Spit and polish,’ said Ginger, ‘if only there was someone who knew. Does anyone know what the capital of France is?’

  ‘Me! Me!’ said Tuck, jumping up and down as high as he could with his paw in the air.