Watching the histrionics on-screen as the paternity results were announced, it suddenly hit me that, bored and frustrated as I was, things could be worse. At least I didn’t belong to any of the families who appeared on Jerry Springer. It may sound like small solace, but it marked the turning point for me.
The other consolation during this unhappy period of convalescence was Christmas. I realized that something was up when I saw my owners manhandle an enormous tree into the living room. Even in my uncharacteristically downcast state I was able to appreciate the novelty of having a six-foot fir tree in the middle of the house, especially one that smelled alluringly of fields and fresh air. It was impossible for some of the excitement of the festive season not to rub off on me. I couldn’t fail to notice how Christmas had even infiltrated the television, with every commercial break now full of jingling bells, snowflakes, or glittering logos. I became quite an expert on the Christmas advertisements, most of which were fairly unsubtle in their attempts to make humans part with their cash. There was one, however, that made more of an impression on me than the rest.
The scene was a festive-looking living room, lit only by the fairy lights on the Christmas tree. Two female cats slept on the sofa.
A flurry of soot falling from the chimney woke the cats with a start. They looked up, cocking their heads to one side, and stared intently at the fireplace, where two empty stockings hung from the mantelpiece. Suddenly a pair of furry hind legs emerged from the chimney, and with a flourish of his tail, a handsome marmalade-and-white tom dropped onto the hearth. He was wearing a red jacket with white fur trim and a matching pointy hat, and was carrying a small Hessian sack over his shoulder. He reached into the sack and pulled out two packs of cat treats, then placed one pack in each of the stockings before turning to look at the cats on the sofa, giving them a wink and a dazzling smile. Then with one bound he disappeared back up the chimney.
The female cats wistfully watched through the window as a sleigh pulled by reindeer disappeared into the night sky and the tagline “Santa Claws says Have a Kit-e-Licious Christmas!” unfurled across the screen
Now, I know what you’re probably thinking. Don’t tell me you believed in Santa, Nancy! No, of course I didn’t. But I did believe that if there was anybody who could persuade me off the sofa and back into being my old self, it was whoever that cat dressed as Santa was. He had a certain attitude about him, a joie de vivre, which reminded me of how I used to be, before everything had gone wrong after my trip to the vet.
The next day the little people woke up before it was light and charged down the stairs at breakneck speed. I followed them, curious to know what the rush was about. I was surprised to find that the tree in the living room was surrounded by wrapped gifts, which the children wasted no time in ripping open. While the little people concerned themselves with their gifts, I happily amused myself with the wrapping paper. It made a most satisfying crinkly sound when pounced on, and there were such huge quantities of it I was able to completely disappear inside, where I could pretend I was a big cat on the savanna again. Albeit a savanna covered in gaudy pictures of snowmen and Santas. Even Pip couldn’t resist having a tussle with some of the smaller pieces of paper that lay strewn across the carpet.
Once the children had finished opening their gifts, my owner handed something to me, a net stocking tied with a red bow, containing cat toys and treats. Part of me felt like saying, “Stuff your stocking and just let me go outside!” but I knew that might have appeared ungrateful. I took my stocking over to the sofa and looked through its contents. All the usual suspects were there: a catnip mouse, a plastic ball, and a pouch of food. At the bottom was a bag of chewy treats with a familiar face on the packaging: the Kit-e-Licious cat, wearing his pointy Santa hat. He was smiling. I couldn’t resist smiling back.
“Well, hello, Santa Claws,” I said in my head. “You have a Kit-e-Licious Christmas, too.”
And do you know what, reader? As the words went through my head, I do believe I blushed.
CHAPTER 6
Teenage Kicks
Partying is such sweet sorrow.
—Robert Byrne (adapted from
William Shakespeare)
A few days after Christmas I was sprawled on the sofa about to drift off to sleep when I heard a gentle tapping at the window. I opened my eyes to see an orange-and-white tomcat sitting on the windowsill, smiling at me. I lifted my head to get a better view and realized that it was the Kit-e-Licious cat. He lifted a paw and gestured behind him, where a half dozen reindeer stood with a sleigh in tow. The reindeer were all wearing plastic lamp shades around their necks. I tried to jump up to the window for a better view, but my legs felt numb and unresponsive. Instead, I turned to my left to see Brambles sitting next to me, clutching a syringe.
“Don’t worry, Nancy, this won’t hurt,” he said as he lowered the needle toward me. Then two yellow canaries fluttered down onto the arm of the sofa, cocking their heads to one side as they looked at me.
“Why is she twitching, Mummy?” the smaller canary asked the larger one.
“She’s dreaming. Try not to startle her.”
“Nancy? How would you like to go outside today?” I opened my eyes to see my owner and one of the little people crouched in front of me, their faces smiling.
I chirruped in disbelief—“Really?”
I followed them into the kitchen where my owner held the cat flap open for me.
“Go on, then, you’re free to go.”
Reader, she didn’t need to tell me twice. I dashed out before she could change her mind and inhaled the chilly air deeply. I headed toward Brambles’s house, determined to prove to him once and for all that I did not have MRSA. He and Bella were sitting together on his back doorstep, deep in conversation.
“See, Brambles, no infection!” I said as I jumped down from his fence, but I could see that his eyes were already fixed on my scar and his jaw had dropped.
“What. Is. That?” he asked, horrified.
“It’s the scar from my operation. It’s a bit itchy, that’s all.”
“Wait there,” Brambles said, dashing back into the house.
“Are you okay, Bella?” I asked, noticing her bottom lip tremble.
“I thought you’d . . . gone,” Bella stuttered as a single tear rolled down her cheek.
“Oh, God, Bella, please don’t cry. I haven’t gone anywhere, I was just locked in the house.”
“I know,” Bella squeaked, wiping the tear away with her paw. “But I’m so glad you’re back!”
Just as I was wondering whether I was going to have to hug her, Brambles reappeared, clutching an assortment of sterile dressings and antibacterial wipes. “There you go,” he said, dropping them in front of me. “You need these more than I do. For now.”
I looked at the two of them: Bella snuffling, smearing snot and tears along her paw, and Brambles’s face a picture of anxiety.
“Thanks, guys, I appreciate it,” I said, and I meant it. They were, without doubt, a pair of fruitcakes, but they were Team Nancy’s fruitcakes.
I picked up Brambles’s first-aid offerings and headed out of the garden.
After depositing the dressings and wipes in my kitchen, I felt the need for some rational conversation, so I set off for Murphy’s house. Breaking into a brisk trot on the pavement, I suddenly became aware of a strange sensation: my belly swinging from side to side as I moved. A couple of times I stopped and peered between my front legs, wondering if I had inadvertently picked something up off the street. But I hadn’t, and I came to the unpleasant conclusion that there was, simply, more belly to swing than there used to be.
Oh, my god, I thought, continuing at a gentle walk, I’m turning into Molly! Definitely need to cut back on the Kit-e-Licious treats from now on, I decided.
At the end of my road I turned the corner in front of the Marquis pub, noticing the blackboard outside, which said, “Celebrate New Year’s Eve at the Marquis—book now!”
I could h
ear a scratching sound coming from Murphy’s front garden as I approached, and sure enough Murphy was sharpening his claws on the tree.
“Hello, stranger,” I said.
“Nancy!” he exclaimed, running down the driveway to meet me.
“What happened? Where’ve you been?”
“I went to the vet’s for an operation and then got locked in the house for ages while my scar healed. Thanks a lot for visiting me,” I added pointedly.
Murphy looked shamefaced, but before he had a chance to make his excuses, I said, “So what’ve I missed?”
“Nothing. It’s been really boring around here without you.”
“Well, that’s all about to change. What’s all this New Year’s Eve business?”
“Happens every year,” Murphy replied. “The people always have parties to celebrate it. It’s tomorrow.”
“Parties, you say?” I asked, with a glint in my eye. “I don’t know about you, but I really need a party. Tomorrow night, eight p.m. If your owners are going out, let’s have it here. Invite everyone you know.”
And with that I was gone, leaving Murphy looking after me (I imagined) in awe.
Walking back to NHQ I had a renewed vigor. I was free again, I was healthy (if a little overweight), and I had a plan. I was not going to let Team Nancy off the hook this time. The whole world was planning a party and I wanted to be part of it.
I passed Dennis on the street.
“Dennis. Party. Tomorrow night. We’ll set off from my place. Spread the word,” I said without even breaking my stride.
Bella was crouched on her doorstep, waiting for her owners.
“Party at Murphy’s tomorrow night, Bella. Everyone’s coming. Including you.”
Bella was so shocked she could only nod meekly.
Team Nancy are go, I thought. Just Brambles left . . .
“Are you insane?” Brambles asked, without any awareness of the irony of his question.
“Oh, come on, Brambles, don’t let me down. It’s just a party. Even Bella’s coming. Please come. For me. You’ll be back home by midnight, I promise.”
He continued to look at me doubtfully, weighing up the risks in his mind.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” he said, reluctantly.
“Oh, Brambles, it’ll be fun. Please.”
“Oh, all right, then. Just this once. And just because it’s you.”
“Brilliant! Thanks, Brambles. Gotta go, I’ve got a party to organize.”
“But I’ll be bringing my antibac gel!” he yelled after me.
The rest of the day was spent on a whistle-stop tour of all the homes with cats in my neighborhood, spreading the word about Nancy’s New Year’s Extravaganza. By the evening I was exhausted, although I liked to think I had gone some way toward working off the excess weight around my girth. After dinner I called Pip over and whispered, “I’m having a party tomorrow night, Pip. You’ll come, won’t you?”
“Don’t be so ridiculous,” he replied.
The following day I kept a low profile at home. Menu, music, seating plan ... all the usual concerns of the diligent party hostess were running through my mind. When the little people went up to bed I knew it was probably getting near to eight p.m., so I slipped quietly out through the cat flap, under Pip’s suspicious gaze.
Sure enough, Dennis, Brambles, and Bella were loitering in the back garden, in varying states of excitement and anxiety. Brambles was dragging a plastic bag containing his first-aid essentials.
“Hi, guys. Follow me. We’ll take the back route along the footpath. We’ve got some more cats to pick up on the way.”
We set off, making our way down the grassy verge at the bottom of the garden to the footpath that ran behind, stopping only to untangle Brambles’s bag from the various branches it became snagged on.
By the time we reached Murphy’s house there must have been at least seven of us, and we could hear several more feline voices murmuring in the shrubbery around the edges of the garden.
“Murphy!” I whispered through his back door. “Are you there?”
The cat flap swung open, and Murphy’s face appeared.
“I’m here. Coast’s clear. We’ve got at least four hours.”
“Brilliant. Come on, everyone!”
We crept silently into Murphy’s kitchen, filing past Molly, who was standing like a nightclub bouncer by the door. She saved her filthiest look for me, the last one in.
“Right, then, let’s get this party started!” Murphy shouted, jumping up on top of the fridge and knocking an open box of Kit-e-Licious treats onto the kitchen floor, where it was quickly pounced on by a dozen cats (although, for the record, not by me; I hadn’t forgotten my diet). Within half an hour the party was in full swing. One cat was inside a kitchen cupboard; another was scratching the furniture in the living room; Dennis was spraying the coats in the hallway. Brambles had smeared antibacterial gel over a patch of kitchen floor and was rooted to the spot, happy to spend the evening talking to Bella. Molly had appointed herself lookout and was on the kitchen windowsill, supposedly checking for signs of her owners’ return, but actually spending most of her time shooting disapproving looks in my direction.
Now this is a party, I thought with some satisfaction as I walked past a tabby hacking up a hairball underneath the dining table. Someone had turned Celine Dion on at full volume on the CD player, triggering the more emotional female cats in the room to start yowling along.
Suddenly Molly hissed, “Quiet, everyone! There’s movement next door.”
The music was switched off and we all stopped to listen to the sounds outside. I hopped up onto the windowsill next to Molly and watched as the next-door neighbors unlocked their car and climbed inside.
“It looks like they’re going out. I wonder if that means their house is empty. . . .”
I looked around at my fellow partygoers to see if any of them would take the bait. Murphy smiled and said, “Only one way to find out.” That was enough encouragement for me, and I was out of his cat flap and into next door’s garden before anyone had time to take Celine Dion off pause.
The neighbor’s house had a cat flap, but Murphy assured me that the cat had died a couple of years earlier. I gave the flap a cursory push with my nose to check that it wasn’t locked, and it creaked open.
“I’ll go first, you wait here,” I said and nudged my way through to the conservatory. The house was dark and the only sound was the clicking of my claws on the tiled floor. I padded through the living room, down the hall, and into the kitchen.
I was just getting my bearings in the dark when suddenly the kitchen door slammed shut behind me, the overhead light went on, and there was a lady standing in front of me, her mouth open in shock.
“Who on earth are you?” she asked.
I instinctively deployed my usual tactic in this situation—I mewed piteously—but she was unconvinced.
“I’ve seen you hanging around with next door’s cats, haven’t I?”
Her hand went straight for the name tag on my collar.
“Nancy. Hmm. Thought so. You make a bit of a habit of this, don’t you?”
I ran to the door and continued mewing, pleading with her to let me go. A phone call home at this point would throw a serious spanner in the works. But my fate had already been sealed, and she was picking up the telephone.
It would not be an exaggeration to say this was a total disaster. Had Murphy realized what had happened? Would the party carry on without me? I was powerless to do anything except sit in this strange kitchen and wait.
About ten minutes later I heard a car pull up outside, and events took on a grim predictability. The doorbell rang and I heard my owner’s voice in the hall, apologizing profusely. As the lady handed me over to my owner I made one last attempt to escape, managing to wriggle out of her arms and race down the hallway toward the cat flap, but with two of them in pursuit I didn’t stand a chance. I felt my owner’s hands around my middle, and
although I tried to grip the floor with my front paws, my claws were useless on the tiles.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Nancy, can you just give it up?” my owner said with what I knew was genuine irritation.
I allowed her to scoop me up, whereupon I was carried out of the house and down the driveway to the car. My owner had not bothered to bring the cat box on this occasion, so at least I was able to ride unrestrained in the backseat. As we pulled away I saw Molly watching from the window with a self-satisfied expression on her face, and I was aware of a flurry of activity as a succession of panicked cats streaked across the front garden.
“I can’t believe you’ve done this tonight,” my owner said from the front seat. “You really do pick your moments, don’t you?”
I knew it was pointless to argue so I chose to mew in my most heartrending voice. Once back at home I was thrown (rather unceremoniously) into the living room, and I heard the cat flap being locked in the kitchen. I walked to the window to see if there was any sign of the other cats, but my owners pointedly closed the curtains so I couldn’t see a thing.
Pip sauntered past me, muttering, “Knew it would end in tears” under his breath.
I sighed and jumped onto the sofa.
“Happy New Year, everyone,” I said with a wan smile, before settling down to sleep.
“No dramas today, please, Nancy,” my owner said as she unlocked the cat flap the following morning. I hopped through, desperate to find out how the night had ended. As soon as I emerged onto the patio, Bella rushed up to me in tears.
“Oh, Nancy. It’s so awful!”
“Steady on, Bella, I know I missed the end of the party. It’s not the end of the world.”
“No, I mean Brambles.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He didn’t come home last night! There was such a panic when you got taken away; Molly kept shouting, ‘Party’s over!’ and we all left in a mad rush. I don’t know what happened to him. Dennis found his antibacterial gel in Murphy’s garden, but he still hasn’t appeared. . . .”
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