I can’t speak for the audience, but I found myself becoming more absorbed in the drama unfolding among the animals than in the one being acted out by the humans.
Act One was reaching its dramatic climax, in which the Pigs daubed the “Seven Commandments of Animalism” on the back wall of the stage. The cast chanted in unison:
“One. Two-legged beings are our enemies.”
I watched as Fudge worked her way along the side of the coop, nibbling at the rough edges of the wood.
“Two. Four-legged beings are our allies and friends.”
Her mouth reached the front corner of the coop, where the hook-and-eye fastening rattled precariously. Fudge seemed oblivious to everyone around her.
“Three. Animals shall never wear any clothes.”
The bantams became increasingly agitated as they realized that some unseen animal was trying to get into their coop.
“Four. Animals shall never sleep in beds.”
I looked at Toffy, who was following developments with an amused look on his face. He smiled and shrugged when I caught his eye. Fudge’s nibbling mouth had now come into contact with the hook-and-eye lock, which shook for a few seconds before being dislodged by her tongue. The chicken wire door slowly swung open.
“Five. Animals shall never drink alcohol.”
It took the hens a few seconds to realize that their coop was open, but once they did, they charged out en masse to the front of the stage.
Here they stopped, momentarily dazed, before squawking, “There’s a cat! There’s a dog! There are ... people dressed as animals! What the hell is going on?!”
Then they dispersed in every direction in a frenzy of clucking.
The human cast gamely ignored the commotion, raising their voices to shouting-pitch in an attempt to drown out the noise of the hens.
“Six. Animals shall never kill animals.”
Reader, I’m sure you know what’s coming. I was no longer an actor on a stage, a symbol of the lumpen proletariat. I was a ruthless killing machine, a destroyer of poultry. I was in Terminator mode, and as I looked around all I could see were flashing red targets indicating my prey.
Everywhere I looked there were panicking chickens, some attempting to fly into the backdrops, confused by the painted farmyard scenes. One charged straight forward to the edge of the stage and fell into the orchestra pit. I dropped to my haunches, stalking past Toffy, ignoring his protests of “Nancy, I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea. . . .”
Then, as one of the hens that had attempted to fly into the scenery fell to the ground in a daze, I struck.
“Seven. All animals are equal.”
The cast chanted around me, but I could no longer hear them. I dispatched my first victim easily—it was stunned by its collision with the backdrop and unable to put up much of a fight: one flick of the neck and it was dead. Seeing what I had done, the level of alarm among the other chickens increased tenfold.
“Oh, my god! Oh, my god!” they shrieked as they tried to seek shelter around the set.
One managed to flap up onto a branch of the polystyrene tree but soon discovered that it was not designed to take the weight of an amply proportioned avian. The tree creaked as it leaned to one side, gradually lowering the hen toward my expectant face.
It started flapping in an effort to evade my clutches, but I swung a paw out and grabbed the tip of one wing, snagging its feathers on my bared claws. Once I had the wing the rest was easy. I pulled the bird, still flapping, toward me, and plunged my teeth into its neck. The chicken was as big as me, and its free wing continued to flap, so I had no choice but to swing it around in a circle several times in order to break its neck. I noticed that, in its final, fear-filled moments, the hen’s bowels opened, spraying the stage with excrement like water from a garden sprinkler.
Next I moved on to two hens who were hiding behind a bale of hay. They put up a good fight, and I had to use the “slasher” technique rather than the “neck snap,” so the end result was rather messy. There were giblets, blood, and guts strewn all over the front of the stage, and I was vaguely aware of the town’s mayor and other local dignitaries in the front row screaming and wiping themselves down.
I dispatched the fifth hen easily—she was frozen with fear behind the coop and didn’t even attempt to fight.
Finally, I leapt into the orchestra pit, where I quickly cornered my last target and slaughtered it. Then, with its neck between my jaws and its innards trailing behind me, I jumped back onto the stage, instinctively dragging my prey back to my lair.
It was only at this point that I became aware that the performance had ground to a halt. I glanced up at the faces of my acting comrades. They were all staring at me in openmouthed horror. Their white animal masks were spattered with blood and excrement. Even Fudge had stopped nuzzling the coop and was regarding me with evident fascination.
I slowly turned to face the audience. There was complete silence in the hall. I could just about make out my owners in their seats, the grown-ups shielding the eyes of the little people, whose faces were contorted with fear. The only movement in the whole tableau was some feathers falling silently from the sky like confetti.
The next thing I knew, Quentin had rushed onto the stage, in what I thought was a very accurate impression of a panicked chicken. He stammered an apology and announced an early interval to allow for the stage to be cleaned and reset. Then he shrieked, “Curtain! Curtain!” and ran off.
It will probably not surprise you to hear that I did not hang around for Act Two.
As the curtain fell and the human cast began to sob, I darted into the wings, from where I was able to make a swift exit through the stage door.
I sat in the parking lot trying to gather my thoughts.
My stage debut hadn’t exactly gone according to plan. But then, I was a cat, and what had Quentin expected me to do when faced with a half dozen lunatic birds running around in front of me?
He had wanted a memorable performance, an immersive audience experience, and I believed that was what he had got. It just wasn’t memorable or immersive in quite the way he had intended.
Flicking some feathers from my paws, I considered the symbolic implications of my on-stage improvisations. In my version, the lumpen proletariat had slaughtered the peasantry. Okay, so that may not have been historically accurate, but surely, in a revolution, the peasantry were going to get slaughtered one way or another, right?
I heard the hall’s front door open, and an audience member rushed out gasping for air, seemingly in the midst of a panic attack. I had planned to wait for my owners so I could get a lift home with them, but it occurred to me that I might now be felis non grata. And besides, after my killing extravaganza, I needed some fresh air.
I trotted along the side of the building, mentally crossing “Broadway star” off my list of career options.
As I cut across the shrubbery along the side of the parking lot I heard rustling to my left. I turned just in time to see a cat’s tail disappear into the thicket.
“Who’s that?” I whispered, but there was no reply.
Pondering this mystery as I made my way up the hill helped to take my mind off the telling-off that I knew would be waiting for me at home.
CHAPTER 16
MIAOW
But fate ordains that dearest friends must part.
—Edward Young
A couple of days after my stage debut, or the Great Poultry Massacre, as my owners insisted on calling it, I poked my head around Murphy’s kitchen door. He was sitting at the table clutching a glue stick between his paws.
“Oh, hi, Nancy! I’m just updating your cuttings album!” he said, cheerily waving a page from the local paper.
I had completely forgotten that the press had been in attendance, and my heart sank at the thought of what they might have written. Before I had a chance to stop him, Murphy started reading: “‘Clucking hell! Nancy feline peckish on play’s opening night.’”
I w
inced, but, figuring that I had probably heard the worst, I jumped up onto the table next to him.
Under the headline was a photo of me swinging a half-dead hen around my head as my human castmates looked on, aghast.
“Yep. That’s pretty much how I remember it,” I said.
“Wish I could have seen it . . . ,” Murphy said wistfully as he pasted the page into the album.
“The press have had a field day,” he continued. “ ‘Feline thespian Nancy was accused of fowl play last night when she knocked the stuffing out of some chickens during a stage adaptation of Animal Farm . . . her coop de grâce only ended when all six chickens lay disemboweled on the stage.... She may prove to be the most infamous chicken killer since Colonel Sanders.’”
He laughed.
“So what’s your next stage production going to be? Chicken Run?”
“Hmm. I think I might give the theater a miss for the time being,” I replied. “Not sure it’s really my thing after all.”
“Shame,” Murphy said, smoothing the page carefully into place with his paw.
We spent a pleasurable afternoon tormenting mice at the bottom of Murphy’s garden until a fine drizzle set in and I decided to head home. Walking along the footpath I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Several times I stopped, convinced that I had seen movement out of the corner of my eye, but each time I looked there was no one there. I was walking up the grassy verge from the footpath toward my garden when I heard a rustle behind me.
I swung round to find myself face-to-face with a cat.
“Whoa!” I shouted involuntarily.
The cat, a haggard-looking black-and-white tom, smiled at me, motionless. He was wearing a pirate-style black patch over one of his eyes. As I looked quizzically at the patch he said, “Hi, Nancy. Remember me?”
He lifted a paw and slid the patch off, revealing a distinctive scar that ran from his forehead, across his eye, and down to his cheek.
“Number 29! Is that you?”
“Got it in one,” he replied. “How’ve you been, Nancy?”
“I saw you on the news . . . your escape . . . but—how did you find me?” I stammered.
“Don’t you remember? You told me about your life when you were at the shelter. About NHQ and your people and Team Nancy. It all went in here,” he said, tapping his head. He smiled uncertainly before adding, “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind! How long have you been here?”
“Oh, a couple of months now. You could say I’ve been casing the joint. Loved your performance in Animal Farm, by the way,” he said with a wink.
“That was you?” I shouted. “But why didn’t you come to the house?”
Number 29 dropped his voice and whispered, “Couldn’t do that, Nancy. I’m on the run, remember. If the police find me, they’ll take me back to the shelter. Why do you think I’ve got this?” He held up the eye patch.
“I was wondering.”
“It’s a disguise. My face has been all over the news, hasn’t it?”
“I suppose, but I’m not sure it’s the best strategy if you want to blend in.”
I thought for a few moments.
“Are you sure they’d take you back? If you like, I could ask my owners; I’m sure they’d be happy to—”
“Can’t take that risk, Nancy. Besides, I’ve never had owners, have I? Too late to start now. There are plenty of sheds around for shelter, and I’ve been helping myself to food from the houses. Including yours. Street smarts, y’see,” he said, tapping his head again.
“Well, in that case, come with me. I’ll introduce you to the team.”
He pulled his eye patch into place, and we set off through the garden.
“I’ll take you to meet Brambles first,” I said as we slipped under the trellis.
“Oh, yes, I’ve been having some fun with Brambles. Been moving his food bowl half an inch to the left when he’s not looking. It’s driving him mad!” He laughed.
“Yes, I imagine it is. Probably best not to tell him that.”
“And who’s that sour-faced calico on the other street? Doesn’t like you much, does she?”
“That’ll be Molly,” I replied. “Just ignore her. It works for me.”
I spent the afternoon introducing Number 29 to my friends, all of whom were in awe of his daredevil past. I hadn’t planned to tell Pip about him, mainly because I thought Pip would disapprove of me for associating with a criminal. But the next morning he stumbled across us on the footpath, so I had no choice but to introduce them.
To my surprise Pip seemed to take an immediate liking to our new neighbor.
“Morning,” he said, and Number 29 nodded in acknowledgment.
It occurred to me, on seeing them together for the first time, how similar looking they were (eye patch notwithstanding). They were both slim-built with long legs, and predominantly black-with-white socks and bibs.
They were so similar, in fact, they could almost have been brothers.
Perhaps the same thought occurred to them, as I thought I saw a flicker of recognition in their eyes, and although they didn’t say much it seemed almost as if they shared an unspoken familiarity.
“Well, I’ll leave you boys to it. I’d hate to intrude on the bromance,” I joked, and they shot me identical dirty looks.
Number 29’s appearance coincided with the arrival of summer. The days were warm and the garden was teeming with wildlife. For any other cat, life would have been sweet.
And yet, for me, there was something missing.
I logged on to Facebook one morning.
“What’s on your mind?” prompted the status bar.
I wanted to type in, “What am I doing with my life? What happened to my career? Where am I going?”
I stared at the computer while the cursor flashed expectantly.
What had happened to my career? Since my foray into amateur dramatics, it was as if there was a consensus that the onstage killing spree had been my final fling with notoriety—my swan song—and that now I should keep out of the limelight.
I left the status bar blank and jumped down from the desk. I needed some fresh air to clear my head.
I walked to the top of the grassy verge behind the garden and sat looking down at the footpath. Then I heard a rustle in the undergrowth and Number 29 appeared by my side.
“All right, Nancy?” he asked. “Why so glum?”
“Oh, it’s just . . . I really want to do something with my life. And I don’t know what that is, but I know that I can’t just hang around here forever, catching mice and going to the pub. I want a career. A purpose.”
Number 29 looked slightly taken aback.
“Well, you did ask,” I said.
“I want to be famous,” I went on. “I want to be a celebrity. I want to be like ... Madonna or Kate Winslet or ... Lindsay Lohan.”
At this a look of alarm flashed across Number 29’s face.
“Well, maybe not exactly like Lindsay Lohan, but I want to make a name for myself, and I don’t know how to go about it.”
“Hmm. Tricky,” he said thoughtfully. “What you really need is an agent.”
I stared at him.
“Oh, my god!” I exclaimed. “Number 29, you’re a genius!” I shouted, and I raced back to the house and upstairs to the study.
I was out of breath, so I took a few moments to settle myself on the desk, then typed, “cat + celebrity + agent,” and clicked “search.”
After scrolling through countless results offering agent details for Cat Deeley, I eventually came to a link for a website called A-List Felines. Under the agency’s logo was a banner that read: “ I CAN MAKE YOUR CAT A STAR!”
Where do I sign? I thought. First I checked the contact details. There was no point getting an agent in America. Hollywood wasn’t in my sights just yet. I was relieved to see a London phone number and address.
Next, what kind of work did this agent find? Since the online dating fias
co I knew I had to be on the lookout for weirdos.
The site gave examples of jobs the agent had found for her clients, including TV commercials, product tie-ins, and modeling for pet catalogs. It all sounded aboveboard.
Finally I checked out the agent herself. She was called Helen, and she looked to be in her midthirties, with shoulder-length brown hair and a warm smile. She described herself as a cat lover who had worked as a human celebrity agent for twelve years before deciding to specialize in felines. Prospective clients should e-mail a photo and résumé.
I selected a flattering photo and composed an e-mail in which I mentioned my singing and acting experience and attached a link to some of my press coverage. A short while later I received a reply from Helen, saying that she would read my cuttings and let me know within twenty-four hours whether she thought she could find work for me.
This is it, I figured. Amateur theater and local newspapers were one thing, but if I wanted to make it to the big time, I was going to need professional representation.
But what if she wrote back to say no, that she couldn’t take me onto her books? What would I do then? It didn’t bear thinking about.
I went into my owners’ bedroom and curled up on the bed with my paws crossed under my chin. Que sera sera, I hummed. Whatever will be will be.
The following morning I pushed the study door shut behind me and turned the computer on.
Don’t panic if she says no, I told myself, there are bound to be other agents out there. I scanned my in-box. In addition to the usual spam and Facebook notifications was an e-mail from Helen, with the subject heading “Work.”
Hi, Nancy.
Thanks for your e-mail. I’ve read your press cuttings and I think I could take you on as a client. I should warn you that it can be difficult for black cats to find work (they don’t photograph as well as lighter-colored cats), but I think with your personality and existing media profile we might be able to punch through in the marketplace.
Sex and the Kitty Page 13
