Bad Cat, Good Cat

by Lynne Reid Banks

  He sat very still and closed his eyes. She moved a little way away. He moved after her.

  In David’s house, the moonlight shone on his face and woke him up. He loved moonlight. He got out of bed and went to the window. Against the full moon, he saw a silhouette: two cats, side by side, very close together.

  He leaned out of the window and stared at them. Tomorrow the cats were to be taken to the cattery. Everything he and Paloma could think of to stop it, they had done. In their separate houses, they’d begged. They’d pleaded. They’d even said they didn’t want to go on holiday! But it hadn’t changed a thing.

  David suggested that instead of putting Turk in a cattery, they leave lots of food for him. “Enough for two weeks?” said his dad. “I don’t think so! Besides, we have to lock the catflap so no strays will get in.”

  Next door, Paloma caterwauled. “Peony will be miserable!”

  “No, she won’t. She’ll be with other cats. Cats aren’t like dogs. She won’t miss us.”

  “Yes, she will! Peony loves me!” Then she thought of something worse. “Maybe she’ll forget us, and not know us when we get back!”

  Her mum tried to comfort her. She wished she hadn’t said about Peony not missing them. She took it back. “She will miss us, but she won’t be unhappy. I promise. And she will know us when we come back.”

  Paloma stopped caterwauling and tried sulking, but nothing helped. They were going to Wales, the cats were going to cat prison, and that was the end of that.

  David stood at the window in the moonlight. He thought of the locked catflaps and knew that the cattery was the only answer. He crept back to bed. But he didn’t sleep for a long time, and not just because of the moonlight. And it wasn’t because he was excited about the holiday, either.

  15. Parents With a Problem

  Next day the parents in both families woke up early. Their idea was to get the cats into their carry-boxes and to the cattery before the children were awake. And that might have saved some tears, except for one thing.

  Neither of the cats had come home.

  On each side of the wall, two mums stood calling. But they didn’t want to call loudly because they didn’t want to wake the children.

  “Turk! Turk! Breakfast!” called David’s mum in a loud whisper.

  “Peony! Oh, Peony! Come on, P., where are you?” hissed Paloma’s mum next door.

  They shhh-a-wshhed as loudly as they dared. Nothing. After a while Paloma’s mum called over to David’s.

  “Where can they have gone?”

  “Heaven knows! What are we going to do?”

  “Maybe we should tell the kids that we’ve put them in the cattery.”

  “We certainly can’t let them think they’ve run away. They’d be so upset.”

  Meanwhile the fathers met in the street in front of the houses. They were two very worried men.

  “We could leave the catflaps open.”

  “I really don’t want to do that. Two weeks! We could have every cat in the neighbourhood turning our house upside down!”

  “What if we ask our neighbours to feed them if they turn up?”

  “I’m sure they’ll be delighted,” said David’s dad sarcastically. (There’d been more complaints about the night parties.)

  “But we’ll have to.”

  The two dads stood in the street, looking at each other.

  “So. We tell the kids a lie – that the cats are safe in the cattery. Is that it?”

  “I suppose so. It’s awful, but I don’t see any other way.”

  They each went to speak to their neighbours on the other sides of their houses. Neither of the neighbours was at all pleased. The complaining neighbour, next to David’s house, flatly refused.

  “People who own cats have to be responsible for them,” she said. “I’m sorry, that’s a no.”

  The neighbour next door to Paloma’s house was a little bit nicer.

  “Oh, all right, if I see them I’ll put something out. Will you leave me some food?”

  Paloma’s dad rushed back into the house and took two big bags of dry food and two bowls to the neighbour. He just got back in time, because Paloma came downstairs and caught him coming in the front door.

  “Where’ve you been, Daddy?”

  “I – er… well. To, er… take Peony to the cattery.”

  “I didn’t say goodbye to her!”

  Her mum hurried to her side. “Now, Paloma, don’t make a fuss, there’s a good girl. We’re leaving in an hour. Please go up and decide what toys and books you want to take.”

  Through a rainbow of tears, Paloma noticed something. “Why are you so red in the face, Daddy?”

  Her dad hurried away without answering.

  Next door, David’s dad was telling him the same lie. (I’m really sorry if you thought that parents never tell lies to their children. But you do see that they were in a very difficult situation?)

  David also had to decide which special things to bring. At the last minute, when the two families were loading up their cars, he thought of something they’d forgotten – the blow-up rubber dinghy. It had been stored in the garden shed since last summer.

  He rushed out to get it. When he came back, his dad was just fastening the catflap shut. David watched. He was feeling very uneasy, without quite knowing why. His dad hadn’t looked at him properly all morning.

  “Dad. Why is Turk’s carry-box in the shed? How did you take him?”

  “What? Oh. Well. We used it, of course, and then I put it back.”

  “It’s all dusty, though.”

  “Yes. I noticed that. Now, hurry up, David, we’re ready to leave. Here, I’ll help you with the dinghy.”

  Off they went, in two cars laden with luggage. The two children travelled together in the back of David’s family car. David’s parents in the front didn’t look at each other. (They were feeling terrible. As you’d expect.)

  Paloma and David talked about how the cats would be feeling in the cattery. David told Paloma what he’d seen in the night, how Turk and Peony had made up their fight.

  Would they see each other in the cattery? They both hoped they would. Or they’d be so lonely.

  16. Abandoned

  Well, they didn’t need to worry about that.

  Turk and Peony weren’t a bit lonely. They’d been together all night, prowling around the moonlit gardens, over walls and under fences and up trees and on to the roofs of sheds, having a whale of a time. Especially Peony, who’d never had a night adventure before.

  They didn’t call a night party. They were happy just to have each other.

  Turk showed Peony how to hunt. They crouched under some bushes until a mouse ran by. Turk leaped out and pounced. He played with the poor thing for a bit, batting it with his paws. (Sorry, but that’s what cats do.) Soon Peony got the idea, and the next mouse that ran by, she had a go. She didn’t manage to catch it, but that was because she wasn’t trying very hard.

  Turk offered her his mouse. She drew back. She’d never tried to eat anything alive before. “No, thank you,” she said. “I’m not hungry.” Nor was he, so after a bit he let the mouse go.

  I’m afraid this was not going to happen again. Letting the mouse go, I mean. You only play with your food when you’re not hungry. When you are, you eat up, quick. Actually, neither of the cats had ever been very hungry, because their food was always there in their bowls on the kitchen floor.

  When morning came, Peony wanted to go home, but they were rather far away by now and Turk was having fun jumping from one shed roof to the next. But when they finally did find their way home, they got a very nasty surprise. The catflaps on both houses were firmly shut. So were the doors and windows. And the cats knew, right away, that the houses were empty of people.

  This gave them both a bad feeling. They each tried meowing loudly outside their back doors, but of course nobody came. The nicer neighbour next door to Peony’s house heard Peony meowing and called her.

  “Peony! Com
e! Get some food!”

  But Peony didn’t go. She didn’t know that voice, even when it said her name. Instead she climbed on to the wall on Turk’s side. She could see him prowling about. He jumped on to the kitchen windowsill, and then jumped down again. After a moment he joined her on the wall.

  “Can’t get in,” he said.

  “Me neither,” she answered. “What shall we do?”

  “Don’t ask me.”

  She pushed her head against his. They lay on the wall together for a long time. Turk began thinking about that mouse he’d let go. After a while, he said, “Let’s catch something.”

  “What?”

  “A bird?”

  “I like birds,” she said. “I like watching them.”

  “Never mind watching them,” said Turk. “I want to eat one.”

  David’s mother liked birds too. She had a bird-table, which was supposed to be cat-proof – nice and high so Turk couldn’t get on it (so she thought). And until now he never had, because he’d never needed to. Now he sat on the wall watching birds coming and going to the bird-table, which had some stale bread on it. He was a good jumper. He crouched in the ivy, his hips wiggling. Could he make it, from the wall? No.

  He jumped down and went and stood under the bird-table, staring up.

  The birds flew away. But when he didn’t move, they came back. He listened to them, chirping away happily above his head. Maddening! He couldn’t stand it.

  With all his claws protracted, he made a scrambling leap up the post and got his front paws over the edge of the table. He hauled himself up. There he stood proudly on the cat-proof bird-table. All by himself, of course. Not a bird in sight.

  From the wall, Peony watched him. Somehow she’d known it would be no good. She got down, and hid in a bush. Her tummy was feeling very strange, and this strange feeling made her sure that she could catch a bird if she tried.

  I’m sure a lot of you love birds. I love them too. So I won’t describe what happened next. But what Peony discovered was that the strange empty feeling inside made her move much more quickly than ever before. It made her able to do things she hadn’t known she could do. And soon her tummy was full again. The strange feeling went away and she sat on the wall watching the birds in a different way than before.

  What about Turk? He’d seen what had happened. This girl cat had shown him up again. She had done what he hadn’t. She looked happy and full. He felt unhappy and empty.

  But somehow this didn’t make him angry, like before. He felt sort of proud. As if he’d done the clever thing himself.

  This is how they passed their first day without families, while David and Paloma got further and further away, thinking their beloved cats were shut in a cattery. They didn’t feel good about that, but they’d have felt a whole lot worse if they’d known what was really happening.

  17. Going Feral

  When family cats lose their families, they don’t sit around and mope, or pine and die of hunger. They go back to nature. They become feral, which means they learn to look after themselves.

  But Turk and Peony didn’t go back to nature straight away. First they learnt to be burglars. This was Turk’s idea, of course.

  There were lots of cats in the neighbourhood, and lots of catflaps, and before two or three days had passed, Turk had found them all. Some of them had special fastenings so that only the right cat could get in, but many of them you just had to push your head against, and there you were, in a strange kitchen, often with food laid out all ready to be stolen.

  Peony didn’t like doing this sort of thing, but Turk said, “We have to.” So she let him go first and then if he meowed for her, she would follow.

  But they had to stop these raids, because word went around among the other cats and then there was bad trouble. The cats that the catflaps belonged to lay in wait for them. Turk would get halfway through a flap and suddenly there would be a hiss and a yowl, and a furry, furious figure would leap at him, and he’d have to back out very fast before he got his head bitten off. (Well, not off exactly, but you know what I mean.)

  Backing out of catflaps isn’t nearly as easy as going in front-wards. The first time it happened, Turk tried to turn around while he was in the catflap. He got stuck, and the cat behind him bit him hard in the ribs. Another time he nearly got his tail bitten off. (Not quite.)

  The next time, the owner of the catflap ambushed him before he’d even got to the catflap.

  “Aha! There you are, you grub-snatcher! Gotcha!” it yowled.

  Turk, caught off-guard, tried to run, but the other cat – a big tom who was supposed to be one of his night party pals – jumped on him and there was a snarling, howling fight. Turk won, but he was beginning to look as if he’d been in a cat war. He was a walking cat-astrophe. Peony licked and licked to make his bites and scratches not hurt so much.

  After a couple of bad experiences like that, they kept away from houses. They learned to be good hunters. But soon the birds, mice, rats and squirrels passed the word around that there were two feral cats hunting in the gardens and they kept away, or kept hidden.

  Thin times followed. Beetles. Worms. Frogs. Don’t ask.

  After a lot of days, there came an evening when everybody put their rubbish bags out for the dustbin men to collect the next morning. Prowling about the pavements, his tummy one big hole of hunger, Turk could smell good food. Not the nice food in sachets and bags that he was used to, and not fresh meat. Bones. Leftovers. They were shut up in black sacks, but he could smell them just the same.

  There is nothing so good for ripping open plastic sacks as some well-protracted cats’ claws. Soon the pavements were scattered with the rubbish that Turk and Peony had dragged out of the torn-open bags.

  They went to bed full of junk food that night. Lovely things they’d never eaten before, like Kentucky Fried Chicken. Chicken bones are supposed to be bad for cats. But Peony and Turk didn’t know that you could get bone-splinters stuck in your throat. They chewed happily on the bones like a pair of little hyenas.

  Did I mention ‘bed’? No comfortable armchairs or duvets or (Turk’s favourite) the warm place under the radiator for them! They slept curled up together on the ground under a shed. At least it was dry, which was good, because it rained in the night, and when they woke up, all the smells had changed and the ground was wet. It was still raining. But they had to crawl out just the same because they were hungry again.

  It was very early – just getting light. The birds were singing, but high up in the trees, where they couldn’t be caught. Turk and Peony crept through a side alley, under a gate, and into the street where the bags were. There were lots of bags they hadn’t explored. They found one that smelled good, and they were just going to tear it open when—

  “Run!” hissed Turk. “Run hard!”

  He was off and gone before Peony could turn around. But when she did, she got such a shock she couldn’t run. She just crouched down, every hair of her fur on end and her mouth open wide.

  There in front of her was a red animal with long legs and a bushy tail and a pointed nose. He was trying to bite one of the black bags open. But when he saw her, he left the bag. He put his head down low and moved towards her. His lips curled back from his teeth. Those teeth! This animal was hunting.

  Have you guessed what it was? It was a fox. An urban fox – that is, one that’s come in from the country because of all the food there is in town; easy food that they don’t have to catch and kill. But that doesn’t mean they’re not quite ready to kill, if they see something tasty. Like a little black cat, for instance.

  Peony backed away, hissing fiercely. The fox crept after her. She found herself backed against a low wall in front of a house. Did she dare turn and jump over it to get away? She was afraid to take her eyes off this monster.

  Suddenly, Turk was there! He was on the wall above her. He didn’t wait a moment. He leapt straight at the fox with all his claws out, his mouth snarling, his ears laid flat, his sharp lit
tle teeth ready to bite.

  When she saw that, Peony stopped being scared. She flew at the fox too. Two of them were too much for that city hunter and he turned and ran, his bushy tail between his back legs. Yelping!

  Turk stood for a moment, back arched, fur on end, watching him go.

  “That’ll teach him to hunt cats!” he said. “We showed him cats are better than dogs!”

  “Was that a dog?” asked Peony, rubbing herself along his side to flatten her fur.

  “Sort of, I think,” Turk said. “Rotten, anyway.”

  They went back to the bags. But they didn’t get anything, because along came the council trucks to take all the bags away. And weren’t the men annoyed when they saw the mess – all that rubbish strewn all over the pavement!

  “Rotten cats,” they told each other.

  Which just goes to show it all depends on your point of view, who’s rotten and who isn’t.

  Anyway, by then the two cats had vanished. Back into their wild, dangerous life without families.

  18. The Lie is Discovered

  Meanwhile, in Wales, things were only sort of going well.

  First of all there was the weather. There’s a lot of weather in Wales. But they could have got around that. You don’t have to be on the beach all the time. There’s lots to do in Wales and the children’s parents were determined not to let the weather spoil things.

  They went to a circus, set up on the fields outside their village. They visited a place where there was an aqueduct, which is like a high bridge across a valley, but instead of a road, it has a canal in it so that boats can go across. The boats are narrow (the canal is only a few feet wide) and the families enjoyed riding the boat and looking over the edge at the river far, far below.

  They ate out in all sorts of pubs and cafés and did some shopping (there are lovely things to buy in Wales). They went driving in the mountains. The fathers did a bit of kayaking. It should have been a lovely holiday.