The Secret Cat

by Sarah Lean

  “You’ve got a warthog in your kitchen,” Tom said slowly. “That means there could be anything in the lift.”

  “Whatever it is, it might be trapped, so we have to rescue it. You pull the rope, Tom. I’ll stand over there and keep guard.”

  Monday looked exceptionally keen to find out too.

  Tom took a deep breath and tugged on the rope. The pulley was stiff and creaked, but Tom heaved and pulled until the bottom edge of the lift appeared. One more big pull and …

  The lift shot down with a bump and Tom dived behind the table with Tiger.

  “Yeeowwrrreeeeow!” said a voice from the lift.

  Monday squealed back.

  Tiger put her hands over her eyes, while Tom quickly peeped over the top of a chair. He caught only a glimpse of the mystery creature before he slid back down to the floor.

  “Well?” Tiger said. “Is it strange or scary?”

  Before Tom could answer, the mystery creature had already jumped out of the lift and headed over to the children.

  It hooked its tail around the chair leg.

  “Rowwrrreeeeow,” it said, peering round at the children.

  “Arrgghhh!” shrieked Tom, pulling the front of his T-shirt over his head.

  “Tom,” Tiger said calmly, “it’s just a cat.”

  The cat looked Tiger up and down, put her nose in the air and sauntered away. Just a cat!

  The children tried to follow the white cat with the softly weaving tail and to tempt her with a saucer of milk, while Monday sulked alone in her pen. But no matter what the children did, the cat wouldn’t come over to them. She turned away, twitched her tail, and padded back upstairs.

  She seemed quite at home at Willowgate, though.

  “What was that strange yowling noise earlier today?” May Days said in the tent that night.

  “A mystery cat,” Tiger smiled. “She lives in the house and so does a warthog, but we have to live in a tent outside.”

  May Days chuckled.

  “It is very skew-whiff here,” Tiger said.

  The perilous plumbing was underway. May Days was still assisting the plumber and had little time to look after Monday.

  Whenever May Days needed help to feed the wartie or clean the pen, Tiger had an excuse – a picture to colour, a chapter in her book to read, or a letter to write to Mum and Dad. Tiger wanted to help May Days, but the thought of cleaning up poopy straw and having to hold a scratchy, wriggling wartie didn’t sound like fun. Besides, Tiger wouldn’t know what to do …

  “I wonder who’s brave enough to train a warthog?” said May Days.

  Train a warthog? That sounded a lot more appealing than feeding and cleaning.

  “What will this brave person have to do?” Tiger said, looking up from her half-coloured tiger picture.

  “Follow some instructions,” May Days said, waving a list. She yawned. She’d been up several times in the night to comfort Monday, who whined and squealed at being left on her own in the kitchen.

  Tiger twitched her mouth from side to side. “I’ll go and get Tom.”

  Tiger ran to the hole under the hedge, but instead of finding Tom, there was a clean empty tin can lying there. A long piece of string disappeared through the hedge and a rolled note was inside the tin. It said:

  Tiger pulled the string and felt it go taut.

  “Hello, Tom? Are you there?” she said and then held the tin next to her ear.

  A tinny little voice came back, “I can hear you, Tiger! You have to say ‘over’ when you finish speaking. Over.”

  “OK. Over,” Tiger said.

  “Also, when you begin, you have to say: ‘Tom, this is Tiger’ and then say your message. Over.”

  “Tom, this is Tiger. Please can you come round for Operation Wartie. Over.”

  “Tiger, this is Tom. Yes, I can come over. Over. Oh, that sounded funny because I said ‘over’ twice … Over.” Tom groaned.

  The string went slack, and a moment later Tom crawled through the hedge.

  “What’s Operation Wartie?” he said eagerly.

  “Only for the brave,” Tiger said. “We’re going to train a warthog.”

  Tom grinned.

  Tiger turned back towards the house and saw the mysterious white cat watching them from a window upstairs.

  “Hello, cat,” Tiger called, as she didn’t have a name for her yet. “It’s Operation Wartie today. You can come if you like?” But the cat turned her marble eyes away.

  The first instruction from May Days said this:

  1. Monday needs to learn to drink from a dish instead of a bottle.

  Tiger weighed and mixed together Monday’s drink, which consisted of soya milk, a white powder from the vet and porridge. Tiger passed the dish to Tom, who climbed on a chair and into the pen. He kneeled and carefully lowered the dish to the ground. Monday trotted over and straight away stuck her nose in the mixture. She snorted and sneezed froth all over Tom, which made them laugh.

  “Has she actually drunk anything?” said Tiger.

  Tom shrugged. “Most of it is up her nose or on the floor.”

  “Let’s see what the next instruction is,” said Tiger. Perhaps there was something easier to do.

  2. Dig a den – see Wild Lives book.

  May Days had left a book open with a sentence underlined in pencil. She had also drawn a small map of the garden, and marked where the den should be, between the tent and the beech tree.

  “Warthogs often sleep in abandoned aardvark dens,” Tiger read from the book. “They use their snouts to dig … Is a snout the same as a nose, Tom?”

  “I think so,” he said, wriggling his nostrils.

  “Does that mean we have to dig with our noses?”

  Tom pointed to the two spades leaning by the back door.

  “Phew!” said Tiger. But she’d never used a spade before. At home Mum had a trowel for the plant pots, and Dad had a hose pipe to clean the patio, but they didn’t have a lawn or spades.

  There was only one thing for it … “Come on, Tom,” said Tiger, picking up a spade and heading out to the garden.

  The ground beneath the beech tree was hard and the spade swayed when Tiger stood on it. Tom and Tiger made lots of narrow dips in the earth with the spades, but the swaying was so much fun that they forgot what they were supposed to be doing, until they noticed the cat sitting nearby.

  “The cat wants to learn how to make a den too,” laughed Tom.

  As if she knew she was being talked about, the cat twitched her tail in the air and strolled away.

  “Do you think Monday should be watching us dig so she can learn?” said Tiger.

  “Good idea!” said Tom and they raced back to the kitchen.

  Tiger asked Tom to bring the warthog, and he carried her at arm’s length as she wriggled excitedly in his hands. Tiger dragged the pen across the kitchen, laughing as she bumped into the table and chairs and down the kitchen doorstep. Eventually she reached the beech tree and gently rested the pen on the ground and Tom put Monday back inside.

  “Pay attention, Monday,” said Tiger. “We’re going to teach you how to dig a den.”

  Tiger and Tom tried to dig again, but after a few minutes they were worn out and Monday was hanging her head, whining unhappily.

  “Do you think Monday is still hungry?” said Tiger.

  They decided to take her back to the kitchen to try feeding her again, but the second time was no better than the first – bubbles, snorts and a bottom in the dish.

  Tiger didn’t know what to do so she sat on the floor of the pen and sighed. May Days came into the kitchen. “How are you getting on?” she said.

  Tiger buried her head in her arms and Tom flopped in a chair.

  “We have been extremely unsuccessful at being warthog trainers,” said Tiger. “We couldn’t even do number one.”

  Tiger kept her head buried and pointed to the oats and milk, spilled and splattered, and to the straw and mud spread to the open back door.

&n
bsp; “It was too hard,” wailed Tiger, and Monday whined again.

  May Days’ face still glowed with Africa’s sunshine and from something warm inside herself.

  “If somebody else is brave enough to train the wartie tomorrow,” said May Days, “what advice shall we give them?”

  Tiger and Tom had lots of answers for this: Don’t put Monday’s drink in a dish that’s bigger than her. Don’t sway on the spade if digging is too hard. Learn how to dig!

  May Days said this would be very helpful advice, but Monday was hungry and needed feeding now. She made up a bottle of milk and fed her with that instead.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to train her all in one day,” said May Days, “but who has been brave enough to begin to try to train a wartie?” The children smiled at each other. “And, more importantly, who learned something along the way?”

  Tiger climbed out of the pen, so relieved, and hugged her grandmother around her middle. “We have,” said Tiger.

  “And one more thing,” said May Days. “I heard rather a lot of giggling today. Somebody must have been having fun along the way.”

  “Do you want to try again tomorrow, Tom?” said Tiger.

  Of course he did.

  That night May Days cupped her hands. She held something invisible and passed it to Tiger to put in her pocket.

  “It’s only small,” she said, “but even the smallest thing can be very valuable.”

  “What is it?” said Tiger.

  “A little Tiger Bravery. And you definitely earned it today.”

  The white cat came and went at Willowgate as if she owned the place. She would slink through the open front door and then saunter out the back, and sometimes she could be found sitting in the lift in the wall.

  May Days had explained to Tiger that the lift was used in the olden days for taking hot dinners upstairs, so the butlers and maids didn’t trip on the stairs and spill the gravy.

  “Why did they take the dinner upstairs?” Tiger asked.

  “Because the dining room was upstairs.”

  “It’s always been skew-whiff here,” Tiger said, although that gave her an idea about how to train Monday, with the cat’s help …

  Dennis the zookeeper regularly called at Willowgate to see how the warthog was getting along. Monday had to be measured and weighed to make sure she was eating enough and growing.

  Tiger saw Dennis’s van driving towards Willowgate, so she ran down the drive to open the gate for him. She climbed in the passenger seat for a lift back up to the house.

  “How do you train a cat?” Tiger asked Dennis.

  “If we’re talking about big cats, like lions,” Dennis said, “I’d say keep well away from sharp claws and teeth, and remember they’re smart when they’re hungry.”

  “What about small white ones?” said Tiger.

  “Hmmm,” Dennis scratched his chin. “I’d probably say the same.”

  Dennis had brought a package and a tin bucket.

  “What are they for?” said Tiger.

  “For you and Tom,” said Dennis. “I heard you were planning on becoming animal trainers.” Dennis explained how the bucket was his secret weapon when it came to training.

  Tiger opened the parcel on the kitchen table and then ran to the hedge, tugging at the string on the Tin-a-phone until she felt it go taut at the other end.

  “Tom, this is Tiger. You’d better get over here quick. I’m so excited! Today is Operation Cat. Over.”

  “Yippee!” shrieked Tom. “Over.”

  Dennis had brought the bucket to help with training, but he’d also brought Tom and Tiger something to help them feel more like animal trainers – green boilersuits and sunglasses, just like his! The clothes were the smallest he could find, although still a little on the loose side. May Days snipped off part of the arms and legs, rolled up the ragged ends and tied their waists with belts. Tiger and Tom put on their dark sunglasses and felt very interesting and professional indeed.

  “Operation Cat has begun,” said Tom boldly.

  The white cat had come into the kitchen to see what was going on, her tail weaving like a cobra.

  “Cat, we’d like your help,” said Tiger, but the haughty white cat strolled away and went back upstairs. “Don’t worry, Tom,” said Tiger. “That is part of the plan.” And she told him what they needed to do.

  “But what’s the bucket for?” asked Tom.

  “It’s a surprise, but you’ll find out soon!” said Tiger.

  The children collected lots of small bowls and saucers from the kitchen shelf. They put a small spoonful of warthog milky mixture in half of them, and a spoonful of cat food in the other half.

  Tiger put a milk bowl in Monday’s pen and a saucer of cat food in the lift. While she banged the tin bucket with a spoon, Tom hauled the lift upstairs. They listened for the soft thud of paws going into the lift and then, a minute later, jumping out again. They lowered the lift back down.

  The saucer was empty. The cat had eaten the food.

  Monday tried to sit in her food bowl, but it was too small and she knocked it over, but no animal trainer minded that.

  Every now and again Tiger gave Monday another bowl of milk and banged the bucket while Tom hauled more cat food upstairs. Monday tried kneeling in her food, sitting in it, sticking her head in it, but she didn’t know how to drink it.

  And then, just as they were about to give up, Tom lowered the lift down and the cat was inside.

  Tiger and Tom giggled. This is exactly what they had hoped would happen.

  The cat looked up and licked her chops, as though she wasn’t the slightest bit bothered about what was going on. Monday quivered with excitement at seeing the cat appear in the wall.

  Tiger put a saucer of milk on the floor next to the pen and a new bowl of milky mixture inside the pen for Monday, then she banged the bucket again.

  Tiger tugged Tom’s sleeve and they crept out the back door and crouched underneath the kitchen window. They slowly stood up to peek through the window and saw the cat jump down from the lift.

  Tiger and Tom held their breath in anticipation.

  The cat walked over, sat down beside the pen and lapped at the saucer of milk. Monday pushed her nose through a gap, trying to sniff the cat and then she looked long and hard at the creature drinking her milk. Monday looked at her own bowl and then back at the cat. Suddenly Monday knelt down on her knobbly knees and slurped from her own bowl, copying the cat.

  Tiger and Tom leapt up like kangaroos. “We did it!” said Tiger.

  “We are real animal trainers now!” said Tom. “But I still don’t understand why you had to bang the bucket?”

  “It’s a zookeeper’s secret weapon,” said Tiger. “Every time you bang the bucket they know they’re going to get food. They’re smartest and learn best when they’re hungry. Dennis taught me that.”

  “Tom! Tom!” his grandfather was calling through the hedge. “Dinner time!”

  “Grumps,” Tiger heard Tom say as he crawled home through the hedge, “what you could actually do is bang a bucket instead of shouting, and I’ll know it’s dinner time.”

  Tiger was still smiling at the end of the day.

  “Today you taught Monday how to drink from a bowl,” May Days said, kissing her goodnight. “Now all you have to do is teach her to dig a den.”

  Tiger snuggled into her sleeping bag and May Days turned out the lamp.

  “Today I also thought of a good name for that mysterious white cat,” whispered Tiger. “Can we call her Holly?”

  “Is that because her sharp claws are like a prickly bush?” said May Days.

  “No, because I hope she will always be here when I come to stay in the holidays.”

  May Days began to chuckle and Tiger giggled.

  From now on, Holly Days would be part of the family too.

  The orphan warthog was an escape artist.

  Monday was getting bigger and stronger. Whenever she was left alone for too long, she jumped up ag
ainst the side of the pen, knocked it over and escaped, and Tiger would have to herd her back.

  Dennis came over to weigh the warthog again and was very pleased with her ballooning belly.

  Monday could now feed from the bowl, but she still had a lot to learn about being a warthog.

  “Some things happen naturally,” said Dennis, “and for other things she’ll need a helping hand. Who’s got helping hands?”

  “Us!” said Tiger and Tom, turning over their palms.

  Dennis showed Tiger and Tom the correct way to dig and helped them start the den in the shadow of the beech tree, before he left to go back to the zoo. Tiger rolled up her sleeves and tied up her hair, enjoying the new experience of digging and feeling strong and useful.

  When the den was just about complete, Tom noticed the Tin-a-phone jiggling by the hedge and they both ran over to pull it tight and pressed their ears against the tin.

  “Hello?” said Tom, not sure who it could be. “This is Tom and Tiger’s Tin-a-phone. Who’s there? Over.”

  “Hello? This is Grumps. I’ve made some limeade and coconut biscuits and I wondered if you could think of anyone I could invite to share them with. Over.”

  “This is Tom,” said Tom into the Tin-a-phone. “I don’t know anyone around here. Over.”

  Tiger tapped Tom on the shoulder and took the tin from him. “This is Tiger speaking. I can think of someone. Over.”

  “Who might that be? Over,” said Grumps.

  “Us!” giggled Tiger.

  Grumps’s laughter made a lovely clanging sound, echoing through the tin.

  “I say,” said Grumps, beaming at the children in their zookeeper outfits, “you must be Tiger, the animal expert.”

  Tiger blushed, but was very pleased to hear that.

  “You must be … is Grumps actually your name?” said Tiger.

  “Tom calls me Grumps because he says I’m grumpy,” he laughed.