Cat Among the Pumpkins

by Mandy Morton

  All eyes turned to Mildred, who had threatened to nod off but was now sitting up straight, suddenly the centre of attention. ‘Me! Running a shop! In a little village in the country!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re ’avin’ me on! No one gives me a chance like that. What would I know about shops? I’ve never had the money to spend any time in ’em.’

  The company laughed nervously, and Balti came to the rescue, patting Mildred’s paw reassuringly. ‘No worries there, Mildred. We shall close the village shop for a couple of weeks while Bhaji and Lavinia decorate your new home, and you can come and learn the trade from me while you’re waiting to move in.’

  Mildred looked even more confused. ‘New home! Where? And what about me flat and all me things?’

  It was Bugs Anderton’s turn to take centre stage, and she rose to the challenge in style. ‘I have decided to sell my house after all and move back into the town. After what happened, I’ve no wish to remain in a place with bad memories and I have agreed to sell to Lavinia and Bhaji, who wish to make it their family home. I’m delighted to say that includes you, Mildred.’

  Lavinia, seeing the look of shock on Mildred’s face, added her own words of reassurance. ‘Only if you want to, of course. If you’d rather stay in your flat, that’s fine. We could get a manager in for the shop while we’re away, but we wanted it to stay in our family and you can have your own space at the house to do what you like. We’d love to have you there.’

  All eyes turned once again to Mildred, and even Hettie held her breath. Before she could respond, Irene Peggledrip rose from her kitchen chair and began to make a deep-throated gurgling sound, culminating in a puffing out of her cheeks. Bugs Anderton reached into the sink for the washing up bowl, convinced that Irene was going to be sick, but suddenly – as if she were in the room – the voice of Mavis Spitforce came clearly from the medium’s mouth. ‘Mildred, my dear sister, take your happiness while it is offered, mend what I have broken, live a long and happy life.’ With that, the voice stopped and Irene Peggledrip lapsed into a bout of violent hiccups which were eventually brought under control by a slap across the face from Delirium Treemints.

  Irene Peggledrip looked as bewildered as the rest of the gathering as she came to her senses, but Mildred Spitforce seemed to glow with a new understanding. ‘If I’m to be family, I must share my fortune with you,’ she said, turning to Lavinia. ‘Thaddeus Myers’s legacy has been passed down the family and now his sovereigns rest with me. I’ll give them to you and Bhaji as my contribution to our future.’

  A cheer went up around the kitchen as Bhaji produced a bottle of Dosh Stores fizz from behind his back. With the party now in full swing, Hettie and Tilly said their farewells with much patting of backs and made their way home, satisfied that the Milky Myers case had finally been solved and that the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency had notched up another triumph. Hettie’s only hope now was that the firework display would go the same way.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Betty and Beryl Butter’s garden was a hive of activity by the time Hettie and Tilly arrived home. The bakery had shut early to allow for the frantic preparations for the bonfire supper, and both bread ovens had gone into overdrive with the sheer volume of pies, pastries and fancy biscuits. Falling over the threshold, half-dead with hunger, Hettie was happy to help Beryl by devouring two beef pasties which weren’t ‘quite perfect’, having met with a slight accident during their retrieval from the oven. Tilly was also keen to oblige, and chewed her way through some slightly damaged parkin biscuits.

  Brushing the crumbs from their macs, they changed into thick, warm jumpers and wellington boots and headed out into the garden to see what was to be done. Bruiser clearly hadn’t stopped all day, and was now helping Betty to lay out two long trestle tables ready to receive the food. To one side was a bubbling cauldron of hot sticky toffee, mounted on a Calor gas ring.

  ‘Perfect timing, Miss Tilly,’ said Betty, leading her towards a mountain of apples on sticks. ‘Get stuck in with these. Toffee’s just right fer dippin’.’ To demonstrate, she took up an apple by its stick and plunged it into the boiling toffee, spinning it once before bringing it safely to land stick-up on a metal tray. Needless to say, the toffee apple was perfect, a work of art, and by the time Tilly had finished it would still be the only perfect one – but nobody would mind once the bonfire party had begun. The main problem would be how quickly Tilly could pick and chew all the dried dollops of toffee off her jumper over the coming weeks.

  Hettie joined Bruiser in setting up the folding chairs, conscious that the light was beginning to fade and the Catherine Wheels needed to be nailed to the fence while she could still see what she was doing. There was, however, one of the most difficult tasks still to come. ‘We gotta get that knitted Guy on top o’ that bonfire somehow,’ Bruiser pointed out, ‘and the sooner the better before it gets dark.’ Hettie nodded in agreement and they strode purposefully back to the yard, where Mr Fawkes loomed over the coal bunker as if he’d already started on the bonfire punch. Taking one leg each, they dragged him down the garden path, inadvertently uprooting a number of Brussels sprout plants along the way. The bonfire stood tall and magnificent against the darkening sky. Bruiser had done a fine job of laying and stacking cardboard, wood and old newspapers, ready for the crowning glory, although it would have helped if Lavender Stamp had run out of wool before this year’s offering reached quite such gigantic proportions.

  ‘I think it’s a case of pushin’ and shovin’,’ said Bruiser, opening a pair of tall stepladders and placing them next to the bonfire. ‘I’ll get onto the top step and you shove Mr Fawkes up after me. I got some string in me pocket so I’m gonna try and get him tied to the bit o’ wood that’s stickin’ out the top.’ It all sounded a bit technical to Hettie, but she understood her role, at least, and positioned herself between Mr Fawkes’s legs, lifting him slowly up the stepladder towards Bruiser. All might have gone well had it not been for a pie landslide that took their attention at the crucial moment. Back up the garden, one of the trestle tables buckled suddenly under the weight of Beryl’s pork lattice. Beryl acted quickly, shoring up the end of the table as her sister formed a makeshift safety net with her apron, successfully preventing the lattice delights from hitting the deck. Miraculously, only one pie was deemed un-servable and that was soon shared amongst the workers.

  In truth, Hettie was simply no good with heights, and after the first abortive attempt to get Mr Fawkes up the ladder she was more than thrilled to see her old friend Poppa striding down the garden, munching on a slice of lattice pie. ‘Wotcha!’ he said, helping Hettie out from under the weight of the super knit. ‘I think you’d better leave this to us. This is boys’ work.’ Hettie had always used her feminine wiles to escape the more tedious aspects of life, so she gladly gave up Lavender Stamp’s effigy into the paws of her heroes and retreated to her shed in search of a hammer, nails and a large collection of empty milk bottles. So intent was she on her mission that she hadn’t even noticed the new addition to the bottom of the Butters’ garden …

  She enlisted the help of Betty’s wheelbarrow to transport the bottles to what she liked to call her display site, halfway up the garden and away from any trees or buildings. The clear run of fencing was perfect for the Catherine Wheels, and Hettie lined up the empty milk bottles at intervals along the bottom, ready to receive the rockets. Satisfied that all was in place, she made her way back up the garden to collect the fireworks, hoping that Tilly would be available to assist, but she was nowhere to be seen. The cauldron was redundant, the ladle cast aside, and the Calor gas ring turned off.

  ‘If you’re looking for Miss Tilly, she’s in the sink,’ said Betty, bustling out of the back door with an industrial-sized tray of parkin biscuits. ‘I think the toffee got the better of her, so Beryl put her in to soak for a bit. She’s made a good job of them apples, though – they’ve covered a treat, just like her really.’ Hettie left Betty chuckling as she went in search of her firework assistant.
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  Tilly’s warm jumper lay abandoned on the floor of their room and the sink area was a solid wall of bubbles, wobbling like an out of control jelly. To make the vision even more surreal, it was huffing, puffing and uttering the occasional expletive. Hettie approached with caution. ‘Are you in there?’

  The bubbles parted as Tilly sneezed a hole in them. ‘It’s not too bad now. I’ve managed to separate my paws, but one of my ears has folded over and stuck to my head and my whiskers are still solid with the stuff.’ Hettie did her best not to make matters worse by laughing; Tilly was clearly putting on a brave and optimistic face, even if it was a little sticky. ‘Let’s have a look at you,’ she said, teasing the toffee away from the offending ear which suddenly popped back into place. ‘Not sure what to do about those whiskers. I think you’ll have to put your head under to loosen them up.’

  Tilly knew that Hettie was right, but it was a remedy she had been avoiding: any cat would prefer to keep her head above water in times of stress, but there was nothing for it if the whiskers were to be returned to their former glory. Taking a very deep breath, she slid under the bubbles, securing herself against the side of the sink with her newly released paws. Seconds later, she emerged spluttering and shaking her head. Hettie – pleased, that she was still wearing her wellingtons – teased the whiskers and successfully removed several strands of toffee. ‘One more dip should do it,’ she said, trying to remain positive. In fact, it took another fifteen minutes of underwater exploration before Tilly was able to sit on her blanket by their fire, toffee-free and wrapped in a bath towel.

  The knock-on effect of the toffee incident was that Hettie was even further behind with her display preparations, and the arrival of Lavender Stamp in the backyard – ready to take up her annual position at the entrance table – panicked her. She pulled out the fireworks from under their table and began to decant them into a large empty crisp tin that Beryl had supplied, picking out the Catherine Wheels to nail to the fence. Tilly, catching the faint smell of gunpowder, struggled out of her towel and plumbed the depths of the filing cabinet once again, hoping to find something warm enough to wear. ‘That’s one best cardie and a good warm jumper ruined in just two days,’ she grumbled as she finally settled upon a bright orange knit with a hood.

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to spend a day with Jessie next week choosing some new winter stuff from her shop,’ said Hettie. ‘We’re in funds at the moment thanks to Mavis Spitforce, and your best cardie was ruined in the line of duty.’

  Tilly’s unstuck toes curled with delight at the thought of a shopping spree in her friend’s charity shop, and as if by magic, Jessie popped her head round the door. ‘Anything I can do to help?’ she offered, looking magnificent in a red double-breasted maxi-coat with pink wellingtons and a moon-and-star-decorated cloche hat of midnight blue. ‘I brought you the evening paper. No. 2 FDA all over the front page again. Nice one!’

  Hettie took the newspaper and smiled with satisfaction as she read the headline: STRANGE BUT LIES. MILKY MYERS INNOCENT. She scanned the story briefly, noting that it was continued on pages three and four, and left it to Tilly and Jessie to paw over the finer points of an interview given by Balti Dosh, who wasted no time in singing the praises of them all.

  It was growing dark by the time she reached her display site. Under Betty’s instruction, Bruiser and Poppa were lighting hurricane lamps around the garden and hanging them from the trees. It was bitterly cold, but mercifully the wind had stayed away. Looking to her right, Hettie could see that Lavender Stamp’s contribution to the bonfire party was looking resplendent, perched on top of his funeral pyre. Taking up her hammer and nails, she quickly banged the Catherine Wheels into place along the fence, ensuring that they would all be free to spin when the time came. She filled an old bucket with water from the outside tap, ready to deal with any unwanted hazards, and swept clean the concrete slabs that she had chosen for her ground displays. Feeling like the hangman who had successfully calculated the drop, Hettie blew her paws against the cold and turned to make her way back up a garden now bathed in lantern light.

  But she was thwarted in her bid for ten minutes at her own fireside by Betty Butter, who sailed down the garden path with a tray of hot chocolate, followed by her sister Beryl and a happy band of helpers which now included Tilly and Jessie. ‘Gather round, all of you! My sister and me’s got a little presentation to make before the party starts. Get yerselves a mug of chocolate and follow me.’

  Betty led the company to the bottom of the garden, where Poppa and Bruiser were putting up the last of the lanterns. The soft light now illuminated a new wooden structure, in close proximity to Hettie’s shed. It was an odd sort of building – a long, thin shed with a stable door and a lean-too roof, and Hettie remembered seeing something similar at one of the festivals she’d played at in a farmyard in Somerset. That one had stored a tractor. So this was the little job which had kept Bruiser busy earlier in the day.

  ‘Now some of you will know,’ Betty began, ‘that we have a new lad in the yard, so to speak. Mr Bruiser Venutius has made himself invaluable of late with some of the jobs my sister and I have no likin’ for these days. He has also joined the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency as chief driver and protector, so my sister and me decided to solve a couple of problems by ’avin this nice bit of shed put up. Firstly, some of our neighbours have taken against the parkin’ up of a certain bright red motorbike and sidecar.’ With this, Betty shared a knowing nod with Lavender Stamp and Hettie shrank back into her warm jumper, hoping it would make her invisible. ‘Now Scarlet, as she is called, can rest herself in her new purpose-built shelter away from parkin’ difficulties. Furthermore, Bruiser will always have a shed to rest his bones in on a winter’s night – or any other night, for that matter. He now has an official address and a permanent home to return to, as and when.’

  Hettie marvelled at the clever and diplomatic way in which Betty had handed over the little shed to a cat who had lived under the stars and by his wits for nearly all his life. Bruiser was no longer young, but he would never have admitted to the vulnerability that faced all cats whose days of travelling the highways and byways were over, and the Butters had saved his pride beautifully. A cheer went up and the hot chocolate mugs clinked a toast into the bonfire night sky as Bruiser – stunned by the Butters’ generosity – sported a grin from ear to ear. With one swift bound, he engaged both the Butter sisters in a circular dance of sheer joy, leaving them catching their breath as he opened his stable door to inspect his new home.

  Lavender Stamp was the first to peel away from the jolly company, sensing that the hour had come to position herself at the entrance table ready for the first guests to arrive. The Butters took up their stations behind trestle tables laden with every pie and pastry a cat could dream of, and Jessie manned the punch bowl, filling small cups with her special treacle, lime and orange cordial – a recipe that Miss Lambert had entrusted to her in her will.

  Hettie and Tilly returned to their room for a final strategy meeting over the fireworks and the order in which they should be lit. Tilly collected the packets of sparklers to distribute among the guests she particularly liked, making sure that she had plenty for herself, and the two cats returned to the garden to find the bonfire supper in full swing. The Butters’ guest list included most of their fellow traders in the High Street – Elsie Haddock, Hilda Dabit, Mr Malkin and Mr Sprinkle and their families, Lotus Ping from their haberdashery department, Doris Lean from the food hall, and her sister, Clippy, who had just won the Bus Conductress of the Year Award. Mr Prune and Mr Pots were enjoying a break from their garden centre, and Turner Page was enthralling the single female cats with the delights of his soon-to-be-opened new library. Meridian Hambone had arrived in her motorised wheel chair, customised by her mechanically minded son. Lazarus had dragged his plaster cast the length of the High Street, reluctant to miss an evening of pies and pastries, washed down by a glass or two of the home-brewed fiery ginger beer that Meridian ha
d balanced on her knees in a plastic bucket all the way from their hardware shop.

  There were pops, bangs and the occasional pretty shower of fireworks around the town, but there was no doubt that all eyes would be turned towards the bakery in the High Street for the main event, now the highlight of the November 5th celebrations. Hettie was understandably nervous, but she tried to calm herself by seeing how many different flavoured pies she could consume before eight o’clock, the agreed hour for her display to begin. Tilly was keeping a tally of pies consumed, and had only managed half of Hettie’s input by the time they made their way back to their room to collect the fireworks, matches and torch.

  Hettie pushed through the excited crowd with her tin box, followed by Tilly, and Jessie completed the small party, having been entrusted with the rockets. Poppa and Bruiser greeted them at the display site and acted as self-appointed safety wardens, keeping the crowd back to allow Hettie the space she needed. Hacky Redtop pushed to the front with his notepad, dragging Prunella Snap and her camera with him. They were determined to bag the front page of the Sunday Snout, combining a ‘case solved’ angle with a triumphant pictorial display. Prunella was keen to get the ultimate shots, especially as she’d rather messed up the year before by absent-mindedly opening her camera and fogging the film before it reached her darkroom. It was a sad fact that Prunella’s life – along with her photos – had always been a little over-exposed.

  In a dramatic departure from tradition, Hettie decided to light the Catherine Wheels first. Taking the box of matches proffered by Tilly, she struck the first one and shot down the fence, lighting the blue tails until they all fizzled; retracing her steps, she set them all spinning with one startling paw movement and stood back as they burst into life, spilling their magical sprays of colour into the air and coming to an end at exactly the same time. The crowd responded with delight and wide-eyed anticipation of her next move. She nodded to Jessie, who brought forward stage one of Hettie’s planned assault on the sky: four small rockets were placed in milk bottles, and once again Tilly stepped forward with the matches as Prunella Snap raised her Olympus Trip skyward. Working in reverse, Hettie lit the furthest touch paper first, moving backwards down the line until all four rockets sizzled ready for take-off. Then they were gone, like little red dragonflies up into the night sky. The party was silent as everyone tracked the tell-tale lights across the heavens. Hettie held her breath, knowing that her reputation rode on what happened next; for a moment, she doubted, and then came the triumph as the rockets exploded into showery fingers of every imaginable colour. The crowd whooped and cheered, Tilly cried with joy, and Hettie headed for the crisp tin to begin her ground displays.