I gave up singing then, and just walked on. Time for another plan.
9 The Wild Cats’ Chorus
This time I was smart. I walked up a nice-looking road and found a nice-looking house with a nice-looking lady unloading nice-looking groceries from her nice-looking car.
She looked a tiny bit familiar. But then, I get about. I’ve met a lot of people. So anyhow, I thought, This place will do.
First thing: get introduced. I wrapped myself round her legs, all the time purring madly.
The woman reached down to stroke me. Suddenly she looked a little nervous. ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘Haven’t I seen you before? Wasn’t it you who got in a flying fur fight with another cat in our school playground once, and upset all my tiny Year Ones?’
Uh-oh! Now I remembered who she was! Ellie’s head teacher!
But I was hungry, and they were nice-looking groceries. So I turned the purring up to Regulo 8. It worked a treat. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘I must be wrong. You’re such a sweet and friendly cat, and that one was downright horrible. Why, our school crossing guard still has a scar where that vile animal scratched her.’
I tried to look sympathetic as I followed her inside the house. I kept up the heavy purring while she put away her shopping. Then she bent down to feel around my neck.
‘No collar.’
Of course, no collar. I am a good deal smarter than that!
She sighed. ‘Oh, dear. I suppose I’d better feed you.’ She shook a finger. ‘But it’s just this once!’
Just this once? Ho, ho, ho. Everyone knows if you feed a cat once, it has you on a string for life. So I was in. She fed me tuna from a can, and picked me up to carry me around. I didn’t struggle at all. It was an act of will, but I kept purring.
Even when she showed me her parrot.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing to his cage. ‘Meet Gregory.’
Gregory the Parrot gave me the blink, and I blinked back.
‘I hope you’ll both be friends,’ she said.
I purred my hardest.
‘Gregory’s very clever,’ she told me. ‘I’m going to shut you in the kitchen. But if you hear lots of odd noises and voices while I’m out, you mustn’t be afraid. That’ll be Gregory imitating things he’s heard.’
I purred and nodded.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now I’m afraid I have to nip back to school to sort out a few things for the special “My Wonderful Pet” show we’re holding on Thursday evening. I’ll find your owner tomorrow. But just for tonight, you can stay here.’
She picked up her briefcase and left.
So I sat in the kitchen.
Just a kitchen.
Boring. Dead boring.
Then Gregory started up. First he did ‘creaking door’ and ‘the wheelie-bin rumble’. After that he did ‘Fireworks Night’. Then he did his owner saying, ‘Oh, Gregory! You know I get headaches from horrid noises. Can’t you do something quiet and nice?’
OK, OK. So boil me in bunny juice! I taught him The Wild Cats’ Chorus. I yowled it from the kitchen, and Gregory the Parrot picked it up in no time. Soon we were yowling away together so it was twice as loud, and he learned how to do that too. And by the time I’d had enough of singing along with him, Gregory could sound like four cats singing, not just one, all by himself.
Stellar!
The problem was that he was so excited with his new trick he kept it up for two whole hours after Ellie’s head teacher came back.
So naturally I got thrown out.
10 The Perfect Home
I spent the night in the tool shed. Then, in the morning, I set off to find a better home. I had a tiny thought that I might go back to Ellie. I was quite sure she would have realized her mistake by now, and be lying face down on her bed, sobbing her poor broken heart out and wailing my name to the heavens.
But as I strolled along the street, what should I see but a notice stuck on a lamppost.
And then another.
And another.
And more and more. All the same.
I stretched up to take a look. It was a ‘lost cat’ notice, with a photo of the roughest, toughest, sourest, grumpiest-looking moggie you’ve ever seen in your life.
I couldn’t help but think: Who’d want to have that thug back?
Then I peered a little closer.
It was me.
I took a long look down the street. Sure enough, far in the distance I could see Ellie’s mum, stopping at every lamppost to stick up yet another of her insulting posters.
The cheek of it! For one thing, I am not a ‘lost cat’. I am a cat who has moved on to better things! And for another, they’d picked the worst photo ever. Not my best side. I mean, I do not look like that! Not all the time, anyhow! Not every day. Sometimes – perhaps – if I am in a really fed-up mood. But hardly ever! Almost never!
No one would recognize me from that photo. No one. Not in a million years!
So I strolled on quite happily – though it was odd how many people I saw glance at the posters then bend down to try to pick me up. (I simply spat them off.)
And then I found what I was looking for.
The perfect home.
It had wide windowsills to lounge on. The garden was a jungle. (Good hunting there!) Some of the windows were unlatched. The wheelie-bin lid was off. And, best of all, there was a fish pond with sweet little goldfish darting about in it.
Oh, bliss! Oh, sheer and perfect bliss! If there’s one thing I love to do, it’s stretch out along the side of a fish pond in the sun and idly dip in a paw to try to—
No. No time to think about that now! I went to meet the owner. He was washing up. We had a conversation. It went like this:
Him: Hello, puss. Where did you spring from?
Me: Purr, purr. (I’m slinking round his legs to let him know I’m feeling peckish.)
Him: Hungry? Fancy some leftover fish?
Me: Purrrrrrrrrrrr!
Him (putting down a dish): There you go. Finish that lot and you’ll feel a whole lot better.
Me: Chomp, chomp, chomp.
I thought I was in heaven. I ate the fish. (A little too much dill, I thought. But, hey! not everyone’s a master chef.) I had a nap on one of his windowsills. When it got chilly I slipped back into the house through one of the unlatched windows, and when I felt like a snack at lunch time, I set off for the little pond.
Shame! He was out there, hanging out the washing.
Well, never mind. Fish fresh as that will keep. I took a turn round the side of the house and had a poke through the recycling bins.
Half a fish finger. Delish-lish. Just like the song. Yes, I’d found The Perfect Home.
Or so I thought. But then, at half-past three, my world caved in. There was a stampede up the garden path. A pack of carrot-topped hooligans, all shrieking and yelling.
‘Look! On the windowsill! A cat!’
‘Daddy’s got us a real pet! Not just those stupid goldfish, but a real live cat!’
‘Bagsy I cuddle it first.’
‘No! I’m the one who saw it, so I get first cuddle.’
‘Then me.’
‘Then me.’
‘Then me!’
‘Well, if I’m last, I want to be the one to take it in to school for the “My Wonderful Pet” show!’
Nice to be wanted, of course. But really, the noise was horrendous! While they were crowding round, I counted them. Five carrot-tops! Five horrid noisy children all reaching out to grab me. I tell you, it took a good bit of hissing and spitting to get off that windowsill.
Didn’t they change their tune then!
‘The horrid thing!’
‘It’s scratched me! Look! I’m actually bleeding!’
‘It must be wild.’
‘Who’d want to take that into school? I’d rather show everyone our lovely goldfish.’
‘We didn’t really want a new pet anyway.’
‘Well, we certainly didn’t want this one.’
A good thing too, because I wasn’t staying. The Perfect Home, indeed! I don’t think so.
11 ‘Come Home So I Can Strangle You.’
I took a nap in next door’s garage. (OK, OK! So twist my tail! I left a dent in the fancy new hat some man was hiding in there till his wife’s birthday. But anybody napping in there would have used it as a little bed. That hat was comfy. It wasn’t my fault that the ribbon round the brim got tangled and torn. All I was trying to do was brush off the cat hairs that I shed on it while I was having my snooze.)