But suddenly, with my disguise in tatters round the lawn, everyone cottoned on.
‘Hey, guys! It is Tuffy after all! It’s Tuffy!’
‘Yo, Tuff! At last!’
‘Found you!’
And that’s the moment Melanie came down the garden, carrying my third meal of the day.
The others stepped back respectfully.
‘Fresh cream!’ sighed Bella.
‘Real tuna!’ Tiger whispered.
‘Lots!’ said Pusskins.
But Melanie didn’t put it down as usual.
‘Tufty,’ she said to me sternly.
‘What have you done with Janet?’
I tried to look all Janety. But, without the lace bonnet and nightie, it didn’t work.
Melanie looked around. And, I admit, if you were expecting to find your precious new pet, it did look a bit bad. Shreds of fur and nightie and bonnet all over.
‘Oh, Tuffy! Tuffy!’ she wailed. ‘You bad, bad cat! You’ve torn Janet to pieces and eaten her! You monstert!’
The others turned and fled and left me to it.
‘You monster, Tuffy! Monster! Monster!’
10: How it ended
SO THAT SORT of explains what all the fuss was about when the car drew up at the roadside, and out spilled the family.
‘Tuff-eee!’ yelled Ellie, catching sight of me through Melanie ‘s open garden gate. She rushed in to greet me. ‘Tuff-eee!’
Then she spotted Melanie, sobbing her eyes out.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Your cat ought to go to prison!’
Melanie shrieked at her. ‘Your cat’s not a cat. Your cat’s a pig. And a beast.
And a murderer!
I went back to trying to look all sweet and Janety.
Ellie’s eyes had gone huge. She looked at me sternly and her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Tuffy!’ she whispered, horrified. ‘What have you done?’
I like that. Very nice! Aren’t families supposed to stick up for one another? Charming of Ellie to believe the worst, just because her best friend is watering the lawn with her tears, and there are bits of shredded nightie all over.
I was pretty put out, I can tell you. I stuck my tail up in the air and started the huffy strut out of there.
Wrong way! Straight into the vicar’s arms.
‘Gotcha!’ he said, scooping me up before I’d even spotted him lurking behind the pear tree. ‘Gotcha!’
And that’s how, when Ellie’s mother finally strolled through the gate, she found the vicar holding me the way that a cat lover doesn’t hold a cat.
And staring at me the way a cat lover doesn’t stare.
And saying things I don’t believe a vicar ought to say.
Ever.
He won’t be asked to cat-sit in our house again.
Anyone sorry?
No. I didn’t think so.
Byeeee!
3_The Killer Cat Strikes Back
1: Not the best photo
OKAY, OKAY. SO stick my head in a holly bush. I gave Ellie’s mother my mean look. It was her own fault. She was hogging my end of the sofa. You know – that sunny spot on the soft cushion where I like to sit because I can see out of the window.
Down to where the little birdy-pies keep falling out of their nests, learning to fly.
Yum, yum…
So I gave her this look. Well, she deserved it. All I was trying to do was get her to move along a bit so I could take my nap. We cats need our naps. If I don’t have my nap, I get quite ratty.
So I just stood there looking at her. That is ALL I DID.
Oh, all right. I was glowering.
But she didn’t even notice. She was busy flicking through the new brochure from the College of Education. ‘What class shall I take?’ she kept asking Ellie. ‘What would suit me best? Art? Music? Great books? Dancing? Yoga?’
‘Do they have classes in fixing up old cars?’ said Ellie’s father. ‘If they do, that’s the one to take.’
He’s right. That car of theirs is an embarrassment. It’s a disgrace. It’s just a heap of bits that rattle along the road sounding like a giant shaking rocks in a tin drum, spewing out smoke. And they will never, ever have the money to buy a new one.
The best class for Ellie’s mother would be a ‘Build A New Car Out Of Air’ class. But I doubt if the college offers that.
I upped the glower a little – not out of nastiness, you understand. Simply to let her know I wasn’t standing there admiring her beauty. My legs were aching.
She looked up and saw me. ‘Oh, Tuffy! What a precious little crosspatch face!’
I’m like you. I hate being teased. So I just glowered some more.
Oh, all right. If you insist on knowing all of it, I hissed a bit.
And then I spat.
And, guess what? Suddenly she was diving into her bag and had whipped out her camera and taken a photo.
It didn’t show me at my best, I must admit. I looked a little grumpy.
And you could see a bit too much of my bared teeth.
And perhaps my claws looked a shade too large and pointy. And a bit stretched out, as if I were about to lean forward and take a chunk out of someone’s leg unless they shifted along the sofa a bit to let someone else on to the sunny patch.
No. Not the best photo of me.
But she seemed to like it. And it gave her an idea.
‘I know!’ she said. ‘I’ll take the art class. We do painting and pottery. But the first thing I’m going to do is a portrait of Tuffy just like the one in the photo. Won’t that be lovely?’
Oh, yes. Very lovely indeed. Lovely as mud.
2: Whoops!
SHE DID IT, too. Can you believe this woman? She actually managed to get that heap of scrap metal they park outside our house to burst into life. Then she drove off in it, waving, to her first art class.
And came back with a portrait of me.
I watched from the warm spot on the garden wall where I do a lot of my thinking.
‘Marvellous!’ said the traffic warden as Ellie’s mother was pulling the painting out of the back of the car. ‘A most realistic tiger.’
‘I say,’ Mr Harris from next door called over the hedge as it was being carried up the path. ‘I like that. Is it a poster for the new horror film they’re showing in town?’
‘Lovely!’ said Ellie’s father. ‘You’ve captured the look perfectly.’
Ellie said nothing. I think, if I’m honest, the painting frightened her a little.
Then Ellie’s mother started wondering where to put it. (Pity she didn’t ask me. I would have told her, ‘How about straight in the dustbin?’)
But, no. She looked around. ‘What about up on the wall in here?’
I stared.
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘It will look splendid. And everyone who visits the house can admire it.’
(Oh, yes. At their peril.)
But that’s what she did. She found a hook and nail, and hung her ‘Portrait of Tuffy’ just above the back of the sofa where everyone could admire it.
And where I could just reach it.
If I really stretched…
Whoops!
3: One little biff
OKAY, OKAY. SO clip my claws. I scratched the cat to pieces. For pity’s sake! If anyone had the right to scratch that painted cat’s eyes out, it was me.
And it was an accident. All I did was put out one of my sweet little paws to give the painting one little biff. Just to make myself feel better about it, you could say. How could you argue it was my fault that one of my claws caught in the thread of the canvas?
And got stuck.
No one could blame me for trying to pull my own paw free.
Over and over…
The picture did end up looking a bit of a mess, I have to admit. But I felt a whole lot better.
I sat on the wall outside and waited. The explosion came soon enough.
‘Look at this mess! My “Portrait of Tuffy” has been torn to bits!’
‘It’s in shreds! There are bits of painting all over the carpet!’
‘Not just on the carpet! Isn’t that a painted ear up on the dresser?’
‘And a bit of tail hanging off that lamp?’
‘I’ve found a paw on the window sill!’ wailed Ellie.