Almost.
Not quite.
‘Come on,’ he urged me. ‘You can do it. You’re a clumsy enough cat.’
Clumsy, eh? So things were getting nasty. I could have told him: not a thing gets smashed by me in this house unless I choose to smash it. Call us cats clever. Call us cunning. Call us caterwauling.
But never call us clumsy.
And then he really blew it. He changed tack.
‘Come on,’ he wheedled. ‘Smash it for me. Please. Sweet pussy. Sweet, sweet pussy.’
How dare he! What a nerve! Can you believe this man? Five years we’ve lived together, and he calls me ‘sweet’.
It is an insult.
I felt like scratching him, I really did. Instead, I took revenge. I made my eyes go huge, and sent my fur up on end. I did my Just-Seen-a-Ghost-in-the-Doorway’ act. (It’s very good.) And then, to put the icing on the cake, I shot backwards along the coffee table at about a hundred miles an hour until I’d knocked the pretty china dish he loves so much off at the other end, shattering it to pieces and spilling all the coins he keeps in there on to the floor.
He was still chasing money round the room when the doorbell rang.
Mr Harris from next door. And, as usual, he was selling raffle tickets.
‘Sorry,’ said Ellie’s father as he always did. ‘Unfortunately, just at this moment I happen to be out of spare change.’
Mr Harris looked at the money spilling out of Ellie’s father’s cupped hands.
‘All that will do,’ he said. ‘All that will buy at least one ticket. And it’s a really good prize – especially for your family. It’s a brand-new car.’
(Clearly we cats are not the only ones round here who are fed up with coughing for an hour or two each time anyone in my family sets off on a car trip.)
So what could Ellie’s father do? He had to buy a ticket or look the cheapskate he is. By the time he came back, he was in a real temper.
I find unpleasantness in others a terrible trial. We cats do have our dignity. All that I chose to do was push the last ugly pot well away from the table edge. I shifted it this way a bit. Then I shifted it that. And then I left it sitting very safely indeed, right in the middle, where no one could ever knock it over and break it by mistake.
Then I stuck my tail up, proudly high, and I stalked out.
7: Cat and mouse
SO THEN WE ended up playing a sort of Cat and Mouse game. (Guess who played Mouse!) He put the ugly pot back on the shelf in case The Budding Artist got suspicious. But he still wanted it gone, and to be able to spread his hands – Mr All Innocence – and swear to Ellie’s mother that it was I who broke it.
Over the next few weeks, he must have tried everything. And I mean everything.
First, he tried wheedling and begging. You know the sort of stuff.
‘Dear pussy. Kind pussy. Won’t you do one tiny eensy-weensy thing for me?’
(Well, as my old granny used to say, ‘Please pass the sick bag, Alice!’)
Then he tried picking me up and putting me on the shelf and pushing me along it.
That’s right. Actually putting his hand on my bottom and trying to push me. (He’s still nursing the scratches from that one.)
After that, he smeared whipping cream on the pot, hoping that I’d be greedy enough to jump up and lick the pot so hard it would move along the shelf and fall off the end.
How stupid is that? Cream? On a shelf? I had a really good time skating up and down, kicking drips over the edge. It took him days to get the sour smell out of the rugs.
I spent a lot of time that week out in the fresh air, amusing myself by chasing next door’s Gregory out of our garden. Each time the poor boy came through the gate, clutching a note from his mother, I’d leap out from behind the holly bush and stick all four paws in the air as if I’d flattened myself against an invisible wall right next to his face.
Gregory would scream, drop the note he was holding and rush off home.
I’d kick the note out of the way under the holly bush (hiding the evidence) and go back to sleep on the wall.
A stupid game, maybe. But I enjoyed it and it passed the time until Ellie’s father had spent enough time scrubbing the rugs to make the living room smell pleasant again. Then I came back inside, to find my adversary in the War of the Last Ugly Pot getting even more cunning.
He’d dropped a fine fresh prawn inside the thing.
‘There!’ he crowed. ‘Try to resist that, Tuffy! Try to get that out without knocking the pot over the edge!’
Well, I was tempted. If there’s one thing that I love, it’s a fresh prawn. But then I thought, nobody, not even a mothwallet like Ellie’s father, has the nerve to buy only one. There must be others!
I went off to the toolshed and found the rest of them still in the bag, hidden from Ellie’s mother, waiting for the secret little luxury snack he was planning for himself later.
Things worked out nicely. I ate those instead.
8: Before six o’clock tonight
ON MY WAY back through the garden, Bella and Tiger and Pusskins yowled at me from the wall where they were sitting watching Ellie’s mother trying to park.
‘That car of your family’s!’ said Bella. ‘It’s a real disgrace. ’
‘Pouring out smoke,’ agreed Pusskins.
Tiger was even more grumpy. ‘We could all choke to death. ’He was still moaning as Ellie’s mother came up the path with her most recent triumph. ‘And what is that? A heap of knitted twigs?’
‘That’s her new work of art,’ I had to admit. ‘She’s given up on pottery and moved on to “garden sculptures”.’
‘Those manky old bits of trailing raffia are going to get everywhere,’ grumbled Bella. ‘And is that a flag on the top? Or did some lavatory paper get stuck to whatever it is on the way home?’
Ellie’s mother staggered through the gate and dumped her new great work of art on to the lawn. Smoke was still pouring out of the car, but she didn’t notice. She was waving at Ellie.
‘Come and see my new piece. I’m calling it “Wigwam in Summer”!’
Ellie came rushing over, clasping her hands. ‘Oooh!’ she cried. ‘It’s lovely. It’s beautiful! Can I have it as my own little house? Then I can sit inside it and play Let’s Pretend!’
Tiger just rolled his eyes and Bella pretended kindly that she hadn’t heard. I mean, everyone’s embarrassed by their family. That is the Way of the World. But Ellie is more than a few steps beyond soft. She has become Essence of Mush.
But all that ‘sitting inside it’ talk had given Bella an idea.
‘Excellent loo for cats, that wigwam,’ she couldn’t help observing. Just the right size. Very private. And you could fly that loo paper flag on top to let people know whenever it’s in use.’
‘And how it’s in use,’ added Tiger. He turned to me. ‘That’s Symbolism, that is,’ he explained. ‘I know because someone in my family took the Great Books course at that very same college.’
‘Let’s hope she moves the wigwam on to a flowerbed,’ said Pusskins. ‘That’ll make for easier scratching in after.’
I do live in a family. ‘Hey, fellas!’ I rebuked them. ‘What about poor Ellie? She won’t want to sit and play Let’s Pretend in a public lavatory.’
We were still arguing when the car that had been sitting there busily puffing out smoke suddenly burst into flames. It was a good show, what with the fire engines.(Nee-naw! Nee-naw! ’We’ll all bepractising that noise on the prowl tonight.) And at the end, Bella said, ‘A pity Ellie’s father can’t find that winning raffle ticket of his, and get his new car.’
‘Sorry?’ I said.
She turned my way. ‘Didn’t you know? The raffle draw was a whole week ago. According to the book of ticket stubs, Ellie’s dad has the winning number. But Mr Harris says that, according to the rules, the winner has to show up with the ticket to claim the prize.’
‘Before six o’clock,’ added Pusskins. ‘This evening. On the dot. Otherwise the new car goes to the runner-up.’
‘All this is news to me,’ I said, a shade uneasily.
‘I can’t think why,’ said Tiger. ‘Everyone else knows. And Ellie’s mother and father must know as well because Mr Harris has sent Gregory round at least a dozen times with notes to tell them.’