‘Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow,’ I said at the top of my voice.
‘Even Alfie thinks you should audition,’ Claire said.
‘Yowl.’ No, that wasn’t what I meant. I tried again. ‘Mew, mew, mew, mew.’ I said this directly to Jonathan, then I did a few circles in order to try to get him to fully understand.
‘He’s trying to say something, but not that. Alfie wouldn’t betray me like that.’
‘Purr,’ I had to let him know he was right.
‘Oh Claire, why didn’t we think of it sooner, how about I get my company to sponsor the show? We have a charity pot and they’re always looking to help local charities out as well as national ones. So we can sponsor the show, get our name on posters and the tickets and we’ll ensure you have enough money to put the show on and hopefully a big donation at the end of it too.’
I lay down, a little worn out. Thank you, you’ve got it. Honestly, at times I did wish my humans were a bit quicker on the uptake.
‘Can you ask them tomorrow?’ Claire said, excited.
‘Of course, don’t say anything to Aleksy just yet, but I’m pretty sure I can persuade them. This is right up their street and such a good cause. But there is a condition.’
‘OK, let’s hear it.’
‘I don’t have to audition.’
‘Fine.’
It seemed we had all got what we wanted, although not quite me because now I wanted my supper.
‘Did the children sort it out?’ I asked George as we were about to tuck in.
‘Yes, with a bit of help from me. Summer and Martha are going to do the opening bit where they list all the reindeer and Toby and Henry will rap, the rest of the song they will all do.’
‘Honestly, George, what would these humans do without us?’
We both shuddered. It wasn’t worth thinking about.
Chapter Thirteen
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The day of the auditions was here. I was both excited and relieved. Excited because we cats would find out what our part in the show was– besides being the masterminds behind it, of course. Relieved because Aleksy, Connie, and Claire had all been quite uptight for the last few days. They were driving me round the bend.
‘What if no one comes?’ they all said – more than once, I might add. But we knew that loads of people had said they were going to come, so it was just nerves. We arrived at the hall and found Ralph waiting for us at the door. He was looking pretty pleased with himself as he opened the door and let us in. As he put on the lights, I marvelled at how much cleaner it was than when we were last here.
‘Wow, you’ve done a great job,’ Claire said. It even smelt clean. To get us in the mood, Ralph had also put Christmas music on. I swayed along to ‘White Christmas’ as they inspected the hall.
‘It’s such a good cause, and I had a few parishioners help. We’re auditioning – the choir, that is – and everyone’s quite excited. We needed a new lease of life and it seems that this might do the trick.’ He smiled. I wasn’t sure how old Ralph was – older than Claire and Jonathan but much younger than Harold. He had grey hair, glasses, and was very well turned out. I nuzzled him, he was being supportive and needed rewarding for that.
‘Great!’ Aleksy sounded relieved.
‘Shall we set up a table for us to sit behind, like onBritain’s Got Talent?’ Connie suggested.
‘Ha, it will be like Edgar Road Church Hall’s got Christmas talent!’ Aleksy laughed.
‘Right, let’s do it,’ Claire said as she set about moving a table to the centre of the room.
It was only us here for now. Jonathan was looking after Summer and Toby, but would be bringing them, along with Matt, Polly, Henry, and Martha later. Even Sylvie and Marcus were coming with Harold and Theo. I didn’t like to point out that Theo was probably going to be the star of the Nativity show, because I wasn’t sure if they hadn’t come up with that idea yet. George was going to come with them, along with Hana and Snowball. And the Goodwins had been true to their word and had rallied lots of other people who would be joining us. Oliver, the cat who lived in Tiger’s old house, told me that even his owners, the Barkers, were joining Vic and Heather’s singing group. Franceska, Tomasz, and Tommy were coming along with his friend, Charlie, who was helping him with social media. Tommy still wasn’t keen but had reluctantly accepted that his involvement in the show was his punishment. I was hoping they would take videos of us, because cats were the most popular thing on social media, I was pretty sure. It seemed there was no end to our usefulness.
The audition panel– as Claire called it – was set up. They all had notepads and pens and I was going to sit on the table, so I could watch too, as they clearly needed my help. Ralph had left us so he could go and get changed into his ‘audition outfit’ and also meet his choir mates, so we were alone for a bitto reflect before the madness started.
‘What if no one comes?’ Connie asked for the millionth time.
‘Meow.’ They will, I reassured her. But I could feel their nerves as the reality began to get closer and closer. I was relieved when Jonathan, Polly, and Matt arrived with the children.
‘We nearly got mobbed for queue jumping,’ he said. ‘Thankfully Vic, Heather and their band of merry followers said I was one of the organisers.’
‘So there are people here to audition?’ Aleksy asked.
‘Quite a few, actually,’ Summer said as she climbed onto the stage and started spinning.
‘Right, well we better get started soon,’ Claire said. ‘Jonathan, can you keep the kids in order while we begin?’
I very much doubted it. As Summer started dancing across the stage with Martha, and Toby climbed on some stacked chairs with Henry, Polly took charge. I hoped George, Snowball, and Hana would arrive soon so they could help them out.‘We can’t start without Tommy, he needs to set up to do some filming and he’s going to post on Instagram and Twitter as we go.’ Aleksy sounded panicked but just then we heard a commotion and in walked Tommy and Charlie, followed by Franceska and Tomasz.
‘I told them I was in charge of filming and then they wanted me to start filming them, which I did because, like the TV talent shows, we can post a video of the queue of people,’ Tommy said, almost forgetting to sulk.
‘Yeah, it’s not as long as those on TV obviously, but we have tricks to make it look longer. Look, guys, we got them to wave and cheer,’ Charlie added.
We all crowded round Charlie’s screen – it did look as if there were a load of people and noise. There were more people than even I had expected.
‘Great job,’ Claire said. ‘Tommy, Charlie, thank you so much for helping.’
‘I am proud of both my boys today,’ Franceska said, a little emotionally.
‘Hey there’s a few kids from school here too, Aleksy, Connie,’ Charlie said. He sounded excited, which made us all feel raring to go. ‘I thought that they wouldn’t want to be in it, but they do!’
‘Right, let’s begin,’ Claire clapped her hands together and as the rest of our family arrived, the auditions began.
It really was nothing like the TV competition, or it was, but mainly the bit when you got those really bad people that made everyone laugh. Claire, Jonathan, Toby, Summer and us cats usually watched those shows on a Saturday night. I didn’t always get it, and would often fall asleep, but George loved them and would tell me everything – he really was quite a showbiz cat, thinking about it.
In fairness, our auditions were not all bad. Although, there was a man who tried to juggle– which, as far as I knew, had nothing to do with Christmas, and he wasn’t even dressed up as anything – and as he threw the balls around he kept dropping them.