Alfie The Christmas Cat

Claire had a list of how many male and female people regularly visited the shelter and she was putting together the gifts. As well as hats, gloves, and scarves, she was also going to put a basic toiletry package together, but she said she would hopefully have spares as there could be more people needing them come Christmas. She had managed to get a lot of help for this already. The primary school where Toby, Henry, Martha, and Summer went were asking parents to help, and local shops had also agreed to get involved. Jonathan’s company, as well as sponsoring the show – he had put himself in charge of budget and wouldn’t let anyone spend a penny unless it was totally necessary – had encouraged its employees to all buy a coat or a sleeping bag, and they had readily agreed. That or they’d been given no choice, I’m not sure which.

Franceska and Tomasz had increased the amount of food they were taking to the shelter every day, now, so more people could be fed. Harold said that his senior centre friends didn’t have much money but he would ask if they had any clothes spare, and Marcus, Polly, and Matt were raising funds at their offices to help as well.

In addition to all that, the show was taking up more and more of our time. It had been cast now, and Aleksy and Connie had informed people of their roles and what they needed to do. It was all coming together well as we prepared to start rehearsals. Rehearsals had to be fitted around school and work, so they would be held evenings and weekends and Claire said that they could draw up a schedule to rotate who was rehearsing when to save time. It was actually all very complicated, so I was glad of her organisational skills.

Ralph the vicar had offered to donate mince pies and tea and coffee for the dress rehearsal, when the shelter patrons came to see the show. The Goodwins’ singing group were holding a raffle to raise more money on the opening night, and they’d started collecting prizes. As Jonathan pointed out, no one ever said no to the Goodwins. No one dared. Aleksy and Connie said they would get their friends, who weren’t in the show, to sell the raffle tickets. It really was wonderful to see how well everyone was working together. It was really a community effort.

I was impressed with how professional Aleksy and Connie were being. They had made a list of the people taking part in the show– and us cats, of course – along with the roles they would be playing. We had six shepherds and only four sheep – or, four cats playing sheep – so Aleksy said they were going to get some toy sheep to make up a flock. There were three wise men, or ‘wise people’ as Barbara the cat-hating woman was one of them. Jonathan said best not to give her too much of a speaking part in case she launched into Shakespeare again. I was just glad she wasn’t a shepherd – imagine her being in charge of us cats? It made my fur shudder. Polly was going to be the angry innkeeper, although she was now an Airbnb owner, whatever that was. Connie said that the innkeeper was always male and it was time for a change because women could be innkeepers too. Sylvie and Marcus were – reluctantly – going to be Mary and Joseph, as they’d agreed in the end. Matt and Tomasz were shepherds along with some of the others who’d auditioned. Sienna, a girl from Tommy’s class in school – one everyone seemed to be in love with – was going to be the angel Gabriel and there were going to be four other angels, played by four other women and girls. Jonathan refused a part because he was the sponsor and accountant – he said it wouldn’t be appropriate – and Claire was definitely going to be needed backstage to organise the cast and make sure the show ran on time. Aleksy and Connie were both directors and they had also written the script. We all had our roles. We were all systems go.

And Sienna, it seemed, might be the answer to our Tommy problem. He blushed every time her name was mentioned and it was clear he liked her. I hoped that meant he’d be on his best behaviour whenever she was around, and maybe, just maybe, he’d stop being so difficult. Love could really straighten people out after all.

Matt had designed a poster, tickets were going to be available pretty soon, and rehearsals were due to start in a few days. We needed plenty of rehearsal time and, at first, they were doing it in stages, so that not everyone had to be at the hall all the time. It was pretty well organised for an amateur production. That was what Aleksy said anyway. They were taking everything very seriously. And although I was taking it very seriously myself, I was also determined to make sure I enjoyed myself. Have I mentioned that it was my idea?

George was next door teaching Hana how to be a sheep, and also how to have‘stage presence’, although he did say that he wasn’t sure it could be taught, you might have to be born with it. Honestly, the kitten was becoming a monster. It was quite cute, actually. Annoying – incredibly annoying – but also sweet in a way. Another dichotomy of parenting.

Claire was cooking dinner when the doorbell went. I followed her out to the hallway and waited to see who our latest visitor was. I almost shrank back into the house when I saw it was the Barbara woman, but I was determined to hear why she was here. At the moment, I didn’t like her. She had not only chased us with a bin bag and nearly got us run over, but also was rude to us at the show audition. She scowled at us when she thought no one else was looking. The problem was that none of the humans had seen any of this. How dare she come to our house?

‘Hello,’ Claire said. ‘It’s Barbara, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is.’ Standing on the doorstep, she spotted me and her eyes narrowed.

‘Would you like to come in?’ Claire was so polite but she didn’t know how awful this woman was. I hissed. ‘Alfie, don’t hiss,’ Claire chastised. No idea at all. But I really didn’t want the cat hater in my house. So I stepped closer to the doorstep. She wouldn’t dare attack me in front of Claire, I was pretty sure, but I hoped it would put her off coming in.

‘No, no, I don’t need to come in.’ She glared at me again.

‘Right, well what can I do for you?’ Claire asked. Yes, I wanted to know that too.

‘It’s about the show.’

‘The show?’

‘Yes, you’ve put me down as a wise man.’

‘Yes, it’s a pivotal role – you’re going to have a few lines, sing, and give the baby Jesus a gift. We really thought we needed someone with your experience to pull it off.’ Claire smiled. Barbara did not smile back.

‘But as I explained, I used to be a drama teacher and I’ve always acted; I was the star of our old amateur dramatic group before I moved here. I’m wasted being a wise man, I should be Mary or the angel Gabriel – a main role.’ I took a step back. Was she mad? Mary was so much younger than her and the angel was supposed to be this ethereal being (I heard Claire say that), and although I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure what ethereal meant, I was pretty sure Barbara wasn’t it. I would never get the picture of her swinging a black bag at me and George out of my head.

‘The thing is, we cast the actual mother of Theo, who is going to be the baby Jesus, in case he cries, and we chose a teenager for the angel Gabriel because we wanted to get the youngsters involved, you see. We thought your audition was brilliant but it’s just a Nativity, so there’s not a huge scope for speaking parts.’ I could hear Claire trying to be diplomatic, but Barbara did not look happy.

‘I am not happy about it. Not at all. It’s wasting my talent.’

See, I was right.

‘I’m sorry but Aleksy and Connie are doing this to help the homeless shelter and they’re doing a great job, so we need to all work together. I really hope you still want to be a part of it. The wise men will probably have the best costumes anyway.’ Poor Claire was really trying. ‘And, I know you’re new to Edgar Road, so it might be a really good opportunity to meet others in the community. Do you live alone?’

‘I do, but what’s that got to do with it?’

‘Well, we have a Sunday Lunch Club whereby people on their own can join another family for lunch a few Sundays a month.’

‘I’m quite capable of making my own lunch,’ she snapped.

I was relieved. I really didn’t want her joining us. By the look on her face, Claire was no longer keen, either.

‘Of course, I was just thinking that if you wanted to meet people …’ Claire shook her head. She didn’t know how to deal with this woman.

‘I shall probably still take part but I hope you have noted my displeasure at not being given a bigger role.’

‘Duly noted.’ Claire glanced down at me, her eyes wide.

Without another word, Barbara turned and walked away. I looked up at Claire, she shook her head. See, this woman was not normal. Not normal at all.

‘I don’t know, Alfie,’ she said, picking me up and shutting the front door. ‘I hope she’ll just be happy to be part of it, but she didn’t seem very happy did she?’

‘Yowl.’ She certainly did not.

The rest of the week passed quickly and largely uneventfully. George insisted on getting Snowball, me, and Hana together to practise being sheep, which involved a lot of standing and pretending to eat grass. I wasn’t sure how much rehearsal we needed if that was all we had to do. I was slightly disappointed not to have a bigger role, still, but then I would remember Barbara’s reaction and think of the shelter and all the people there who were so happy to see us. Sometimes, you had to put your ego aside, and this was one of those times. I just hoped that Barbara would too. I knew it wasn’t always easy but it was definitely the right thing to do.

‘Dad, you are still not standing right,’ George chastised as I realised I’d been thinking and therefore not concentrating.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Honestly people, you need to take this seriously. We are doing a show, we are raising money for charity and we are also going to be all over social media, so I would suggest we all pull our socks up, and work harder.’

‘I don’t wear socks,’ Snowball said. She was getting impatient with George, but she was amused at the same time.

‘You know what I mean. Right, let’s take it from the top. Annnnd stand. Now look up. Now look down. Now pretend to eat grass. Oh my goodness, how hard can it be? I knew working with amateurs wasn’t going to be easy but still … it’s a disaster.’

Hana, Snowball, and I watched as George flounced off, and then we all laughed. I felt bad but he was really too funny.

‘He’s really trying,’ Hana said, she was the softest out of all of us.

‘A bit too trying,’ Snowball said.

‘I said it earlier, we’ve created a monster.’

‘A monster in sheep’s clothing,’ Snowball finished and we all grinned.

Chapter Seventeen

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We were wrapped in Christmas suddenly, although not literally. Because of the show, our Christmas started even earlier than normal. At home, we played Christmas songs all the time, and at the hall we played Christmas songs all the time. By the time we were ready to hold the first rehearsal, I was fully in Christmas mode.

As they were opening the show, the first rehearsal involved the dancers and the singers. They had decided to do a routine to‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’, and they’d found a version which was fast and more modern. The crew – that was what they called themselves – were made up of boys and girls from the same dance class. Their teacher, a relatively young man called Nicky who wore very low-cut baggy trousers, coached them and they were actually pretty good from what I could tell. Aleksy, Connie, Claire, and myself were watching and George had insisted on tagging along. Polly was thankfully able to look after the children and Pickles. Tommy couldn’t make it as he actually had to do some urgent homework,so Aleksy was filming bits so he could upload to social media later. We were getting quite an online following, apparently, and us cats had naturally caused quite a stir after the auditions. They hadn’t actually thanked us yet, but they were very busy at the moment so I was going to let it go. For now.

After they ran through the routine, with only a couple of mistakes which I didn’t actually notice, they sat on the stage to talk to us.

‘We’ve got the parents all buying tickets as soon as they’re available,’ Nicky said.

‘You know, we might need to do more than one show, I mean more than one paying show. We’re doing the dress rehearsal for the people from the shelter to come and see,’ Claire said. ‘But if we have enough ticket sales we could maybe do two nights?’

‘We’ll definitely sell enough tickets for two nights,’ Aleksy said, confidently. ‘What if we do Friday and Saturday night?’

‘We could do a third on the Saturday afternoon, I mean it will be a bit tiring but that’s what they do in the theatre,’ Franceska, who was helping with stage management, suggested.

‘Yes, and younger children would maybe come to the earlier show, that’s a good idea,’ Connie said.

‘So now we have to sell out three shows?’ Nicky said.

‘Yup, and we will somehow do it,’ Connie said. She sounded full of determination. We had quickly gone from a one-off show to three shows. Could we do it? Of course we could.

‘And what a great opening to the show this is going to be,’ Claire said. ‘You guys are amazing so, if you’re happy to do three shows?’

‘It’s really good experience for us,’ Nicky said. ‘We might go on a TV talent show next year.’

‘Well you are definitely good enough,’ Claire said kindly.

‘You see,’ George hissed. ‘If we tried harder – and by we, I mean you, Snowball, and Hana – we could maybe be on a TV talent show. Although, thinking about it, maybe I would be better as a solo act.’

I raised my whiskers but kept quiet.

‘Before you leave, we want the people in the show to visit the shelter at some point, so we all understand what we are raising money for. I know most of you are quite young and it’s quite hard to see, but would you be willing to?’

‘Hey, how about the crew take a shift helping serve food one weekend? We could then document it on our social media as well as the show’s,’ Nicky said. The dancers all chorused their agreement.

‘Brilliant, we’ll get a date in,’ Claire said, making another note in the big notebook that she carried around for all things show related.

After rehearsal, Claire went home and switched with Polly, while Tomasz, Franceska, and Matt discussed the sets. Franceska had said she would rather not be in the show but she was doing lots of different things and she was also sort of job sharing with Claire when she couldn’t be there. It was doing her good, because she was so worried about Tommy that this seemed to be making her a little more relaxed, which made me happy, because I did hate to see anyone – but especially Franceska, who was the kindest person ever – upset.

There was an awful lot to do. They were making a forest of decorated Christmas trees, which the dancers would emerge from in the first song, that would stay there until the Nativity scene. Then there would be a big shed-like shelter, which had to be made out of light wood so it could be easily transported on stage. For the Santa scene at the end, there would be a living room with a fully decorated six-foot tree, presents around it, and an armchair. It all sounded ambitious to me but as they all chatted through it, they seemed to think they would be able to do it. Polly and Franceska wrote down estimated costs as they had to run them by Jonathan, who continued to rule the budgets with an iron fist.

‘The idea is to make money for the shelter, not spend it,’ was Jonathan’s new favourite catch phrase.

Claire tried to point out that spending money on the show would mean we made more money, but Jonathan wasn’t too keen on that logic.

Most of the materials– the trees etc. – had been donated, so the costs were pretty low. It was all going so well, and I was feeling very optimistic. Excited, too. I really couldn’t wait for this show. Even being a sheep was something I looked forward to now. Because being in the hall, seeing the first act rehearse and also everyone discussing sets, it felt real. More and more real by the minute.

But although it felt as if we were obsessed by the show, normal life still went on– we still had lots to do outside of it. It was Sunday and time for our Sunday Lunch Club. Jonathan went to pick Doris and Clive up while Claire cooked a really lovely roast dinner. The children, although only Summer and Toby, were planning on doing their Rudolph song for them, and George was annoyed because again he had been roped in to play Rudolph in place of Pickles. I thought I had escaped and could just spend a quiet day watching and resting, but no, because Doris had kept her promise and brought me my ‘cat bonnet’. It was bright green – to match my eyes, she said.

‘Doesn’t she look gorgeous?’ Doris said.

‘Meow?’ She?

‘Alfie’s a boy, Doris,’ Claire said quickly before Jonathan could make an inappropriate joke.

‘Oh, I know, but he’s so pretty, I shall call him a she.’

I raised my tail. Not only was I wearing a bonnet but I was now a girl? George almost fell off the arm of the sofa he was trying so hard to contain himself; and then he did fall off.

‘Yowl,’ he said, as he rolled himself upright again.

‘Yowl,’ I replied. Serves you right.

The talk over lunch was all about the show and also about Christmas.

‘Maybe you could do a performance for us,’ Clive said. ‘I, for one, would like to see it but of course it might be hard to get us all there, all the Sunday Lunch Club.’

‘Oh goodness,’ Jonathan said. ‘We’ve got enough members to fill the hall, and of course then we’ll need to be able to transport you all, seeing as most of the families you go to are in the show …’ He scratched his head.

‘There must be a way,’ Claire said. She lapsed into thought. ‘Leave it with us.’

I had a brainwave. On Christmas Day, we were all going to be hosting our Sunday Lunch Club for all members who would be alone. And most of the people involved in the show, as Jonathan rightly said, were involved in the club, so Christmas Day would be perfect for us to do a show for them. It might have to be in the evening and maybe not everyone could make it, but surely we could put on an edited version? It would be better than nothing, and like the people in the shelter, the Sunday Lunch Club didn’t get to go out very often so it would be special for them.

I jumped onto Claire’s lap, and mewed at her, trying to convey my idea. But of course she didn’t understand. How could I tell her what I meant?

‘We’ll sort something out,’ Claire said again, looking at me with a puzzled expression. I would have to keep trying, because clearly she wasn’t quite as advanced in ideas as me and this was a tricky one to convey. I thought maybe I would try again at the next family day, because if everyonewas there, someone might understand me. Or maybe George and Snowball could help me explain it to Harold. That might work. In the meantime, I would just enjoy some nice lunch treats that Jonathan had put down for George and me. Although I was still wearing this awful bonnet, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

Later, with everyone at home and the bonnet gone, I went to see Snowball to see what she thought about my latest idea.

‘I agree it’s a very good idea but how to tell the humans? Maybe they’ll come to the same conclusion themselves?’ she said, hopefully.

‘I agree they might … After lunch and games we all have a bit of time before we have to arrange for everyone to go home, so maybe if we did the show then – like a kind of finale – that would be a great end to Christmas Day.’

‘Ah, Alfie, it’s lovely, it would be perfect and mean that everyone we care about gets to see the show. It’ll be like a family showing. Otherwise our Sunday Lunch Club family might miss out.’

‘You know what, Claire said she’s drawing up a list of who from the Sunday Lunch Club is going where for Christmas Day, because some families go away, so we double up, don’t we? If we can see the list and maybe jump around on it or something she might get the idea.’

‘It’s worth a try, but,’ Snowball yawned, ‘I still think that if Claire tells the others that Clive said he wanted to see the show, they will come up with the idea themselves.’

Snowball had a lot more faith in the humans than I did.

‘Or we could do our sheep bit when it’s next family day, so that might give them the idea.’

‘We could, or we could wait for them to get the idea themselves,’ Snowball reiterated.

‘Or we could wait until they put the Christmas tree up and all climb it – OK, actually just George – so they get the idea.’

‘Or we could wait …’ Snowball licked her paw. ‘Alfie, you don’t need an elaborate plan for everything, you know. Do as you said, see if they come up with the idea at the next family day and if they don’t then we’ll think of something. But, whatever you do, don’t tell George about the idea of climbing the tree, you’ve only just got him to stop doing that.’

‘Fair point.’

We strolled around Harold’s small garden and though it was cold and dark, my mind was whirring. Could I really trust the humans to come up with my brilliant idea on their own? Without my help? I really didn’t think I could.

Chapter Eighteen

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‘Alfie, I feel as if I haven’t seen you in ages,’ Nellie said.

‘I’m sorry.’ I was. I knew I had neglected my friends yet again. Rocky, Elvis, and Oliver were all at the recreation ground and I felt even more guilt as they seemed so pleased to see me.

‘So, fill us in? We’re dying to hear about the show. We saw Snowball briefly, although she was in a hurry because Harold needed her at home, but she said it had been busy.’

‘Understatement of the year. There’s so much to do. Who knew when I came up with the idea—’

‘Dad, will you stop saying that? We all know it was your idea, we’ve heard it a thousand million times,’ George interrupted. I hadn’t seen him approach.

‘As I was saying, there is so much to do. It’s hectic, and of course we feel as if we ought to keep an eye on everything.’

‘Not least because, of course, I have so much stage experience,’ George added. Clearly, it was OK forhim to boast, then.

We took turns to tell them about the show, and we also filled them in about Barbara.

‘Oh my, I met her,’ Nellie said. ‘I was walking past where she lives, just minding my own business and she shouted at me to get away, but I was on the pavement, not even in her garden. I did run a bit though.’

‘Remember, we nearly got killed by her bin bag,’ George said dramatically. He then did a mini re-enactment by running, spinning and then falling over. Although they had heard about it, they indulged him.

‘Definitely not a cat fan then,’ Rocky added.

‘She was also mean to us at the auditions,’ I explained. ‘Even suggested we shouldn’t be in the show.’

‘We ought to give her a bit of a wide berth, if we pass her flat we should cross the road, you don’t want to provoke people like that,’ Elvis said. ‘Never know what might end up happening to you.’

‘Or we could find out why she’s like that.’ I studied my paw and waited for the reactions.

‘No, Alfie,’ Nellie, Rocky, Elvis and Oliver shouted at the same time.

‘We can’t avoid her though, she’s in the show,’ George pointed out.

‘Perhaps we just win her round, we’ve done it before,’ I suggested.

‘No,’ they all chorused.

‘Oh goodness, please be careful around her and if you need our help then you can always come to us,’ Rocky said, which moved me. My friends had my back, and although we had so much to do, I needed to make sure I made time for them too. Although, because they were such wonderful cats they did understand that it was tricky at the moment.

We hung out for a while longer and I promised to visit at least once every two days to check in. I still couldn’t persuade them to come to the hall – it was out of their comfort zone to venture past the recreation ground, actually – but they said they would still love to hear all about it. When George and I went home I thought about the fact that I must go and see Dustbin soon. I didn’t want to neglect him – and Ally – either.

‘I’ve tried to tell him that he needs to be more reindeer but you know Pickles, he’s a bit limited isn’t he?’ George said. We sat on a table by the stage watching the children and Pickles’ first rehearsal. They had fixed a soft red nose to Pickles but he kept trying to eat it. They hadn’t yet put the antlers on but I doubted that they would fare much better. The door banged open just as Toby and Henry started their rap. The hall went quiet and turned to look. It was the awful Barbara.

‘Hi,’ Claire said. ‘We didn’t expect to see you.’

‘I was just passing so I thought I’d see if I could help you at all.’ Barbara smiled, but I didn’t like the smile. Of course, I also just didn’t like her.

‘What’s she doing here?’ George hissed. I raised my whiskers; I had no idea. I wondered if she had decided to put her meanness aside and try to join in finally. I know that Salmon said she was missing her husband, and I understood grief better than most cats, but still, my grief didn’t makeme mean. Hopefully she had come round and was ready to be a part of the community. People did change after all. I had seen that happen time and time again. My theory was that people who were horrible were sometimes just unhappy, and I had to keep remembering that.

‘Oh,’ Claire said. ‘Well, we are doing early rehearsals, just finishing today’s actually, but if you want to help with sets we are asking for volunteers to paint, decorate trees, help out with costumes, that sort of thing.’

I narrowed my eyes at Barbara, but she smiled again. Still a bit scary, but perhaps that was just her face. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, while remaining cautious.

‘I would be delighted. By the way, you haven’t changed your mind about the parts? I mean, I would be happy to understudy anyone.’

‘We hadn’t thought about understudies,’ Aleksy said, eyes darting towards Connie. George glared at me. He still felt that Summer and Toby were treating him as Pickles’ understudy, although I hadn’t even known what that was until he explained it.

‘Well, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared, in case anything happens to the cast,’ Barbara said. I felt a bit of a shiver in my fur. What on earth could happen to anyone? ‘You know, if they got ill or something. It is the time of year for colds and flu. But never mind, I’m happy to do whateverit takes to make this show a success, as it is for such a good cause.’

‘Thank you so much,’ Connie said. ‘Come with me and I’ll take you backstage, show you what we’re doing.’

As they went behind the stage, George leant in close.

‘I don’t trust her, Dad,’ he said.

‘Me either, son, not totally anyway. We’ll have to keep an eye on it.’ I didn’t like the way she made me feel one little bit, but then again, maybe, just maybe, she had changed and we had all just got off on the wrong paw.

We watched from a safe distance as she ingratiated herself with everyone. She was smiling, jolly, nothing like the woman we had seen the past few times we met her. I raised my whiskers.‘Everyone deserves a second chance, son,’ I said, and although he didn’t seem convinced, he reluctantly agreed.

‘Let’s go and see how she reacts to us, see if she’s different with us now,’ I suggested.

‘Isn’t it a bit risky?’

‘No, George, because there’s lots of people around. She wouldn’t dare do anything to us.’ I hoped she wouldn’t, anyway.

‘OK.’

I took off backstage, George dragging his paws behind me. We found Barbara near some of the trees, admiring them with Connie.

‘We’re going to spray the tops with snow, so it looks a bit like a Christmas card,’ Connie explained.

‘That’s a lovely idea.’ Barbara spotted us. She narrowed her eyes but turned back to Connie. ‘Well, dear, as I said, I am happy to help with everything.’

‘Thank you, I better get back to rehearsals but just ask if you need anything.’

George and I exchanged glances as we sat by the tree, not too far from Barbara. Were we going to see if she had changed towards us? I tentatively put my paw towards her foot but she saw and pushed a tree.

‘Run, Dad,’ George shouted, as the tree was about to fall on me. I sprinted away, just escaping before it fell to the ground.

‘Yowl!’ I shouted, narrowly having missed being squashed by a fake Christmas tree.

‘Oh dear,’ Barbara shouted. ‘One of the trees fell, I think the cats knocked it.’

‘Be more careful, guys. Maybe you shouldn’t be back here,’ Matt said as he and Tomasz came to see what was happening. George and I lay down, trying to catch our breath.

‘Never mind, it looks fine, as do the cats,’ Tomasz said, and picked the tree up again.

‘Thank goodness it didn’t get them,’ Barbara said innocently.

George and I raised our whiskers. This was worse than we thought. She hadn’t changed, she was just pretending she had. All my deliberations about her being unhappy not horrible, that she deserved a second chance, were a waste of my precious time. I was done with her. She was nothing but a cat hater; it was no longer up for debate.

‘Keep well out of her way from now on,’ I said to George.

‘It isn’t me you need to tell, it’s yourself,’ he hissed. He wasn’t wrong.

Claire took us home shortly after, leaving some of the others still working in the hall. We were glad to go, still shaken up from our ordeal. I wasn’t going to let that woman ruin the show for us. Her involvement wasn’t something I could control, but I wouldn’t let her get the better of me a third time. Mark my whiskers.

With just over a month until the first show it was all hands on deck. The show was consuming us, but we had been consumed by much worse. I just hoped that Christmas still carried on as normal, and I also hoped that the humans would find a way to let the Sunday Lunch Club enjoy the show as well.

Despite my weariness, I remembered my friendship resolution. It was too late to see Dustbin that night, but I resolved to go first thing in the morning, no matter how foul the weather was. It was time to remember to be a good friend, even if it did feel as if I was spreading myself a little thin at the moment. But then, I did have a lot of fish to fry. Um, I really could do with some fish right now, actually.

Claire was telling Jonathan about Barbara before we all went to bed.

‘She was really nice, not at all like the way she was with me when she came round here.’

‘Did she recite a long Shakespeare monologue?’ Jonathan joked.

Claire rolled her eyes.‘No, she did not. She was quite pleasant. Anyway, Heather and Vic told me that her husband died and she was forced out of her home due to money issues, so she was pretty miserable about moving into the flat. Maybe that’s why she was acting up a bit.’

‘Ha ha, good pun,’ Jonathan said.

I had no idea what he meant.

‘I didn’t mean to say that.’ Claire laughed and gave him a playful tap on his arm. ‘What I mean is that maybe she was angry about everything – you know, how unfair life can be and missing her husband – but now she’s turned over a new leaf. Maybe she’s so lonely that she realised theonly way to feel less so is to use the show to make friends.’

‘Maybe. Anyway, we don’t need to collect any more people do we, Claire?’

‘Meow.’ Of course we did, we could never collect too many people. But not Barbara, we did not need to collect her. He was right about that.

‘Jonathan, being kind doesn’t have a number limit,’ Claire said.

As I slept that night, I decided that Claire was right. I knew I shouldn’t give Barbara a third chance – I wasn’t stupid – but kindness was inherent in both Claire and I, and we couldn’t just switch it off. We wouldn’t want to anyway, so I decided that no matter what anyone said I would be kind to Barbara and show her that friendship was much better than being angry with people. I would just have to do it from a safe distance, that was all.

Chapter Nineteen

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Iwas surprised when George came in via the cat flap just as I was about to leave for my visit to Dustbin.

‘I thought you were with Hana,’ I said.

‘She kept falling asleep, so I said I’d let her rest. Theo’s still keeping them awake most of the night but Sylvie’s taken him out this morning so Hana can catch up on some much-needed sleep. Connie now has ear plugs so she doesn’t hear him. It’s the only way she can make it through theschool day, and of course she’s got the show to work on so she can’t afford to be so tired. Who knew something so small could be so troublesome?’

I thought of George as a kitten. I knew, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

‘Apart from Pickles, of course,’ he added.

I decided not to argue.

‘Do you want to visit Dustbin with me?’ I asked.

‘Might as well,’ he said. ‘Nothing better to do.’

Sometimes George could sound a little like a teenager still. We set off and it was quite windy. There were also more hazards on the street, probably because the weather was so awful and people couldn’t see where they were going. At one point I was pushed right to the end of the kerb, nearly falling into the road.

‘George,’ I hissed. ‘Let’s jump on garden walls, it might be safer.’ We chose the harder, less direct, but definitely safer route. By the time we reached the restaurant we were tired – our fur both cold and warm, if that’s possible – and also a little relieved. Sometimes cat travel can be dangerous; I can’t count the number of times my tail’s been stepped on, or my paws for that matter. But, of course we love our freedom, so it’s a small price to pay.

Dustbin greeted us, and then Ally emerged from behind one of the big bins.

‘We haven’t seen you for a while, the show’s been keeping us busy, and I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten about you,’ I said.

‘We’ve seen all the comings and goings, so I know it’s been hectic, but we’ve missed you,’ Ally replied.

‘The show definitely seems to be one of your better ideas, everyone seems so happy about it,’ Dustbin added. I preened.

‘Please don’t start him off,’ George said with a groan. We all laughed a bit.

‘Tommy seems to be slightly better,’ I said, deciding not to be accused of boasting this time.

‘Yeah, he and Charlie have been working hard on ideas, from what we can see,’ Dustbin said. I loved that he was my eyes and ears on the family here. It made me feel as if I wasn’t missing out, even though I didn’t see them every day. Although I was seeing much more of them at the moment, with the show. ‘But, I think that Charlie needs to take credit for keeping him on track. He’s a different kid when Charlie’s around. When he’s just with the family he turns all surly and rude again.’

‘And …’ Ally stopped to laugh. ‘Tommy has a crush on the girl who is playing the main angel or something. He talks about her a lot to Charlie, but only out here. When Aleksy asked him about it he went all huffy again.’

‘Ah, teenage love, I remember it well,’ George said. I glanced at him in confusion. Since when was he such a grown-up?

‘Yeah, well, the main thing is that he’s starting to do better,’ Dustbin explained.

‘It’s music to my ears,’ I said. ‘So, anything new with you?’

‘Just really busy here,’ Dustbin said. ‘The restaurant is always full, which is great, but of course it means we have more pests to keep at bay.’

As we chatted and caught up, I was surprised to see Aleksy walking towards us. Shouldn’t he be at school?

‘Meow,’ I said, rubbing his legs.

‘Don’t worry, Alfie, I’m not skipping school, I’ve got to go to the dentist. I’m just going to meet Dad at the restaurant as he’s taking me.’

Ah, I didn’t know much about dentists, but I was glad he wasn’t doing anything he shouldn’t be. I didn’t need any more troublesome teens in my life.

‘I’m going to take one of the new posters to the dentist to see if they’ll put it up. And don’t forget we have a meeting at the hall tonight after school, to look at where we are with sets, so if you want to come along?’

‘Meow.’ Try keeping me away.

As he walked off, fussing us all before he went, Dustbin grinned.

‘They all treat you as if you’re a human.’

‘I know, and sometimes I feel as if I am, although of course us cats are cleverer than humans. Listen to my latest idea,’ I said, and I filled him in on the idea of getting the Sunday Lunch Club to the show on Christmas Day. The more I thought and talked about it the better it sounded.

‘Most people are tired on Christmas evening though,’ Ally pointed out. ‘All that food and drink, and the cooking and clearing up.’

‘I know and I had thought of that,’ I replied. ‘But if we did it early, like after lunch, it would be such a lovely way to end the show and Christmas Day too. It also means that the Sunday Lunch Club will already be with those who are in the show so transport won’t be a problem. Most of them could walk, it’s not that far.’

‘Yeah, I can see that,’ Dustbin said. ‘Hey, Ally, if they do it what about us sneaking in to watch?’ He raised his whiskers.

‘Really?’ George said. ‘I would love you to see us being sheep. I’m pretty good but the others need work. I have high hopes that they’ll be OK by opening night though.’

My fur bristled but I kept quiet.

‘I’d love to see you be sheep too,’ Dustbin said.

‘I have no idea what sheep are, but I’m pretty sure we should be there to see it,’ Ally added.

I was even more excited. To get them out of the yard took a lot, but it seemed that our friendship was enough. It moved me and I resolved to work hard to be a good sheep, whatever that meant.

‘So,’ Aleksy said later, as we met him at our house, ready to go to the hall. ‘I’ve given the Nativity script to the others, but obviously as you’re cats you are not able to read.’

Me, George, Snowball, and Hana sat facing him, all of us listening intently to our pep talk.

‘Mew,’ I said.

‘But, what happens is this. You will be in the field with the shepherds, which will be in the middle of the stage, just after Mary and Joseph are told they are having a baby and they set off to go on their journey to take part in the census. We tried to get a donkey for Mary to ride on but apparently it’s not safe, so we need to think about that. Connie thinks that as we’re doing a different version we could have them go on a bike, which might be fun, but we need to ask Sylvie and Marcus what they think about that. Anyway, where was I?’ He scratched his head.

‘Meow,’ George said impatiently.

‘Oh yes, so, you and the shepherds will be in the middle of the stage and you’ll be frolicking like sheep – jumping around, and playing, you can improvise – and then it goes dark and we have the song “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night”. After the song the angel comes, and you listen while she says a baby has been born and you have to visit. Then the shepherds herd you together and you all set off on your journey. That’s the first scene. We then break for Ralph’s choir to sing and come back for the second scene where you meet the baby Jesus.’

I realised that I’d stopped listening because I was thinking about the song and whether I’d heard it before, which I thought I had but couldn’t be sure …

‘Meow, meow, mew.’ George was telling him he understood. Thankfully, it seemed he’d been paying attention. Hopefully Hana and Snowball had been too.

Claire appeared and said it was time to go and get Connie. I was the only one going with them as Snowball and George were going to Snowball’s house, because George felt as if he had neglected Harold, and Hana was going home to rest as she was still really, really tired.

Before we parted, George said we would have to start rehearsals properly the following day as we all had a lot of work to do. It seemed that although Aleksy and Connie were directors of the show, George was the self-appointed director of us. We all agreed before I jumped into Aleksy’s arms. I had done quite a lot of walking today so I fancied being carried. One of the perks of the cat job.

After picking up Connie, she, Claire, and Aleksy chattered away about the rehearsals, and I enjoyed listening to them as we made our way to the hall. It was cold, so I snuggled into Aleksy as he carried me. We reached the hall and Claire unlocked the door using the keys Ralph the vicar had given us. She flicked on the lights as we walked in and then gasped.

‘What is it?’ Aleksy asked.

We all stared as Claire pointed at the stage. There were large, bright yellow footprints all across the stage.

‘How on earth?’ Claire said.

‘It looks like a man’s footprints,’ Connie said. ‘And we had yellow paint to make the big star that the wise men are going to follow.’ The star was huge and was to be attached to a person, though I wasn’t entirely sure who or how. Aleksy had said that maybe we could suspend the star in the air, as if it was in the sky, but apparently not on this amateur production’s budget. Jonathan said it would cost a fortune, not to mention something called health and safety. I loved how Aleksy had big ideas, but most of them did have to be reined in.

‘Who would do this?’ Aleksy asked. I was shocked. The stage was a mass of bright yellow footprints, as though someone had danced across it. Would this ruin the show?

I put a paw in the paint and found it was dry.‘Meow,’ I said to draw their attention. Claire bent down and put her finger in.

‘It’s dry, so it was done a while ago,’ she said. ‘OK, the sets were being done last night, so it must have happened then? Aleksy, I’ll call your dad and ask if he saw anything.’

Claire walked up to the stage and pulled out her mobile.

‘It’s going to ruin things,’ Connie said, turning to Aleksy.

‘No, it won’t. We just have to get it sorted.’ However, he looked confused and upset as he hugged Connie. I took a closer look. They were large footprints, with the tread of a boot or shoe. It was a lot of paint, but who would have done this? What a mystery.

‘Your dad is coming down here,’ Claire said as she hung up the phone. ‘He was here last night and locked the door himself, and he said that they definitely weren’t there then.’

‘That’s so weird,’ Connie said. ‘Do you think someone stood in the paint by mistake and didn’t realise?’

‘I think they’d have noticed, don’t you? It’s bright yellow so even if it was dark …’ Claire ran her fingers through her hair. ‘And it’s all over the stage; it’s a total wreck.’ Her voice was full of emotion. I understood. We had worked so hard on the show so far, and it meant so much to everyone. We didn’t need this.

‘It makes no sense,’ Aleksy said.

I agreed with him. I tried to see if I could find any clues, but there were none. All we knew was that there were footprints, which were from large feet– bigger than Claire, Aleksy or Connie’s – which suggested a man. The footprints weren’t here when Tomasz left last night so it must have been done after. It had to have been, because otherwise the paint would still be wet. Curiouser and curiouser. I looked forward to chatting it over with George to see what he thought.

Tomasz arrived and he was as baffled as the rest of us.

‘There were about five of us here, and we all left at the same time, around nine o’clock last night. They definitely weren’t there then and when we left the hall was empty.’

‘And no one else has keys?’ Aleksy asked.

‘No, just me, Claire, and the vicar,’ Tomasz said.

‘What if the vicar did it by accident?’ Connie asked.

‘I’m pretty sure it’s not Ralph,’ Claire said. ‘But I’ll call him.’ She went off to do so.

‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ Tomasz said and we were back to square one.

‘Dad, the stage is ruined, what are we going to do?’ Aleksy said, trying to focus on the only issue we could solve at this point.

‘Don’t worry son, I’ll get it sorted.’ Tomasz put his arm around his son, and I nuzzled his leg. I knew Tomasz would fix this, he was that kind of man.

‘Ralph hasn’t been here, he had no idea,’ Claire said, coming off the phone. ‘Can we get some white spirit and clean it off?’ she asked.

We were all examining it closely.

‘Honestly, it’s pretty thick. I think we’re better off sanding it down and then re-varnishing the stage. The paint won’t come off easily and it will still probably leave a stain. We have someone who sands all the restaurant floors for us so I’ll give him a call. I’m sure he’ll do it for a good cause.’

‘But it’ll put the stage out of action for a while,’ Connie pointed out.

‘What about rehearsals?’

I ran to the back of the room. They could clear a space and do it here.

‘MEOW,’ I shouted.

‘Ah, yes, we can use the back of the room, just for now,’ Aleksy said. ‘Good idea, Alfie.’

‘And we’ll get the floor done really quickly.’ Tomasz was already on his phone.

‘But still, how on earth did it happen?’ Claire asked again. We kept coming back to that.

I thought about it. Someone must have got in last night when no one else was here. I knew it wasn’t Tomasz or Claire and it was ridiculous to think that the vicar would ruin his own hall, especially as he was a big supporter of the shelter and the show. I tried to come up with the answer, but my brain was getting tired. Then I saw Tomasz walking behind the stage to the back of the hall. I vaguely remembered seeing another door there, didn’t I? I followed him out back, brushed past him as he talked on the phone and … yes, therewas another door, although it was off on the side, so not obvious. In fact, I wasn’t sure it led to the outside but it was worth a try and, from what I could see, it had a bolt on the inside, which didn’t seem to be across. I nudged the door with my head, it moved a bit. It was open! Ah-ha! I had my answer.

‘Yowl,’ I said at the top of my lungs. ‘Yowl, yowl, yowl.’ Finally Tomasz came to see what the noise was and I nudged the door again.

‘Come, quick,’ he shouted to the others, and they all joined us. ‘Look, Alfie found another door and it’s unlocked,’ he said, pushing it.

‘Oh no, it looks as if it needs to be locked from inside, I didn’t even realise it was there,’ Claire said.

‘Me either,’ Aleksy agreed.

‘At least we know how whoever it was got in,’ Connie added. Tomasz slipped the bolt across and pushed the door, which didn’t budge.

‘So that mystery’s solved,’ Claire said. ‘And now we can make sure it’s always locked.’

‘I didn’t know, otherwise I would have checked, sorry,’ Tomasz said.

‘Hey, it’s not your fault, we didn’t know the door was even here,’ Claire reassured.

‘Well done, Alfie,’ Aleksy said, rubbing my head. ‘But it doesn’t solve who did it,’ he pointed out.

Goodness, I wish I knew, but I couldn’t perform miracles. I had figured out how they got in, but it would take me longer to figure out who. But we were looking for someone with very big feet and so at least I had my first clue. So, if I looked at everyone’s feet when they came to work on the show, I might be able to crack it. I was hopeful.

‘Let’s hope it was an accident and a one off,’ Tomasz said as we checked that there was no other way into the hall.

‘Yes, probably was,’ Claire agreed as we shut the lights off and locked the hall, checking it more than once. Aleksy and Tomasz went off to their house, and Claire carried me as she and Connie went back to Edgar Road with a new mystery to solve.

Chapter Twenty

[Êàðòèíêà: img_21]

It was time for our first proper rehearsal of the Nativity. The stage wasn’t yet ready so, in the meantime, a space had been set up at the back of the hall for rehearsals, as per my suggestion. George had been working us quite hard, leaving very little time for trying to solve the paint mystery, seeing my friends, or anything not sheep related. I had managed to steal abit of alone time with Snowball, and also a few short visits with Elvis, Nellie, and Rocky – and sometimes Oliver and Salmon – but really, our time was taken up with learning how to be sheep.

When we first got given the part I was indignant because I was pretty sure that it was too easy– not to add beneath me – but actually, according to director George, doing it properly was a lot harder than I ever thought it would be. He was a strict taskmaster.

‘Try to be more convincing,’ he kept shouting at us. ‘Call yourself a sheep?’ was another of his favourite phrases. Even Hana, who was the sweetest cat ever, lost her temper a couple of times. When faced with rebellion, George would just say: ‘It’s show business, deal with it.’ Half the time I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Aleksy put all the shepherds together first and then got us to stand in front.

‘Can I just make a suggestion?’ Peter – the man who had been a terrible juggler but was now a shepherd along with Magic Marvin and Dolly – said. I looked at his feet, they were big, possibly about the right size for the yellow paint intruder. I made a mental note.

‘Sure, what is it?’ Claire asked. Franceska was with us today too.

‘How about I juggle the sheep?’

‘Yowl!’ I shouted, no way. George, Hana, and Snowball backed away.

‘Not the cat sheep, but stuffed ones.’

Franceska looked at Claire, who looked at Aleksy, who looked at Connie.

‘If we get some toy sheep we can try it, maybe,’ Connie said, with her face scrunched up. That seemed to be good enough for Peter.

‘Right, action,’ Aleksy shouted.

As the shepherds watched us fondly, we began to frolic. George was going for it, bounding around like an overactive lamb, and we all jumped a bit, shuffled and Snowball and I did a good impression of eating grass.

‘Brilliant, cats,’ Connie said, as she gave the cue for the song. As the music started and the shepherds started singing it wasn’t terrible. Tomasz and Matt, who were shepherds, looked a little embarrassed as they seemed to mumble rather than sing, but thankfully the other four shepherds werepretty good, so it didn’t matter.

Sienna the angel couldn’t make it today because she had a dance class, so, in the meantime, Claire read her part. Before we knew it, we were finished. The next scene was the wise men, and so we went to rest while they did their bit. Barbara, who seemed to think she was leading the wise men, spoke very loudly, and when they sang their song ‘We Three Kings’, she drowned out the other voices. And not in a good way.

‘It hurts my ears,’ George said.

‘That was great,’ Claire said, as they finished. ‘Um, we couldn’t hear Steve and Cath very well. Perhaps you guys could sing a bit louder,’ she suggested. I could tell she didn’t dare tell Barbara to sing more quietly.

‘Or, maybe this is a better idea, you each have a verse of your own and sing the chorus together,’ Aleksy said. The kid was a genius. It was a very fair idea.

‘But, perhaps you need my expertise to carry the song,’ Barbara said. Cath shot her a dirty look.

‘I think it’s much nicer for everyone to have a part and then join together in the chorus, as Aleksy said,’ Claire said diplomatically. Barbara first looked as if she was going to argue, but she then seemed to change her mind.

‘Of course. I’ll do the first verse,’ she said, quickly. I saw Cath and Steve – two people from our road – smile at each other. Barbara was one of those difficult people, she seemed to think she was an expert on all things to do with the show. She had a lot in common with George, in that respect.

The rehearsals finally came to an end. We didn’t have the Mary and Joseph scene today, as Aleksy had said we would rehearse each part before putting it all together, so the weekend would be the first full run through of the Nativity. It really felt as if it was all coming together. Now I could see the reality of the show and I felt as if I would burst with excitement. I just hoped the stage would be finished so we could rehearse properly soon.

‘Great work everyone,’ Aleksy said, sounding happy.

‘It’s really going very well,’ Connie said. ‘And you are all doing such amazing jobs.’

‘Right, see you all at the weekend,’ Claire said with a massive smile on her face.

Most of the cast left then, Matt rushing off to relieve Polly, who was coming here to work on sets, and I stayed with Aleksy and Connie because I wanted to be involved with everything. I also wanted to find the paint culprit which meant I had to be here as much as possible. The others all went home with Claire– not even Snowball could be persuaded to stay, as she said Harold would be expecting her home for dinner.

We all said our goodbyes, and I went to the backstage area to look at feet. Tomasz was supervising a team of people, some painting, others building things, and it was really quite noisy as they chatted, hammered, and assembled bits and pieces. They were building a shed-like structure, which would be the place where Mary and Joseph had the baby Jesus, and where we sheep and the shepherds would go and visit. When she arrived, Polly would be assembling props to go in it. They’d decided on hay bales for seats and Tomasz was building a manger with a couple of helpers. It was going to be quite minimal, to show that they didn’t have a luxury place for the birth, staying true to the original story. Also, I gathered they needed something that could easily be placed on the stage; we weren’t an elaborate production after all. Not with Jonathan in charge of budgets, in any case.

As they worked, I checked out as many feet as I could. There were only a few suspects, feet-wise, I mean. I ruled out all women– their feet were far too small – and only a few men had the right size feet and kind of shoes. None had yellow paint on, but then they would have got rid of them, wouldn’t they? One of the men had yellow paint streaks on his overalls, but then he had been painting the star before the stage sabotage happened, so I needed to keep that in mind.

Of course, it had also crossed my mind that the culprit might not be here at the moment. We had so many volunteers and they didn’t all come at once, because of the roster. In order to find out who did it I would have to be here all the time and even I couldn’t do that. I just had to hope that whoever it was hadn’t meant to tread paint over the stage but was too embarrassed to own up, and therefore wouldn’t be a problem again. I crossed my paws.

The evening passed nicely, actually. Even Barbara was friendly and nice to people, although she ignored me. I gave her as much space as I could and I was glad when Polly said it was time to finish up and she picked me up to take me home. I was tired and hungry. Food and bed, that was all I wanted.

But then Barbara offered to walk home with Polly and I. I was glad to be safely in Polly’s arms, I can tell you.

‘The cats seem to come everywhere with you,’ she said.

‘Yes, they are important members of our family,’ Polly said. ‘And of course they have to be involved in the show. Aleksy said it was Alfie’s idea.’

‘Meow.’ Finally, some recognition.

‘Really?’ Barbara sounded full of disbelief. ‘I’m pretty sure cats can’t have ideas.’

‘It’s a long story, but Alfie is quite remarkable. In fact, we are all friends because of Alfie.’

‘I never much liked cats,’ Barbara said.

Who’d have guessed? I narrowed my eyes at her but she didn’t look at me.

‘My late husband, he loved dogs, and we had one for years but when she died we were both so heartbroken we couldn’t think about getting another one. And now he’s gone too and I have nothing left.’ She began to sob.

‘Oh Barbara, I’m so sorry. It must be awful, losing him and then moving to a new place. Do you have family nearby?’

‘No, my daughter and her husband live up north. She encouraged me to join the play actually, said it would be good for me. She thinks I’m depressed.’

‘How long since your husband died?’ Polly jiggled me so she was holding me with one arm and touched Barbara’s arm with the other.

‘Six months. I had very little money left and had to sell our house in Richmond and move somewhere smaller. I hated leaving it. It felt as if he died all over again.’

She was properly crying now and Polly put her arm around her. I somehow found myself squashed between them but I didn’t object. I felt sorry for Barbara; she was obviously heartbroken. And she was crying, so she couldn’t hurt me, right?

‘Hey, listen, on Sunday we have a couple of friends coming round for lunch, would you like to join us?’ Polly asked as she stepped out of the hug.

‘That’s kind, but, no, no thank you. I’m happy to do the show but not quite ready to be in that sort of situation.’

‘Of course, you have to do whatever’s right for you, you’re the one who matters,’ she said, and I nuzzled into Polly, because she was right.

‘Yes, yes, whatever’s right for me,’ Barbara said.

We’d reached my house and Polly said goodbye to Barbara before taking me to the front door and ringing the doorbell.

I couldn’t help but think that Barbara’s actions towards me and George were a result of her depression. Perhaps I could learn to forgive her … I was pretty sure I could. It was confusing but I was trying to be compassionate. I knew how much grief could mess with anyone. On the other hand, this woman had tried, more than once, to hurt me and my kitten. I was really feeling mixed up about it. Did I do what I normally would do – try to win her round, and make her feel better at the same time? Or did I take the more sensible option of keeping well away from her? I just didn’t know.

‘So, you had to walk home with the cat hater,’ George said when we were alone together that evening.

‘Yes, well, Polly held on to me so I was quite safe. But remember, she has had an awful time of it, losing her husband, moving house and she doesn’t even have family nearby.’

‘Oh Dad, I said I’d give her another chance, but this would be her third or fourth chance. And I still don’t see how we can trust anyone who doesn’t like cats.’

‘She did say she liked dogs rather than cats, so you’re not wrong there, son. Anyway, I’m declaring tomorrow a show-free day. I am going to see my friends, spend time with Snowball, and just do normal things, because I need a day off.’

‘Yeah I understand, but we will have to fit in one of our rehearsals. I’m sorry but you guys really need to practise more, otherwise the show will be a disaster,’ George said.

‘A disaster?’ Really, George was melodramatic.

‘Yes, if we can’t be good sheep then the whole thing falls apart,’ he said.

I decided not to argue with him. I didn’t think he was right, but I knew that there was no point. So, it seemed that there was no such thing as a show-free day for me after all.

Chapter Twenty-One

[Êàðòèíêà: img_22]

The next day, I visited Snowball and we set out to see our friends. We had a nice stroll, we both napped, and really, it was all the things that cats like best. If I had been given pilchards it would have been perfect. But there were no pilchards. Never mind, it was still a pretty good, relaxing day until after school, when Aleksy and Connie came to our house, visibly upset.

‘The dance crew wanted to go to the hall so they could use the stage to practise, and we said great, we would let them in. I was going to use Dad’s key – he said he had his in his jacket pocket – but we looked and it’s gone.’

‘Oh, Jonathan loses his keys all the time,’ Claire said. ‘Your dad has probably put them somewhere else and thinks it was in his pocket. Take these for now and I’m sure they’ll turn up,’ Claire said. ‘I can’t come with you, unfortunately. Polly and Matt are working late and I’ve got all the kids.’ It seemed Claire might like a show-free day too, although the kids were upstairs practising their songs at the top of their voices, so it seemed that there was no such thing as a show-free day for her either.

Aleksy and Connie trotted off, and we settled down in our basket for a pre-dinner rest. Pickles was supposed to be up practising with the children but he joined us instead– clearly he had also had enough of the singing.

‘Apparently I am the best reindeer ever,’ he told us.

‘I doubt that,’ George said, but thankfully Pickles didn’t hear him.

‘I’m sure you are, Pickles,’ I said, giving George a ‘look’.

‘Guess, what though, I can even make a reindeer sound,’ he said.

‘What’s a reindeer sound?’ George asked.

‘Woof, woof, woof.’

‘Really good,’ I said, silencing George again.

I closed my eyes as George and Pickles bickered like siblings, and took another short cat nap. My nap count today had been impressive to say the least.

I was woken by a commotion as Polly arrived with Aleksy and Connie.

‘Calm down,’ Polly was saying. ‘You’re both talking at the same time, and I can’t understand – oh there you are Claire, thank goodness; maybe you can get some sense out of these two.’

‘What is going on?’ Claire asked. I sat up, yawned, and blinked. Whatwas going on?

‘The hall, we went there and the dancers got on stage to practise, so we went backstage to see how the props looked and it was a total mess. The star was all ruined, the stable had been broken, and there was mess everywhere. Nicky said that we should call the police, but then we thought we would ask you first,’ Aleksy gushed.

‘And there was no sign of a breakin?’ Claire asked.

‘No, and then I thought about how we couldn’t find Dad’s keys, so that means maybe …’

Surely they weren’t accusing Tomasz. Yes, he did have very big feet and he had keys but he wasn’t the sort to do—

‘Of course I’m not suggesting it was Dad, of course,’ Aleksy said. Ah, OK, I thought so. ‘But after the paint, we think maybe someone took his keys and did it.’

‘Yes, someone must have taken his keys last night, stolen them,’ Connie said, as if we were in any doubt as to what Aleksy meant.

‘Really?’ Polly scrunched her face up in disbelief. ‘Isn’t that a bit, well, extreme?’

‘I think we need to take it seriously,’ Connie said. ‘Weighing up all the evidence it looks as if someone is out to sabotage our show.’ Connie wants to be a lawyer and she’s very sensible, so I had to agree with her.

‘Oh my goodness, why would they do that? It’s for charity, it’s for the community and there are children involved.’ Claire’s voice was pitched a bit high; she was clearly upset.

‘Right, we need to find out who did this. Come on, I’ll get Matt to come pick up the kids and we’ll go to the hall and survey the damage. Can your dad make it?’ Polly asked.

‘No, he’s working tonight, covering for one of the chefs, so we’ll have to tell him later. Besides he’ll blame himself because of the keys,’ Aleksy said, sounding so upset. I nuzzled him but I feared that was little comfort at the moment.

‘It’s not his fault,’ Claire said. ‘But if we find out who it was, they better watch out.’

I was with Claire on this one. We would find out who it was, and when we did they would be sorry they messed with us and our show. Although, I was still worried about those big feet. Someone could do some serious damage to a cat like me with feet that size.

All the children and George were tucked up and I was with Claire and Jonathan, in our living room, as Claire explained the situation to him.

‘If it ruins my budget, they will be sorry,’ he said.

‘Always thinking about the money. Thankfully, Polly said that although it was pretty bad it’s nothing we can’t fix. More worrying is why would someone want to hurt the show.’

‘So, it looks as if the paint on the stage wasn’t an accident?’ Jonathan suggested.

‘No, and the keys, well, they were definitely Tomasz’s keys. He feels awful, but clearly someone took them without him knowing,’ Claire added.

‘You don’t think Tommy would do it, do you? He’s been in so much trouble lately … I hate to think badly of him – because he’s a great kid normally – but maybe he’s in a worse way than we thought? Maybe he did do this?’ Jonathan looked pensive. I knew what he was saying but I couldn’t believe it was our Tommy. No, no there was no way he would do this.

‘You mean for attention? I guess his acting up could have been a cry for attention, it often is with teenagers,’ Claire said.

Thinking about it, Tommy’s behaviour had been erratic – good one minute, terrible the next. But no, it couldn’t have been Tommy. I was pretty sure of that. He might be a bit of a wild one but he was working really hard for the show, and he’d been to the shelter with us; he’d met the people that the show was going to help. No, no way it was him, I’d bet my fur on it.

‘No, I’m pretty sure it’s not him; he wouldn’t. He’s turned over a new leaf and at heart he’s a good kid. Plus, he loves his role in the show,’ Claire said.

‘Yeah you’re right, it was just a thought because of the keys. But if Tomasz had them in his jacket, I guess anyone could have taken them. It’ll be tricky to find out who did it.’

‘We need to find out soon, before they do anything even worse,’ Claire added.

‘Agreed, I’ll start paying more attention when I’m there, look out for anyone suspicious,’ Jonathan said. I didn’t have high hopes for him as he wasn’t the most observant person ever. ‘And, we have family day this Saturday. We’ll get everyone onboard trying to discover who did this,’ Jonathan said.

‘No one can ruin our show, it’s so important,’ Claire said.

‘No one will. I promise, my love,’ Jonathan replied.

No, no one would because now I was on the case. Or I would be after a good night’s sleep and a decent breakfast. And first port of call would be to speak to the others – George, Snowball, Hana, and our other cat friends, because they would help us get to the bottom of it. As much as I knew the adults meant well, I also knew it would come down to me and my cat gang in the end. It always did.

‘You mean they did more damage?’ George asked when I filled him in the next morning. I waited until after breakfast when the house was empty, but we did have Pickles with us.

‘What does that mean?’ Pickles asked.

‘You wouldn’t understand, you’re a dog,’ George said, and I put a paw on him. He really had to remember to be kinder to Pickles. He was a dog, yes, but he was still a baby. George really needed to have more patience.

‘Actually I am Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,’ Pickles retorted and ran around in a circle.

‘Anyway,’ I said, bringing the conversation back to the matter at hand. ‘The point is that we need to foil whoever it is who is doing this and so far we have very little evidence.’

‘What is evidence and can I eat it?’ Pickles asked.

‘See what I mean?’ George raised his whiskers. Yes, my defence of Pickles was wearing a little thin.

‘So far, we know the person has big feet, the size of Tomasz, Matt or Jonathan’s.’

‘But none of them would have done this,’ George said.

‘No, of course not. I’m just using their feet as an example. The person also managed to access Tomasz’s keys, but as Claire said, he had it in his jacket pocket so it could have been anyone with access to the jacket while he wasn’t wearing it.’

‘Right, so this evidence is really not very good. We are looking for someone with big feet,’ George summed up.

‘You’re right, it’s not a lot to go on.’ I scratched my head; it was a perplexing situation.

‘We’ll have to go to the hall when they’re making sets or rehearsing and see if we can see anything suspicious. Search for clues, watch people,’ George suggested.

‘There’s a rehearsal tonight, and Polly said they would be setting up the trees as well.’

‘Great, well at least we have a starting point,’ George said.

‘Can I come?’ Pickles asked.

‘I guess you’ll have to, seeing as you’re a reindeer,’ George replied.

‘I’m not a reindeer, I am Rudolph – the best reindeer ever.’

‘You are,’ I said quickly before my son could say anything scathing to the poor pug.

‘So, I can help you catch the baddie,’ Pickles said.

George shook his tail. I knew he thought that Pickles would be more hindrance than help, but then, you never knew. Maybe he would be able to help us. Or, then again, maybe he wouldn’t.

I needed to go and rally my troops. It was going to be a long day, I could feel it in my fur, but I would make sure that I was prepared.

‘George, I have to go and see Snowball. You can go and fill in Hana, I guess?’

‘Sure thing, Dad.’

‘What about me?’ Pickles asked.

‘What I really need for now is for you to stay here and keep guard. Note anything suspicious and tell us when we get back. Think of yourself as being in charge of ground control.’ I knew I wasn’t technically supposed to leave Pickles but Claire would be back any minute – or so I hoped – and this was an emergency. It was a case of neighbourhood security after all.

‘Oh, now that does sound important. Am I important?’ he pushed.

‘Very,’ George said, staring at his paw. ‘Right, I’m off. Let operation foil the saboteur begin.’

‘What’s that mean?’ Pickles asked.

‘I’ll explain later,’ I said. ‘For now, we really have to go and you need to stay here and be in charge.’ I followed George out of the cat flap and the house before Pickles could ask any more questions.

It wasn’t even midday and we were already weary. My first stop had been Snowball, but Harold was clutching her, so we’d had to wait, because he really didn’t let her go for a minute. Thankfully Sylvie called round with Theo, and Snowball was at once discarded and replaced by baby Theo. That baby wasproving very useful, it seemed. We quickly ran outside and finally had a chance to chat.

‘We’ll get it sorted,’ Snowball said reassuringly when I finished telling her.

‘Yes, but we don’t have much time and we need a plan,’ I said.

‘You and your plans! But yes, this time I agree, it’s important.’ Snowball sounded serious, she wasn’t even taking the opportunity to tease me … much, anyway.

‘It’s vital. And we cats will probably end up having to solve it as usual,’ I pointed out.

‘You’re probably right. Alfie, what if the person is really bad? The show is for charity so to try to ruin it is awful; we don’t want to put ourselves in danger.’ Her fur shook.

‘No, Snowball, I promise I’ll make sure that we aren’t in danger.’ Thankfully she didn’t notice that I had my paws crossed. I couldn’t promise any such thing, but I could hope, and I certainly hoped we wouldn’t get into too much danger. But then, sometimes danger did seem to be my middle name.

Our second stop was the recreation ground, where I filled in our other cat friends. They all sat to attention like an army as they listened to me.

‘Right, so we need to see if we can find out who is doing this?’ Oliver said. He was quite a smart cat so I had high hopes for him being able to help.

‘Yes, and as a lot of the people involved in the show live on this street, you guys can be our eyes and ears here on Edgar Road,’ I explained.

‘Got it, I’ll see if there’s anything suspicious going on,’ Rocky said.

‘We can do a bit of a patrol of the street between us,’ Nellie said.

‘Rest assured, Alfie, we are on your team,’ Elvis finished.

‘I know I can always count on you,’ I said.

‘Now we need to find Salmon. If anyone knows anything, it’ll be him,’ Snowball said. So off we trotted.

Salmon was sat just outside his front door, under a shelter. He looked as if he was guarding his house and I was glad for his, and his humans’, busybody behaviour for once.

‘I heard about this,’ Salmon said when we finished telling him what had been happening. ‘Claire phoned us and Vic and Heather are already on the case. They are talking about organising a neighbourhood watch meeting to help sort this out.’

‘Good,’ I said. For once I was keen for a neighbourhood watch meeting. Normally I wasn’t, because they went on for ages and ages and were incredibly tiresome. Jonathan had fallen asleep in quite a few, which annoyed Claire, but I honestly couldn’t blame him.

‘Don’t worry, Alfie,’ Salmon said kindly. ‘We’ll catch the culprit and save your show.’

I was suitably reassured as we left Salmon to go to our last port of call for today, which was Dustbin. Although Snowball agreed with me that it couldn’t be Tommy doing all of this, we both felt that it would be a good idea to go and check that he was alright. I was worried that others might be pointing the finger at him, the way Claire and Jonathan had.

‘It’s been a long day, already,’ Snowball said as we made our way to the restaurant yard in the freezing cold. It was as though she could read my mind.

‘God, it has, and if we don’t get this sorted, every day might be long from now on.’ I wanted to time our visit for after school so I could get a sense of whether it possibly could have been Tommy.

‘At least we’ll get some food when we get there,’ she said, suddenly cheering. Oh yes, we had definitely earned some treats, as we’d been working so very hard.

‘Ah, I thought we might see you,’ Dustbin said as we greeted him. ‘And I think you are just in time.’ He gestured to the yard behind Tomasz and Franceska’s house, where Aleksy and Tommy were stood, staring at each other.

‘You did it,’ Aleksy was shouting, his face red. Uh oh, it wasn’t just Jonathan that thought Tommy could be our culprit.

‘No, I did not.’

‘You said you’re helping with the show but you still call it stupid and now look what’s happened.’

‘It is stupid but that doesn’t mean I did it.’ Tommy and Aleksy were standing quite close together. I ran to get in the middle.

‘Meow,’ I said loudly.

‘Alfie, Tommy is the one ruining our show,’ Aleksy said.

‘Yowl.’ I really don’t think he is.

‘I’m not,’ Tommy shouted back. Thankfully, Franceska appeared.

‘What is all the shouting about?’

‘Tommy won’t admit that he’s the one messing up the show.’

‘Aleksy, your brother wouldn’t do that; right, Tommy?’

‘I didn’t, Mum. Look, I may not have been as supportive as I should have been but I am trying, and I wouldn’t do anything to ruin it for the shelter. I’m not a monster.’

‘You are a monster,’ Aleksy shot back.

‘Aleksy, stop it. Listen to me, if Tommy says he didn’t do it then that’s good enough. And last night he was definitely here all evening, so it couldn’t have been him.’

‘See,’ Tommy said.

‘Yes, but Tommy you have to see that your behaviour has been so bad lately that people might suspect you, and for that you only have yourself to blame,’ she added.

‘Right.’ Tommy looked at the ground.

‘Can we try to stop this? Christmas is coming soon and the show needs you and Charlie for the social media. He has been doing a good job so far, hasn’t he, Aleksy?’ I was glad that Franceska was able to remain so calm.

‘He has,’ Aleksy said grudgingly.

‘So can we agree that Tommy, you’ll make more effort, and Aleksy, you give your brother another chance.’

‘I am sorry, Aleksy, but I really didn’t do it and I wouldn’t hurt the show.’ Tommy sounded sincere.

‘OK, I’m sorry I accused you, but maybe you could stop taking the mickey out of me now and just get on with it?’

‘Deal.’

The boys shook hands and I felt we had made a real breakthrough. But then, if it wasn’t Tommy, we still didn’t know who was the show wrecker in our midst.

That night at rehearsals, it all seemed normal as I patrolled the backstage area. I was so tired from the day’s adventures but as George kept saying ‘the show must go on’. No one seemed hostile, no one was acting suspiciously. Tomasz still hadn’t found his keys and he asked if anyone had seen them – they had not. But then, if someone had taken them they wouldn’t say, would they? Polly was ranting about the damage, and how it was taking money from people who already had less than nothing – how you could have less than nothing I wasn’t sure – but again, I looked for reactions, but no one looked guilty. The only conclusion was that either the person wasn’t here tonight, or they werevery good at acting. Oh boy, that gave me an idea. I went to find George.

‘George,’ I hissed.

‘What?’ I ushered him into the corner. I would have rounded up Hana and Snowball as well but Harold was holding them both, one in each arm, so I couldn’t tell them yet.

‘You know I’ve been looking for clues and I discovered that no one showed any guilt backstage, which means that the culprit either isn’t here or is a very good actor.’

‘And what does that mean?’

‘It means that we are looking for someone with big feet who is also a good actor.’

‘But apart from me we don’t have anyone that good in the show,’ George pointed out.

‘Well, yes, OK, but we need to look closely at the people in the Nativity. Not Matt and Tomasz of course, but the men we don’t know. So, our first step, pardon the pun, is to look at everyone’s feet and pick out those who have the biggest.’

‘What do you mean, about the pun?’ George eyed me as if I was a little mad.

‘Never mind, just keep your eyes open for a big-footed actor.’ How hard could he be to find? It wasn’t as if we had a cast of thousands.

Thankfully my musings were interrupted as the children climbed onto the stage. They looked cute, although they weren’t yet wearing their costumes – neither was Pickles, because he kept trying to eat the red nose – as they had said they’d save it for the night.

‘Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer …’ they trilled as they tried to get Pickles to do the dance they had taught him. Henry held a dog treat and Pickles went on his hind legs and danced in a circle on them. It was very cute but definitely more dog than reindeer, or so I thought, anyway.

‘He looks sweet,’ George said, showing a rare moment of fondness for Pickles.

‘He does. As do our children.’

Everyone clapped as the song came to an end and Pickles licked the stage.

‘Woof, woof, woof,’ he said, standing in the centre and looking pleased with himself.

‘Bravo,’ Claire shouted.

‘Great job, everyone,’ Aleksy said, taking his director role seriously.

‘And now, we have the Edgar Road singers,’ Connie said. As Vic and Heather led their group onto the stage, I sat down. This was too important to everyone, I justhad to find the culprit, there was absolutely no choice.

Chapter Twenty-Two

[Êàðòèíêà: img_23]

The neighbourhood watch meeting was, luckily, being held at our house, which meant I could attend. It was Monday evening and a rare evening away from the show. We were no closer to finding out who had done the damage so far, but it was early days and thankfully nothing else had happened. Because some of the sets had been ruined, Tomasz and his crew were working late to re-do them all, so maybe the bad person just hadn’t had the opportunity to ruin anything else. Or maybe they had stopped. I could only hope that they’d stopped.

‘Right let’s get started,’ Vic said, clapping his hands. Claire and Jonathan were rushing around making drinks for everyone, and the living room was full, standing room only. The doorbell rang and Vic tutted loudly. He hated anyone being even one minute late.

Polly opened it and came back with Barbara.

‘So sorry I’m late,’ she said, with a big smile. ‘I’m here to help.’

I was unsure whether I believed her or not, but she sounded genuine. She didn’t even glare at me, so I thought perhaps she was actually becoming nice. Or nicer, at least.

I settled down in a good listening place, on Matt’s lap. He stroked me as he listened to Vic.

‘We will not let anyone ruin all our hard work,’ he was saying.

‘No, and also Edgar Road does not tolerate crime of any description,’ Heather added.

‘We will catch whoever it is and they will be sorry they messed with us,’ Vic shouted, making Matt jump.

I concentrated as they tried to come up with an action plan. Some of the ideas were immediately discounted. The first was to install cameras, but Jonathan vetoed that on the basis of the cost being too high, especially as they only needed it for a short time. Then Vic said they could arrange security to be at the hall at all times, but again this wasn’t practical.

‘I don’t see how it would work. We’ve got a fair few weeks until the show and everyone’s busy enough as it is,’ Jonathan replied.

‘I agree, it’s not feasible to have someone stationed at the hall at all times,’ Vic concluded.

Although it did give me an idea. If it came to it, maybe we cats could keep watch. Yes, that wasn’t a bad idea at all. Honestly, the cat neighbourhood watch could foil this before the human one did. But then, we usually did.

The meeting conclusion was a pretty woolly plan where everyone would keep their eyes and ears open and report anything suspicious… which was pretty much my, and my cat friends’, plan too. But it was still gratifying to see everyone firmly behind making the show a success and trying to stop anyone from doing it harm. Surely with us all working together, the show would be safe now.

‘Right, so we know what we’re all doing?’ Vic said, after a lot of waffle. I would have been surprised if anyone knew what they were doing.

‘Pretty much nothing,’ Jonathan muttered and Claire swatted him.

There was a bit more chatter before Jonathan finally managed to get everyone out. Matt and Polly stayed behind for a last drink and a debrief.

‘Do you think the person who did it was here?’ Polly asked, sipping her wine.

‘Probably. I would be, if it was me, to see what we knew,’ Matt replied.

‘I just don’t understand why anyone would try to sabotage the show,’ Polly said.

‘Me either,’ Claire agreed.

‘No one seems to know anything though; that’s the problem,’ Jonathan said.

‘True, and no one was acting in a suspicious manner,’ Claire said, which I agreed with, because I had been watching and I had very good intuition.

‘So maybe they weren’t here. What if they have nothing to do with the show but they just don’t want it to go ahead?’ Polly mused.

‘But why?’ Matt was as confused as I was.

‘Well, I’m pretty sure it can’t be about the charity. No one could object to supporting the homeless shelter, surely?’ Claire said.

‘People can be strange and have weird motives for doing things. By the way, Tomasz called me. They couldn’t be here tonight because of work, but apparently Aleksy accused Tommy of doing it,’ Matt said.

‘Unfortunately, that possibility did cross my mind too,’ Jonathan said.

‘But he didn’t, and he had an alibi in any case,’ Matt explained.

‘Just shows how mud sticks,’ Polly said. ‘Tommy was just being a teenager and now he’s trying to join in with us, become part of it, and I really think he’s turned a corner.’

‘I agree, and he wants the work experience with Jon, so he really is trying,’ Claire said.

‘Anyway, I feel bad for doubting him, because it definitely wasn’t him, and we can be sure about that. Tommy has turned over a new leaf,’ Jonathan added.

‘Which brings us back to square one. No idea who has been messing with the show,’ Polly sighed.

‘No idea at all,’ Matt sighed.

They were wrong, I thought, as I settled into my bed, I wasn’t at square one. We knew it wasn’t anyone we were close to, because they all cared too much. The more I thought about it the more I thought I would have to sneak into the hall overnight and act as a watchcat, but I didn’t fancy doing it alone and I had to have a long hard think about who would be happy to do it with me. Snowball would be my obvious choice, but I was pretty sure that there was no way she could sneak out without Harold noticing, and if she disappeared overnight he would probably panic, which could hurt him. George would probably love the adventure but what if the person did turn up and we were in danger? I couldn’t put him in danger, he was my kitten. Hana wasn’t even on the list as she would be terrified and I wouldn’t put her through that. None of the cats from the recreation ground would be that happy to spend the night away from Edgar Road, and although Iknew if I asked them they would, I didn’t want to put them in that position. And, of course, Dustbin and Ally would join me if it was an emergency, but night time was the busiest time in the yard and they needed to keep the rodents at bay – that was their job after all. So, really that left me with only one option – an option that I wasn’t overly keen on – but I could see no other way.

I went to see Salmon the next morning and told him of my plan. He stared at me with narrowed eyes.

‘We stake out the hall?’ he said.

‘Well, yes, but only if there’s any more problems, of course, which they decided last night there might not be. But if we’re going to catch the culprit …’

‘I agree. I would be happy to step into the breach with you; my owners would want me to help out. And although it might be dangerous, I accept the mission.’

‘Right, uh … that’s great.’ Salmon was more dramatic than me sometimes.

‘What next?’

‘We have a rehearsal tonight, and I’m hoping we’ll find everything intact, but if not then we shall have to spend at least one night there, maybe more, until we find out who is doing this.’

‘Alfie, as much as I don’t relish spending a night in a cold, dark hall with you, I agree it might be the only answer. I’ll come to rehearsal tonight so I can see the lay of the land for myself.’

‘Great. OK, well, I guess I’ll see you there later.’

We said a nice, friendly goodbye and I went home. Goodness, I could only hope that we caught the person on the first night out there, because more than one night alone with Salmon might be more than this cat could cope with. I was beginning to regret my plan but I told myself that it was for a good cause, and it would be worth it if we were able to save the show.

When I told Snowball and the others at the recreation ground, they all had a good laugh at me. Only Elvis was missing, and Nellie said she couldn’t wait for him to hear about this.

‘Listen, I am making the sacrifice for the greater good,’ I said, my fur bristling.

‘But, Salmon? I mean, it wasn’t long ago that he tried to fight you all the time,’ Rocky said.

‘That was years ago, and Tiger used to see him off,’ I said with fondness.

‘No one would mess with Tiger,’ Snowball said. We often shared memories of her, because she had been an important part of all our lives. Although Snowball had been my girlfriend first, when she came back after Tiger died and heard about our relationship she was happy for us, rather than jealous. But then, they were friends themselves back in the day. It was nice to be able to talk freely about Tiger with Snowball. I couldn’t help but think she would have done the overnight in the hall and she was far feistier than me, so if there was any danger lurking, it would probably be her that would have faced it. I shook my head. Those thoughts weren’t going to help us now, so instead I would use my memories of Tiger for strength, as I often did.

‘Anyway, Salmon and I are almost friends,’ I said. ‘So, let’s not worry about that right now.’

‘We can worry about the fact that if the person comes to the hall when you’re there and sees you, you could be in danger,’ Nellie said.

‘Oh gosh, I hadn’t thought about that,’ Snowball said. ‘Alfie, you have to promise to be careful.’

I brushed their concerns away.

‘Listen, we don’t even know yet if we’ll have to do it, but if we do, Salmon and I will stay hidden, I promise.’ I shuddered. I had been in enough danger in my life, I certainly didn’t need more.

That night, Salmon and I made our way out of the hall after rehearsals. We decided the best thing to do was to wait outside, hidden in the shadows, to see if anyone came. I was hoping someone would, but also scared because what would we do if they did?

‘So what do we do, if we have to confront someone?’ Salmon asked.

‘I was thinking the same. Perhaps if we just make enough noise to scare them off?’ I suggested.

‘OK, but if they look dangerous, then we definitely leave them alone.’ Salmon sounded nervous but I was too, so I understood.

We crouched behind a wall in front of the hall, as it was the only way someone could get inside. I shivered– it really was bitterly cold – and hoped we wouldn’t be here too long.

‘So, what’s your favourite thing about Christmas?’ Salmon asked me, to pass the time.

‘Only one thing.’

‘One thing.’

‘Family and friends being together,’ I said. I would have said the food but that was shallow and I am not a shallow cat.

‘I agree, it’s a wonderful time if you have a nice family,’ Salmon said.

‘Gosh, that’s deep.’

‘I’m thinking of the shelter, the people who probably don’t have family, because if they did, they wouldn’t be homeless, would they?’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘There would be someone to take care of them. When my first owner, Margaret, died, I had no one to take care of me, but I was lucky enough to find a new family.’

‘And your Toby, he found a new family.’

‘Yes he did, but it might not be so easy for grown-ups as it is for cats and children,’ I mused.

‘Sad, that.’

We both lapsed into our thoughts before being shaken by the sound of footsteps.

‘Quick, look,’ I said, standing up. Salmon did the same. It was dark but we saw a shadowy figure approach. I checked the feet, they were big. Whoever it was, was big, and also not Tommy, I was relieved to see.

‘Ready, let’s pounce,’ I said as the footsteps came closer.

‘God help us,’ Salmon said and we jumped out.

‘Yowl,’ I said at the top of my voice.

‘Meow!’ Salmon shouted.

‘Oh my God, you nearly gave me heart failure.’

We both became silent as we stared at Tomasz. Not the saboteur then. Or was he? No.

‘What the hell are you doing? I left my phone here – Franceska says I lose everything – and I was coming back for it.’

Ah, that explained it.

‘Were you waiting to see if the sabotage person came back?’

‘Meow,’ I admitted.

‘What clever cats you are, but you need to be careful. Whoever it was had quite big feet, Alfie.’

I shuddered. Tomasz was right and I’d already thought about the damage those feet could do.

Chapter Twenty-Three

[Êàðòèíêà: img_24]

Iwas distracted from the show for a moment because it was Christmas tree day. Finally. It seemed that since we had started the show we had been waiting to be able to get Christmas properly started and now we were. It might be a little early but Claire said they were working so hard on the show that if we didn’t get the tree now, we might not have the time to all do it together. I think secretly she liked the idea of putting it up a bit earlier than usual. And as the show was so Christmassy, it seemed only fitting that we enveloped ourselves in all things Christmas.

Like everything in our families’ lives, Christmas tree day was crazy. Tomasz came with us because he had a van and that could fit ours, Polly and Matt’s, and their tree in. We had offered for Sylvie and Marcus to come but they said with Theo being so tiny they were going to put up an artificial tree, and Harold said he had one that he’d had since Marcus was a boy and it was good enough; he wasn’t going to waste money on a tree that only got used for a month. Jonathan agreed with him but he was outvoted by the rest of us.

The only downside to Christmas tree shopping was that us cats were banned. As was Pickles.

George, Pickles, and I could only sit at home and wait for the tree to arrive.

‘I am so excited,’ Pickles said.

‘Remember no trying to climb it this year.’ Last year had been the first year when George hadn’t climbed the Christmas tree, but he’d encouraged Pickles to do so. This year I was hoping for no tree issues for the first time in a long time.

‘No, I won’t. Can I eat it?’ he asked.

‘No, it’s prickly and could hurt you,’ George cautioned. I gave him a stare of approval.

‘No eating the decorations, or the tinsel either,’ I said.

‘So many rules.’ Pickles didn’t like to be told not to do something. None of us did, really, and Pickles generally did the opposite of what he was told, which never turned out well.

It felt like hours but finally they returned with the tree.

‘Did we have to get one this big,’ Jonathan moaned as he, Tomasz, and Matt carried it in, straining under the weight.

‘Yes,’ Claire said simply.

‘It’s the best tree ever,’ Summer said.

‘Why isn’t ours as big?’ Henry asked.

‘Our living room is a bit smaller so we have two – one for the living room and one for you guys to decorate exactly how you want,’ Polly explained.

‘Why haven’t we got a tree to decorate exactly how we want?’ Toby asked.

‘Because you got the world’s most expensive tree,’ Jonathan said. He was still a little red faced from the exertion. It was a very big tree.

‘Why isn’t ours the world’s most expensive?’ Martha asked.

The adults all shook their heads.

‘We’ll go and drop yours off next,’ Tomasz said to Polly, Matt, Martha, and Henry. ‘Then I better get mine back to the house, as Franceska is insisting the boys help to decorate it. I thought Tommy would say he was far too old but he agreed. Although as Connie’s coming over, he’s allowed to have Charlie too.’

I was pleased by this news. Although Tommy wasn’t quite his old self, it sounded like he was getting there.

We had a lovely afternoon. Claire put on her favourite Christmas music, someone called Michael Bubl?, who apparently was a very handsome Christmas singer. Even Jonathan began to stop moaning about the cost of the tree as they started getting the decorations out.

We had got all the decorations down from the loft earlier and Claire was sorting them out, with Toby helping.

‘All I want for Christmas is you,’ the singer sang.

‘All I want for Christmas is you,’ Claire joined in, laughing, and gave Toby a hug, then Summer and Jonathan. As the family danced around the living room – including Jonathan, who had Summer dancing on his feet – George and I joined in. We danced until our paws hurt.

‘I know, let’s make hot chocolate and have marshmallows while we decorate the tree,’ Claire suggested.

‘Yay!’ Toby and Summer said.

‘Put a shot of whisky in mine,’ Jonathan said.

‘I might, if you promise not to be grumpy,’ she replied.

‘Mew,’ George said to me. He was a bit partial to marshmallows, which weren’t exactly cat friendly and which I didn’t like because they were sticky, but each to their own.

It might have taken us hours but the tree did look impressive when it was finished.

‘Wow, it’s beautiful,’ Claire said quite emotionally as Jonathan climbed up the stepladder and placed the angel on top.

‘That’s the angel both you kids made last year,’ Jonathan added. ‘Right, who is going to do the big light switch on?’

‘Me, me, me,’ Summer said.

‘Meeee,’ Toby said.

‘I’d say it’s a draw, so as we have two sets of lights, you can plug one in each on my count.’

I could barely contain my excitement as the children took the plugs and got ready to put them in the socket.

‘Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, go,’ Jonathan said.

‘Wow,’ Claire said as the lights all sparkled and the tree lit up.

‘Mew,’ I said. It was beautiful.

‘Yowl,’ George said. ‘It’s going to be hard to resist climbing that one.’

‘Please try.’ I flicked my tail.

‘Silent Night’ started playing and we all huddled round the tree, admiring it.

‘Plenty of room for Santa to put presents,’ Summer said.

‘But remember, it’s not just about presents,’ Toby said. He was pretty mature for a kid.

‘No, it’s about family, love, and caring about those who aren’t as lucky as us,’ Claire said.

‘Like the homeless people,’ Summer said.

‘Meow.’ Maybe Summer was maturing too.

‘Family photo time!’ Claire said.

Jonathan got his phone as Summer put tinsel round George and we all stood by the tree– Jonathan and Claire at the back, Summer holding George, and Toby holding me at the front. Jonathan took it as a selfie.

‘That will be our Christmas card this year,’ Claire declared as she looked at it. I managed to jump onto the chair arm and see it; we did look like a perfect family. But then, we pretty much were.

We’d gone back to admiring the tree when the doorbell went. I ran after Jonathan to see who it was. Tommy stood on the doorstep, looking sheepish.

‘I thought you were decorating your tree?’ Jonathan said.

‘We did it. Apparently our tree is normal and yours is a monster.’

‘It is,’ Jonathan agreed.

‘Aleksy walked Connie home, so I thought I’d come and see you.’

‘Come on in.’

‘Actually, can we talk here? It’s just that I don’t want the kids to see me and think I’m mean for not playing with them again.’

‘OK, sure.’ I stood outside with Jonathan even though it was bitterly cold.

‘I came to say sorry.’

‘What for?’ Jonathan asked.

‘I know you said that if I behaved myself and got good grades I might be able to do work experience and I was grateful but for some reason I just managed to get into more trouble. I feel like I upset everyone in my family and now I’ve realised that I don’t want to be that person anymore.’

‘Right, well that’s a good start. But what’s made you realise this?’

‘I was angry all the time, and I didn’t want to have to join in with the show, I thought it was dumb and that’s not nice. But I realised how much I’ve been missing out on by being so bad, and I want to go back to how I was. I still get a bit angry at times but Mum explained it’s hormones.And I think the shelter is such a good cause and I love doing the social media; I even told Aleksy that. I pretended to hate it at first but it wasn’t true. My friend Charlie has helped me see how awful I was being, and now I want to do better.’

‘Well, that’s great. I have to admit, I heard Aleksy thought you were the one who sabotaged the show, and it had crossed my mind as well.’

‘I know. Once you’re a trouble maker then you’re branded. But, I understand and that was my wake-up call. I realised that if people thought I would really do something that bad then I must have been really horrible. But I want a second chance to prove myself.’

‘That’s great. You do it and that offer of work experience might still be on the table.’ Jonathan ruffled his hair and I nuzzled his leg.

‘That would be awesome, thank you. I won’t let you down.’

It was an early Christmas miracle.

Chapter Twenty-Four

[Êàðòèíêà: img_25]

We saw Elvis bound down the street towards us as I was recounting the events of the previous few days to my friends at the rec ground. It was frosty most mornings now, but we cats were brave when we needed to be.

‘Alfie, wait until you hear this,’ he said breathlessly as he skidded to a halt.

‘What?’ Snowball asked.

‘So, I was walking here, and went past the flat – the one where the cat hater lives.’

‘You mean Barbara?’ I was still a little confused by her. She had tried to hurt us, but she had also offered her help with catching the person sabotaging the show, and was being friendly with everyone on the street, so it was hard to figure her out.

‘Yes, that one, well,’ he interrupted my thoughts then had to stop he was panting so much. He almost sounded like Pickles when he ran too fast. ‘Sorry, I was trying to get here too fast.’

‘Elvis, get to the point,’ Nellie said.

‘Sorry. Yes. So I was about to walk past her flat, but I remembered what you said, so when the front door opened, I crouched down by the gate of the next door flat, hidden, as she approached the bin. I saw her look both ways before she lifted the lid and what do you think she put in there?’ He paused and sat down, looking at us expectantly.

‘Rubbish?’ Snowball volunteered.

‘Nope. Not exactly.’

‘What was it, Elvis?’ I said, impatiently. He was making a real meal out of this, which reminded me that I was a bit peckish and my stomach rumbled.

‘A pair of shoes with yellow bottoms.’

‘Right and?’ Rocky said. ‘Oh, you mean?’

‘Yes, they were big shoes and the bottoms were covered in yellow paint, and she threw them in the bin.’

‘Are you sure?’ I was shocked from my whiskers to my paws. I had almost decided to give her another chance after she had seemed so sad when Polly and she walked home the other night.

‘Yup.’

‘But, she’s got little feet,’ I added.

‘Go and see for yourself. I saw her leave after she threw them away. She had a shopping bag with her so if we go now, I can show you and she won’t see us.’

We all set off together. We reached her flat, and the bin outside, but the lid was, of course, closed.

‘How do we look inside?’ I asked.

Snowball jumped up on the wall. She gently eased her paw under the lid and lifted it a bit.

‘Quick, jump up and see if you can see anything,’ she said. I did as she asked and, balancing precariously on the rim of the bin, I peered in.

‘They are in there and it’s the same colour as— Ahhh,’ I lost my balance and fell onto the path, landing on my tail. The others tried not to laugh; they failed. Snowball let the lid fall, and jumped down to join me.

‘Alfie, are you OK?’

‘My tail is a bit sore,’ I said, embarrassed. It was easy to lose your footing on the narrow bin rim, but falling in such an undignified manner in front of Snowball and my friends wasn’t great for my ego.

‘But you saw the shoes?’ Elvis said excitedly.

‘Yes, and you are right, they are definitely the footprints we found, which means that she must know the person who did it. She must know a person with big feet.’

‘Oh Alfie, it was probably her. She wore shoes that were too big for her to throw us off the scent,’ Nellie said, slightly patronisingly.

‘Oh, yes, of course.’ I hadn’t thought of that. But then, I was still nursing a bit of an injury so my brain wasn’t working as well as normal.

‘Remember how the kids used to put on the adults’ shoes sometimes and flap around the house?’ Snowball asked. I nodded.

‘Of course, she put the shoes on just to make the footprints.’ That made more sense.

‘So, she made the footprints, which means it was probably her who managed to damage the sets and stole Tomasz’s keys. But what do we do now we know?’ Snowball asked. It was all falling into place in my mind as Snowball spoke. She was at the meeting to hear of any plans to foil her. Was she doing this because she was annoyed that she didn’t get a bigger role in the show? Would a grown-up really do that? Or had her grief at losing her husband and having to move house made her slightly mad? It could happen. I knew from my own experience how grief could change you into a totally differentperson. However, regardless of her motives, one thing was certain: we had to stop her and I didn’t have long to come up with a plan. I needed to put my thinking cap on – and no, that wasn’t the one knitted by Doris.

‘So, here’s how it’s going to work,’ I said a bit later to my troops, who were lined up listening to me. I had gathered every cat I could get my paws on. Nellie, Elvis, Rocky, Oliver, Salmon as well as Snowball and George. ‘We will go to the perpetrator’s front garden. We will wait until one of our adults walks by – it’ll be either Claire or Sylvie, by my reckoning. When we see them, George, you will be our lookout and will give us the signal. The rest of us, from behind the bin, will push it with everything we’ve got so it tips over and reveals the shoes to our human.’ A brilliant, brilliant plan, if I did say so myself.

‘What’s the signal?’ Salmon asked.

‘Yowl as loudly as you can,’ I said.

‘Or I could be more creative, I could do my sheep impression?’ George said.

‘No, we won’t be able to see you, so just yowl and we will know it’s time,’ I said. I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.

‘What if Barbara sees us?’ Snowball asked.

‘Then we’ll have to abort our mission so hopefully she won’t. We’ll tuck behind the bin and if she comes out of the house George will give us a signal,’ I said.

‘What’s the signal?’ Salmon asked again.

‘Meow as loudly as you can.’

‘Right, let me get this straight,’ Rocky said. ‘He meows and we tip the bin, he yowls and we hide?’

‘No, the other way round.’ I went through the whole thing one more time. We had to get it right.

It was cold and had started to rain by the time we made it to Barbara’s flat. We took up our position behind the bin, with George out front, and waited.

‘Ow, I think someone stood on my tail,’ Nellie said.

‘Careful,’ I cautioned, although I think it may have been me.

‘Keep quiet, or we could blow this whole thing,’ Salmon said.

‘Imagine if Barbara finds us here, she’ll go mad.’

‘She won’t find us.’

Just as we were all getting on each other’s fur – we were soaking wet and also uncomfortable being crammed in together – we heard George.

‘YOWL.’

‘Is that push or Barbara?’ Rocky asked. I rolled my whiskers.

‘Push,’ I commanded. We all shoved the bin with all our strength and with the help of the wind it fell over with a crash.

‘Whatever is that?’ Sylvie said. Us cats made our way round to the front but tried to stay hidden in a bush. George and Sylvie stood by the bin. ‘How did this happen?’ she asked. She went to pick the bin up, putting the break on Theo’s pram first, and as she did I felt like mewing in despair. The bin was empty, which was probably why it had been pretty easy to push over. Sylvie picked it up and put it back in place, still looking perplexed, then she walked on. We all emerged from the bush.

‘Didn’t think about the fact it might have been emptied, did we?’ Salmon said.

‘No. Oh, how disappointing,’ I said, feeling dejected.

‘Oh Alfie, it was a very good plan, and it’s not your fault that the bin men must have just been.’

‘How could I be so stupid? I heard Claire reminding Jonathan to put the bins out earlier. I didn’t think.’

‘Never mind, there’s always another plan, Alfie,’ Nellie said.

She was right, there was.

‘I think that Salmon and I will have to try to catch her red-handed, as per the original plan. And now we know it’s her, we need to act quickly.’

‘But she tried to hurt you before, what if she does something now?’ Snowball asked.

‘OK, well, maybe we won’t confront her, but we have to stop her from ruining the show somehow. But just in case, George, if I am not at home when you wake up, come and find these guys – if you can make sure you come here in the morning everyone, and Snowball, if you can’t get away, someone will come to your house. Is that OK with everyone? Are we all clear?’ I was surprised to find that I was beginning to feel nervous.

‘Hold on, if she doesn’t come to the hall tonight, you might get locked in, anyway,’ Elvis pointed out.

‘Yes, which is why I need George to find someone to come get us out if that’s the case,’ I said. I thought I had explained my plan clearly, but still they had questions.

‘I should be coming with you,’ George said sulkily.

‘But son, I need you at home, in case you need to raise the alarm,’ I repeated.

‘Humph.’

‘OK, Alfie, but do you still need to do it now we know it’s her?’ Nellie asked.

‘We have to stop her, and this is the only way I can think of.’ I stood my ground.

‘Then you need to be doubly careful,’ Snowball said, sounding worried.

‘She’s definitely sneaky but hopefully by tomorrow her plan will be foiled.’ I tried to sound more confident than I felt as we did need to catch her in the act, and I would have Salmon with me. I just had to be brave. ‘And, in the meantime, we better scarper. We definitely don’t want her to find us here.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

[Êàðòèíêà: img_26]

Salmon was surprisingly chipper about staking out the hall a second time, although this time we were going inside. George, however, wasn’t quite as happy. He was still very upset at not being invited. He had let the first one go because we were just hanging out outside, but now he seemed to think that he should be involved. I told him it might put him in danger. He didn’t accept that and said that, as his dad, I shouldn’t putmyself in danger either. I couldn’t argue, but I reiterated that I needed him here, because if Salmon and I got into trouble he would be able to raise the alarm if we weren’t back by morning. Still, he refused to be pacified, insisting that the plan would work much better if he was directly involved. I had to get quite firm with him, which I don’t like to do but, as he said, I was his father. He might be grown up, or think he was, but he still had to do what I told him. Especially as this was for his own good.

I was quivering with anticipation and cold as I met Salmon that night, and we got to the hall while people were still working. Polly and Franceska were spraying the trees on the stage with fake snow and it was beginning to look like a proper winter wonderland. Tomasz and some others were putting the finishing touches to the stable where baby Jesus would be born, and the star was now re-made and hanging up. An old armchair had been cleaned up, ready for the Santa scene, and someone was making a fake fireplace where stockings would be hung. It was all looking amazing.

‘We better hide,’ I said to Salmon. We didn’t want anyone finding us and making us go home.

‘Right, Pol, let’s go, we’ve got a dinner reservation,’ Matt said.

‘Just coming, love,’ Polly replied. The children and Pickles were spending the night at our house – another thing that had annoyed George. He felt as if he was getting left behind with Pickles, and that he was being treated as a baby. I hadn’t had time to argue though and I did think that with the house full it would be less likely that anyone noticed I wasn’t there for a bit. If everything went to plan, that was.

We could hear everyone leaving– saying goodbyes, footsteps heavy – from where we were hiding.

‘Can you hear that?’ Salmon said.

‘What?’

‘I just heard a lady saying “I’ll lock up, I just want to finish tidying up,” and I think it’s Barbara. Surely she wouldn’t be so obvious as to do anything when she was the last person in the hall?’

‘Yes, if she does anything then they’ll suspect her, surely,’ I said.

‘Maybe she has a plan. You might not be the only one with plans, you know,’ Salmon grinned.

‘I have a lot of plans,’ I admitted.

‘And I’m glad to be participating in one of your plans, I like working with you Alfie, and this is right up my street.’ We both raised our whiskers. It seemed we made a good team. We snuck towards the backstage to find somewhere to hide.

‘Look, here’s a good place.’ He pointed his paw towards one of the backdrops that was leaning against the wall at an angle, leaving just enough space for a couple of cats. We went to slide behind it, but I bumped into something. Something soft and a bit smaller than me.

‘George,’ I hissed. Salmon had managed to get close to me but there was not much room.

‘Oh hi, Dad. I couldn’t let you do this alone; I was worried,’ George gushed, looking guilty.

Something licked me.

‘Oh my God, Pickles, is that you?’

‘Woof.’

‘George, what on earth are you and Pickles doing here? Salmon, what are we going to do?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Salmon wasn’t sure about Pickles, which was understandable because he didn’t know him. It was dark, but we cats have very good eyesight in the dark, so we could see them both. Standing there, as if pilchards wouldn’t melt … ‘But, I don’t think it’s a good idea that they’re here,’ he added.

‘Dad, I decided to come here before they all left because I was worried about you and Salmon. And, well, Pickles followed me. It wasn’t my fault.’

‘How did he get out?’ I snapped. I was pretty annoyed. Salmon and I had it all figured out and now George – and, more to the point, Pickles – threatened to ruin everything.

‘The cat, or dog flap,’ George said, innocently.

‘But how did he get out of the garden?’ They always made sure our gates were closed since Pickles had a habit of following us, something which had led to all sorts of trouble in the past. Actually, now was a case in point.

‘Ah, a courier came earlier with a package and no one thought to check the back gate like they normally do,’ George admitted.

‘Guys, this explanation is all well and good but now they’re here, what are we going to do?’ Salmon asked.

‘We’ll have to leave; our plan is ruined.’ I stamped my paw. I was incredibly frustrated. They would notice Pickles missing before they even thought we might be as well, and all sorts of chaos would ensue if we didn’t get him home.

‘Now you know what it was like when I was visiting Harold at the hospital,’ George said defiantly. I had to admit that I had no answer to that, because I had followed George to the hospital and Pickles had followed me … It hadn’t ended well, but that was not the point.

‘Are you going to go on about that forever?’ I snapped.

‘Woof.’ Pickles said.

‘Quiet,’ I hissed.

‘Now you know how it feels,’ George said again.

‘This arguing is all well and good, but don’t you think we should decide what to do?’ Salmon said reasonably.

‘Let’s catch the baddie,’ Pickles said. ‘And I can lick and lick them until they surrender.’

‘George, what on earth have you been telling him?’

George started to examine his paw, trying and failing to look innocent.

‘What the hell is all that noise,’ a voice – Barbara’s voice – boomed. We all tried to shrink into the wall as she moved the backdrop and we found ourselves staring at her. ‘What are you all doing here?’ she snapped. Her eyes did not look kind. Her voice didn’t sound kind either.

‘Yowl,’ George said, aggressively.

‘Woof,’ Pickles added. Salmon and I exchanged glances.

‘Right, you come with me,’ she said as she picked George and Pickles up. I tried to scratch her but she shook me off. ‘Get off me you horrible cats. And dog.’ As Salmon and I watched helplessly, she took Pickles and George into the dark props room and then she came back, scooped both Salmonand I up and did the same. ‘You have no right to be here,’ she said. ‘No right at all.’

‘Meow,’ I said loudly and tried to scratch her again. I am not a fan of violence – I don’t condone it – but this woman was hurting those I loved. She sidestepped me and kicked out with her foot; I managed to dodge her and decided it was safer to keep my distance. We were supposed to find out who was sabotaging the show, which we had, but now, now what on earth was going to happen?

‘I am going to lock you in, it serves you right for whatever it is you think you’re doing.’ I barely had time to turn around before the door slammed close.

The four of us stared at each other for a few moments, blinking to adjust to the pitch black room.

‘How are we going to get out?’ George asked. I looked around. Only one door and no windows.

‘I have no idea.’ The door handle was high up and there was no way we could reach it. And it wasn’t the sort of door you can push open. The prop cupboard was dark, dusty, and cold – not somewhere I fancied spending the night.

‘At least she won’t be able to damage anything,’ Salmon said, sitting down.

‘But we could be here all night, locked in this room and imagine how much they’ll panic when they find Pickles missing.’ I was so angry, our carefully thought out plan had gone completely wrong.

‘I’m hungry,’ George complained.

‘Is there anything to eat?’ Pickles asked as he tried to lick a cobweb.

I had a feeling it was going to be a very long night.

‘Right,’ Salmon said after a while. ‘I’ve been thinking. This isn’t a total disaster.’

‘Salmon, with all due respect, we’re locked in a cupboard. How is it not a total disaster?’ I asked.

‘We have caught Barbara being here when she shouldn’t be. So, she might not have done any damage tonight but I am pretty sure she was planning it. My thought is that she might have made it so she could come back on a night when she wasn’t the one locking up.’

‘Yes, that makes sense,’ I said.

‘Woof, I can see myself,’ Pickles said, looking in a mirror. I shook my tail.

‘Carry on, Salmon,’ George said. He was still unwilling to admit he had ruined our plan because he was stubborn, but at least now he was trying to be helpful.

‘And I know she only found us because you two snuck in here, but in a way at least, because of Pickles, we have a better chance of being found because everyone will be looking for him.’

‘True, but why would they look here?’

‘When they realise the three of you are missing, I am guessing they’ll try the hall as you’ve all been here so much.’

‘Humans aren’t always that bright,’ I said. ‘But, being optimistic, it’s possible.’

‘Right, and even if they take longer, someone will find us, as they are here all the time. When we hear footsteps we just make a lot of noise.’

‘Right Salmon, that makes sense,’ I said.

‘And we can do as many stake outs as necessary to foil her,’ Salmon said.

‘But shouldn’t we be worried about what she might do to us?’

‘No. She swings at us, and locked us in here, but she’s not going to hurt us, I could tell. I think she’s all bluster and meanness but not violent,’ he said, as if he was totally confident in that conclusion.

I looked at Salmon, and I never thought I would say this, but I was so glad he was here and so sensible. Because he was right. One night locked in a dusty props cupboard would not put us off.

‘Right, so we just make sure we’re here every night until we can get the humans to catch her,’ I suggested.

‘Yes, and also, if we’re here, we can probably try to stop her ruining things, somehow,’ George said.

‘But she’s not nice, I mean, she didn’t hurt us but she shut us in here so we have to be careful,’ I said. My mind was ticking over. ‘Salmon, you are so right. We ensure she knows we are on to her and as soon as we can we get the humans to find out too.’ I had no idea exactly how we were going to do that, but somehow we would figure it out.

‘And me too. I can be here all the time,’ Pickles said. I glared at George.

‘Hospital,’ he said, and stalked off to a corner to resume sulking.

I really was getting very hungry, and so was Pickles, who was trying and failing to find anything to eat. He wasn’t so keen on cobwebs it seemed, but he gave them a good go. George had even tired of sulking and was trying to show Salmon his sheep acting, in order to keep us from thinking too much about how long we were actually going to be here. I lay down, but it was cold and dark, and it smelt funny. Pickles started whining.

‘I need to eat,’ he said.

‘Pickles, just hold on, someone will come and get us shortly.’ I looked at Salmon. Would they? It felt as if we were going to be here all night. We might even freeze to death.

‘Right, let’s try to make a comfortable area, so we can try to get some rest,’ I suggested.

There was a blanket, which had paint on it, but would at least provide some warmth.

‘We should all huddle together to keep our body heat up as much as possible,’ Salmon suggested.

‘How do you know that’ll work?’ I asked.

‘Because my humans are survival experts,’ he replied. That did not surprise me, although why they needed to be when Vic and Heather rarely seemed to go beyond Edgar Road, I had no idea.

We huddled together on the blanket.

‘What if we never get rescued?’ George asked. I wanted to tell him that that was why I didn’t want him here but knew that wouldn’t be helpful.

‘As much as I’m angry you brought Pickles – and don’t say hospital again – at least with him here they’ll look for us more quickly.’

However, as more and more time passed, hope began to fade.

We stayed huddled together for what felt like forever, then Pickles moved and I had to as well, as my paw had gone to sleep.

‘This is silly, I’m going to rehearse,’ George said. ‘I’m bored.’

‘I’m bored and hungry,’ Pickles added.

I raised my whiskers at Salmon, as if to say:‘See what I have to put up with?’ He gave me a sympathetic smile.

What if they didn’t think to come here until the next rehearsal? We had hours to go until daytime and hours more until evening when the rehearsals were held. Thankfully someone rehearsed almost every evening and, if they didn’t, people came to work backstage. Still, we would have so long to wait. And Pickles, who was already complaining about being hungry, would be unbearable. What would we do? I felt panic rising. George was prancing around being a sheep now, but how long before he got scared? I lay down again. This had not gone according to plan at all and Barbara needed to be stopped. But more than that, we needed to be rescued.

‘Shush,’ I said, as George was mid sheep.

‘Don’t shush me,’ he said.

‘No, I can hear something,’ I said.

‘Me too, voices,’ Salmon said.

‘Wait, and when they get closer we all make as much noise as we can. And that includes you, Pickles,’ I said. We waited and when we could clearly hear Claire and Jonathan we all started crying out.

‘Yowl.’

‘Meow.’

‘Mew, mew, mew.’

‘Woof, woof, woof, woof.’

The door swung open and I blinked as Jonathan put the light on.

‘What the hell?’ he started.

‘How did you all end up in here?’ Claire asked.

‘Is that the Goodwins’ cat?’ Jonathan was scratching his head as usual.

‘I am so sorry,’ Barbara said.

‘Hiss.’

‘Alfie, stop it,’ Claire chastised. ‘Barbara, it’s not your fault, you couldn’t know they were here. And thanks for coming down with us; you didn’t need to, I’ve got keys.’

‘Oh, well, I wanted to check they were alright. If I had known they were here I would never have shut the door, they must have been hiding.’

I looked at Salmon.

‘YOWL,’ he said at the top of his voice.

‘MEOW,’ I shouted.

‘WOOFWOOFWOOF,’ Pickles added.

‘HISS,’ George said.

‘Oh goodness they must be so distressed from being shut in,’ Claire said, missing our point entirely.

‘Right, let’s get them home,’ Jonathan said, putting the lead on Pickles and scooping George up.

‘What on earth?’ Claire was asking. I glanced at Salmon. We would have to do much more because they weren’t even remotely suspicious of Barbara.

‘How did you know they were here?’ Barbara asked.

‘We checked everywhere else, so we thought we would give it a try. They have been coming to rehearsals, and hanging around here, so I thought it was worth a shot before we had to call the police. It was Pickles that was the real worry. He’s not allowed out without one of us,’ Claire explained.

‘They somehow always manage to go to places they’re not supposed to be,’ Jonathan added.

‘But we are so glad we’ve found them safe and sound,’ Claire said. ‘Thanks again, Barbara.’

‘Of course. Oh and Claire? You can have the keys that Polly lent me; you’ll see her before me no doubt.’ She smiled innocently. Oh she was good. She was very, very good. But even so, she was no match for this cat.

Chapter Twenty-Six

[Êàðòèíêà: img_27]

We were in the dog house. Not literally, unless you counted Pickles. Claire and Jonathan were furious that we had stowed away, as they called it, in the hall and got ourselves locked in. As if it was our fault. We were doing it for them, but did they appreciate that? No, no matter how much noise we made, they simply wouldn’t listen to us. We slunk home and the only saving grace from the evening was that Salmon had been very sensible, and that we knew, without a whisker of a doubt, that Barbara was the culprit. And she was, despite Jonathan’s thoughts, a very good actor. Because the way she was with Claire and Jonathan when they found us, and the way she spoke kindly to us as we walked home, was so convincing. I almost forgot she was a crazy woman trying to ruin our show. But not quite, because I knew that we would have to stake out the hall again the following night. Now, though, Barbara didn’t have keysso how would she get in? Part of me hoped she wouldn’t, but part of me knew she would. She was clever and there was no way she didn’t have a plan.

I was so tired and hungry when we got home that I ate my supper under a cloud as Claire kept on about how we had to be more careful, especially with Pickles. As if it was my fault he had come with us. Even George felt bad enough to apologise, but I was too tired to chastise him, so I ate, cleaned up and went to bed. My sleep was restless though, full of nightmares about what Barbara might do next. And that dark, dusty prop room wasn’t much fun, I can tell you.

The following day, George slunk out early to see Hana, and probably to get away from me. Claire took the children to school, with Pickles, and although she was still a bit cross with me– Claire could certainly hold a grudge – I was too tired to be upset. Jonathan was at home, which was unusual, but he explained that he was working from home today, in order to get something called admin done. He rarely worked from home so it was a treat to have him here. I sat next to him in the kitchen as he finished his coffee. Thankfully, he stroked me and relaxed into it.

‘Why exactly were you at the hall last night?’ he asked. Ah, good, someone was thinking about it in the right way.

‘Meow!’

‘I know, I talked to Claire about it and I said I was sure you were trying to tell us something, but what?’

‘Yowl.’ If only I could talk, and tell him everything. It would save me a lot of effort, that was for sure!

Jonathan sighed.‘If only I could talk cat.’ He stood up and went upstairs and I was pretty sure there was no way I could get him to understand right now.

I had to see everyone, obviously, and Snowball was my first stop. Luckily it was Harold’s senior centre day so she was free.

‘I am so tired,’ I said as I explained what had happened last night. She listened, horrified at first, then amused.

‘So, it went wrong?’ she said.

‘Well, you could look at it like that. Or you could say that we have successfully fulfilled phase one, which we would have done a little more successfully without George and Pickles, but still …’

‘Right, but Alfie we already knew who it was, and now you have to get her caught,’ Snowball pointed out.

‘Yes and I am working on it. Salmon and I are going to watch the hall every night until we do catch her.’ I bristled. I was trying to stay positive but Snowball wasn’t helping.

‘But how are you going to do that?’ she pushed.

‘I am going to discuss that with Salmon,’ I replied, a little snappily. I was still tired.

‘OK, so you and your new best friend,’ she teased, and I relented and grinned.

‘Sorry, I am still tired and grumpy. We were in that dusty room for ages before Claire and Jonathan found us.’

‘It must have been awful. Let’s go and find the others and start working on the next part of the plan,’ she said.

We made our way to the recreation ground, happy to find Nellie, Elvis, Rocky, and Salmon there.

‘Has Salmon filled you in?’ I asked.

‘He has, and Alfie we told you it could be dangerous.’

‘I have had another idea, Alfie, really based on what you said,’ Salmon said.

‘What is it?’ I was happy for someone else to contribute to my plan. More than happy, in fact.

‘Well, you said we’d go back tonight, and every night as necessary, right?’

‘Right, we cannot let anyone ruin our show,’ I agreed.

‘Well, I thought, how about we mobilise a bit more of an army, you know, like how Vic and Heather do with the neighbourhood watch when they need to patrol the area?’

‘Yes, I think I see’. I began to feel a fizz in my fur. ‘I think I get it. So we get all these guys involved too?’

‘If we all patrol the hall then if Barbara does come in tonight we can charge at her, or scatter, or something, so she can’t get us all. Even if we can’t get the humans there, we should be able to put her off,’ Salmon explained. ‘Strength in numbers, and all that.’

‘I think it’s a good idea. Who’s in?’ I asked.

‘We all are, Alfie,’ Nellie said.

‘Even me,’ Snowball agreed. ‘Harold should be OK without me for one night.’

‘Do you think we should try to get Dustbin involved?’ I asked.

‘Let’s try with just us for now, and George of course,’ Snowball said. ‘There’s no way he’ll be left out.’

‘OK, we’ll give it a go. But, the thing is, Barbara made a show of giving Polly’s keys back yesterday, so she won’t be able to get in,’ I said, thinking.

‘Hang on. Did Tomasz ever find his keys?’ Salmon asked.

‘No, no, she must still have them. But they have a new padlock on the door,’ I pointed out. Jonathan had refused to pay for cameras or security so instead he put a big padlock on the front door which only Claire, Ralph, and Tomasz (who promised to wear it round his neck so he couldn’t lose it) had a key to.

‘She must have some plan on how to get in, I just don’t know what,’ I said. It was so frustrating.

‘God, it sounds as if she’s clever,’ Rocky said.

‘Not as clever as us.’ I sat up straight. ‘We are going to get her.’ We all put our paws in together, to show we were a team, united in our goal.

‘Salmon, you are a genius,’ I said. Credit where credit is due, I say.

‘But, Alfie, if you hadn’t come up with the plan in the first place I’d never have thought of it,’ he replied, magnanimously.

‘OK, OK, we get it, you’re both clever. Now we need to make sure we all know what we’re doing, because we need to get this done before any more trouble ensues,’ Snowball finished.

It seemed we were wrong about one thing. Last night, we were sure that Barbara wouldn’t have done anything, but it turned out that when Claire went to the hall, the curtains – the ones for coming across the stage – had been slashed. I heard about this when we were at home, after I’d filled George in on the latest part of our plan. Claire was telling Sylvie.

‘Is it bad?’ Sylvie asked.

‘I don’t know, but it looks bad. Tomasz and Frankie met us there, and Tomasz said that if we took the curtains down they could maybe be sewn up.’

‘Where have they been cut?’

‘Quite near the bottom.’

‘I have to see them, but I’m thinking I could use a different piece of material and sew it across, so it looks as if it is supposed to have a panel,’ Sylvie suggested.

‘That might work. Do you fancy a walk down there later?’ Claire asked. ‘I’ll get Frankie to meet us there too.’

‘Yes, let me feed my little one and we can take him in the pram. I just don’t know who would do this?’ Sylvie sounded confounded. I wished I could just tell them.

‘Me either. Jonathan and I locked up last night when we found the animals there, and it was fine then. Barbara gave us Polly’s keys back and came home with us, and the padlock was definitely on.’

‘Did you check the back door?’ Sylvie asked.

‘Oh God, no, because it’s always locked. I’ll check with Barbara if she did. Oh goodness, I hate to think how much damage is being done. If someone is intent on ruining the show it’ll devastate us and the shelter. Think about Aleksy and Connie and all they’ve put into this. Not to mentioneveryone else.’

‘Meow,’ I said. I wouldn’t let it happen.

I was beginning to think that Barbara was a sort of criminal mastermind. She used big shoes to throw everyone off the scent, then she made a show of locking up and showing she was trustworthy, but she must have made sure the back door was unlocked. Then she went back last night, despite us all trying and failing to scare her off. I had no idea if tonight would be the end of it, but I sincerely hoped so. I wasn’t sure how many more late nights I would be able to cope with.

The rehearsal went on later than usual. All the acts were now running through the show so it took quite a long time, especially as there were a fair few mistakes. Pickles was over excited and he snorted loudly the whole way through the song, which annoyed the children, but Polly explained that he couldn’t help it. It seemed Pickles wasn’t in any trouble after last night, by the way. He caused all the trouble and didn’t get any of the consequences. The story of my life.

Also, Sylvie was right about the back door, as it was unbolted when they went down to look at the curtains. Still, it didn’t occur to them to blame Barbara. To me it was obvious, but maybe that was because I knew.

Tomasz waited until after the rehearsal had finished to get some of the guys to help take the curtains down. Franceska and Sylvie were going to get some similar material and make a panel to go across the width of them and it would look fine. But, still, it was piling more work onto people who had enough. Sylvie had Theo and Franceska had the restaurants and her boys. We needed to stop the saboteur, enough was more than enough now.

Barbara was, again, hovering around, being overly helpful. She threw herself into her wise man role with gusto. And even though she only had a few lines she definitely milked them. She was so charming and helpful to everyone, definitely not acting as if she was remotely guilty.

We did our sheep part pretty well tonight, according to George. It wasn’t long until the dress rehearsal and I knew that if we didn’t do our best, George would never forgive us. So we all threw ourselves into being sheep. Hana was particularly good, she even looked a bit like a sheep having put a bit of weight on. Apparently she was so tired she was eating all thetime. It actually suited her, but then she probably would need to start exercising more if she kept going that way. Not that I would tell her. I had learned from Claire that to comment on a woman’s weight was definitely not a good idea.

When the rehearsals ended, everyone moved to leave the hall. Pickles was on his lead, so there was no way he was staying behind. Hana bid us goodbye and went with Connie, and Snowball managed to get away from Harold, who had performed a great Santa finale and was so pleased with himself that he didn’t seem to notice she was still here.

The plan was that we would go and check if the back door was locked and if it was open we would know that Barbara was going to come back later. If that was the case, then we had to move quickly. George, Snowball and I would hide, Salmon would go and get the others, who would be waiting outside by the back door. Snowball, George, and I would all push the door as hard as we could and let them in and then we would be ready for Barbara. It was a very good plan.

However, as we went to the back door, I saw it was locked. I’d heard Claire asking someone to check it, and they obviously had done. Then Barbara left with the Goodwins. We ran out and sat on the front step of the hall as Claire locked up and bolted the padlock. I went to tell Salmon and the gang that our mission was aborted for now and we all went home heavy hearted. Although I was tired, I knew that we still hadn’t sorted this awful situation. Barbara might not be going in tonight but that didn’t mean she’d stopped and we had to do this every night until we caught her. I felt tired from the tips of my claws to the tips of my ears just thinking about it.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

[Êàðòèíêà: img_28]

It was another day of agitation, waiting for the evening to come around again. I knew you shouldn’t wish time away but when you had a bad person to catch it was different. There was no rehearsal tonight, but a lot of work going on with the sets and the costumes, so I wasn’t exactly sure if Barbara would be there, but we assumed she would be. We were sure that she was going to strike again,yet somehow it felt as if she was toying with us.

To pass the time I sat in the window and watched the weather. It was cold and people on the streets were wrapped up in warm coats, scarves, and gloves. I also played with some of the baubles on the lower part of the tree. There was no way I was going to harm them, but I liked to see them spin a bit and then watch my reflection in them. I was still waiting until the advent calendars arrived, because then I knew we had only a few weeks to Christmas. The anticipation was killing me; because we put the tree up early I was ready for Christmas now. But not ready for the show just yet. We needed to get Barbara out of the picture before we were ready for that.

I couldn’t sit still, so I went to see Dustbin, to update him. I knew there was no news from him because he or Ally would have come to find us. I went alone as George was with Hana, who was trying to rest as much as she could. The show and the baby were really taking their toll on her. But then, she was quite a delicate cat. Snowball was spending the day with Harold, to alleviate her guilt about having to leave him at night, depending on whether we could figure out if Barbara was going to strike again, of course. Although my instinct was that we had to risk it.

I let thoughts run around my head as I made my way to the yard. We were pretty sure we could catch Barbara but how could we make sure a human discovered what she was doing? I had no idea yet. We could all foil her but would that be enough? I kind of felt that if justice was to be done she needed to be found out by the humans.

I was still mulling it over when I went into the yard and found Ally and Dustbin.

‘Hey guys,’ I said, trying to sound upbeat.

‘Alfie, how are you?’ Dustbin said. I filled them both in on our situation.

‘Wow, so you are all going to stay in the hall, and make a big fuss and stop her from doing any more damage to you and the play?’ Ally asked.

‘Well yes,’ I said.

‘But you really need the humans to find out it’s her?’ Dustbin said.

‘Yes, but we don’t know how. She obviously damages things at night when no one is around and how on earth would we get someone to the hall in the middle of the night?’

‘It would be impossible. So, maybe you’re right. Maybe you have to just keep interrupting her plans until the show opens?’ Ally suggested.

‘That’s what I thought, although it seems to be a bit of a job and of course we can’t all be there all the time, which is a worry. Also, we’re all tired, so I can’t expect everyone to come out night after night. What we want to do is figure out how the humans can catch her red handed but that is eluding me so far.’

‘Right, well, if there’s anything we can do to help, just let me know.’ Dustbin was trying to help but none of us really knew how to get Barbara caught.

‘We might get locked in again and I don’t think Claire or Jonathan will look for us unless we don’t turn up for breakfast,’ I said. ‘But they would check the hall, so I think that we’ll be OK’, I replied. Without Pickles there wouldn’t be the same panic. After the other night though, at least they would know to look for us there. We just had to hope that we could foil Barbara and get out in plenty of time for breakfast. I really did like my food first thing in the morning.

‘We’ll just carry on being your eyes and ears here, and if we do hear anything, we’ll come and find you,’ Dustbin said.

‘Perfect, so we all know what we’re doing. I hope we can stop the woman. We’ve had to fix the stage, re-build the shed, and re-do the stars. Sylvie also had to fix up the curtains and she’s got enough to do what with Theo and being Mary in the Nativity. I am so fed up with Barbara ruining our wonderful show.’

‘You’ll get her to stop, I just know it,’ Dustbin said reassuringly.

‘I hope tonight’s the night. My nerves won’t take much more of this,’ I pointed out.

Franceska came out just as I was about to leave so I fussed her. She looked tired as well.

‘Hey Alfie, I heard about you getting locked in. What are you up to?’

‘Meow,’ saving the show.

‘I have to go and do some sewing now. I am so worried that if someone ruins the show, not only will it be terrible for the shelter but it will devastate Aleksy and even Tommy now.’

‘Mew.’ I knew, which was why I was doing something about it.

George and I went to the hall when I knew the doors would be open and the work in full force. As well as making the sets, it had been decided to try to decorate the hall so it looked more Christmassy. At the moment, it was still just a hall, although I was pleased to see that Aleksy and Connie had a number of youngsters from school helping them, along with a new and improved Tommy.

‘Look at all the decorations we got for free,’ Tommy said proudly. Charlie was filming it all for social media. I still wasn’t quite sure exactly what social media was, but I was obviously going to be involved, as was my George. They had giant paper chains to hang around the top of the walls,and the grown-ups had to help with that, because of the ladders and something called health and safety. I tentatively put a paw on a rung of the ladder but I was too scared to venture up too far, not only because of my fear of heights, but also because it didn’t look safe. Sienna and one of her friends were spraying the windows with what looked like snow and making patterns. Tinsel was being hung around the light fittings, and all sorts of Christmas decorations were being placed around the room. It looked a little disorganised – Polly’s words – but it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Especially when Tommy found two small Santa hats, and put them on George and I. We were then filmed. George couldn’t see out of his, which was a bit big, and he bumped into me, sending me flying into Tomasz, who was about to go up the ladder. No damage was done but all the kids found itfunny as George yowled, and then ran around in circles until someone took pity on him and sorted his hat out.

In the background, Christmas carols were being played, and it was so lovely and cosy. I really was glad we had decided to do this show, for so many reasons. The main one was the shelter; I wanted those people to have a happy– or happier – Christmas. I wished it for the whole world, but then I’m only one cat and there’s only so much I can do. But looking around, it really had brought everyone together in a wonderful way. Everyone, that is, apart from our saboteur, Barbara.

Connie had managed to hang some Christmas lights around all the windows, so they decided to put them on and turn the main lights off. Wow. As the room lit up with dancing lights, it was really beautiful.

‘You guys have done an amazing job,’ Polly said, putting her arm around Connie.

‘I am so proud of you,’ Franceska added, grabbing both Tommy and Aleksy.

‘Get off, Mum,’ Tommy said, blushing and sneaking glances at Sienna, but she was smiling at him, so he didn’t need to be embarrassed.

As soon as we got a chance we snuck away to check the back door. The bolt was open but we needed to see if anyone closed it. They had all said they would make sure they checked it after the other night but I also knew how forgetful humans– especially Polly and Tomasz – could be. George was stationed by it, slightly hidden, so he could see if anyone locked it. I went to the front door, dodging legs, and found Salmon, Nellie, Elvis, Rocky, Snowball, and Oliver waiting for me.

‘She will have no chance against all of us,’ I said as confidently as I could muster.

‘No, not unless she throws something at us,’ Snowball replied.

‘Oh my, she won’t do that, will she?’ Nellie asked.

‘Of course not.’ I crossed my paws, I really wouldn’t put it past her.

I hid them away at the back of the hall and as I noticed people packing up, I went to find George.

‘No one checked the lock. You’d think after last time … but no. Tomasz and Polly are the worst when it comes to security,’ he said. He was right. Polly and Tomasz were busy laughing and joking rather than checking the doors. If only Franceska hadn’t left early to go and do some work, she would have made sure we were secure.

After a while the hall was in darkness and we cats were there alone. I felt adrenaline pumping through my body. Tonight was going to be it, I could feel it in my fur.

‘This is a bit spooky,’ Oliver said.

‘Ah, reminds me of the good old days,’ Elvis said.

‘What on earth do you mean?’ Nellie asked.

‘You know, when people went to the theatre regularly.’ That made absolutely no sense, but Elvis did sometimes come out with random things, so we just ignored it.

‘Right, so now we just wait, employ stealth, and be quiet,’ Salmon said.

‘What does that even mean?’ Rocky asked.

‘It means when we hear the door open, and I am pretty sure we will, we stay quiet. We have to catch her in the act,’ I commanded.

‘No repeat of the other night, lad,’ Salmon said to George.

‘Of course not, Pickles isn’t with us and I do know how to behave,’ George grumbled.

‘He isn’t, is he?’ I asked, paranoid.

‘No Alfie,’ Snowball reassured me.

‘Phew, I think my nerves are getting the best of me.’

‘Right, well, I think we all know what we need to do,’ Salmon said, trying to sound in control.

‘You mean nothing,’ Nellie said.

‘Well, nothing for now,’ he replied. Honestly what kind of army were we?

We all did our own thing. I fretted and Snowball tried to reassure me. Elvis explored and George showed him around, giving him a guided tour. Salmon sat upright and alert, as if ready for anything. Nellie and Oliver were climbing on some chairs and Rocky had closed his eyes. I repeat, what kind of army were we?

‘Um,’ I cleared my voice. ‘This is not a holiday camp, it’s serious business.’ They all looked at me and carried on with what they were doing.

It felt like we had been there for hours. I was about to ask Salmon if we should give up and leave out of the unlocked back door– we could push it with all of us and get out easily – but then we heard a noise.

‘Listen,’ I said, and everyone crowded round. We could hear footsteps and I saw a light from a torch appear. There was a dark figure, and though I couldn’t see clearly who it was, I assumed it was Barbara. She made her way towards the stage. As she got closer I saw that it was definitely her.She was wearing all black, carrying a torch in one hand and something else in the other, I couldn’t make out what.

‘Right, prepare for action,’ Salmon said. I had told him he could give the commands. We watched as she got onto the stage and muttered some words I couldn’t make out. Then she knocked over one of the Christmas trees. As it made a loud crash, I looked at Salmon and blinked. ‘We are a go, I repeat, we are a go,’ he said.

The new few minutes were pandemonium. George and I ran for the stage from the centre, Salmon, Snowball, and Oliver went left, and Rocky, Nellie, and Elvis right. It was a good strategy; though she tried to chase us, we were all running in different directions, which confused her. She then pulled out a can, and before I knew what she was doing she had pointed it at George.

‘George, watch out,’ I hissed, but it was too late as his tail and backside were sprayed bright red. She was obviously planning on doing the same to the trees. She was spraying at us but the paint was hitting the stage, making even more mess. Nellie tried to scratch at Barbara’s leg, but she managed to throw her off, however, she did drop the can. Thankfully, Nellie was quicker than her as she ran around in a circle, confusing Barbara, whose arms were flailing around. She spun around and around, making herself dizzy and increasingly unsteady as she tried, and failed, to chase us.

‘You awful cats, I will get you and you’ll be sorry,’ she shouted, but she wobbled as she tried to grab Snowball and missed, almost falling over her own feet.

We ran around some more with Barbara chasing us, but finally Salmon and Snowball launched themselves under her feet. I watched in horror in case my beloved was in trouble, but Barbara lost her footing, wobbling backwards, arms swinging to try to steady herself as she fell into the trees. It was as if it was all in slow motion as she went backwards, landing on the stage with a number of the trees falling on top of her.

‘Ahhhhh,’ she screamed, and then as she lay still all went quiet.

‘Oh my goodness, do you think she’s dead?’ Nellie asked as we all crowded around, pretty much unable to see her.

‘Of course she’s not,’ Salmon said. Although how he knew, I wasn’t sure. The trees were quite light, I reasoned, so it wasn’t likely that she was.

‘I’ve got a bright red tail,’ George lamented, spinning around as he tried to see it. ‘How am I meant to be a sheep with a bright red tail?’ he asked.

‘Shush, what are we going to do about her?’ I asked.

‘We’ll have to get a human,’ Snowball said.

‘She might be badly hurt,’ Elvis said. ‘I’ve seen it on TV, my owners like hospital drama so I’m something of an expert.’

‘Who would be the best grown-up to alert?’ Salmon asked.

‘It depends on how late it is. Quick, let’s go to our road and see who is still up.’

We all left, pushing the back door with all our might and squeezing out one at a time until Rocky, the last of us, made it out. I had been slightly worried about that part of the plan. As we made our way home, hearts still hammering, I was pretty exhausted but pleased that we had a) made it out in one piece, b) would now have Barbara banged to rights, and c) our only casualty was George’s red tail. I was so proud of all my friends and how brilliant they had all been. I felt a little bit proud of myself, too.

‘You were all so brave tonight,’ I said.

‘But I hope she isn’t really hurt,’ Nellie said.

‘My tail,’ George repeated.

‘We don’t want her to be hurt,’ Snowball said. ‘Just stopped.’ I knew it wasn’t our fault, she fell into the trees, but I agreed, we didn’t want her to be hurt. But we did want to stop her, and it looked as if we may have succeeded in that.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

[Êàðòèíêà: img_29]

Iled the gang back to ours, to see if we could find a human to help us.

‘Hey I can see a light on our front step,’ I said. There were a lot of Christmas lights outside our house though, so I wasn’t sure that anyone was there until we got closer. Thankfully, we struck gold. ‘Right, we go as a gang, and they’ll have to take notice of us.’ I led my army up to our front door, where Jonathan was stood, talking to Matt.

‘What on earth?’ Matt said as he saw us. On cue we all started making an almighty noise, prancing around and making a general fuss.

‘Oh God, not this again … Is George’s tail red?’ Jonathan asked. We made our way to the front gate.

‘What are they trying to tell us this time?’ Matt asked. We all started making noise again.

‘OK, I’ll get my shoes.’ Jonathan went into the house, leaving Matt staring at us, confusion in his eyes. As Jonathan came out and shut the front door, we saw the Goodwins’ door open.

‘What is going on?’ Vic asked as he strode across to us, Heather trotting behind him trying to catch up. ‘Salmon, what are you doing?’

‘Meow,’ Salmon said.

‘No idea,’ Jonathan said. ‘They are all here screeching away, so I think we need to follow them.’

‘This is most bizarre,’ Heather said, looking at Salmon, who raised his whiskers.

The other cats went home but Salmon, George and I led them back to the community hall and to the back door. I was excited, this was one of our more elaborate– and dare I say it, dangerous – plans and we seemed to have pulled it off. Matt opened the door and turned on the lights, which made me blink as my eyes adjusted to the dark. We led them all to the stage where they looked at the mess, and we tried to draw attention to where Barbara—

‘She’s gone,’ George hissed.

‘Oh no, what a nightmare,’ Salmon said. I was bitterly, bitterly disappointed as I glanced at the humans.

‘Who the hell did this?’ Jonathan asked. ‘My budget won’t stretch to new trees, not if we’re going to make money for the shelter.’

‘Do you think it was the cats?’ Vic asked.

‘Meow.’ Of course not.

‘No, the cats won’t have done this and look there’s a can of spray paint. Even I know that cats can’t use spray paint,’ Matt said with a laugh, then stopped when he saw how downcast Jonathan looked. ‘Hey, the trees will be alright mate, but we’ll need to clean this red paint pretty quickly. Not just on George’s tail and bum it seems.’ Matt put a reassuring hand on Jonathan’s shoulder.

‘Yowl.’ George really wasn’t happy.

‘We’ll bath him at home, but let’s get the stage cleaned up right now,’ Jonathan said. Heather and Vic went to the kitchen then came back with a bowl of water and started scrubbing the stage.

‘But what were the cats doing here?’ Heather asked, glancing quizzically at us. Matt and Jonathan started picking the trees up and it was soon apparent that it actually looked much worse than it was. But where had Barbara gone and how on earth were we going to catch her now? The red paint was coming off the stage with a bit of elbow grease, hopefully George could be restored as easily.

‘Of course,’ Vic said, standing still, tree in one hand.

‘Of course what, Vic?’ Matt asked.

‘Heather, why didn’t we think of it? We got Salmon a camera collar, it records everything. No sound, mind, it’s not that sophisticated, but we can watch the footage.’

‘You mean to tell me you have a camera on your cat?’ Jonathan looked incredulous. As did I. If I’d known that it would have made my plan so much easier. I glared at Salmon.

‘I didn’t know what it was for,’ he hissed at me. ‘They only put it on me yesterday.’

‘We bought it after he got shut in the prop room the other night. I said to Heather, if he goes missing and we’ve got a camera on him we’ll always be able to find him. Didn’t occur to me that we’d be able to use it to fight crime, but what a bonus.’ Vic sounded very pleased with himselfand for once I was pleased with him too. Busybodies who liked to know everything that was going on came in handy on a number of occasions.

‘You put a camera collar on your cat?’ Jonathan repeated, scratching his head.

‘I spoke to some of our friends in the security and cat-loving community we’re part of and they suggested it. Said it was very good for making sure our cats were safe and it’s also interesting to see what they got up to.’

Goodness, would Jonathan get me one? It would make my life so much easier if I could communicate to my humans that way. Although of course there were times when I valued my privacy and didn’t want them to know what I was up to … Um, thinking about it, I wasn’t sure. No, in fact, no, I definitely didn’t want a camera on me.

‘So how do we see what it recorded?’

‘It’s linked to my phone. Oh, how exciting, this is the first time we get to use it and we might have solved the great mystery. I told you it was a good idea, Heather,’ Vic said.

‘You did, Vic, and you were right,’ Heather replied.

‘So, we can see what happened here tonight?’ Matt asked, clearly trying not to sound impatient.

‘We certainly can. Come and look.’ As Vic did something to his phone, they all crowded round the screen and I was pretty sure we had managed to do exactly what we set out to do, although not exactly how we set out to do it. And as Barbara wasn’t even hurt, she would hopefully be caught this time. As they started to watch the footage I felt nervous. Would it be clear it was her? Would they only see us and the trees? If this didn’t work then I didn’t know what we’d do.

‘It’s very dark and fuzzy,’ Matt said.

‘Well, it is a cat cam,’ Heather said defensively.

‘I can make out the cats running riot on the stage,’ Jonathan said. ‘Blimey, you guys were crazy.’

I tried not to take offence– we were saving the showand Jonathan’s budgets at the time.

‘How on earth did all the neighbourhood cats get involved?’ Matt asked, sounding confused. ‘Oh look, there’s a pair of human feet, not big feet either,’ Matt pointed out.

‘So, by the look of this, the cats were trying to stop whoever it was from doing any damage,’ Jonathan said, scratching his head.

‘Ah, Salmon, chip off the old block, he is the cat neighbourhood watch,’ Vic said proudly. I decided to let that one go. I mean, I didn’t do all this for praise, but they could have acknowledged me.

We finally struck lucky. Just as I thought they wouldn’t identify her from her feet and ankles, Jonathan shouted.

‘Look, there, the cats sort of trip the person up and oh, she, it’s a she, fell under all those trees,’ he exclaimed.

‘My goodness, is that Barbara?’ Heather asked. She was identified by her springy grey hair, I assumed.

‘It looks like her,’ Vic said, a bit uncertainly.

‘Meow,’ I shouted. Yes it was.

‘She fell under a lot of trees,’ Matt said.

‘You know, ever since she did that awful audition I knew there was something dodgy about her,’ Jonathan added. Actually, in fairness, he did. It was Claire who said she was fine. He never trusted her.

‘Well, it looks as if we have our culprit,’ Vic said.

‘But why would she do it?’ Matt asked.

‘I guess we’ll find out when we confront her with our evidence,’ Vic said. ‘Good work Salmon and friends.’

So, OK, it probably should have been Alfie and friends but again, I was going to let that go because she was there on film, so finally our work here was done. Lucky, as I was beyond tired. Being a crime-fighting cat is not for the fainthearted.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

[Êàðòèíêà: img_30]

‘So I didn’t even need to install cameras, I could have just put the cat in there the whole time,’ Jonathan said as he explained to Claire what had happened.

‘So you’re telling me the cats foiled the plan and it was … Barbara? Have you called the police?’ Claire asked.

‘No, we talked about what to do, and we agreed to confront her, or rather for Vic and Heather to, I’m going to be at work. We don’t know if having her arrested would be good for the show – it’s pretty low to try to ruin a charity show and Vic said that maybe we should find out why she didit first.’

‘I wouldn’t have expected him to be so reasonable. I’m furious. I was nice to her and the other night she came with us to find the cats, but she must have been the one to shut them in there.’

‘I know, it’s a shame Salmon hadn’t got his camera collar on then. But the main thing is, it’s over. Vic and Heather said they will confront Barbara tomorrow morning and will call you so you can go along too. We’ll need to tell Aleksy and Connie, but let’s see what she has to say first.’

‘You’re being reasonable.’ Claire sounded surprised, which made sense given that Jonathan wasn’t known for being reasonable.

‘Matt said her husband died and she cried with Polly the other day so maybe we shouldn’t judge too harshly, but you know what a softie Matt is. Regardless, we won’t let her anywhere near the show, that is not in dispute.’

‘Oh Jonathan, I’m just so happy the show is saved.’

‘And my budget,’ Jonathan replied. ‘No more damage to worry about once we confront her. We should really thank Alfie, George, and their cat gang; it was them that sorted it. Again. And the cat collar camera thing was mad, but actually really useful,’ he added.

‘I’ll buy them pilchards tomorrow, after we’ve confronted Barbara,’ Claire said, and my tummy rumbled with anticipation. ‘But first, George, we need to bath you and try to get the red paint off.’

‘Meow.’ George was a little strange as he didn’t mind water and baths. Not very cat-like, if you ask me, but then I often said that it takes all sorts.

I rested in my basket as George got bathed, thankful it wasn’t me. I really disliked baths and when I had taken them in my past I had found them really quite unpleasant. But poor George needed it as he did look funny with a red tail and backside. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I was so tired but also feeling victorious when George emerged from the bath. He was pretty much his usual colour, although there was a bit of a pink tinge still on his tail.

‘It wasn’t easy to wash my tail,’ he explained. ‘Claire tried to be gentle but it wasn’t the most fun bath ever.’

‘Sorry, son, but thankfully a bit of red paint was the only casualty of the evening.’

‘What about Salmon’s camera collar though; whoever heard of such a thing?’

‘I hadn’t, but in this case it was lucky we had it. I thought Barbara would still be under those trees when we went back with the humans.’

‘Me too, I don’t know how she got out.’ George looked pensive. ‘I hope that they don’t get ideas and give us cameras, I like my privacy.’

‘I was thinking the same. But Salmon will probably like it. It’ll give him even more power on the street,’ I said.

‘How come?’ George asked.

‘Well, if he comes to see us and he’s wearing it, we’ll all have to be on our best behaviour,’ I pointed out.

‘Not to mention looking our best,’ George finished. I hadn’t even thought of that, but then I pride myself in looking my best at all times.

‘Anyway, I am going to go with Claire, and Vic and Heather, when they confront Barbara, are you coming?’

‘I’d love to, Dad, but I have to go and see Hana first thing – I promised I would – so I might not be back in time. To be honest, I’m just glad we exposed her and didn’t get hurt. Apart from my tail, of course.’

‘That was just a bit of paint, George.’

‘Yes, but I was the only one affected, so I think that makes me the hero of the night.’

I decided not to mention the fact that I had masterminded most of the plan, rallied the troops and it was actually Salmon and Snowball who got Barbara to trip over. I also didn’t mention that Salmon’s camera was possibly the actual hero of the night …

‘George, you are always my hero,’ I said instead, and nuzzled my boy.

I was so excited to go to confront Barbara, and waited patiently the following morning until Claire grabbed her coat and said it was time to go. We had Pickles so he went with her, and if Claire was surprised when I followed her out she didn’t show it.

It was quiet as we left our house, and I could see that another frost had settled in overnight. We went to collect Vic and Heather, and of course Salmon. After our eventful night I expected all the other cats would be having a bit of a lie-in this morning. They deserved it.

Salmon and I raised whiskers at each other and hung back from the humans.

‘Sorry, I didn’t know about the camera. They just said it was a new collar,’ he said.

‘Hey, no, don’t apologise. As much as I’d like to take the credit, it was actually Vic and Heather who basically won the day with that collar,’ I grinned.

‘Yes, but now they can watch my every move. I’m glad I had it on the one paw, but on the other, I think that when I do anything – just going about my normal business – I’m going to be so self-conscious.’

‘I know, I was thinking the same about having one. Maybe we can find a way to get rid of it?’

‘Another one of your plans coming up, Alfie?’

‘You know it.’ I grinned again. I felt as if we had cemented our friendship over the last few days and I was proud of us both. How to get his collar off though … That would take a whole lot of new thinking. For now, we had to run to catch up with Claire, Vic, and Heather, because we had reached Barbara’s flat.

Some of the houses in Edgar Road had started hanging their Christmas decorations, which we were able to admire as we walked, but Barbara’s flat didn’t have any sparkly lights or bright tinsel hanging in the windows. Maybe she tried to ruin the show because she didn’t like Christmas?

They rang the doorbell and waited until Barbara answered. She wasn’t looking her best. She had a bruise on her cheek, and I could see some streaks of red paint in her hair.

‘Hello,’ she said with a smile, and I resisted the temptation to go and stamp on her foot. I know that wasn’t nice but she had shouted at us and chased us last night. Not to mention poor George’s tail.

‘Barbara, we have come to you with a very grave and serious matter,’ Vic said.

‘Very grave, indeed,’ Heather repeated.

‘What? What’s wrong?’ She ran her hand through her hair and … yes, definitely red paint.

‘It has come to our attention that for some reason you have been the person sabotaging the show,’ Vic said.

‘No, you must be mistaken, it certainly wasn’t me.’ She really was a good actress. There was no flicker of guilt in her eyes, no awkward gestures that people sometimes make when they’re lying.

‘I’m afraid we know it was you,’ Claire said. ‘We have no doubt at all, so it’s probably best that you admit it now.’

‘Why on earth do you think it was me?’ she asked, but her mask was beginning to slip.

‘The cats,’ Heather told her.

‘What do you mean the cats? You mean the cats told you it was me?’ She seemed to notice Salmon and I for the first time, and she didn’t look pleased to see us.

‘No, of course not. Cats can’t talk,’ Vic said. ‘But cat collar cameras can,’ he added.

‘I really have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Barbara,’ Claire sounded annoyed now. ‘You’re a grown woman. We saw the footage of you chasing the cats on the stage and then falling over the trees. Also, the spray paint. My George’s tail and bum were bright red. We have proof it was you.’

‘You mean there’s a camera on the cat?’ Her voice squeaked.

‘On Salmon, our cat, yes,’ Heather explained.

‘And we have no alternative but to make a citizen’s arrest. I hereby arrest you in the name of the—’

‘Please, don’t arrest me. I did damage some things but honestly, you can’t go to the police.’

‘And why on earth can’t we?’ Heather said. I was pretty sure she had some handcuffs in her handbag, ready and waiting.

‘Oh goodness, I am sorry. Really.’ Barbara had turned very pale but then I remembered she was an actress, so I wasn’t sure if she was putting on yet another act. ‘I mean it. I should explain. I’ve been in a rage since I moved here – and I didn’t know why I was angry all the time – and my daughter said to try to get involved with the locals and then I saw the poster for your show. I thought with my acting experience I could get involved, but I felt side-lined, pushed to a small part, and no one even asked for my help and advice, even after I told you all about my experience with amateur dramatics. So I felt my rage building and I wanted to ruin the show. I have no excuse, apart from perhaps feeling mad with grief, having lost my home and my friends because I had to move away. Plus I hardly ever see my daughter.’ She was babbling, talking so fast I could barely follow her words.

I saw Vic, Heather, and Claire exchange glances. Were they softening? Was I? I still wasn’t sure she was genuine.

‘While that is all very sad, you behaved in a totally unacceptable way,’ Vic said.

‘It’s for charity. Not only that, but Aleksy and Connie are kids, and they are doing something so, so great. For a grown-up to try to ruin that for them and for the homeless shelter is just unimaginable.’

I was tempted to add my two tails’ worth but I kept quiet.

‘I know, I know. I wasn’t thinking straight. I think it became an outlet for my anger. I’m going to see my doctor, tell him how I haven’t been sleeping, or feeling like myself at all. Look, I can’t tell you how embarrassed I am. I behaved in a totally unacceptable way and I don’t expectyou to forgive me but if you could just understand that I actually do need help.’ Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Claire, Vic, and Heather moved away from the doorstep and gathered in a huddle. Salmon and I joined them.

‘I think we should let her go on the understanding that she gets help and stays away from the show,’ Claire said. ‘I don’t think arresting her would be the right thing. It’s nearly Christmas, after all.’

‘You’re right. As much as we never condone breaking the law and we always like to see justice done, you can tell she’s really not in a good way,’ Vic agreed, which surprised me. He normally loved having people arrested.

‘It’s agreed then,’ Heather said. ‘We will give her the chance to get help but not let her near the show. We can’t risk that.’

‘No and I don’t think Aleksy and Connie would be able to forgive her so easily. Right, let’s tell her,’ Claire added.

We returned to the doorstep.

‘We’re not calling the police this time,’ Vic said.

‘Oh thank you. I am sorry.’ She sounded sorry, she looked sorry, but I still didn’t trust her.

‘But you have to stay away from the show and I think it would be good if you wrote a letter of apology to Aleksy and Connie,’ Claire added.

‘Yes, yes I’ll do that. And I’ll keep away from the show. I think the idea of Christmas without my husband also hit me very hard.’ I saw tears streak down her face, but again, she could have been acting.

‘We are sorry about that,’ Heather said. ‘But for now, I think you need to figure out how you are going to live on this street with people like us and not want to do anything to hurt us.’ I didn’t often say it but I did agree with Heather.

‘You have my word that I am genuinely sorry. And I know if you hadn’t caught me I might have done something again, which is such a horrible thought but I really am not myself, I think I might have been temporarily insane or something.’

‘I hope the doctor can help,’ Claire said sadly, and we all turned to leave.

Salmon and I stopped by the recreation ground where Nellie, Elvis, Rocky and Oliver sat. We told them all about the confrontation that had just taken place.

‘And what do you think?’ Nellie asked.

‘I’m confused,’ I admitted. ‘She sounded sorry, and she seemed to have realised how deranged she was being but then she is an actress, as she keeps telling us.’

‘I think she was sorry though,’ Salmon said. ‘I think she meant it.’

‘Only time will tell,’ Rocky said. ‘Last night, when she was chasing us all over the stage, I really thought she would try to kill us.’

‘Well maybe not kill us,’ Elvis said. ‘But she definitely wasn’t playing tag.’

‘People are funny,’ I mused. ‘Anyway, I must go and see Snowball, she’ll want to hear the latest.’

‘See you later, Alfie. And you’re right, people can be funny. If only they were more like cats,’ Oliver said.

Chapter Thirty

[Êàðòèíêà: img_31]

Iwas so ready to welcome family day at the end of one of the most stressful weeks of the year. It felt as if it might be the last one before Christmas Day, what with the show and everything. The house was looking amazing, fully decorated with tinsel, lights, and of course our wonderful tree. Claire had put candles around, which had Christmas trees on them, but she wasn’t going to light them – she had done that once and poor George caught his tail on fire, so they were now purely for decoration.

I was still a little tired, having had barely any time to catch up on sleep between seeing Snowball and then my friends, rehearsing for the show, and looking after George and Pickles, although George wouldn’t take kindly to me saying that. And I wasn’t without worry, even though we’d saved the show.

George said that Hana was still very tired and lethargic, barely able to muster up enthusiasm for the show. I knew she was having a tough time sleeping– she was a light sleeper and woke whenever she heard Theo – but it had been going on a while now. George was unable to get her to come out on their usual walks, and he said when he visited the last few days she just fell asleep. I told him he needed to be understanding, which he agreed with, but I could see he missed the fact they used to have more fun together. I knew that it was hard for them both. I just hoped it didn’t ruin their relationship. Marcus and Sylvie had had a few more rows than usual when Theo arrived, because they were both tired, but they had worked it out and I hopedGeorge and Hana would do the same.

In light of everything, family day– which was again at our house – was a welcome day without any show rehearsal, and with the people we loved the most. Our house was a fair size but with us all there it seemed small, and I loved that. Harold and Snowball, Sylvie, Marcus, Connie, Theo, Polly, Matt, Henry, Martha, Franceska, Tomasz, Aleksy, and Tommy – oh and Pickles, of course – all crowded in our kitchen for lunch. Hana didn’t come because, as George said, having a quiet house was important for her to catch up on her rest, and he did seem to support her in that, which made me proud and also a little relieved. We putall the Christmas lights on, and the children chose Christmas music to play, which they insisted on singing along to. It was a very, very noisy house today so Hana certainly had the right idea.

After lunch, the children went upstairs and the adults, and the older children, went into the living room. Pickles and George went upstairs to play, but Snowball and I stayed downstairs.

‘So, now the younger ones are upstairs, can we talk about Barbara?’ Polly asked.

‘I was so mad at her, but she sent us a letter saying sorry and, well, I don’t know why but it made me sad,’ Aleksy said. He was a sensitive boy. He really did have a big heart.

‘I would have called the police,’ Tommy started. ‘Locked her up, thrown away the key.’

‘Tommy, you more than anyone know about giving people second chances,’ Franceska admonished.

‘Yeah, but I didn’t do … OK, fair enough, but what if she is just pretending to be sorry?’ Tommy did make a good point.

‘She wasn’t that good of an actress, not if that audition we all had to watch was anything to go by,’ Jonathan said.

‘The letter said that she was going to get help – some counselling for her grief – and also the doctor had given her something to help with her depression, so she was taking steps to feel better and behave better,’ Connie explained.

‘But she’s not in the show, right?’ Tommy asked.

‘No, I can’t cope with re-making anything else,’ Tomasz said, but with a laugh.

‘You’ve all worked so hard and we’re not doing anything to jeopardise that. We are pretty sure she won’t do anything else, but just in case we have three checks a day at the hall and this time we’re making sure the back door is locked,’ Claire said.

‘Oh goodness, I think that was my fault; I didn’t check it,’ Polly said. ‘I feel awful.’

‘Me too,’ Tomasz added.

‘I should have known. You are terrible at locking up, always losing your keys,’ Franceska said to her husband.

‘No need to blame anyone; it’s over now,’ Sylvie said. ‘And, thankfully, nothing that we couldn’t fix happened. I’m just glad the cats are alright.’

That was a matter for debate, George’s tail was still a bit pink and no one moaned about that more than him. Especially as he said it hindered him being a realistic sheep.

‘But, that does leave us with a problem,’ Marcus said.

‘What?’

‘Who’s going to be the wise man now she can’t do it?’ Marcus asked.

‘Jon will have to do it,’ Claire said. Jonathan choked on his drink.

‘No, no way. I’m in charge of—’

‘Budgeting, yes we know but that is all really done now, isn’t it?’ Claire said.

‘What do you mean?’ Jonathan said.

‘Well, we’ve spent all the money we need and now we just have to watch the money coming in,’ Aleksy said.

‘So, I need to be in charge of that,’ Jonathan replied. ‘I absolutely need to be in charge of making sure that the money is all counted and correct.’

‘But it’s all online, mate, so we don’t need to make a song and dance about it,’ Matt said.

‘Good pun, Matt.’ Tomasz laughed.

‘I am not going to sing.’ Jonathan looked panicked.

‘OK, how about you do the speaking but not the singing,’ Connie suggested. ‘We can’t get anyone else at this short notice, the dress rehearsal is only a week away.’

‘Which reminds me, it’s nearly time for the advent calendars and I also want to get started on Christmas shopping,’ Claire said. ‘Who’s in?’

As they discussed Christmas shopping– and to my delight, Christmas lunch – I was reminded of my old plan about the Sunday Lunch Club getting to see the show.

I gestured for Snowball to come with me.

‘What is it, Alfie? You look as if you have something on your mind,’ she said.

‘I was hoping we could get them to realise that the perfect time to have the Sunday Lunch Club to see the show would be on Christmas Day. It would also be such a lovely way to end Christmas.’

‘Right, I remember you saying, but how do we tell them that?’

‘That’s what I can’t figure out,’ I said. ‘I know they have to think of it and I am guessing maybe Harold or Aleksy would be our best bet for coming up with that idea,’ I suggested.

‘Well, I could work on Harold and you work on Aleksy but I’m still not sure …’ Snowball trailed off. She was right, this was a difficult idea to convey. But we had to try.

We returned to find Tommy showing the group some of his latest videos that he’d done for the show.

‘They are so good and they’ve really helped to promote the show. The first show is almost sold out already, and there are really strong sales for the other two,’ Aleksy said.

‘And there’s already been quite a lot of donations, so the shelter will be getting a good amount of money this Christmas,’ Jonathan added.

‘Can we get a cat camera for Alfie?’ Tommy asked.

‘Yowl!’ No, I replied.

‘Why?’ Jonathan asked.

‘We could put the footage on social media, make a story about the show from a cat’s point of view. It’d be so cool,’ Tommy pushed. I did not like where this was going.

‘But the footage was pretty bad – grainy and it wasn’t that easy to see – so unless you’ve got loads of cash—’ Matt said.

‘Which we absolutely do not,’ Jonathan interjected.

‘So that’s a no then,’ Franceska smiled. She was definitely happy to have her lovely son back rather than the terror he was becoming when this all started.

‘No,’ Jonathan said. I felt relieved.

‘Sunday Lunch Club tomorrow,’ Polly said. ‘We’ve got our two coming. I feel bad because they keep asking about the show and I don’t know how to get them to see it.’

‘Yes, Clive and Doris are the same,’ Claire said. ‘But, as we’re all in it, there’s no way to get them there, take care of them and get them home again.’

I looked at Snowball.

‘Mew, mew, mew,’ she said, sweetly, nuzzling Harold.

‘What is it?’ Harold asked, shaking his head.

‘Meow,’ I said.

‘Oh God, here we go, trying to tell us there’s another baddie in our midst?’ Jonathan said. I despaired of him at times.

‘Yowl.’ I did a running leap and jumped onto Aleksy’s lap. He looked at me, and I tilted my head slightly, trying to convey my idea to him.

‘I’ve got it. How about we do a show for them on Christmas Day, after lunch? We’ll all be together then anyways,’ Aleksy said.

‘Meow.’ Yes, thank you, that was my brilliant idea.

‘But we’ve got so much to do on Christmas Day, what with the kids and lunch and then, well, normally we chill out,’ Matt said. ‘It’s sort of like adding more work for us all.’

‘Imagine, how magical it will be if we could do one final show for them though. And if any of the cast want to bring people, we won’t charge, it’ll be like a friends and family show,’ Tommy said. I glanced at him in surprise, he really had turned a very big corner.

‘Not everyone will be able to make it though, as people already may have commitments. It is Christmas Day,’ Sylvie pointed out.

‘But how perfect for those who we have adopted as friends, as family, to do it on Christmas Day afternoon. We’ll still have the evening to chill out. Please say we can do it,’ Aleksy begged. I purred loudly in agreement.

‘It would be a great way to end the show’s run and imagine how the Sunday Lunch Club will enjoy themselves. We can’t get them together any other way, really. While those who need to change into costumes and get ready to perform, those who aren’t in the show can chat to them and keep them entertained. I think it’ll be brilliant,’ Connie added.

‘I would also love to be Santa for them,’ Harold added. ‘In fact, I could wear my costume all day, save me having to change.’

I wasn’t sure that was a good idea. Harold as Santa might end up with most of his lunch in his beard, as it was a very big beard.

‘And if I do a film, I’ll be able to do some social media about the Sunday Lunch Club, which we’ve never really done. Harold, I could interview you about how you came up with the idea in the first place!’ Tommy added, sounding excited now.

‘Well, yes, but you’ll also have to interview George, Snowball, and Alfie, as they all helped me.’

‘Fine by me.’ Tommy grinned.

‘We have to transport the Sunday Lunch Club anyway, which means we can easily get them from the restaurant to the hall, I guess,’ Jonathan said. ‘And the others who are with families on Edgar Road could possibly get them there pretty easily. I mean, most could do the short walk, couldn’t they?’ I thought if anyone would object to the idea it would be him, but he seemed quite happy.

‘Oh it would be a brilliant way to bring everyone together on Christmas Day, and these people, who always have to go back to empty homes after being with us, deserve it,’ Harold pushed.

‘How can anyone argue with that, Dad?’ Marcus hugged him.

‘Right, well, I’ll speak to Vic and Heather, and Ralph, and Aleksy, Connie, you speak to the dance group, your school singers and Sienna.’

‘I can ask Sienna,’ Tommy said, and I noticed a blush creep up his cheek.

‘Great, so we’ll have lunch and then don our costumes one last time,’ Claire said.

‘You don’t actually have a costume,’ Jonathan pointed out, as if he’d just remembered he had been roped in to play a wise man.

‘Which reminds me, Jon, Barbara’s costume won’t fit you, so I’ll need to get you sorted this week,’ Sylvie said. Jonathan scowled. And I purred contentedly. This had gone even better than I ever could have hoped for.

Chapter Thirty-One

[Êàðòèíêà: img_32]

Snowball and I had spent a very lovely time at the recreation ground. Cold, frosty mornings were normal now, and the cars on the street wore white blankets most mornings. It wasn’t snowing, but it often felt as if it might. Christmas was evident all around us, the houses decorated – some lit up inside and out – and the way that that made us all smile a bit more was evident on Edgar Road. It was a truly magical time. I loved pausing by the windows to admire the twinkling lights and the decorations that hung in each one. It made me feel so warm inside. Christmas was coming and this cat was getting more and more excited by the day.

Now the show was saved, I had a little more time on my paws. I was still busy with rehearsals and keeping my humans in check, but with the dress rehearsal looming we were all very pumped. The Christmas tree now even had a few presents around it, advent calendars– including one full of cat treats for George and I – were being opened now, and everyone was fully embracing Christmas. It even smelt like Christmas. That might have been because Claire decided to try to make a Christmas cake, and let’s just say … it didn’t go well. She was not the best baker and even Pickles turned his nose up at the scraps, which was saying something.

Snowball and I were going back to Harold’s when George found us.

‘I am so fed up,’ George huffed.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Hana isn’t right but she won’t admit it. She’s tired, and eating all the time, and though I’m not one to comment on her weight, she has definitely put on some pounds.’

‘George, it’s because of Theo, I know these things,’ I said, remembering how tired we all were when Summer was a baby, and how when I’m tired I eat more. And exercise less. It wasn’t rocket science.

‘We always eat more when we’re tired, George,’ Snowball said, echoing my thoughts. ‘Look, get the show over and if she still doesn’t seem to be getting better we’ll think of something, but as soon as Theo starts sleeping she’ll be back to her perky self, I’m sure.’

‘I am trying to be patient but I got cross today because she was too tired to go for a walk. I can’t remember the last time we went out together, apart from rehearsals, and I snapped and she snapped back, which she never does.’

‘Hey son, give her a bit of space and then check her later. We’re going to Harold’s so why don’t you come with us, he’ll be pleased to see you.’

‘At least someone will be,’ George grumbled. I understood. Young love was hard and true love was hard. I’m pretty much an expert on both.

We were braver now when we approached Barbara’s flat and though we usually just walked past, today, we stopped. Because sitting on the doorstep was Barbara, head in her hands.

‘Should we see if she’s OK?’ I asked.

‘What, and get chased or worse?’ George asked, still in a bad mood.

‘Alfie, you go and see. Just stand a bit of a safe distance away from her,’ Snowball said, pushing me with her paw. I thought about it for a minute but then I moved, tentatively, towards her. I stopped a few paces away, and she looked up. I felt a little nervous, but I stood my ground. I could see her face was wet with tears, and she really did look distraught.

‘Meow?’ I said carefully.

‘Oh goodness, it’s no good, it’s really no good.’ She started crying again. Her body was wracked with sobs and I felt bad for her. This wasn’t an act, I was pretty sure. I returned to the others.

‘I think she’s really upset,’ I said.

‘What do we do?’ Snowball asked.

‘I think we should get one of the humans,’ I suggested. We never, ever turned our backs on someone in need, no matter what they’d done.

‘Let’s get Harold,’ George suggested. He was the closest, and if he couldn’t handle it he could call someone who could.

We trotted quickly to Harold’s and let ourselves in. He was in his chair.

‘Oh there you are, I was wondering,’ he said when he spotted Snowball. She started mewing at him and pawing at his legs, as per my instruction.

‘Mew, mew, mew,’ she said.

‘What is it?’ he asked. The three of us went to the front door. ‘What on earth?’

But he put on his coat and picked up his walking stick. He opened the door and we burst out in the direction of Barbara’s flat.

We slowed down, realising that Harold was a bit slower than us and he was muttering about having to come out in the cold– he didn’t like to go out unless he had to. We finally reached Barbara, who was still on the doorstep. Harold looked at the three of us, his face slightly red from the cold.

‘Um, hello,’ he said. She looked up; her eyes were very red and she had clearly been crying quite hard all this time.

‘H-hello,’ she stuttered.

‘Hey, you’ll catch your death out here, why don’t you come to my house, where I can make a cuppa and you can tell me what’s wrong?’

‘But I’m the woman who ruined the show, or at least tried to,’ she said.

‘To me, you look like someone who is very sad, and that means you come to mine, I’m not going to take no for an answer.’

Barbara resisted for a bit longer but then she stood up and followed him, trying to stop her tears. The three of us followed. I wasn’t sure if we were all going to try and find out what was going on, or to protect Harold in case she was still a little unhinged. Probably a combination of both.

When we reached Harold’s living room, he gestured to his chair.

‘Go and sit by the fire and warm yourself up,’ he said. Goodness, Harold had softened in the last few years since we first met him.

‘Thank you,’ Barbara mumbled.

‘I’ll go put the kettle on. Tea OK for you?’ he asked. She nodded and started crying again.

It took a while, because Barbara kept breaking down, but they had a long and in-depth conversation in the end. It was all about loss. Harold understood what it was like to lose a partner (as did I, of course), and he told her that as much as she felt she wouldn’t be able to carry on, she would. He really did a good job, I have to say, I was immensely proud of him. He was kind and caring and sweet, nothing like our old Harold – who used to wave his walking stick at George – that was for sure.