Carbonel: The King Of Cats

12

Carbonel Explains

‘I say,’ said John. ‘If you want to take care of the twigs on the broom, why don’t you wrap something round them – brown paper, or something.’

‘It might help,’ said the cat doubtfully, ‘but not brown paper. The broom has got its feelings same as anyone else.’

‘I know,’ said Rosemary. ‘My shoe bag!’

She ran to the wardrobe, tipped out her gym shoes, and brought it to the bed. It was made of scarlet flannel.

‘Not a bad idea,’ said Carbonel grudgingly, as they slipped it carefully on. Rosemary drew up the strings and tied them securely.

‘What magic runes are on the side?’ asked the cat suspiciously.

The words ROSEMARY BROWN were embroidered in white chain stitch. ‘We have to have that, so that it won’t get lost at school,’ said Rosemary.

‘That is the practical sort of magic that I like to see.’

By now John had completely recovered from his ride on the broom, and was bouncing up and down on the bed.

‘I say, I am hungry. Let’s fry those sausages.’

So they went into the sitting room. When they had mopped up the flower water which John had knocked over in his wild flight, the feast still looked pretty good. Carbonel seemed genuinely touched by the sprats which were piled up on a soup plate. Rosemary showed John how to prick the sausages and he fried everything they could find – two onions, some cold potatoes, and a slightly squashy tomato that made the fat splutter, as well as the sausages. It was a delightful meal, eaten in friendly silence, and neither of them minded that the potatoes were a bit burnt, or that all of the sausages had burst. Carbonel, replete with all the sprats and two saucers of milk, purred sleepily while they ate the cream buns (a little soggy here and there with flower water, but otherwise delicious). When they were comfortably licking the gob-stoppers, Carbonel got up, arched his back, delicately stretched first one front paw and then the other, and sat down, very upright, with his tail curled round his toes.

‘I have something to tell you,’ he said. ‘Today I went to see my People… Strictly incognito, of course.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Rosemary.

‘I think it means pretending you are not yourself,’ said John.

‘That was where I went the night before,’ went on Carbonel, ignoring the interruption.

‘Goodness!’ said Rosemary. ‘You never told me!’

‘You never asked,’ said Carbonel shortly. ‘I told you that I am a Royal Cat, and that as soon as I am free I must return to my kingdom.’

‘But where is your kingdom?’ asked John.

‘Come here and I will show you.’

Carbonel trotted into Rosemary’s bedroom and jumped on to the window ledge.

‘Behold!’ he said dramatically. Rosemary looked down.

‘Do you mean the back yard?’ she asked doubtfully.

‘Good gracious, no! Don’t you see the roof tops, plains and valleys and canyons of them? And the forests of chimney stacks and wireless aerials stretching away and away into the golden afternoon? That is my kingdom, the undisputed territory of the cats. Now look down. What do you see?’

‘The dustbins in the yard,’ said John cheerfully. But Carbonel did not seem to be listening.

‘You see the garden wall stretching along the end of all the gardens in Tottenham Grove? All walls, like that one, are our highways. What else could they be there for? So many humans seem to think that the proper place for a cat is on the hearth-rug. You might as well argue that the proper place for a bird is in a cage. No, it is on the roof tops that we are our true selves. There we live our secret lives, there we skirmish, we royster, we sing songs. Songs of such beauty that men throw up their windows and shout applause.’

Rosemary was not sure that it was always applause she had heard, but she did not say so. The houses of Tottenham Grove were taller than the ones on to which she looked from her bedroom window. She had always liked the huddle of roofs, with different shaped chimney pots, some with cowls that twisted and twirled with the wind, some clustered together in all shapes and sizes, and some in neat rows like sand pies on the beach. It might almost be some strange country, she thought. Below her she could see the top of the wall that stretched along the back of all the smutty little gardens of Tottenham Grove, with the side walls joining it like tributaries. She could see a couple of cats now trotting along, one of them in a purposeful way.

‘A lot of cats come into the garden,’ she said.

‘We colonize, of course,’ said Carbonel loftily. ‘But my poor People!’

‘Why, what has happened?’ said John.

‘When my father died,’ went on the cat,

‘mourned by all his subjects, I am told – Carbonel the Good he was called (may I be worthy of him) – there was no Royal Kit to take his place, since the rightful heir had been stolen.’

‘You?’ asked John.

Carbonel inclined his head.

‘What did they do?’

‘A couple of cousins tried their hand at ruling, but what could they be expected to do? Mere tabbies. Very distant cousins they were. Well, of course, the inevitable happened. They had no proper authority, and things began to get slack, and then, of course, the Alley Cats got restless. Always on the look-out for making mischief, they are.’

‘But who is King now?’ asked Rosemary.

Carbonel drew himself up, and surveyed the roof tops through half-closed eyes.

‘There can be no King until I return. Once a month since time immemorial we have held the Law Giving at the full moon. There my father, and his father, and his father’s father before that, dispensed justice and wisdom. These fellows make a mockery of it. They brawl and fight and challenge anyone to dispute their leadership. Of course, at first there were plenty of good and bad cats to cross claws with them. They fight for it every month till the strongest one wins, the winner calls himself King, and there he sits on the throne of my fathers until the next Law Giving, when another animal will dispute his claim. A sorry, battered collection of animals go limping home, I can tell you!’

‘How did you find out all this?’ asked John.

‘By getting into conversation with all sorts and putting two and two together. Mostly honest, decent house animals they were. There are plenty of them about, I can tell you, who are loyal to “The Cat Among the Stars”, as they call me. But the Alley Gats have got the upper hand. I heard today that for the last three months the same great ginger animal has been in command. He fights like a tiger, and levies I don’t know what taxes of kipper heads and sardine tins.’

‘But now you can go and turn him out, and it will all be right again!’ said Rosemary.

‘I bet you could beat him with one… one paw behind your back!’ said John. Carbonel graciously inclined his head.

‘No doubt. But what use is a King who is at the beck and call of somebody else? I am still a slave.’

‘Do you mean to me?’ said Rosemary. ‘But I wouldn’t beck and call, ever!’

‘So you may think now. But power does queer things, you know. The original Binding Spell is broken. Rosemary did that when she bought me with her three Queen Victoria farthings. But there still remains the second spell, the one SHE made when I tried to escape.’

‘Then we must set about finding the hat and the cauldron straight away!’ said Rosemary. She felt a little uncomfortable that the fun of meeting John had made her forget how important this was to Carbonel.

‘What do you do when you have got them?’ asked John, who was a practical person.

‘That is the worst of it. She made a Silent Magic, just to make it more difficult, so of course I never heard it. She is the only one who can tell you how to undo the spell.’

‘Oh dear!’ said Rosemary uneasily, thinking of the queer old woman.

‘Well, I tell you what,’ said John. ‘When Jeffries comes to fetch us this afternoon, let’s ask him to take us to that address you got at the market. You know, the man who bought the hat.’

‘What a good idea! Come on, let’s wash up quickly, so that we shall be ready when he comes.’

‘Do we have to?’ said John.

‘We do,’ said Rosemary firmly.