The Killer Cat Runs Away

2

Parasite

OK, OK. So cover me with jam and put me in a box of wasps. I broke their new television. It was an accident! I didn’t mean to tip the screen over like that. I was after a bumblebee, and if that stupid television hadn’t been in the way, I would have got it too. No one likes being stung by bees. They should have been grateful to me.

And whose fault was it that the new, slim, wide, high-definition screen wasn’t fixed on its stand more safely in the first place?

Yes! That’s right. It was Ellie’s dad’s fault, not mine. You only had to watch Mr Oh-That’ll-Probably-Be-All-Right fixing the screen so loosely onto the base to know that it was almost bound to fall off. Even without someone like me crashing into it hard.

And whose fault was it that I didn’t manage to get over the screen in my amazing leap?

That’s right. It was Ellie’s mother’s fault. She is the one who feeds me. If she has got it wrong and let me get a smidgeon over my ideal jumping weight, who is to blame?

Clearly not me.

You should have heard Ellie’s dad when he came in and saw the damage. Talk about wild! ‘This screen is ruined! Ruined! Claw marks all over, and both the top corners chipped! Look what that great, fat, stupid, tiresome, idiotic, unpleasant, vicious, dangerous parasite has done now!’

Excuse me? Parasite?

Now that’s not nice. In case you don’t already know, parasites are all those nasty things like nits and tapeworms and fleas and ticks that do nothing except sponge off other people to stay alive. I am not like that. I let myself be stroked. I let myself be fed. I let myself be cuddled. (Only by Ellie. And only sometimes. But you take my point.)

I’m not a parasite. How dare he? I won’t put up with rudeness like that. I tell you, next time he looks in his chest of drawers, he’s going to find hairs over everything. On all his socks. And on his pants and vests. Don’t think I can’t lick quite enough hairs off me to make his underwear disgusting.

I can pay him back.