The Killer Cat's Birthday Bash

4: Ghosts in the closet

ON THE WAY home, I hatched a little plan to pay my family back.

More fond of ghoulies and ghosties than of their own pussy cat, were they?

Well, I’d show them.

I sidled through the back door, then up the stairs and into Ellie’s bedroom. Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes was sitting up in bed, reading a book.

I jumped up beside her and snuggled.

‘Oooh, Tuffy!’ she said. ‘You are so nice and sweet and cuddly.’

I kept my temper. It nearly choked me but I even managed to cough out a purr.

‘Oh, Tuffy,’ she said again. ‘I love it when you’re all contented and cosy, and fall asleep in my arms.’

I kept my eyes closed and I counted to ten. Then, just as she lifted her arm to turn her page, I sprang to my feet and stared at the closet.

Ellie raised her eyes from the book. ‘What is it, Tuffy?’

I arched my back, and kept up the mad stare.

‘Come on, Tuffy,’ Ellie soothed. ‘It’s just the closet. The only things inside it are clothes and shoes.’

I gave her a quick ‘don’t you believe it’ blink, and made my hair shoot up on end.

Now she was getting nervous. ‘Tuffy?’

She slid out of bed and went towards the closet.

‘Yoooooowwwwwwwwllllll!’

It was the clearest message not to go a single step closer. You didn’t have to be a cat to understand: Whatever you do, don’t open that closet door!

Terrified, Ellie fled downstairs.

I took a break. Then, when she came up again a few minutes later, holding her parents’ hands, I sprang back into ‘Terrified Cat Staring At Ghosts In The Closet’ mode.

You could tell from the look on Ellie’s father’s face that she had dragged the two of them away from something rather good on telly. He gave the most perfunctory glance around the room, then glowered at me.

I kept up the arched back and the stiffened fur, and stared at the closet.

Ellie’s mother slid the closet door open. She pushed the clothes hanging from the rail to one side and peered in. ‘Nothing strange in here.’

‘Check the other side,’ begged Ellie. (She was really scared.)

Ellie’s mother checked the other side. ‘Nothing.’

‘Check both sides at once,’ insisted Ellie. So under her orders Mr Grumpy-Wumpy poked his head in on one side and Mrs A-Whole-Lot-Nicer poked her head in on the other, and they flapped all the clothes about.

‘Ellie, there’s nothing unusual in here.’

I gathered myself up, did a frantic little ‘I am terrified’ dance and spat at the closet.

Ellie burst into tears and shouted angrily, ‘Well, Tuffy doesn’t seem to think there’s nothing in there! And animals are famous for seeing ghosts.’

‘Because they’re stupid,’ Ellie’s father said, still glaring at me.

Oh, very friendly. So I spat again, taking good care to make it land on his trousers.

Ellie’s mother could see that, at this rate, we would be up all night. ‘You’d better come and sleep with me,’ she said to Ellie. ‘And Dad can go in the spare bed.’

Ha, ha. I spend a lot of time on that spare bed. But I can curl up. I wouldn’t care to sleep in it if I was long and thin like him. It’s just Lump City, that old bed.

He knew it too. On his way out, he gave me a pretty mean look. I put on a snooty air and tried to show him by the way I stalked past that that is what you get for choosing not to hold a party for your own precious pussy.

Ghosts in the closet and lumps in the bed. That’s what you get. And serves you right.