The Killer Cat Strikes Back

7: Cat and mouse

SO THEN WE ended up playing a sort of Cat and Mouse game. (Guess who played Mouse!) He put the ugly pot back on the shelf in case The Budding Artist got suspicious. But he still wanted it gone, and to be able to spread his hands – Mr All Innocence – and swear to Ellie’s mother that it was I who broke it.

Over the next few weeks, he must have tried everything. And I mean everything.

First, he tried wheedling and begging. You know the sort of stuff.

‘Dear pussy. Kind pussy. Won’t you do one tiny eensy-weensy thing for me?’

(Well, as my old granny used to say, ‘Please pass the sick bag, Alice!’)

Then he tried picking me up and putting me on the shelf and pushing me along it.

That’s right. Actually putting his hand on my bottom and trying to push me. (He’s still nursing the scratches from that one.)

After that, he smeared whipping cream on the pot, hoping that I’d be greedy enough to jump up and lick the pot so hard it would move along the shelf and fall off the end.

How stupid is that? Cream? On a shelf? I had a really good time skating up and down, kicking drips over the edge. It took him days to get the sour smell out of the rugs.

I spent a lot of time that week out in the fresh air, amusing myself by chasing next door’s Gregory out of our garden. Each time the poor boy came through the gate, clutching a note from his mother, I’d leap out from behind the holly bush and stick all four paws in the air as if I’d flattened myself against an invisible wall right next to his face.

Gregory would scream, drop the note he was holding and rush off home.

I’d kick the note out of the way under the holly bush (hiding the evidence) and go back to sleep on the wall.

A stupid game, maybe. But I enjoyed it and it passed the time until Ellie’s father had spent enough time scrubbing the rugs to make the living room smell pleasant again. Then I came back inside, to find my adversary in the War of the Last Ugly Pot getting even more cunning.

He’d dropped a fine fresh prawn inside the thing.

‘There!’ he crowed. ‘Try to resist that, Tuffy! Try to get that out without knocking the pot over the edge!’

Well, I was tempted. If there’s one thing that I love, it’s a fresh prawn. But then I thought, nobody, not even a mothwallet like Ellie’s father, has the nerve to buy only one. There must be others!

I went off to the toolshed and found the rest of them still in the bag, hidden from Ellie’s mother, waiting for the secret little luxury snack he was planning for himself later.

Things worked out nicely. I ate those instead.