The Killer Cat Strikes Back

2: Whoops!

SHE DID IT, too. Can you believe this woman? She actually managed to get that heap of scrap metal they park outside our house to burst into life. Then she drove off in it, waving, to her first art class.

And came back with a portrait of me.

I watched from the warm spot on the garden wall where I do a lot of my thinking.

‘Marvellous!’ said the traffic warden as Ellie’s mother was pulling the painting out of the back of the car. ‘A most realistic tiger.’

‘I say,’ Mr Harris from next door called over the hedge as it was being carried up the path. ‘I like that. Is it a poster for the new horror film they’re showing in town?’

‘Lovely!’ said Ellie’s father. ‘You’ve captured the look perfectly.’

Ellie said nothing. I think, if I’m honest, the painting frightened her a little.

Then Ellie’s mother started wondering where to put it. (Pity she didn’t ask me. I would have told her, ‘How about straight in the dustbin?’)

But, no. She looked around. ‘What about up on the wall in here?’

I stared.

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘It will look splendid. And everyone who visits the house can admire it.’

(Oh, yes. At their peril.)

But that’s what she did. She found a hook and nail, and hung her ‘Portrait of Tuffy’ just above the back of the sofa where everyone could admire it.

And where I could just reach it.

If I really stretched…

Whoops!