The Return Of The Killer Cat

9: Rumbled

GO ON. Admit it. You wouldn’t have gone home either. You would have stayed the whole week, just like I did, stuffing your face and getting fatter and fatter.

By Saturday night, I was as big as a barrel. There were splits down the sides of my seams. I was bulging out of the nightie.

And that’s when the gang came looking for me.

They peeped in the basket.

‘Tuffy? Tuffy, is that you?’

I was a bit embarrassed. I disguised my voice.

‘No,’ I explained. Tm Janet. Tuffy’s cousin.’

Bella stared at the fur bulges bursting through the nightie.

‘So what happened to Tuff? Did you eat him?’

I gave her the blink. ‘No.’

‘So where is he?’

I shrugged. Maybe it was the most energetic thing I’d done in nearly a week. Anyhow, the seam of the nightie split, and a whole lot more of my bulges fell out at the sides.

‘Doing a striptease, are you?’ Pusskins said, then added rudely, ‘Fatso!’

That set them all off.

‘Furball!’

Tub o’ lard!’

I narrowed my eyes. I made the tiniest little noise. The tiniest.

Everyone said afterwards that I was the one who started it. But I wasn’t. It was hardly a hiss at all. It was more like a purr really.

I blame Bella. She should never have put out her paw and patted me. ‘Come on, guys! Until Tuffy turns up, let’s have fun with this great furry beachball!’

So I thwacked her.

So she thwacked me back.

And that’s how the fight started. It was quite a big flurry, with flying fur and shreds of nightie floating all over. At one point, the bonnet ribbons nearly strangled me, but I wriggled free, and took all three of them on again.

But suddenly, with my disguise in tatters round the lawn, everyone cottoned on.

‘Hey, guys! It is Tuffy after all! It’s Tuffy!’

‘Yo, Tuff! At last!’

‘Found you!’

And that’s the moment Melanie came down the garden, carrying my third meal of the day.

The others stepped back respectfully.

‘Fresh cream!’ sighed Bella.

‘Real tuna!’ Tiger whispered.

‘Lots!’ said Pusskins.

But Melanie didn’t put it down as usual.

‘Tufty,’ she said to me sternly.

‘What have you done with Janet?’

I tried to look all Janety. But, without the lace bonnet and nightie, it didn’t work.

Melanie looked around. And, I admit, if you were expecting to find your precious new pet, it did look a bit bad. Shreds of fur and nightie and bonnet all over.

‘Oh, Tuffy! Tuffy!’ she wailed. ‘You bad, bad cat! You’ve torn Janet to pieces and eaten her! You monstert!’

The others turned and fled and left me to it.

‘You monster, Tuffy! Monster! Monster!’