To Be A Cat

Princess Piglet’s Pink and Pretty Perfectly Perfect Princess Party (and Other Forms of Torture)

IT WOULD HAVE been a massive house even by human standards, but from a cat-sized perspective it was like entering the largest palace you could imagine.

Everything was cream-coloured. The carpets, the walls, the lampshade, the sofa in the front room. It was there that Barney was now sitting watching the seventeenth episode of Princess Piglet in a row (‘Princess Piglet’s Pink and Pretty Perfectly Perfect Princess Party’). That would have been torture enough, even without Florence trying to poke his eyes between episodes and holding him so tight to her he could hardly breathe.

Florence’s mummy came in after a bit. ‘Oh, come on, Florence, leave that poor cat alone,’ she said, and to Barney’s relief rescued him from the little girl’s hands.

‘No, Mummy! Want cat! Want cat eyes! Like ’weeties.’

‘Florence,’ said her mother calmly. ‘Cats’ eyes aren’t sweeties. And neither are dogs’ eyes. Poor Leonard. Honestly, you and your brother!’ And then she looked down at Barney. ‘No wonder you ran away, is it, Maurice?’

Oh, no, thought Barney.

Florence had a brother.

A brother, who, by the sound of things, was just as bad as Florence.

Who between them (and possibly the dog) had caused him – or Maurice, rather – to run away.

He’d run away.

Well, obviously they thought that. But it was impossible for Barney to know if that was true. The cat had left his house and had bumped into Barney after he’d ripped up Miss Whipmire’s letter. But had the cat actually run away? Florence’s mum thought he had because she hadn’t seen him, but she hadn’t seen him because he’d become a human, and because Barney had become him – Maurice. And if there was a way of getting back into his own body then Maurice, the Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney, would know.

As he was placed back down on the carpet Barney had a thought. A tantalizing and brilliant thought.

Maybe Maurice had come home.

And so Barney went out of the room to search the enormous house for signs of his human body.

But it wasn’t any good. There was furniture – a lot of furniture – but nothing else. He couldn’t find himself anywhere on the ground floor. But in the kitchen, next to the cat basket, he found something quite worrying.

A larger basket with a faded, smelly tartan blanket creeping out onto the floor.

The dog’s basket. And a big dog, judging by the size of it.

Barney looked around for an escape route. He saw one.

A cat flap next to the fridge.

Locked.

His heart sank, anchored, then lifted again.

He stared at the food Florence’s mum had put out for him. Jellied meat shone from the small bowl, looking almost as disgusting as it smelled.

Then a thought.

Dogs talk cat.

Cats talk dog.

And not all dogs were Guster.

With this in mind Barney decided to go upstairs for answers. But upstairs didn’t have answers. It just had a carpet which made him sneeze, a bathroom with a very slippy floor, and lots of toys lying about everywhere.

Giant baby dolls, mutilated teddy bears, armless Barbies. As he walked along the landing, Barney felt like he was surveying a battlefield after a completely one-sided war.

He spotted four bedrooms. There was the one with a neatly made double bed and a picture of Florence’s mum with a man who Barney guessed was probably Florence’s dad. It reminded Barney of the photo of his mum and dad on holiday in the south of France. A photo that Mum ripped up during the divorce and then stuck back together after his dad went missing. There was another photo too, of Florence and her brother. Barney couldn’t see it very well as it was high up on a chest and, plus, the sun was streaming in through the window reflecting on the glass into the frame; still, he was sure he recognized the brother from somewhere.

Florence’s room had even more wounded toys than the hallway. There was a toy ambulance, which was very appropriate, lots of plastic farm animals and Princess Piglet characters, along with a giant, over-stretched stethoscope.

The next bedroom was a spare one and looked empty, so Barney didn’t bother exploring. But opposite was a near-closed door. Must be the brother’s bedroom.

The toxic smell of stale socks and spray-on deodorant wafted towards him, making his whiskers curl in disgust.

Barney felt prickly with nerves as he entered, although at first he saw nothing too worrying. Just posters of cars and shelves of video games. He looked at some of the titles.

ENDLESS WARFARE IV: TOTAL DESTRUCTION

ALIEN APOCALYPSE

JOE HERO AND THE LAND OF

ENDLESS VIOLENCE

As he looked around the room – at the football on the floor, at the giant TV and brand-new computer, at the rugby jersey over the back of a chair – he had a very troubled feeling.

He remembered what Florence had said.

Gaff-Gaff.

He looked at the door.

There was a sticker on it which said:

GOVERNMENT WARNING – THIS ROOM CONTAINS

TRACES OF

Gavin

ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Downstairs, a phone rang.

Florence’s mum answered. ‘Yes, I’m Mrs Needle … How can I help you?’

Needle.

Gavin.

Needle.

No.

No no no no no.

And, yet, it made terrible sense. It certainly explained Florence’s evil-ness. She was a Needle! Gavin’s little sister.

Marmalade, he told himself. But that only made him think of Rissa and reminded him he was all alone. How ungrateful I’ve been! he thought. OK, I didn’t have a dad. But I had Rissa. I had Mum. That made me twice as lucky as I am now.

He noticed, after he’d thought this, that some fur from his face and neck had dropped down onto the carpet forming a little cloud of black hairs.