To Be A Cat

Hiding in the Bush

THEY HAD A bit more milk and went into the living room.

There were adverts on TV. Fluffy Labrador puppies advertising toilet paper. It was like watching a horror movie. Then the sound of barking, outside.

Out of the window, a boy went past walking his dog. The dog was straining desperately on his lead.

‘Did you see that?’ Barney asked his father. ‘It’s him. I mean, me. Walking Guster …’ He looked back to the door. ‘How do you get out of here?’

His dad’s eye shone with concern. ‘Barney, it’s dangerous out there. Guster isn’t our friend any more. He hates us. He wants to kill us. And what about your other self? The you-who-isn’t-you. He could be any cat. The one who turned into me had honourable reasons, but there’s no knowing what your cat’s reasons were.’

‘He wants to live with his mum,’ said Barney. ‘But his mum’s evil. In fact …’

Barney stared at the white stitching on his dad’s eye socket and was about to tell him that Miss Whipmire was probably responsible for that too, but realized there wasn’t time right now.

‘Doesn’t sound good.’

‘No. It’s not. Which is why I’ve got to speak to Guster.’

Barney’s dad was on the verge of responding when his son walked out of the room towards the front door. He followed, caught up with him in the hallway. ‘No. The cat flap’s this way.’

And they headed out together, down an alley, across the road and up the little tarmac slope into the park.

They hid in a bush.

Watching.

‘Stay as quiet as you can,’ Barney’s dad purr-whispered (or rather, to use the proper expression, whispurred). ‘Guster’s heading over.’

It was true. Within seconds, there was Guster’s wet nose poking through the leaves.

‘Good gracious,’ Guster was saying to himself. ‘One does believe one can smell something of the feline persuasion lurking in the area. Come on, you vile thwarted tinch-tigers, where are you?’

‘We’re here,’ announced Barney.

Barney’s dad couldn’t believe it. ‘What are you doing?’

But Barney carried on. ‘Guster, it’s me. Barney.’

‘You,’ growled Guster, spotting Barney behind the leaves. ‘The trespasser!’

‘No. I’ve never trespassed. Just listen. Please. That boy who’s brought you to the park isn’t me.’

Guster was furious. ‘Right, that’s my quota! One cannot take any more of such insolence. I am going to have to kill you and your acquaintance.’

His head reached right into the bush, baring teeth.

‘Run!’ said Barney’s dad.

But Barney was stuck. Tangled amid twigs.

Mr Willow ran back, jumping in front of his son to save him.

Guster was right there now, straight ahead of Barney’s dad, with every single deadly tooth on display. ‘To defy me is to defy my long-dead king. Oh, well, you first then.’

‘You can’t,’ said the cat formerly known as Neil Willow. ‘I am the Terrorcat.’

‘The Terror-what?’

‘I have powers you could not dream of.’

But, unlike the cat population of Blandford, Guster had never heard of the Terrorcat and so didn’t really care. ‘Well, you didn’t use them last time I saw you. When you tried to speak to me through the kitchen window.’

Barney desperately tried to free himself. ‘Dad, I’m sorry – you were right. Just run or he’ll kill both of us.’

‘No way …’ And then Mr Willow had an idea. ‘Guster, listen, you can kill us in a second … Just hear me out.’ He tried to think. ‘You … like the snow.’

The spaniel’s jaws froze in midair.

‘In winter you run in it with your head low and your tongue out,’ Barney’s dad blurted. ‘And … and we washed you once, in the bath, but only once, because you went crazy when the water went in your eyes … and … and … You always liked sticking your head out of the window … and …’

Barney could see this might be working, so helped his dad out. ‘And you hate chocolate! Even nice human chocolate. When I gave you some you spat it on the carpet. But you love it when I scratch your tummy.’

Guster’s jaws closed. ‘One can’t abide chocolate, that is true … How do you know all this? Who supplied your information?’

‘Guster. It’s me, Barney. And this is Dad. You have to believe us.’

Guster was looking very confused. But then he was suddenly yanked out of the bush, his lead clipped on. Barney-Who-Wasn’t-Barney, or rather, Maurice, was pulling the spaniel hastily out of the park.

‘We’ve got to follow them,’ Barney said, finally freeing himself from the last twig. This time his dad reluctantly agreed.

They jogged behind in silence for a while, considering what to do next. Eventually Barney decided to speak to his body snatcher.

‘Maurice,’ he said. ‘Maurice!’

And Barney watched his former body stop and turn round. He looked shocked, as if he thought he was seeing a ghost.

‘Go away,’ Maurice said.

‘No. I won’t. I can’t. I don’t want to be a cat any more.’ And Barney wished as hard as he could wish, closing his eyes and urging himself to enter his old body again, but … nothing.

‘Trust me, if you know what is good for you, you will run far, far from here.’ It sounded more like a warning than a threat, as though Maurice actually wanted to help them.

Barney felt his dad nudge up against him when Maurice and Guster walked on. ‘I think we should do as he says.’

Barney waited, watching as Maurice yanked an even more perplexed Guster forward round the next corner. Before he vanished out of view completely, Maurice went stiff with fear.

‘Come on, Dad,’ Barney said, looking at his father’s nervous face. ‘Let’s see what’s happening.’

When Barney reached the corner he quickly saw the reason for Maurice’s fear. It was Gavin, walking to the bus stop with his mates Alfie Croker and Rodney Wirebrush.

‘Oi, Barney,’ Gavin shouted to Maurice. ‘Oi, you weirdo! What happened to you yesterday?’

Maurice said nothing.

Gavin was up close now, so enjoying himself he hadn’t noticed the cats. ‘I’m speaking to you. Speak, you freak! Speak!’

Barney was terrified as Gavin pushed Maurice against the wall.

He thinks it’s me, he thought. That should be me against the wall.

Guster just grumbled nervously. ‘Crikey! Oh good grief! Oh my word!’

‘We should leave,’ Barney’s dad was saying. ‘This isn’t our business.’

‘No, Dad,’ Barney said quickly. ‘This is exactly our business.’

Then he noticed something. When he looked at the situation from cat level, he could see that he was roughly the same height as Gavin. Not as a cat, obviously, but as a human. OK, so Gavin was a little taller than Barney’s true self but the difference wasn’t really that much. Two inches. No more. He suddenly realized Gavin was only as scary as you let him be. Barney had no more reason to fear him than the feline population of Blandford had reason to fear the Terrorcat.

‘The donkey,’ Barney said to Maurice.

‘What?’ gargled Maurice, petrified, as Gavin’s hand kept pressing up against his neck.

‘Mention the donkey. You know, the cuddly one he sleeps with on his bed. It’s called Eeyore.’

And Maurice remembered. The cuddly donkey from the room he’d had a thousand nightmares about.

‘Donkey,’ he said, his voice weak and blank at first.

Gavin snarled. ‘What?’

Maurice steeled himself. ‘I’ll tell your friends about who you’ve had to share a bed with ever since your mum noticed you’d wet the—’

Gavin’s eyes were filled with dread. ‘How do you know?’ he said. ‘You’ve never been to my house.’

‘If only.’

Meanwhile Rodney and Alfie had stopped laughing.

‘What’s he talking about?’ asked Rodney.

‘Yeah. What’s Willow mean?’ added Alfie.

‘I’ll tell them,’ said Maurice. ‘I promise you. Oh, and the damp sheets.’

‘Yes,’ growled Guster, not having a clue about what was going on. ‘He most certainly will.’

Gavin went purple with rage, and experienced the kind of fear that only came to him in his nightmares. A few moments later Alfie was pointing to the pavement. A puddle was emerging around Gavin’s feet.

‘He’s wetting himself! Look! Look!’

Alfie and Rodney were bent double, laughing even more.

‘Shut up!’ shouted Gavin. ‘Shut up, skinny rake!’ he said to Rodney Wirebrush. ‘Shut up, dog breath!’ he said to Alfie Croker. But even Gavin realized, as his friends kept laughing, that he’d suddenly just lost his bully powers. He walked away, fast, beckoning for his friends to follow, but they didn’t – they walked off in the other direction, laughing a laughter that burned into Gavin as he began jogging towards home.

Barney saw his own freckled, but actually not-bad-looking, face stare back down at him. Maurice seemed thankful, but didn’t say so. Instead he ran back to a house that wasn’t rightly his, pulling the half-reluctant King Charles spaniel behind him.