The Adventures of Catvinkle

by Elliot Perlman

  Oh no, Lobbus thought, Grayston is angry that we took the rubber ball back from him for the children, and now he’s after me!

  Lobbus started running away from Grayston down the other end of the street. But Grayston was a very fast runner and he was catching up, getting closer and closer.

  Grayston was puffing and panting but he managed to call out. ‘Lobbus! Hey, Lobbus!’

  Lobbus too was puffing and panting, but he turned his head in the direction of Grayston as he was running away from him and said, ‘It’s not me. You’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘It is you,’ called Grayston.

  ‘No, it’s someone else entirely, someone who just looks like me,’ called Lobbus, puffing very hard.

  To make matters worse, when he got to King’s Square Street, some of the humans from Friend’s Herring Shop accidentally got in the way. They were putting up signs, posters and banners telling everyone that tomorrow was the opening of herring season, a day to be celebrated by all. But Lobbus was not so happy to see all of these signs. They forced him to slow down, and now there was nothing between him and Grayston but a table and two chairs.

  ‘Stop running away, Lobbus!’ shouted Grayston between puffs.

  ‘I tell you, I’m not running away!’ said Lobbus, moving around one side of the table.

  ‘Yes you are!’ puffed Grayston as he got to the other side.

  ‘Oh yes, you’re right. What I meant to say is, “I tell you, I’m not Lobbus”.’

  ‘You’re not Lobbus?’ asked Grayston, still chasing Lobbus.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you are running away,’ said Grayston. He circled around the table trying to catch up with Lobbus, who was also circling around the table as he tried to keep away from Grayston.

  ‘All right, I’ll grant you that I am slightly running away, yes, it’s true.’

  ‘You sure look like Lobbus,’ said Grayston, trying to catch him around the table.

  ‘A lot of people say that,’ said Lobbus, trying to pick up speed.

  A number of humans who had been standing in line at Friend’s Herring Shop waiting to buy some fried cod with chopped onions moved away quickly at the sight of what looked like two crazy dogs running around a table outside.

  Then these people narrowly avoided being hit by other people who were riding their bicycles. The bicycle bells suddenly rang out and the people who were almost hit called out ‘Sorry!’ They didn’t know which way to turn.

  ‘If you’re not Lobbus, why are you slightly running away?’ asked Grayston.

  ‘Because,’ puffed Lobbus, ‘you think I’m Lobbus and I wouldn’t want to be Lobbus right now.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked a huffing Grayston as he went around the table after Lobbus.

  ‘Because I think you might want to bite Lobbus on the rump,’ cried Lobbus.

  ‘No, I don’t!’ said the puffing Grayston.

  ‘Well, Lobbus doesn’t believe you,’ said Lobbus, very much out of breath now.

  ‘I thought you said you weren’t Lobbus.’

  ‘I’m not. I meant to say, if Lobbus were here he wouldn’t believe you.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Grayston, going around the table in the direction of Lobbus’s tail.

  ‘I know just how Lobbus would react in this situation,’ said Lobbus, running around the table.

  ‘How would he react?’ asked Grayston.

  ‘He would react very much like me,’ said Lobbus.

  ‘Amazing!’ said Grayston, still going around the table. ‘You and Lobbus don’t just look alike, you even think alike.’

  Some of the tourists standing near Friend’s Herring Shop came closer to the table and started taking photos.

  ‘Would you like me to give him a message?’ asked the exhausted Lobbus.

  ‘Who?’ asked Grayston.

  ‘Lobbus!’ said Lobbus as he went around the table.

  ‘Are you sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble?’ asked Grayston as he went around the table still after Lobbus.

  ‘No, not at all,’ said Lobbus, wondering how many times he was going to have to go around the table.

  ‘Okay,’ said Grayston, ‘please tell Lobbus … Oh, I haven’t planned out my message properly. I don’t want to get it wrong,’ said Grayston, still chasing Lobbus.

  ‘Well, do you want to go home, think about it and come back?’ asked Lobbus, puffing.

  ‘Will you still be here running around this table when I get back?’ asked Grayston.

  ‘I can’t see why not,’ said Lobbus as he went around the table one more time.

  But just then both dogs heard a voice.

  ‘Hey, Lobbus, there you are! I thought we were meant to be playing backgammon.’

  Both Lobbus and Grayston stopped to see Roy Llama approaching them in front of Friend’s Herring Shop. They each stood on the spot, panting heavily.

  Grayston looked hard at Lobbus on the other side of the table. He tilted his head from side to side. Then he started to laugh and laugh.

  Lobbus didn’t know what was going to happen next. He tried to remember that ‘brave’ was part of his name as he fought back the feeling of being frightened.

  ‘Ha!’ said Grayston. ‘That stupid llama thinks you’re Lobbus!’

  By now, Catvinkle and Ula had almost reached Vondelpark, where the cats and kittens of Amsterdam would meet to let their fur down as part of a club called Kittens Anonymous. This was where the National Kitten Baby-Shoe Dancing Competition was to take place. It wouldn’t be long before they were inside Vondelpark. Ula noticed that the closer they got to Vondelpark the more nervous Catvinkle was becoming.

  They were walking beside the canal trying not to get in the way of the bicycles the humans were always riding. It wasn’t easy. Some of the humans weren’t very good riders and some of them were good riders but weren’t paying enough attention to the cats and dogs in the street. Typical, thought Catvinkle, always focused on themselves, these humans.

  She remembered that Mr Sabatini wasn’t like that and she wished he was with them now. If he was standing near her, the humans on their bikes would find it easy to see him and would ride around them. Maybe it was hard for fast-moving humans on their bikes to see a little cat and a dog, Catvinkle thought to herself.

  But Mr Sabatini was back at the salon making people’s hair look nice. And the waves of humans on their bikes swirling around them on the bumpy cobblestone streets weren’t helping Catvinkle’s nerves one bit.

  ‘Let’s stop and rest for a moment, Catvinkle,’ said Ula. ‘Hey, look up there! They’re so pretty, aren’t they?’

  Ula used her nose to point upwards to three rose-ringed parakeets, each with bright green feathers, pink stripes around their necks, and red beaks. They were having a rest in the branches of the elm trees on their way back to Vondelpark, which was, of course, just where Catvinkle and Ula were headed.

  Catvinkle agreed they were pretty but, being a cat, it was hard for her not to think of them as food. So unless Ula wanted Catvinkle to climb up the tree to try to catch one or more of the rose-ringed parakeets, it was perhaps not the best distraction for a cat.

  ‘I really shouldn’t eat so close to the baby-shoe dancing competition,’ said Catvinkle, looking away quite quickly.

  Luckily there was another distraction. Everyone, including the humans on their bikes, turned to look at the bicycle fisherman who was coming along the canal in his boat. Wearing an orange suit from top to toe, he was fishing from his boat with the help of a mechanical arm. The arm skimmed the bottom of the canal whenever he pulled a special lever at the bow of the boat. But he wasn’t trying to catch fish. He wasn’t trying to catch any seafood at all. He was trying to catch bikes. Every time he put the boat’s mechanical arm in the water, it came up from the bottom a bit sludgy and holding one, two, three or even four bicycles that had somehow come to rest on the bottom of the canal.

  ‘I’ve never understood why the humans let their bicycles get so wet,’ said Ula, still
trying to calm Catvinkle’s nerves with distractions. ‘Rain is one thing. I know the humans sometimes ride their bikes in the rain – and I’m not one to talk about wet fur. But surely this is going too far. Maybe they’re trying to teach the bikes to swim? Can’t they see that will never work? I’m no expert, but I blame the wheels.’

  Ula turned to Catvinkle but she was still looking nervous, so she went on. ‘Oh well, whatever they’re thinking, it sure is a beautiful day for bicycle fishing, don’t you think?’

  But now they had reached the part of Vondelpark the cats called Kittens Anonymous, and there was no distracting Catvinkle from the trouble ahead.

  ‘I probably should have mentioned this earlier,’ said Catvinkle, ‘but since you’re the one pretending to be Ketzington, who’s a cat, you should probably be quite nervous too.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Ula, ‘but it makes perfect sense. In fact, just your saying it has helped me to feel nervous quite quickly.’

  ‘Yes, I think it’s appropriate,’ said Catvinkle to her new best friend.

  Ula noticed that there were cats and kittens all around them, heading to the same place. Suddenly, she had the feeling that a handful of stones had been placed in her tummy and had sunk to the bottom like bikes in a canal.

  A flock of rose-ringed parakeets landed on a branch of a nearby elm tree. They were high enough from the ground not to have yet come to the attention of any of the cats or kittens. But, sensing the tension in the air even quite high up off the ground, they sat beside each other quietly in a row waiting to see what was going to happen next.

  ‘Hey, look, everyone,’ called out a very nasty voice. ‘It’s last year’s loser, Catvinkle, and she’s brought a dog!’

  ‘That’s Twinkiepaws!’ Catvinkle whispered to Ula. ‘Quick, pretend to be a cat who’s disguised as a dog!’

  All the cats turned to look. They saw Catvinkle with Ula who, being a dog, looked very much like a dog. They gasped.

  ‘Gasp!’

  ‘All right, everyone,’ said Catvinkle in a louder voice. ‘Now that you’ve gasped, you can all relax because this isn’t a dog. It’s a very famous cat disguised as a dog because she’s on holiday and doesn’t wish to be disturbed by a bunch of nosy kittens.’

  ‘Sure looks like a dog to me!’ said Twinkiepaws, strutting around as though she had already won this year’s baby-shoe dancing competition and possibly next year’s too.

  Ula concentrated on Twinkiepaws for the first time. No taller than Catvinkle, Twinkiepaws was a little moving bag of muscles completely covered by cream fur. Her tail was the most eye-catching part of her. It was all primped and fluffy, extending wider than the widest part of her body, her tummy, and fanning out behind her almost like a peacock’s tail, only instead of feathers there was fur. It was clear to Ula that Twinkiepaws was going to be a formidable opponent.

  Catvinkle spoke in a haughty tone. ‘You’re going to choke on your own fur, Twinkiepaws, when you realise who it is you’re calling a dog.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘We can’t tell you because then you’d know, and you’re just the kind of cat this very famous New York singing sensation doesn’t want to be bothered by,’ said Catvinkle.

  Twinkiepaws walked slowly around Ula. All the other cats were watching.

  ‘Who are you?’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be so rude, Twinkiepaws!’ said Catvinkle.

  Ula sat very still on the cool grass and remained silent.

  ‘She can’t tell you but I’m warning you, Twinkiepaws, you wouldn’t want to be mean to a world-famous kitten singing sensation like Ketzington … Oops! I told you who she is! I’m so sorry, Ketzington,’ said Catvinkle to Ula, who was pretending to be Ketzington.

  All the cats there at Kittens Anonymous gasped in shock. ‘Gasp!’

  All of them except Twinkiepaws.

  ‘Catvinkle, I don’t know what you think you’re doing bringing a dog here, but this is not the wonderful Ketzington. This is a Dalmatian. You’re crazy to bring a dog here, Catvinkle. We’ve come here for the National Kitten Baby-Shoe Dancing Competition, not to see what the cat dragged in.’

  ‘You’ll be sorry for treating our special visitor so rudely,’ said Catvinkle.

  There was much murmuring and muttering among the assembled cats and kittens. Some cats thought Ula might actually be Ketzington in disguise. Some cats thought she was definitely just a dog. Others weren’t sure.

  ‘Catvinkle’s right,’ said a wise old cat named Schrodinger. ‘It’s not wise to be so rude to someone who might turn out to be Ketzington.’

  He strolled over to join them. ‘Let’s look at what we know. We know that Ketzington and the Snufflecats are due in Amsterdam at any moment. We would all agree it makes sense that a cat as famous as Ketzington would want to travel around in disguise so she wouldn’t be constantly bothered for paw prints. And it makes sense that a successful singing star like Ketzington would be able to afford the best disguise any kitten could want. Of course, because we’re cats, we’re unlikely to bother a dog. So a famous cat wanting to be an anonymous kitten could indeed come to Kittens Anonymous dressed as a dog.’

  Schrodinger stroked his whiskers with one paw thoughtfully. ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘I’ve always thought that a cat we can’t see can be both a live cat and not a live cat. And “not a live cat” could mean a live dog.’

  ‘You really lost me with that last bit. Are we even meant to understand that?’ asked Twinkiepaws.

  ‘What you understand, Twinkiepaws, is entirely a matter for you,’ said Schrodinger. He was so wise that very few of the cats who gathered there knew what he meant, but he was used to this and spent many of his happiest hours having long conversations largely with himself.

  ‘Oh, Schrodinger!’ cried Twinkiepaws. ‘You’re not going to fall for this. Catvinkle is trying to trick all of us.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said Catvinkle.

  ‘Yes, you are!’ said Twinkiepaws.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said Catvinkle.

  ‘Yes, you are!’ said Twinkiepaws.

  ‘Kittens, please! Will we be any the wiser if you both just keep on saying the same thing?’ asked Schrodinger.

  ‘Not sure. Let’s see,’ said Catvinkle as Ula sat there quietly and very, very nervously. ‘No, I’m not tricking.’

  ‘Yes, you are!’ said Twinkiepaws.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said Catvinkle.

  ‘Yes, you are!’ said Twinkiepaws.

  ‘Kittens, stop this!’ said Schrodinger forcefully.

  ‘Well, you were right, Schrodinger. It was fun but we’re no wiser,’ said Catvinkle.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Twinkiepaws. ‘I’ll prove to you that this is not only not Ketzington, it’s not a kitten at all. It’s a dog!’ And with that she jumped up in the air and landed hard on Ula’s tail.

  ‘Oww, oww!’ howled Ula, in a voice that was so much like that of a dog that it seemed that Catvinkle’s and Ula’s attempt to convince everyone that they were looking at a famous cat disguised cleverly as a dog was not going to work.

  In her pain at having had her tail jumped on by Twinkiepaws – and her guilt at having let Catvinkle down – Ula ran away from all the cats at Kittens Anonymous.

  In fact, she ran all the way out of Vondelpark and into the streets of Amsterdam, where she went looking for her cousin, hoping that Lobbus would give her some advice. She had never been in this situation before and didn’t know what to do.

  When she got to King’s Square Street, Ula noticed something going on out the front of Friend’s Herring Shop near where posters and banners were advertising the next day’s first day of herring season celebrations.

  There out the front of Friend’s Herring Shop she saw her cousin, Lobbus the brave dog Lobbus, running around a table, followed by a llama, followed by Grayston.

  ‘Lobbus, why is this big grey dog chasing me? Does he want to bite me?’ called Roy Llama as he ran around the table.


  ‘No, he wants to bite me,’ called Lobbus, running around the table.

  ‘I thought you said you weren’t Lobbus,’ said Grayston, running around the table after Lobbus with Roy Llama running between them, before adding, ‘It’s all so confusing.’

  ‘Well,’ said Lobbus, ‘biting someone in the rump won’t help anything.’

  ‘I don’t want to bite anyone,’ said Grayston, still running. ‘I only wanted to ask where Lobbus’s cousin Ula was.’

  ‘I’m right here. Leave my cousin Lobbus alone,’ said Ula.

  At hearing this, the three of them stopped running and crashed into each other, with Roy Llama in the middle.

  Ula couldn’t believe she had been so brave. She’d wanted to be brave but hadn’t known she could be. She was still a bit scared but knew she had to do the right thing by her cousin Lobbus.

  ‘Now look here,’ said Lobbus, puffing and panting, ‘you mustn’t bite Ula either.’

  ‘Why won’t anyone listen to me?’ said Grayston sadly, puffing just like Lobbus. ‘I don’t want to bite anyone.’

  ‘So you’re not cross about the rubber ball being given back to the children, Anja and Ferdi?’ asked Ula.

  ‘I have to admit I was angry before. But then my children spoke to me and, well, that’s why I want to talk to you,’ said Grayston.

  ‘Really?’ asked Lobbus.

  ‘Yes,’ said Grayston. ‘My children are the most important things in the world to me. I love them so much, more than I can explain. Every morning I wake up and look at them and I’m ready to burst with love for them.’

  ‘That’s very nice, Grayston. I didn’t know you had that much love in you,’ said Lobbus.

  ‘Lobbus, do you think we’ll be playing backgammon soon?’ asked Roy Llama.

  ‘Shhh!’ said Lobbus. ‘Grayston, what does any of this have to do with my cousin Ula?’

  ‘I was brought up to be a big scary grey dog and to bark at everything and to chase things that came near my house or my family,’ said Grayston. ‘But my children don’t like my barking and my chasing and my running around.’