by Anne Fine
But hey! Let’s not be nasty about Melanie. I could have fetched up in a lot worse places than a cosy soft cushion in a little straw basket.
She carried me inside and kept her promise. Cream! Tuna! (Were you expecting me to slide off home to nose through some three-day-old pellets of catfood?)
Then she sat down and stroked my fur while she chose a name for me.
‘Pussywussykins?’
Sure, Melanie. If you want me throwing up on your pillow each time you say it.
‘Little Baby Munchywunchykins?’
Just try it, and I’ll scratch you. Hard.
‘I know. I’ll call you Janet!’
Janet? What planet is she from? For one thing, I’m a boy. And, for another, have I – have you – has anyone, anywhere – ever heard of a pet cat called Janet?
But the cream was fresh. The tuna was delicious.
So Janet was staying. Oh, yes. Janet was warm, well fed and comfortable.
Janet was staying.
8: Sweet little pussy
GO ON, THEN. Snigger. So I looked a bit of a pussy cat, wearing that lacy bonnet. And the doll’s frilly nightie was too big for me. What are you going to do? Ban me from Fashion Week?
I had a good time, being Janet. The meals came three times a day. (Three times a day! That nightie was headed for being a perfect fit, any time next week.) I had steak bits, and haddock, lean chicken, sausage ends. You think of what you really love to eat most, and then imagine soppy little fingers feeding you, mouthful by mouthful, and you’ll see why I stayed.
The only problem was the endless yelling from next door.
Tuffee! Tufff-eeee! Where ARE you?’
Melanie settled me back down comfortably in the straw basket, and stood on tiptoe to peep over the hedge.
‘The vicar’s still looking,’ she told me sadly. ‘Poor Tuffy! He’s still missing. I hope, wherever he is, he’s warm and dry and comfy and well fed.’
I purred.
She turned back. ‘Oh, Janet! I’m so glad to have you.’
She squeezed me so tight, I gave a little warning yowl. Not a smart noise to make, just over the hedge from someone looking for a cat.
His head appeared. ‘You’ve found him!’
I stayed well down in the basket.
Melanie’s kind, but she’s not bright. ‘Who?’
‘Tuffy!’
‘No. That was my own cat yowling. That was Janet.’
‘Janet?’
‘She was a gift.’
I’m glad that Melanie didn’t say ‘A gift from heaven’. That would have made him even more suspicious. As it was, he narrowed his eyes at me.
Disguise! I thought, and simpered in my basket.
The bonnet and nightie obviously confused him a little, but he did have a go. ‘His face looks very like Tuffy’s.’
I purred in a friendly fashion.
‘But Tuffy never made a noise like that.’
(No. Not in your presence, Buster!)
The vicar’s eyes gleamed. ‘Melanie,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I do one tiny little test to assure myself it’s not Tuffy?’
He came through the gate, and picked me up.
Talk about tests! Some have to walk through fire. Others are sent on seven-year-long voyages. Some have to go and make fortunes. Others kill dragons, or set off to find the Holy Grail.
Nobody’s ever had a test like this.
He scooped me out of the basket.
He held me up.
He looked me in the eyes. (I didn’t blink.)
He said, ‘Nice pussy! Pretty, pretty, pussy!’
He said, ‘Sweet, sweet pussy!’
He said, ‘Who’s a clever little girl pussy, then?’
And all I did was purr.
He put me back in the basket.
‘You’re right,’ he said to Melanie. ‘It isn’t Tuffy And I can’t think why I ever thought it was in the first place.’
Phew!
More cream. More tuna. Here we come!
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!’
10: How it ended
SO THAT SORT of explains what all the fuss was about when the car drew up at the roadside, and out spilled the family.
‘Tuff-eee!’ yelled Ellie, catching sight of me through Melanie ‘s open garden gate. She rushed in to greet me. ‘Tuff-eee!’
Then she spotted Melanie, sobbing her eyes out.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Your cat ought to go to prison!’
Melanie shrieked at her. ‘Your cat’s not a cat. Your cat’s a pig. And a beast.
And a murderer!
I went back to trying to look all sweet and Janety.
Ellie’s eyes had gone huge. She looked at me sternly and her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Tuffy!’ she whispered, horrified. ‘What have you done?’
I like that. Very nice! Aren’t families supposed to stick up for one another? Charming of Ellie to believe the worst, just because her best friend is watering the lawn with her tears, and there are bits of shredded nightie all over.
I
was pretty put out, I can tell you. I stuck my tail up in the air and started the huffy strut out of there.
Wrong way! Straight into the vicar’s arms.
‘Gotcha!’ he said, scooping me up before I’d even spotted him lurking behind the pear tree. ‘Gotcha!’
And that’s how, when Ellie’s mother finally strolled through the gate, she found the vicar holding me the way that a cat lover doesn’t hold a cat.
And staring at me the way a cat lover doesn’t stare.
And saying things I don’t believe a vicar ought to say.
Ever.
He won’t be asked to cat-sit in our house again.
Anyone sorry?
No. I didn’t think so.
Byeeee!