The Cats of Butterwick Sands

by Gabriella Thomas

  Caesar the rooster meanwhile had reached the hens, he puffed out his feathers and crowed, “Of course she needs to ask her husband he must decide as the male cockerel of his pen.”

  “Oh shut up,” said Hilary, “no-one listens to you!”

  “Hilary I will not be spoken to like that, back to the pen.” But Hilary just proceeded to give Caesar a vicious peck on his bottom, which got all the hens clucking with laughter. Meanwhile Fergus had jumped nimbly, down from the caravan steps, trotting up to Mags and rubbed himself on her legs; he was trying to reassure her, and felt that the stranger would not do them harm. He had heard on the cat-vine that this Mr Peabody was staying at the pub and tomorrow he would go and see Percy and get more information. Meanwhile he would go to see ‘Sergeant’ Reggie and the other fairground cats, he would also pop down to see his son Ernie at Barrow station and Lana his daughter who lived in the wool shop in Fairmile and all his other kittens who were now big cats scattered around Butterwick, Barrow and Fairmile; he would certainly have a busy few days. It was not often that Fergus would be moved to leave his caravan but he had lived a long life full of adventures and he was devoted to Mags; he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, so he and the other cats would not give up their homes without a fight! Mags reached down to stroke Fergus. “There, there Fergie old boy it will all be alright.”

  Malachi, who was chewing on a piece of straw, said, “Hurrumph!” as usual, “I will not move anywhere, the very cheek of it, I didn’t get where I am today, moving anywhere.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” piped up Kiya from the caravan roof, “but really, I am not really bothered.”

  Bowler, who had come out from under the chair, was trembling and started yapping again, he was so angry to hear all this, “Why you… traitor,” he barked, “Don’t you care? Have you no loyalty to the family who feeds you?”

  “I’m a cat,” answered Kiya and this was the only explanation that Bowler would get; so she curled up with her back to the little dog and went to sleep.

  Bowler was barking loudly now. “How dare she.” He couldn’t stand cats at the best of times why even the so called cat ‘Sergeant’ Reggie played tricks on him; only one other animal could possibly understand how devoted he was to his humans Ben and Sonia, that was Bilko, the pub dog… he would go and see him straight away! Bowler could see that Sonia, Mags and the stranger were still talking so he turned tail and ran toward the cliff path as fast as his little legs could carry him.

  The chickens were also dispersing and going back to their pen clucking about what they’d heard all the way back.

  “Well I hope that our pen will be as good as what we have now,” said Ethel.

  “Well if it’s not we shall just not go in!” added Hilary as defiant as ever. Mags had offered Mr Peabody some stew from the big pot; Bertie had looked into the bubbling mass and excused himself saying he had told Ella at the pub he would be having lunch there. Mags had taken out a ladle and was dishing out stew to Mariella and Elliot, who had spent the last twenty minutes playing with Bertie’s trilby hat.

  Bertie had laughed as the little boy had put it on his head, “What a fine young man,” Bertie had remarked. Mariella who had been shy at first and was prone to put her fingers in her mouth had been playing a peek a boo game with Bertie as well. As Sonia took a plate of stew from Mags, she thought that she felt she could trust this man and that his intentions were good ones, she dearly hoped so. “Well ladies I better be going, thank you so much for your time and for listening to me. Please do talk it over with loved ones and friends, I hope to arrange a meeting in the pub where everyone can come along and look at the plans and ask any questions. Thank you both once again.” Mr Peabody took his trilby hat from Elliot, who promptly started to scream. “Oh let him keep it, I have plenty more,” he laughed.

  “Oh no,” said Sonia, “we couldn’t possibly… But Mr Peabody had already started walking toward the path; it was now lunchtime and the big clock on the clock tower was chiming, as Bertie made his way down the path. He met a young man carrying a guitar coming up. “Good afternoon,” he said and went to lift his trilby then he remembered and started chuckling to himself again. “Yes it has been a good morning,” he said out loud as he proceeded down the path. Ben looked back at the smiling stranger and wondered who he was, as he walked toward his caravan he saw Mariella running toward him shouting, “Dada,” and following closely behind running on his little legs was Elliot wearing what looked like a trilby hat on his head!

  14

  The Big Meeting

  A few weeks after Mr Peabody’s visit to the caravan park, there was a lot of activity and lots of general comings and goings in the old fairground. Through barks, mewls, squawks, twitters, whinnies and neigh’s, braying, clucking and even squeaking from the mice that lived in the old ghost train and on the caravan park. There was hooting from Ollie Beak the owl who had his perch high in Malachi’s barn and even Freda the fox, who had come back to visit one of her grown up cubs who lived in the woodland beyond the main road into Butterwick, Through all this animal chatter it came to be known that a grand meeting was to take place on the second Saturday in November in the evening at the old fairground in Butterwick. The invitation was taken around all the animals by seagulls, pigeons and other birds as far as the sheep grazing on the open fields near Fairmile and to the cows on Barlington farm. All in all a good turnout was expected.

  The humans of Butterwick also knew about their own big meeting to be held also on the same evening at the Old Sea Dog. The notices were pinned on trees and in shop windows all over Butterwick and read:

  big meeting

  to be held at

  the old sea dog pub on tuesday 7th november at 7pm

  to discuss mr bertie peabody’s plans,

  for the renovation of

  butterwick caravan park and fairground.

  all are welcome

  snacks provided

  The whole village could talk of nothing else; conversations were held all over Butterwick by locals. Miss Potter was talking to Miss Honeywell outside Seashell cottage. “Who knows what monstrosity could be put up there? It’s bad enough with it all run down but sometimes the devil you know is better than some strange complex.”

  “Well I would rather see a nice nature reserve built there,” said Miss Honeywell, who as an ex schoolteacher always wanted something educational for Butterwick. They were joined in their conversation by Nancy and Neal from the cinema, who were out for a stroll in the cold afternoon air.

  “Well I do think it’s about time that they did something with the place,” said Nancy, “it’s an eyesore at the moment, full of weeds and the kids from Fairmile use it as their own rubbish tip.”

  “Yes,” agreed Neal, “they make a lot of mess up there, I think they should build a youth club to keep the kids occupied.”

  “Oh, I don’t agree,” said Miss Potter, “Fairmile should make its own club for the youths,” and so it went on; everyone having their own opinion about what to do with the site and how it should be run. It was now starting to get bitterly cold, the trees were bare and some of the businesses were now closed for the winter. The guest houses and B+B were shut and only the Old Sea Dog kept rooms open for the odd passing traveller. The arcade and pier remained open but closed early; Blooms was open of course and the Sunnyside café and The Plaice to Be and the other small businesses that survived with the local trade.

  In Pier Street, at the back of the seafront is a small mini-mart, a small mini supermarket which sells all foodstuffs and has a small deli inside and bakery. The mini-mart is run by a young couple, Alex and Karolina, who are from Poland and they have a magnificent black and white long-legged cat called Malutky. Malutky likes to stay close to Alex and Karolina never venturing very far from the mini-mart; he likes to sit on the fridges in summer and next to the hot potato-to-go oven in the winter. This small oven held ho
t snacks like chicken and pies and of course baked potatoes. There was a small section of the mini-mart that sold foods from around the world and Malutky, being a Polish cat, enjoyed a good meat dumpling. Today, Mr Peabody had popped in to put a notice of the meeting in the shop window. He lifted his trilby and said a pleasant “Good morning” to Karolina who was serving.

  She looked at the notice. “Ah yes, everyone has heard about this meeting, we are all worried about our town and want to have more business but we also want to make sure the caravan park and fairground are done properly and that all the pussy cats are protected.”

  Bertie replied, “And so do I, miss, so do I. Please come to the meeting and you will see my plans, the cats will always have a home here, it wouldn’t be my home without them; they are part of my whole plan! Now, I would like a nice hot-baked spud with lots of cheese please.” Just then Malutky, who had been curled up just behind the oven, came out to say hello to Mr Peabody; normally he was a very shy cat but he knew from all the cat chatter that this man held the future of the Butterwick cats in his hands.

  Mr Peabody chuckled, “Ah I knew there would be one somewhere,” he said, as he stroked Malutky, who arched his back and began purring.

  “He likes you,” laughed Karolina and just then, Alex came in the front door carrying some big boxes which he put on the ground beside the fridges. “Alex” said Karolina, “this is Mr Peabody who is holding the meeting about the fairground.” Karolina had given Bertie his potato which he was eating with a little plastic fork.

  “Hello there,” said Alex, “we will be there come rain or shine.”

  “I look forward to it,” said Bertie, “I’ll see you then.” He gave Malutky a last stroke and left the mini-mart.

  “Seems like an OK chap,” said Alex.

  “We will see,” said Karolina.

  The great day finally arrived and at the Old Sea Dog, Ella had been up from early morning making sausage rolls, pies, tarts and a big trifle and later on, she would make lots of sandwiches.

  “It’s just a meeting, love, not a wedding!” said Ivor.

  “It’s very important that people are well fed, so that they can look at all the plans and make good decisions. You always think better on a full stomach,” replied Ella, as Amelia Brewster, Miss Potter and Mrs McAlister from the chip shop had also arrived with her youngest two who were at this moment tearing round the pub in a frenzy of excitement as they did not often have occasion to leave the chip shop and garden, much to everyone’s relief, as it was well known that the McAlister children were quite wild. “Comes of having no father around,” the locals said, and now Ella was almost pulling her hair out with everything there was to do plus the McAlister children. She had been unable to dissuade Mrs McAlister from coming to help. “Oh no I want to, dear. I am closing the chip shop today, the older kids are at school and I do so want to help, after all it’s the future of the town and our businesses!” Mrs McAlister had also bought several jars of large pickles from the top of the big fridge much to Hamish the cats disgust as he now had no proper hiding place now, this was Mrs McAllister’s contribution to the meeting and Ella did not have the heart to send her home, in the end the children were dispatched out into their garden to play with Blossom and Burt, of course no-one could possibly know that the two donkeys would be going to their own meeting as well. As Ella let the children out to play she could not help noticing that the children had no coats and were wearing very threadbare jumpers and tonight was a very cold night. Ella knew that money was tight in the McAlister household and she decided that new winter coats would be in order as a thank you for Mary’s help as she knew that Mrs McAlister did not like accepting charity – any kindness shown by the locals would always mean floods of tears and curses against her errant husband and his ‘floozy’ – but Ella was a kind soul and wanted to help in any way she could. So they all got stuck in preparing the food and later on, other villagers would be coming to get the pub ready. The Old Sea Dog was an enormous pub so there would be plenty of room for all. Percy had taken himself into the back room snug which was a sort of ‘quiet area’ with big squashy sofas. He leapt onto one of these and sat up looking out onto the garden and the sea beyond, lost in his own thoughts. The door creaked open a bit more and Stan padded in and jumped onto the other sofa.

  “Too much going on out there,” miawoed Stan, “but I managed to eat a nice plate of sardines old Peabody left me before the mayhem started, enough food out there to feed several towns.” He jumped up on the other sofa and turned around several times before making himself comfortable. “My human, Bertie always wanted to come back here, and I knew about Butterwick before of course, as all us cats do, but I quite like London meself, we have a rather nice mansion in Hampstead and all. But we cats know when we are well off don’t we and so I follow Peabody wherever he goes.” Percy gave an elegant yawn; he himself did not follow humans but rather he would weigh up all his options first… So different to dogs, who really had no minds of their own, he thought. He was rather snobbish in his way and although Stan was a ‘breed’ cat, he did not have the manners and bearing of breeds like himself the Bengal.

  “Yes,” he remarked back to Stan, “I knew that one day Peabody would come back as he said as much in his letters to old George the station master at Barrow-on-Sea, further up the line from here.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Stan incredulously, but Percy merely did his inscrutable look and said, “Not a mystery, old chap, just read a letter left on the station master’s desk one day whilst I was visiting my friend Ernie – quite simple really.”

  “You can read human writing?” said Stan.

  “Not difficult once you master it,” added Percy. “I read a newspaper every morning, keeps you in touch with the world and keeps you one step ahead.”

  “Well I never,” remarked Stan, “I believed that all the things they said about you might have been far-fetched, but I shall have to eat my words!” and proceeded to give a couple of loud purrs of appreciation, before curling himself into a ball. “Think I’ll get some kip. Wake me up, there’s a good chap, don’t want to be late for the meeting.” Percy was incensed by this creature and he could not wait to go back to being the only cat in the pub! Tonight, he knew he would be one of the main speakers at the animals meeting and he knew how important the fate of the caravan park was to all the cats who lived there and all the abandoned and stray cats who had made a home there and… all the ones that were still to come in the future. He gave a big cat sigh and turned again to look out to the sea.

  By 8pm, the Old Sea Dog was almost full to bursting and people had come over from Fairmile and Barrow-on-Sea and as far away as Barlington, to give their support to the people of Butterwick. The Old Sea Dog’s main bar was the biggest space and so the meeting was held there. The pub had once been a grand hotel in Victorian times when people had come to ‘take the waters’ and there were still the original pillars and the grand chandeliers and high ceilings from those times. This was what made Ivor and Ella fall in love with the place, which had been sadly neglected for many years and, through lots of effort, they had restored it to its former glory, and now it also had good food made by Ella. She had trained as a chef and she also had help with the food from Philip Croggins, whose parents Dave and Kate owned the bed and breakfast in Butterwick. They employed several local cleaning ladies and of course Ivor was the landlord; there was also Belle from Fairmile and Tracy and Tom from Barrow and also Sonia from the caravan park, who worked a couple of evenings each week. They were all here tonight. Down the whole one side of the room, there were trestle tables groaning with lots of lovely food. Lots of chairs had been lined up in rows and at the front there was a stage which was used for ‘live music nights’ and on the stage were flip charts with, on one side a huge big map pinned up and on the other side of the stage a big cork board on legs which had an equally large paper on it saying ‘THE PLAN’.

  Amelia Brews
ter, who was very particular about social niceties had said that the front row was reserved for the speakers and the local ‘V.I.P’s’ such as the Mayor of Fairmile and his lady Mayoress, counsellor Len Grubb and various other dignitaries. In the past Lady Seraphina Melchet-Jones from the ‘big’ house in Fairmile, would also have attended, but she had died a year ago and a rather nasty character called Finch, her former butler now owned it. Unfortunately the once lovely mansion was in a sorry state of repair, due to Finch neglecting it. “Disgusting!” the locals would say. “Wild parties every night and dodgy looking individuals going in and out, rubbish all over the place, broken bottles, such a shame,” they tutted, “Lady Seraphina would turn in her grave if she saw it now.” Fortunately her pet cat Lala, a previously spoilt Persian, had managed to find a good home in the caravan park and in fact, the only ones happy to see the mayhem caused were Gripper and his motley gang of cats who loved trouble of any kind and had taken to going into the mansion grounds and joining the drunken revellers and singing in high pitched miaows such songs as My Way and various other renditions of Frank Sinatra songs and drinking cider. Linus, one of this gang, was particularly fond of cider and rather tipsy one night on the way home he managed to fall backwards from a wall into a compost bin, where he slept soundly all night with his paws in the air! They had also had more brawls than ever with the local cats after lapping up apple cider and leftover beef burgers. Gripper and his gang knew about the big meetings tonight but they saw themselves as outlaws and cool and they would NEVER go along to some stupid meeting.

  Behind the front row of chairs, the oldest residents of the three towns had seats with their names on. There were seats for old George, the station master from Barrow-on-Sea station, who sat with his unlit pipe in his mouth and still with his station master’s uniform on, the brass buttons gleaming on his jacket. Next to him sat old Mags, looking a little uncomfortable in the pub’s grand surroundings and having to exchange pleasantries with other people. Old Mags had always been a loner who had travelled alone with her animals for many years, she was an outdoors person and not used to being ‘cooped up’, only staying indoors if really necessary; even in the coldest weather she would rather stay outside her caravan than in. Fortunately she knew old George well over many years and they had always liked each other. Next to them was old Isaac the fisherman, who had been persuaded to leave his boathouse, which was very unusual. He had left at the same time as his cat old Horatio who trotted past him, tail in the air.