by Ged Gillmore
‘Take your time,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a shock, but everything will be OK.’
There were more than three dozen cats in the lorry, each of them in a separate cage, each of them pure black. Those in the cages near Tuck gave him an hour to calm himself down and to stop crying, then they gave up and started to introduce themselves despite his tears.
‘My-a name-a,’ said the sleek cat across the way, ‘is the Principessa Passagiata Pawprints. I’m-a from-a the posh-a part-a of Palermo. You can-a call me “Principessa”.’
But she was wrong. Tuck couldn’t get past ‘Prin’.
‘I’m Butch,’ said her sturdy neighbour, who wasn’t quite as butch as he thought he was. He spoke with a light and lilting voice with the tiniest hint of a lisp and wore a diamond-encrusted collar with a little gold medallion hanging from its buckle.
To Tuck’s left was a fat old black cat called Matt. He was very quiet and rather grumpy and simply said ‘Matt’ when Tuck said hello. The cat to Tuck’s right, the cat with the quiet American accent and the huge yellow eyes, introduced himself as Bunk.
‘Why have they kidnapped me?’ Tuck asked Bunk quietly. ‘What did I do wrong?’
‘Cat, you did nothing wrong,’ said Bunk. ‘And don’t worry, we’ll get you out of here. You’ll see. But first, you need to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.’
But poor Tuck hardly slept at all that night. He was, after all, a night cat. But, whereas normally it was hunting and exploring that kept him awake through the dark hours, that night it was misery and confusion. Eventually, after hours of crying quietly he managed to fall asleep. He slept long and deeply, dreaming he was back in the attic with Minnie in their chest of drawers. But, the next morning, when the dirty daylight in the high narrow windows above the cages woke him, he realised his dream had been just a dream, whereas this nightmare was reality. Then, as if things weren’t bad enough, the door to the trailer began to rattle loudly to the sound of a key in its lock until, suddenly, it was pulled open.
WHAT A DISASTER!
Ginger woke early too that morning. For the second night in a row she’d slept in a tree: this time in the gnarly old chestnut from which she’d watched the Riff Raff sewer rats chase away Fleabomb and Bumfluff. But, unlike the previous night, she hadn’t slept well. For one thing, it had suddenly grown a lot colder. Thick clouds had formed and there was the distinct smell of snow on the way. Without her winter coat yet grown, Ginger had shivered and quivered right down to her liver. But that wasn’t what had stopped her sleeping. Oh chilly chestnuts, no! Ginger had slept badly because she was worried the sewer rats would leave in the night and she would lose their trail. She had no doubt they would move much faster and much more quietly than Fleabomb and Bumfluff had done. So every half an hour she’d woken herself up, listening intently to be sure that, above the constant rushing noise that came through the undergrowth, she could hear the snuffling snores of three large rats.
Now, as the first light of dawn came weakly through the thick trees around her, Ginger listened carefully once more. But where she could hear the rushing noise still, she couldn’t hear any ratty snores. Oh no! What if the rats had escaped?! She jumped quickly down from the tree, wincing as her six bellies each hit the ground at a different time, kerplunkerty flab plunk, flab flab plunk! Ginger froze, but there was no sign anyone had heard her, so she crouched very close to the ground and crept slowly down the path.
She had gone no more than a couple of metres before she saw at last, through a thick patch of greenery, the source of the rushing sound. It was a fast-flowing stream washing and wishing and whooshing and rushing along the forest floor. Well, maybe it was a bit bigger than a stream. More of a brook, perhaps? Almost a creek, but not quite. A crook? A cream? A strook or a streak? Whatever it was, Ginger worried the rats had crossed it while she slept. Maybe all her food was gone forever? She crept closer and closer to the water until, at last, she saw the babbling stream cut right across the path itself. She had no idea if this was good or bad news and so she crept closer and closer to it, until, to her huge relief, she heard the voices of the Riff Raff rats.
‘Just a few more,’ Corporal Punishment was saying, her voice rasping even more than normal as she lifted something heavy. ‘Here, Scard, catch this.’
Ginger’s view was blocked by a bunch of tall brown flowers, growing so thickly they cast a dark shade beneath them. She crawled over to them, dragging her six bellies along the dusty path until she cowered in the bower of the towering dour flowers. There she glowered, powerless, and scoured the scene beside the stream. The rats were no more than a metre from her by the edge of the fast-running water. At least, Corporal Punishment was. Private Dubious Staines and Sergeant Vicious Lee Scard were perched in a flat-bottomed boat that was connected to the shore by a thick rope. Between Staines and Scard were four bags just like the one Ginger had watched Fleabomb and Bumfluff struggle with the previous day. But, unlike that bag, which now lay empty on the forest floor up the path behind her, these bags were full. As were five more bags which lay on the ground beside Corporal Punishment.
‘Yummy, yummy, they should be in my tummy,’ thought Ginger.
‘Rork!’
Above the river, bent over in a hole in an old oak tree, was a large black rook. ‘Rork!’ he called again, pointing his hooked beak at Ginger, as if trying to alert the rats. ‘Rork!’
Well, it was a good thing Ginger had eaten the day before or she might not have resisted running down and gobbling up the rats, and then running up the oak to eat the rook too.
‘What’s that bird on about, Corporal P, ma’am?’ said Private Staines. ‘I reckon he’s trying to tell us something.’
The Corporal ignored him. ‘Here’s another one,’ she said, and for a second she was lost to Ginger’s view as she bent down to pick a bag up in her teeth. ‘Coming atcha. Catch this, Staines!’
Ginger watched the bag fly through the air, then knock Dubious Staines clean off his feet so that he fell backwards squealing into the boat. Scabby Sergeant Scard turned and laughed at him until—doof!—the Corporal’s next bag hit him square in the back and sent him sprawling too.
‘Rork!’ screeched the big black bird.
Ginger looked above the brook and chucked the hooked rook, crooked in its nook, the gingeriest look in this entire book. Such a look that it stuck, and the rook forsook ever to look at a cat again and took to the air instead.
‘Rork! Rork! Rork!’ he cawed as he flew away, and, below him—doof, doof, doof—the next three bags flew through the air from Corporal Punishment towards Sergeant Scard and Private Staines so that they had to duck and dive, dish and dash, dodge and weave to stop them landing on their heads. Ginger was impressed, and not a little intimidated, by the Corporal’s obvious strength.
‘That’s the lot,’ said the Corporal when she’d finished. ‘The last boat of nine bags. One hundred and ninety-nine bags in total, not bad. Except if you two hadn’t lost the other one it would have been a round two hundred.’
Ginger watched Scard and Staines look at their paws in shame, but the Corporal ignored them. She was busy unhooking the rope from the stick which had held it to the ground. Then, as Ginger watched helplessly, the Corporal threw herself into the water and pushed the boat out into the fast-running stream before leaping aboard herself.
Ginger sat upright and stared forlornly after the boat. As you probably know, cats HATE water. They might drink it occasionally, but only when they have to. The only thing water is good for—as far as cats are concerned—is providing fish, and even those are better when they’re out of it. Ginger felt a tingle on the end of her nose. Looking around her, she realised it was snowing. Winter had arrived.
‘Great,’ she said. ‘Just what I need …’
But, like Minnie, Ginger was not a cat to give up easily. As the three rats and the last of the stolen food drifted away, she walked along the bank of the stream in the same direction. Here, in the soft ground, she found the paw prin
ts of many, many rats and the heart-breaking smell of dozens and dozens of bags of food. As she watched the tracks slowly disappear under the falling snow, it occurred to her for the first time what a huge operation this must have been. She had seen how Bumfluff and Fleabomb had struggled with one bag. If two hundred bags had been stolen in total, that was four hundred rats! The thought of so many sewer rodents was more than a little frightening, but Ginger was nothing if not determined, and nothing ever made her more determined than food.
WHAT THE WHAT?
Tuck cringed against the wall as the morning air rushed into the trailer. He closed his eyes tight and tried not to think of what awful thing might be about to happen to him. Then he realised the air coming through the newly-opened door brought with it lots of familiar smells: like a stables and a smokehouse and a very familiar farmhouse. His heart gave a leap as he thought maybe he’d misunderstood; maybe these people were just giving him a lift home after all. He was saved! He didn’t even tremble when the metal steps, which lay folded on the trailer floor, were dragged loudly down to the ground outside. Nor when, seconds later, the male human’s straggly silhouette appeared in the doorway.
‘Oh, thanks so much for having me!’ he miaowed. ‘And for the lift, but oh, it’s so good to be back home!’
Then he saw what the man was carrying in his rubber-gloved hands. It wasn’t a key to open a cage: it was a large tray, full of cat-food dishes. Nutritious nutty num-nums, it smelled good! Tuck suddenly realised how hungry he was.
‘Oh well,’ he thought. ‘I might as well have a little snack before I say goodbye.’
‘Don’t eat this food,’ said Bunk in his quiet American accent from the cage beside him, as if he could read Tuck’s thoughts. ‘Don’t eat anything until you hear the gong.’
‘Hear the what?’
Bunk motioned with his head to the far end of the trailer where a bronze gong hung from the back wall, faintly glowing in the light from the open trailer door. Tuck watched with wide eyes as the male human walked slowly down the aisle between the cages, reaching tentatively into each one through an inwards-opening flap. He had an expression on his face like he’d just trodden in some dog-do, and he left his heavily-gloved hand in each cage for the least possible time before leaving a dish of the yummy-smelling food inside.
‘Don’t eat it,’ said Bunk again. ‘You’re going to be in here for a long time, so you need to keep healthy.’
Tuck turned to see his neighbour leaning against the mesh which separated them, staring at him closely. He had a strange underbite which Tuck hadn’t noticed before, and a rather small head, especially for a cat with such huge circular eyes.
‘But I want to go home,’ said Tuck.
‘We all want to go home.’ The American shrugged his shoulders sadly and looked away.
Tuck ran to the very back of his cage as the man approached.
‘Eugh, disgusting animals,’ said the man as he dropped a dish of food into Tuck’s cage. The dish landed with a loud clatter, and Tuck thought his heart would burst with fear. Only when the man had once again left the trailer did Tuck dare to approach the food. Mm, it smelled so good! It smelled of rodent-water and vole-fluff and … oh, something not quite right. Tuck sniffed the dish more closely still. There was something metallic in there. Looking around the harshly-lit trailer, he saw the other cats sniffing at their dishes, none of them wanting to eat. Fat-cat Matt and Bunk, he noticed, didn’t even bother smelling the food.
Tuck closed his eyes, and thought he’d never been so unhappy. The smell of the farm had raised his hopes, and the sight of a farewell snack had raised them even higher. But now his hopes were crashed and smashed and dashed and bashed.
‘Yo, cat,’ said Bunk quietly. ‘You’re about to start crying again.’
‘Thanks,’ sniffed Tuck, closing his mouth tight so that he couldn’t wail. But no matter how tightly he closed his eyes, tears still rolled down his cheeks.
It was a little over an hour later when the trailer door rattled again to the sound of keys in its lock. Startled, Tuck ran to the back of his cage. Then he watched with wide eyes as the dumpy female human, with her pretty green eyes and even prettier freckles, entered the trailer wearing a sleeveless wrap-around dress. She was dragging behind her a large black rubbish bag and, under her arm, she carried a huge pair of barbecue tongs. Just like her husband had done, she visited each cage in turn. But Mrs Pong wasn’t delivering food—oh vacillating visitors, no! Instead, she used the long tongs to reach into each cage in turn, grab the strange-smelling food, lift it out and throw it into the black plastic rubbish bag. As she moved from cage to cage, she sang in a rather lovely voice, her yellow teeth visible in the dim light.
‘Dong-ding, ding-dong,
This first breakfast tastes so wrong.
Ding-dong, dong-ding,
Let’s throw it in the bin.
Dong-ding, ding-dong,
Second breakfast won’t be long,
Dong-ding, ding-dong,
Though the gong sounds so wrong.
‘Ding-dong, dong-ding,
Dong-ding, ding-dong,
The tinned din-dins dinner gong
Always sounds so wrong!’
When she had taken the food from the very last cage at the end of the trailer, Mrs Pong, the ning-nong, singing her song in her sarong, hit the bronze gong with a prong of her long tongs, making a strong bonging dong which, indeed, sounded wrong. Then she left the trailer. A second later she was back, carrying a brand new tray of food dishes. Again, she visited each cage, this time leaving a dish of food inside it. Then she left once more, this time carefully locking the trailer door behind her. Before Tuck’s eyes had had a chance to grow accustomed to the dimmer light, he could hear the unmistakeable sound of a truckload of cats eating. He approached the bowl in his own cage and sniffed at it carefully.
‘You can eat it,’ said an American accent in the dark beside him.
‘It’s not fresh,’ said Tuck.
‘No, it’s from a tin. But it’s good, you can eat it.’
Well, Tuck didn’t need telling twice. He ate the food quickly and then sat licking his lips. As he did so, he listened to the other cats around him washing themselves and yawning before curling themselves up in their beds. Soon it grew quiet and Tuck thought he was the only cat in the entire trailer who was still awake. It was very still and the light was quite dull, the shadows of the trees outside moving across the windows high in the opposite wall. Tuck turned to his right and saw a huge pair of round yellow eyes looking back at him.
‘Don’t want to sleep?’
‘No,’ said Tuck sadly. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Good,’ said Bunk. ‘That’s very good. Your name’s Tuck, right? And you say you come from this place where we’ve stopped.’
Tuck nodded, but said nothing.
‘Don’t feel like talking?’
Tuck shook his head.
‘I get that,’ said the American. ‘And normally I’d respect it. But I have some things I need to tell you. Firstly, I’m an undercover agent with the Cat Intelligence Agency. Secondly, I’m going to get us out of here. And thirdly, you’re going to help.’
WHAT A PUNK!
Ginger followed the ground beside the stream, blinking away the snowflakes and trying her best to keep the rats in sight. But as their boat had floated into the middle of the stream, it had picked up speed and soon Ginger had to break into a run to keep up. Just as she was building up to her maximum speed (which, as we know, wasn’t that fast), she started feeling the strangest sensation. It wasn’t the feeling of snow falling on her head and back; it wasn’t the feeling of cold air rushing past her nose. Oh secret spies, no. It was the feeling of being watched. Ginger squinted through the snow to the boat full of rats to see if they could be watching her. As she did so, she realised how much further away they had drifted. With all the snow in the air she could barely see them. Ignoring her other feeling, she ran on a little bit further, determined to
keep the rats in sight. But then the stream turned a sudden bend, and the rats were completely lost to view.
‘Hu, ahu, ahu, ahu,’ Ginger panted. ‘Flipperty flabby-bits, I’m not as fit as I used to be. Must. Carry. On.’
She was about to make herself run again when once more she noticed the feeling of being watched. Well, it definitely wasn’t the rats on the boat watching her now. She looked behind her along the bank, then out to the stream again. Then she looked left, up into the grass which grew thickly above the bank. There she saw a jet-black animal a little larger than herself with two thick white stripes down his back, a safety pin through one of his nostrils, and a tartan baseball cap worn backwards on his head. It was a punk skunk.
‘What you doing, missus?’ the skunk called out to her. ‘You missed da bus or something? He, he, he, heee.’
‘I was trying to follow those rats,’ said Ginger, still panting. ‘They stole all my food. Have you any idea where this stream goes?’
‘Downstream I reckon, he, he, he, heeee,’ said the skunk, before sniffing loudly and spitting into the grass. ‘No dins-dins for ginge-ginge, he, he, he, heee.’
‘Well, what are you doing here?’ said Ginger.
But she knew the answer for she had seen what the skunk was holding between his front paws. It was a wooden skateboard with ‘SKUNK’ scratched on it in angular letters.
‘What does it look like, ginger nut?’ said the skanky-skate punk-skunk, waving his skateboard at her in a rather aggressive way. ‘Practising, durrh!’
Now, you might think Ginger was annoyed at this tartan-wearing skunk being so rude to her. But she was glad, not sad, the plaid-clad rad-lad was mad and bad, for she had to be a cad and this made her feel less bad about it.