by Ged Gillmore
‘Yes, well, you probably need to practise in the snow,’ said Ginger, as if she’d forgotten all about the rats. ‘You probably fall off a lot and need a soft landing. But I bet you can’t jump as far on that thing as I can.’
‘Tja!’ said the skanky skunk scornfully. ‘You? Jump? What, you got an anti-gravity suit or something? Watch this!’
And he disappeared into the grass behind him. Then, without warning, he came flying out on top of the skateboard, his thick black-and-white tail flowing in the snowy air behind him. He had flicked up his heels so now his skateboard twirled beneath him, until—after a wee wibbly wobble—he landed next to Ginger.
‘I bet you fifty doodahs you can’t jump further than that,’ he said.
‘You’re on, rude-boy,’ said Ginger putting out her hand for the skateboard. ‘Watch this.’
Well, I’m guessing you know what happened next. Ginger took the board and—two feet on and two feet off—skated it up into the bushes above. Then she skated it a bit further, pushing past grasses and cobwebs and low hanging branches, all of it lightly dusted with snow; and then a little bit further still, although a lot more to the right this time, until she came back out onto the flat ground beside the stream. She was about twenty metres away from the skate-punk skunk, and halfway to the water before he spotted her.
‘Oi, dumb-bell! What you doing?’ he yelled at her. ‘You’re supposed to jump!’
But Ginger ignored him. Instead, she kept on skating, building up more and more speed, faster and faster, using all her muscles (not much) and weight (very much) to get the board going as fast as it could until— SPLASH! —it hit the water. Then, and only then, did she lift all four paws onto the surface of the board.
‘Come back,’ screamed the skunk. ‘That’s my wood!’
‘Serves you right for being so cheeky,’ said Ginger as she and the board floated downstream through the falling snow. The scornful and scoffing skanky skunk sank on the dank bank looking blank at the frankly rank prank to steal his plank. Looking back at him, Ginger felt a bit guilty, and she shouted out to him.
‘I’ll leave your skateboard on your side of the water. Just follow the bank until you find it!’
But the water was running so fast, and she was already so far away, and the snow was growing so thick, that she couldn’t tell if he’d heard her or not. She turned to see which way she was going, and gasped to see she was no longer on a stream at all. For as the water had turned the bend in the direction the rats had travelled, it had joined a wide river, the opposite bank barely visible through the thickening snow.
WHAT AN OFFER!
It was snowing where Minnie was too, not that she’d noticed. Oh busy brushes, no. For Minnie had got up bright and early and was now working hard.
What?! Minnie up bright and early?
And ‘what’ squared to the power of ‘you’re kidding’—working hard??
You probably think I’m talking about the wrong cat. Or maybe you think I’ve applied a less than feasible character-change to get the story moving along. Well, if that is what you think, then you’re as wrong as a Pong (and you are soon to find out quite how wrong a Pong can be). Because no sooner was the sun up the next day than Minnie was working hard at cleaning.
‘Aha!’ you’re thinking. ‘Minnie was working hard at cleaning herself. Well, that makes more sense. No doubt she was primping and preening, crimping and cleaning, braiding and plaiting, brushing and combing.’
Well, wrong again! Minnie was cleaning the floor of The Scratching Post. For the sign that she had read the night before had said:
Now hiring.
Cleaning staff required.
No experience necessary.
‘Oh!’ Minnie had thought, ‘I’m purrfectly qualified!’
And she was right, for what could be more perfect for a cat like Minnie than a job which needed absolutely no experience of cleaning or housework whatsoever? The answer is: nothing. And so, the previous night, before the group of toms could get any closer, Minnie had torn down the sign with her teeth and run into the trees. There she had found an old thistle and used it as a comb to tease out all the knots from her fur. Then she’d rolled in some dust before climbing up to the roof of The Scratching Post to let the night breezes blow it all out again. Then she’d licked and licked and licked and licked herself back into shape. After that she’d applied a little of the salvaged paw-paw lotion around her eyes and then—and only then—had she hot-tailed it round to the backdoor of the milk bar. There she had used her not insignificant charms to persuade the manager to hire her on the spot.
‘I might look grubby,’ she’d said humbly, ‘but it’s only ‘cos I spend all my time cleaning other things. Floors, tables, glasses and saucers are my speciality, but I reckon there’s not nuffink what I’m not good at cleaning.’
Well, the milk bar manager clearly cared more about cleanliness than he did about grammar because he hired Minnie immediately. His name was Mr Soffalot and he was an ocelot, which—in case you don’t know—is a rather beautiful type of wild cat found in the Caribbean. Mr Soffalot, like many ocelots, had amazing brown eyes and a beautiful yellow-and-orange coat with thick black stripes. He came from Trinidad and how he came to manage The Scratching Post is itself a fantastic story, but, sadly, not one for which you have paid.
‘Saucer of milk, leftovers from the kitchen, and a room over the café is what you get,’ he told Minnie in his deep Trinidadian accent. ‘I run a clean milk bar, and no funny business. Any trouble and you be out.’
‘Trouble?’ said Minnie, in one of her less convincing lies. ‘I dunno what the word even means, darl.’
Now, I’ll admit it, I was somewhat surprised when Minnie told me about this part of the story because—between you and me—I’ve always thought Minnie was a bit too in love with herself to do a job like cleaning a milk bar. But then, you see, I’d forgotten how ambitious a cat Minnie has always been. If a cleaning job would help get her to her audition, then a cleaning job she would do. And good old Minnie, did she whinge and whine and complain about it? Well, bells yeah, of course she did! But once she’d done that, she decided she may as well enjoy it.
‘It can’t be a rag-to-riches story without a rag in it, can it now?’ she said to herself, washing out a dirty cloth as she prepared to clean the floor that morning.
‘I can’t be Cinderella without a few cinders on me face, can I?’ she said as she cleared out the fireplace.
‘And there’s no use crying over spilled milk, is there?’ she said, as she cleaned up all the splashes of milk from around the saucers on the floor. In fact, she got so into the spirit of things that she started singing as she worked.
‘Oh, polish and spit, I don’t mind a bit,
Cleaning and dusting in a bar!
For one day soon, I’ll sing my happy tune,
And I’ll be a superstar.’
As she sang she started to dance a little bit, wiggling her bum, and using her very fluffy tail to dust along the top of the bar as she mopped the floor.
‘Oh, Minnie, they’ll say, it’s your lucky day,
You’ve got your own telly show.
They’ll tell me I’m a cutie; they’ll say I’m a beauty,
And I’ll say “Yes, I know!”’
And then, because Minnie was feeling better than she had felt in days, and because there was no one else around, and because she was Minnie, she got up on the stage which took up one whole end of the room and started clawing at the tall scratching post which stood there and gave the bar its name.
‘Oh, scritchy, scritchy, scratch,
I’m such a catch,
I am unique and not one of a batch.
Scratchy, scratchy, scritch,
There just one little hitch,
I can be—’
Minnie suddenly stopped singing. She wasn’t alone in the bar at all! The front door was locked so no customers could come in, but the door to the kitchen was open and, without her noticing,
the manager had come into the room and now stood watching her.
‘Oh! I’m so sorry, Mr Soffalot,’ she said, quickly retracting her claws from the scratching post and jumping back down to the floor. ‘I’m so sorry, I was just mucking about a bit, innit? Fixing my paws so I can work harder.’
Minnie produced the tube of paw-paw ointment and started rubbing it into her pads to give credence to the lie. Because, for once, she was desperate to keep out of trouble. She had promised herself she would hang onto to this job until she’d got back on her paws, saved up some doodahs and/ or met someone who would give her a lift to the city. But, to her dismay, when she looked up from putting the ointment on her paws, Mr Soffalot, the ocelot, was still standing there. And still looking at her.
‘You sing?’ he said.
‘Ooh, yes, love singing,’ said Minnie.
‘And you dance.’
‘Bit of a wiggle and a giggle from time to time, doesn’t hurt, does it, darl? Listen, Mr Soffalot, I’m really sorry for mucking about. It’ll be the last time, I promise. I really need this job just now, so, like you said, no trouble. Never again, all right?’
‘No,’ said Mr Soffalot.
‘No?’ squawked Minnie. ‘Really?’
‘Really. Because you sing too well, Miss Minnie, and you dance too well too. I think you mopping my floors like this is not enough. Not the best use of my resources. I think perhaps we should see you up on the stage tonight. What do you think?’
Minnie paused from pouring the paw-paw on her poor paws, then pretended to ponder and peruse the proposal. What did she think?! Have you met her? She’d love to do it!
‘Well, I guess I could give it a go,’ she said, as if she wasn’t sure. ‘Just to be polite; only if you insist.’ She pulled off the rag she’d used to tie back her hair and, with a shake of her whole body, let her luscious locks flow in slow motion around her. ‘Of course, I’ll need my own dressing room, fresh flowers every day and ten per cent of takings.’
Mr Soffalot laughed, his own beautiful stripes oscillating along his body as he did so. ‘Let’s see how you go on Friday, and then we’ll see if we give it a second go. In the meantime, the ladies’ litter tray needs emptying.’
‘But …’
‘Now.’
Minnie stared at Mr Soffalot furiously, and Mr Soffalot stared back at her. Like she needed any more motivation to make sure that night’s performance would be the best of her entire life.
WHAT A DILEMMA!
As Minnie was being made her exciting offer, Tuck found himself facing a dreadful dilemma. To explain what it was, it’s time for another flashback, so hold onto your hats and let’s return to where we last left Tuck and Bunk: whispering in the dark as all the other cats slept around them.
‘Look up at the windows near the ceiling,’ Bunk had said in his quiet American voice. ‘They all have mesh across them. All except for that one up there, above the cages opposite. I’ve spent the last few nights pulling it away and the Pongs haven’t noticed. Now I just need some help opening the window. You see there’s an ‘O’ shape in the handle?’
‘Who are the Pongs?’ said Tuck.
‘The humans, the man and the woman.’
‘Humans have names too!’ said Tuck. ‘Who knew?’
Bunk looked at Tuck strangely with his massive yellow eyes, but said nothing. Instead, he used his back leg to scratch extra hard at the collar he was wearing until it came apart. As it did so, two little pins fell from it to the floor of his cage.
‘Take this,’ he said, picking one up in his mouth and passing it through the wire mesh between him and Tuck. Tuck took the pin into his own mouth.
‘Tomorrow night you must use that pin to pick the lock on your cage. The procedure can take a while, so you’ll need to familiarise yourself with it. Use tonight to practise.’
Tuck gasped.
‘It’s just like a spy movie, gurgle, gargle, ach, ach!’ he said.
Bunk gave him another strange look. ‘You all right, cat?’
Tuck smiled and nodded. But in reality he wasn’t all right because, as he’d gasped with excitement, he’d swallowed the pin Bunk had just given him. Now he could feel it working its way down his throat and into his tummy.
‘Good,’ said Bunk. ‘I’ve done this several times before, so tomorrow night I’ll probably be out of my cage before you. As soon as I am, I’ll start climbing up to the window. Once there, I’ll thread my collar through the ‘O’ shape in the handle. By the time I’ve done that, you shouldn’t be far behind me. Then we each tug on one end of the collar with our teeth and the window should open. Affirmative?’
‘A furry motive,’ said Tuck sadly. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his new friend that he’d already ruined his plans. ‘But maybe you should pick someone else?’
‘Negative. I have sought assistance from the other felines and none has been willing to assist. I tried approaching them individually, no dice. I even tried getting them to work together, to create a prison riot by chanting “What do we want? We want din-dins! When do we want them? Miaow!” None of it worked, so I need you.’
‘Ooh, that’s good,’ said Tuck. ‘I like that. What do we want? We want din-dins! When do we want them? Miaow!’
‘But—’
‘What do we want? We want din-dins! When do we want them? Miaow! It’s fun! What do we want …’
‘Tuck—’
‘We want din-dins! When do we want them? Miaow!’
‘Enough!’ Bunk frowned and stuck his underbite out even further. ‘The point is, I am relying on you and you alone. But we should have no contact tomorrow to avoid any suspicion. Keep yourself to yourself.’
Tuck nodded again, suddenly remembering he’d swallowed the secret weapon Bunk had passed to him. He had no idea how to keep himself to anyone but himself, having been given away as a kitten. He suspected keeping himself to himself was going to be as difficult as being in two places at the same time, which he’d tried on several occasions with no success. Not that any of this mattered, for he doubted that the next day he’d be in a mood for talking anyway.
How right he was. For the first half of the next morning—as Ginger was purloining a skateboard and Minnie was cleaning a milk bar—Tuck lay sadly on his little cat bed thinking how unfair life was and what a huge disadvantage it was being intellectually challenged. Except, he didn’t use long words like ‘intellectually’ or ‘challenged’. He just used the word ‘me’. Poor Tuck. He had spent many a sad and sorrowful day before now (well, five to be precise), but this was sadder and more sorrowful than any of them. He was going to be stuck in this smelly little cage refusing half his meals whilst Bunk was going to be an international adventure spy and go to the CIA Headquarters and probably get a bowl of milk on the way. For the first time in his entire life, Tuck was so sad he couldn’t even cry.
But then, just before lunch time, he felt a familiar gurgling sensation in his tummy. Soon, he was uncomfortable and very soon after that he realised he had to go to the litter tray. Tuck hated doing the do in front of other cats, but there were no two ways about it. Or rather, no number-two ways about it. He had to go.
On the litter tray, he closed his eyes and pretended he was behind the old stables, amongst the gravel, where he normally liked to do his business, listening to the birds tweeting their tweets. In fact, he pretended so hard that, when he opened his eyes, he was surprised to find himself on a litter-tray locked in a cage in the back of a lorry.
‘Oogy,’ he said. ‘How disappointing.’
Then he turned around to bury his poo, but as he put his one paw forward to do so what did he see? Can you guess? Yes, cat poo, thank you, we all got that bit. But what was in the cat poo? That’s right! It was the pin he’d swallowed the previous evening. He was saved! All he had to do was … eugh! Bunk had told him he’d have to hold the pin between his teeth to get it into the lock on his cage. Now he wasn’t certain he wanted to do that.
‘Oogy,’ he said. ‘What a
problem.’ Because ‘dilemma’ was outside his vocabulary. In fact, let’s face it, ‘vocabulary’ is outside Tuck’s vocabulary.
‘Oh, pin-in-a-poo, I don’t know what to do,’ he said, but he was interrupted from his dilemma by a whisper behind him.
‘Psst, cat.’
It was Bunk, who had sidled up to the wire which divided their cages and was talking out of the side of his mouth.
‘You said no contact,’ said Tuck as quietly as he knew how, which, as anyone who has ever met him will tell you, was not very quietly AT ALL.
Oh, sorry, now he’s got me shouting too.
‘Ssh!’ said Bunk (to Tuck, not to me, although if he had heard me just then, he’d probably have said it to me too). He looked around nervously in case any of the other cats had noticed them talking. ‘You still got your pin?’
‘Er … sort of,’ said Tuck.
‘Sort of?’
‘I mean, yes. Why?’
Bunk looked a bit bashful. ‘The two pins are different sizes,’ he said. ‘Only one of them fits my lock, and I gave you the wrong one. Here.’
Bunk motioned with his nose towards one of his paws. He was using it to push a pin along the floor of his cage and through the wire mesh into Tuck’s.
‘Go and get the other pin and push it through to me.’
‘Do I have to? said Tuck. ‘Can’t we both use this one?’
‘Didn’t you hear me, cat?
‘Oh … eh … ah … OK,’ said Tuck. ‘Meet you back here in a minute.’
Bunk nodded almost imperceptibly and wandered off, as if he’d just been rubbing his side-fur against the wire. Tuck walked back to his litter tray.
‘Oh, eugh,’ he said. Then ‘Pwoar’. Then ‘Ooh, oogy!’
He put out a paw, extended his longest claw, and carefully pulled the pin out of his poo.
‘Icky sticky!’ he said, and he was quite right, for the poo had stuck the pin to his paw. Not waiting for it to become unstuck, Tuck quickly hobbled with three legs back to the wall of wire he shared with Bunk. There, he tapped his paw against the mesh until the pin—and a few little brown flakes—fell to the ground on Bunk’s side of the wire.