Cats Undercover

by Ged Gillmore

‘Mm, interesting’ said Minnie. ‘Nah, listen. Not one person ‘as responded to that advert ah put out. Each day ah wait and wait, but no one comes by.’

  But then, as if the narrative had been waiting for this very moment, there came a knock at the door.

  ‘Get that,’ said Minnie. ‘And, while you’re up, my tea’s cold.’

  What Lancelot Soffalot, the bossy old ocelot, said in response cannot be printed in a book in this country, but he did get up and open the door.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ Minnie heard him say to whoever was on the other side of it. ‘I didn’t know she had family! Come on in.’

  Minnie only half-heard him, for she had noticed in her make-up mirror (which was surrounded by naked bulbs on all four sides) that one of her whiskers was less than perfect.

  ‘’Oo is it?’ she said.

  When no answer came she turned and, then, she too gasped. In front of her sat a young cat, barely more than a kitten. She had very long fur not only all over her body and her tail, but also protruding from her ears and even between her toes. She was tabby and grey and black and ginger and tortoiseshell and brown and even a little bit white. To put it briefly, she was the spitting image of Minnie.

  ‘Lorky lummocks, you’re beautiful!’ said Minnie. ‘It’s like looking in the mirror.’

  ‘Hola,’ said the little cat. ‘I think my tail is a bit springier than yours? And fluffier? Is no matter. I apply for role as assistant.’

  ‘Oh, do you?’ said Minnie. ‘Can you type?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you cook?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can you wash my hair and make me look pretty.’

  The smaller cat looked Minnie slowly up and down, and—what with Minnie’s body shape—side to side.

  ‘Si,’ she said. ‘Is easy for me.’

  ‘Wonderful!’ squealed Minnie. ‘You’re hired! And you look so much like me, it’ll be really cute.’ She stuck her smallest front left claw in her mouth. ‘I shall call you … mini-Minnie!’

  ‘My name Dora,’ said the other cat. ‘I come from Andorra. Is a small country—’

  ‘Mm, interesting. You can start today. Go and sort out them ribbons and make us a cuppa while you’re about it.’

  Dora looked at Minnie for a long while.

  ‘Ribbons, no problem,’ she said at last and walked off to the ribbon-box, her tail in the air like she’d already been there.

  ‘Lucky girl!’ thought Minnie watching her go. ‘To look like me and to work for me, who could ask for anything more?’

  The next two days were pleasant ones for Minnie, and when she looked back (not easy given her girth) she counted them as amongst the happiest in her life. Maybe this was because they were destined not to last. Dora would lick Minnie into shape before the evening show, then during the performance she would sit at the side of the stage, staring at Minnie’s every move. After the show, Dora would take out Minnie’s ribbons and hang them up neatly. She’d fold her frilly frou-frous and put them away in a shoebox, and then she’d comb out Minnie’s hair. After that, as Minnie miaowed aloud about how she’d wowed the crowd until she’d bowed, Dora would potter around, tidying up the dressing room/ cleaning cupboard. Admittedly, the cup of tea Minnie had asked for on day one never appeared and, no matter how many times Minnie asked, Dora would not massage her paws. But other than that life was sweet, and Minnie felt like she was a real star. With all her singing and dancing she was even losing weight and, therefore, enjoying her reflection more than ever.

  It was four days later that the trouble hit.

  WHAT A RISK!

  As the day of the big fight approached, the Fur Girls noticed a change in Ginger. When Killa Heels went to pick her up for their morning run, Ginger would appear bleary-eyed and yawning, as if she’d hardly slept. When Ivana VeeVee went to spar paw-to-paw with her in the afternoons, she found Ginger strangely distracted. And for three evenings in a row, when Sue Narmi popped by for a motivational chat, Ginger wasn’t anywhere to be found.

  ‘She’s nervous,’ thought Killa.

  ‘She’s scared,’ thought Ivana.

  ‘She’s lost her bottle,’ thought Sue.

  But they were wrong.

  The reason Gingey-pants was tired in the morning was because she had started spending her nights in an Internet café. While the other cats were dreaming of chasing mice, she was clicking on a mouse and reading, reading, reading. Then, during the day, when she was training with the Fur Girls, while they were punching and parrying, she was planning, planning, planning. Now there were only two days to go before the big fight, and it was time for Ginger to put her plans in motion.

  The wasteland which formed the border between the Fur Girls’ fiefdom and the Sourpusses sovereignty was quiet at the best of times. That’s why it was called a wasteland, durrh. But during the last hour before sunset it was always particularly deserted. This was the time when cats with human connections pretended to be friendly so they could beg some num-nums. Others would be resting to get ready for the busy hunting hours ahead, or just staying indoors to watch So You Think You Can Scratch. It was in this quiet twilight that Ginger arrived at the wasteland. She sat for a minute or two, sniffing the breeze, wondering whether what she was planning was really worth the danger.

  ‘Come on, Ginger,’ she said to herself. ‘Let’s do this thing.’

  And with that she started to walk very carefully, quite quickly and completely belly-to-the-groundly towards the Sourpusses’ territory. Ginger had never been to this grubby, grimy and grotty ghetto before, but she had committed to memory the map of its streets. Kumquat Crescent ran through Lime Lane and into Grapefruit Grove. If she needed to beat a hasty retreat, she could peel down Citron Street and out through The Orangery. But the chances of her getting away unscathed were slim indeed. No zesty street gang worthy of its name could afford to let a member of a rival gang come and go through its territory at leisure. If they found her, the Citrus Street Sourpusses would have no choice but to tear Ginger into a fountain of fleshy furry bits.

  Once across the wasteland, Ginger crept quietly along the darkening streets, hurrying from beneath one burnt-out car to the next. She was within a hundred yards of the Angry Puma training gym on Satsuma Street when she heard a strangely familiar voice hiss to her from the dark mouth of an alleyway.

  ‘Hello there, yer big ginger cat, yer. You’re a long way from home, so you are. What would you be doing on the wrong side of the wasteland?’

  Ginger flinched and squinched into the shadows. There she made out two pairs of shiny brown eyes.

  ‘What are you?’ she said, trying not to sound scared.

  Now, ‘what are you?’ is probably not the politest thing for us humans to say to each other. Well, at least I don’t think it is. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe next time you see a teacher you don’t know at school, you should walk up and say ‘What are you?’ Or try it with one of your parents’ friends; I’m sure it’ll be most charming. Either way, between animals this is a very normal question. Sometimes they don’t even ask, they just give a quick sniff and make up their own minds. But Ginger was in no mood for sniffing.

  ‘Nigh! What are ye doing in this part of town, like?’ said a second equally familiar voice from the alleyway. ‘Don’t be pretending that ye’re lost, so.’

  ‘I asked first,’ said Ginger. ‘What are you?’

  She heard a rough snuffling scuffling noise and was amazed to see the country rat, Bumfluff McGuff, step forward from the shadows of the alleyway, with his friend, Fleabomb McGee, following nervously behind. Immediately she felt hungry.

  ‘Don’t try it,’ said Bumfluff. ‘Yer don’t want to make a scene around here, do yer?’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Fleabomb. ‘Ever so much.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ said Ginger testily. Being interrupted like this was not part of her plan. The less time she spent in Sourpuss territory the better. ‘What do you two want?’

  ‘What do we want?’
squeaked Bumfluff, sitting up on his back legs and looking at his front claws as if he was considering cleaning them. ‘Well, we want the same as yer want, big ginger cat. We want to see King Rat and all them horrible Riff Raff rats get what’s coming to them. We want to do a wee deal with yer, so we do.’

  Ginger was shocked. She’d never heard of rats even talking to cats before, let alone offering to do a deal with them. She was tempted to eat the two country rats there and then, and let that be a lesson to them (although exactly what they were supposed to do with that lesson when dead wasn’t completely clear). On the other paw, the offer was tempting. It wasn’t like she’d found any other leads to the Riff Raffs. She was about to say something smart when, at the end of the street, she spotted one of the Citrus Street Sourpusses. It was Jean Poole, an ugly brown cat with dark black whiskers.

  ‘I’m interested,’ she said quickly. ‘But I can’t talk now. Meet me on the other side of the wasteland tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Aye, I’d say those streets were safer for ye,’ said Fleabomb nervously. ‘We’ve been watching ye, like. What are ye doing over here, aren’t ye scared?’

  ‘Never,’ said Ginger, lying through her teeth. (I’d like to know how else you can lie, unless you don’t have any teeth.) ‘But I must dash, bye.’

  And with that she ran across the road, the first streetlights plinking to life above her. She found the alleyway which she knew from her study of online maps ran alongside the Angry Puma gym. She crept along it until she found a row of rubbish bins. There she hid in the shadows and looked behind her. The last thing she wanted was those crazy rats scampering after her. But both the alleyway behind her and the lamplit street she had crossed were empty. She took some deep breaths and settled down to wait and to think about how Fleabomb and Bumfluff had found her and what on earth they could be proposing.

  It was close to midnight before Ginger broke from her thoughts and focused once more on what she was here to do. Before then, plenty of cats, a few dogs, and even the odd human had passed across the mouth of the alleyway, each of them silhouetted against the yellow light of a streetlamp which stood directly across the road. One of them had even been Kimberley Diamond-Mine, from this close angle even bigger than she’d looked out on the wasteland. But she’d been with two of the Sourpusses, Jean Poole and Julie Noted, both of them in pink satin bomber jackets, and Ginger had let them pass. It was another two hours before Kimberley returned. This time she was alone. Ginger had planned on hissing to catch Kim DM’s attention, but learning from the rats earlier that evening, she spoke in a gentle voice instead.

  ‘Hello Kimberley,’ she said. ‘You’re a long way from home.’

  The huge white cat turned and peered into the gloom of the alleyway.

  ‘Who is that? What are you?’

  ‘I’m a cat, just like you,’ said Ginger. ‘A reluctant fighter, just like you.’

  And with that, she stepped forward into the light, half-closing her eyes in a gesture any cat understands as friendly. She wasn’t sure if Kim DM would know who she was.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said the white fighter, bristling her fur. ‘Ginger Jenkins! What is this, a surprise attack? You got your gang back there with you? Bring them out into the light.’

  ‘I’m alone. I want to talk to you. I have a proposal.’

  ‘Oh, let me guess. You’re going to pay me to lose.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Ginger. ‘Quite the opposite. I want you to win.’

  WHAT A MAGICAL NIGHT!

  On the night Ginger approached her opponent, and while Minnie sang for her supper, Tuck and Bunk walked on and on through the Great Dark Forest. Ever since the two black cats had left the WOO with an IOU for a bag of worms, they had done little other than walk. Every so often, Bunk would insist that they stop to rest, although it was always Tuck who fell asleep first and woke up second. Bunk himself seem unaffected by the journey.

  ‘We must continue,’ was all he ever said when Tuck asked if he was tired or hungry or cold. ‘There is no time to waste. As soon as the Pongs develop the right recipe, they can use their pet food empire to deliver it to all the cats in the country. We must go on.’

  So on and on they walked. Bunk preferred them to travel after dark, and, soon, with an undercover agent close by his side, Tuck learned not to be scared of the forest at night. In fact, on their third night of walking, as the snow clouds at last broke up and the moonlight shone through the canopy overhead, he wondered if he even preferred it. He liked the way the trees let through individual moonbeams that caught the snowy slope of the forest floor. He liked the way the icicles that hung from the trees shimmered in the night air. He also liked the way he could sing songs in his head without any distractions.

  ‘Oh, forest, I thought you were ever so scary,

  Thought your trees had eyes that were ever so starey,

  I thought you were foxy and wolfy and beary,

  Now I think you’re as cute as a dairy

  Maid.

  ‘Oh, forest, it’s true you are great and dark,

  But being here’s just a walk in the park,

  You have no bite that is worse than your bark,

  And I’m no longer scared that I’ll cark

  It.

  ‘Oh, trees, you are big and ever so chunky,

  You’re ever so branchy and ever so trunky,

  If I was like you I’d be more hunky,

  Oh, say hello to my good friend Bunky.

  Hiya!’

  Tuck had just started a fourth verse of this ridiculous song when he heard a huge thump in the trees to his left. He tried to remember he wasn’t scared and pressed himself hard against Bunk’s side.

  ‘Do not scream or yell,’ said Bunk. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Ooh, ooh, ooh,’ said Tuck. ‘It sounds like a witch using her magic to escape from her prison cell!’

  ‘It’s fine. Please don’t scream.’

  ‘It’s the sound of a smelly monster oozing thick sticky liquid as he slops towards us!’

  ‘It’s the sound of snow falling from branches,’ said Bunk. ‘It’s a normal sound in the forest at this time of year. There is nothing to fear.’

  There was something so reassuring about Bunk’s calm yellow eyes and his soft American accent that even Tuck struggled to be afraid. He started noticing the patches of moonlight on the snow again and not the dark shadows in between.

  ‘Are we in the Dell of Hell already?’ he said. ‘Does that mean that we’re making good progress.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘And why do they call it the Dell of Hell?’

  ‘Because of all the wild dogs.’

  ‘Wild dogs!’

  A breeze came through the trees, and all around them was the thumping sound of snow hitting the ground. But this time, as it fell pell-mell, Tuck couldn’t believe it wasn’t a spell from a cell or a smelly hellish gel. He failed to quell his yell, and it rang, well, like a bell, through the Dell of Hell.

  ‘Aggggghhhhhh, mfff—’

  Yes, you guessed it. The ‘mfff’ was because Bunk had his paw over Tuck’s mouth again.

  ‘Cat,’ he hissed. ‘You gotta keep the noise down. We do not want to alert others to our presence.’

  ‘Ooh, sorry,’ said Tuck, when Bunk removed his paw again. ‘Are we nearly there? Can we go to bed now? Will you read me a story?’

  He also asked countless other questions which I really can’t be bothered repeating and which Bunk apparently couldn’t be bothered answering, for he just walked on silently leading Tuck further down the dell. They had walked for another half an hour or so, the trees growing thicker as the dell grew deeper, when Tuck felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

  ‘Ooh,’ he said. ‘Danger.’

  Bunk stopped and looked at him. It was very dark under the thick trees and Tuck could barely see his yellow eyes. He could tell, however, that they didn’t look as calm as they normally did.

  ‘Danger?’ said Bunk. ‘W
hy do you say that?’

  ‘Well, there’s no breeze now, but still my hairs have gone up on end. Which normally means danger. Doesn’t that happen to you?’

  Bunk didn’t answer. Instead he turned around—leaving Tuck’s side for the first time all night—and stared into the blackness behind them. Tuck looked at him carefully, desperate for a sign of reassurance, and as he did so he thought he saw the strangest thing. It was as if Bunk’s eyes had turned red.

  ‘Ooh,’ he said. ‘Your eyes—’

  ‘Run,’ said Bunk. ‘RUN!!!’

  And with that Bunk turned and ran down the hill into the dell, shouting over his shoulder for Tuck to follow. Well, as we all know, when Tuck runs he is amongst the fastest cats in the whole wide book, and he certainly doesn’t need telling twice. Within a few seconds he’d caught up with Bunk and even overtaken him.

  ‘Keep running until you reach the stream,’ he heard Bunk shout from behind him. ‘Climb a tree there and wait for me.’

  Tuck wanted to point out that he wasn’t overly fond of climbing trees, but before he could do so, he heard a terrifying noise. It was the noise of dogs barking. And not the sound of distant dogs either, oh carousing canines, no. It was the sound of at least three dogs very close behind him. Tuck ran faster than he’d ever run before, the night blurring on either side of him, until suddenly he saw a stream ahead. There he stopped and was about to climb the nearest tree when he noticed Bunk was no longer behind him.

  ‘Bunk?’

  He called Bunk’s name over and over, but there was no sight or sound of the little American cat.

  WHAT A PROPOSAL!

  Kim DM took Ginger to her room above the gym. Ginger could see the white cat had tried to make the space look pretty with some flowers in a glass and a Japanese screen to hide the litter tray, but it was a still a sad and lonely room above a fight gym. The green neon of the Angry Puma sign flickered through her net curtains.

  ‘You want money, is that it?’ Kim DM said as they sat down on opposing ends of an old sofa that smelled of humans.