by Ged Gillmore
‘Me! Me!’ said Tuck, jumping up and down as high as he could with his paw in the air.
‘Shame,’ said Ginger.
‘Me, me, me!’ yelled Tuck, waving both his front paws above his head and jumping, jumping, jumping to get her attention. ‘I know, pick me! Whoa!’
Well, are you wondering why he ‘Whoa’d’ when he wanted to wow Ginger with his worldly wisdom? Nah, you’ve guessed it, I know you have. All that jumping up and down had made the branch underneath him bend to the very limits of its flexibility. Tuck was so excited to answer the question he didn’t notice this as it bent down, but when it bounced up again he had to hang on with all ten claws to stop being thrown off.
‘Wooo,’ he said. ‘Don’t like it.’
Down beside the motorway Juan Carlos did like it. He’d been staring at the branch and had seen it wobble when Tuck slipped, but he didn’t think that could be the signal. Now he saw it flailing around massively like it was blowing in a storm. ‘Vamos!’ he yelled out to himself. ‘Vamonos!’ and as soon as he saw a gap in the traffic, out he hopped. Hop hop. Hoppedy hop. Hop hop hop. He’d estimated he’d make it across the motorway in two or three jumps, but it was far wider than he thought. Eight hops, nine hops, this was getting tiring and he wasn’t even halfway across. Suddenly lights appeared around the bend in the road. The next stream of traffic was arriving. Juan Carlos said a very, very, very bad word in Spanish and hopped like his life depended on it. Like? There was no ‘like’. His life did depend on it. Hoppedy hoppedy hophophophophophophophop … aghh! Did he make it? Or did the lights come upon him faster than he expected and splatter him flat and slimy across the tarmac?
‘Did he make it?’ yelled Ginger.
‘Feel sick,’ said Tuck, coming back off the branch to the safety of the trunk.
‘Oh no,’ said Ginger. ‘Why do you feel sick? Did you see him get flattened?’
‘No, wobbly branch sick. Seasick sick,’ said Tuck. ‘Toxic Tuck sick. Eugh, blurgh, eegh.’
‘What about Juan Carlos, though. Did he make it?’
Tuck suddenly understood what Ginger was saying. Without another word he ran back out to the end of the branch, even further than he’d gone before, so far that it bent under his weight without him even jumping. He squinted and peered and gazed and stared out at the motorway. There was an awful looking stain in the middle of the far lane, but beyond that, on top of the crash barrier on the far side of the road, he saw a very happy toad jumping up and down and waving with both his little front arms. Tuck waved back and then remembered he was scared of being so far out on the branch and ran back to the trunk.
‘He made it,’ Tuck said to Ginger. ‘He seemed to be mouthing something about a grassy ass. Do you think there’s a donkey over there or something?’
‘Oh, thank heavens,’ said Ginger, and in a rare and unexpected show of emotion she actually put her arms around Tuck. ‘Oh, how wonderful. I was so worried, I couldn’t have lived with myself.’
‘It’s F by the way’ said Tuck.
‘What?’
‘F.’
‘What’s F?’
‘The capital of France. Did I get it right?’
Ginger took her arms back from Tuck so that he could see her roll her eyes. Then she said to him, ‘Come on, Einstein, it’s your turn. Down you go and wait for the signal.’
‘Gulp,’ said Tuck.
Well, crossing the road when you’re a desperate toad keen to build a life on the other side in clean ponds, good health care and a land of opportunity is one thing. Doing it when you’re a scaredy-cat is quite another. It took Tuck ten tentative tries to even get close to the road.
It was far louder than anything Tuck had ever heard before, far louder and faster and scarier and deadlier. He looked up at the tree and saw Ginger standing at the junction of the branches. She had hooked her front paws under her armpits and was waving her elbows up and down, pushing her head back and forwards at the same time.
‘I’m not a chicken!’ shouted Tuck up to her, but of course she was far too far away to hear him. She just strutted out along the branch, head back and forth, elbows flapping, pausing now and then to peck something from the wood beneath her feet.
Well, if Tuck couldn’t tell her, he was just going to have to show her. Humph. So he walked straight up the very side of the road, jumped up onto the crash barrier, tail in the air like he just didn’t care, and ignored the humbling thundering rumbling of a passing juggernaut.
Ginger looked down and saw him and ran straight back towards the main shaft of the tree. She stood there for at least half an hour staring upstream to look for a gap in the traffic. It was dark by now, the temperature down, and the stars starting to pop out. Tuck thought if Ginger didn’t hurry up, they might be stuck there for another night. Or worse, they’d be stuck on different sides of the motorway for a night. His anger at her paltry poultry puss-take began to fade and his fear of the monstrous, great vehicles behind him began to return. Then he saw Ginger suddenly run out to the end of the branch. She ran so far to the very, very end that it bent right down to the branch below it. That was the signal.
Tuck turned toward the motorway and tried to take his first step forward. But he found his feet wouldn’t move. He knew in his head he had to cross the road, he knew in his heart he trusted Ginger, but in his feet he seemed only to know to stay where he was. He looked up helplessly at Ginger who was bouncing so far up and down on the branch she looked like a bungee jumper who’d overestimated the amount of elastic she needed. He knew he should go.
‘Come on, Tuck,’ he said. ‘Brave Tuck. Not chicken Tuck. Brave.’
The last car zoomed past, and the tarmac stretched out empty before him like a huge stage waiting for his performance. Tuck moved one foot slightly forward. Ginger was shouting something; in the lack of traffic he could almost hear it, and he guessed it would be something rude. It sounded like ‘to rate’ or ‘to Kate’ or something he wouldn’t understand. So he forced himself on, forced one foot in front of the other until before he knew it he was walking. Walking across the road.
‘Two mates!’ he could hear Ginger screaming behind him. ‘To date!’ Well, that didn’t make sense, but Tuck pushed himself on so he couldn’t hear it.
Then he heard a noise, and he looked to his right and saw, not a hundred metres away, three lanes of traffic coming around the bend. He’d left it too late. That’s what Ginger had been shouting: ‘Too late! TOO LATE!!’ And now here he was, slap bang in the middle of the motorway with a van in the left lane, a lorry in the middle lane, and a bus in the right lane—all bearing down on him at speed.
No matter what Tuck did now, there was no way he could get to the other side. And it was too late to go back to where he’d come from. He stared at the front of the bus, the fastest of the three vehicles, and watched it grow bigger and bigger and bigger in his vision. But still his feet didn’t move.
A BIT OF A DOG 2
Bumton was not a part of town you’d want to visit at night. In fact, Bumton wasn’t a part of town you’d want to visit during the day. In fact, Bumton wasn’t a part of town. It was the name of a dry cleaner’s in Crapton, a seedy part of town to the south of the city where the action now takes us. Crapton was riddled with really rough riff-raff, tough guys who’d attack with a clacky back-smack as soon as look at you. If you stopped your car at every red light in Crapton, you’d never get anywhere. That was if you had a car without the local hoodlums stripping it and selling the parts. Bumton of Crapton’s was not the only building in that part of town covered with graffiti—they all were. And most of their windows were broken, and the streets were covered in litter. It was well known that any cat that crept into cruddy Crapton could easily come a cropper, getting crimped and cropped and carried crying to the Crapton crypt. But it was to Crapton that Brother Sagacious sent Major and Minnie to find a car.
‘Lummocks,’ said Minnie. ‘What a dump! We’re more likely to leave here in a coat than in a car. You sur
e this is the right place?’
Major ignored her. He’d discovered that if he ever answered Minnie’s first question, she only came back with a second or a third. And if he told her to shut up, she’d talk more and more. He sniffed the air, looked up and down the desolate street where they found themselves, and walked on.
‘How much further is it?’ said Minnie.
‘Not far,’ Major said before he could stop himself.
‘Not far? Not far? ’Ow far’s that? Too far for fair fur, that’s for sure. What time is it? Can I ’elp? What’s the street called?’
Major did a big gingery sigh and padded on.
‘It’s next left,’ he said. ‘That alley over there.’
They stopped and looked across the road to the alley. It didn’t look very inviting. An old pram lay across the entrance, spilling tins and plastic bags onto the pavement. Beside it stood a large rubbish bin with its lid missing.
‘Ooh, you do take me to some lovely places,’ said Minnie.
The alley itself was dark. On one side the huge great wall of a warehouse blocked out the sun. On the other ran a tall, black fence interspersed with locked gates. It smelled of rotting rubbish and rat poo. Major had grown up on the streets, and this kind of environment didn’t disturb him with anything but memories, but as he and Minnie walked down the dim, dank, damp dump of an alleyway, he noticed she had gone very quiet beside him.
‘Don’t worry, dude,’ he said. ‘We can trust Jimmy the S.’
But Major didn’t sound as certain of that as he’d intended to. Towards the end of the alley, in the one spot where a bit of sunlight reflected off the high warehouse windows and lit the tarmac from a dull black to a dull grey, they found the last gate in the fence. It wasn’t locked. Major pushed at it cautiously with his nose, and it swung open with a creepy creak.
‘You looking for me?’ said a husky French voice behind them.
Both cats spun round and found themselves facing a large poodle. Her hair was shaved in fancy ways on her body, legs, and tail so that she looked like she was wearing a series of cream pompoms.
‘Doubt it!’ said Minnie, giving the poodle a slow look up and down. ‘Buzz off, doggy.’
‘We’re looking for Sid,’ said Major.
‘Oui, Cyd, c’est moi,’ said the poodle. ‘I understand you boys are looking for ze lift, oui?’
‘Oh. We were expecting a—I mean … a—’
‘A cat. Or a male dog?’ said the poodle. ‘But instead you got me. Life’s like that, n’est-ce pas?’
‘Oui,’ said Major. ‘Indeed.’
‘What’s with the wee?’ said Minnie. ‘You want to go again already?’
Major looked at Cyd and Cyd looked at Minnie. Then Cyd asked if the floor rag was coming with them.
Her car was parked two streets away. She’d meet zem in ze alley for safety’s sake, she said. There were people out looking for her, and she couldn’t afford to take risks. Minnie asked her what people and why they were looking, but the poodle ignored her and said ‘Come zis way.’ The car was a Purrgeot, an old-fashioned model with a huge boot and worn-out seating. It had a very distinctive smell, a mixture of old leather, perfume, and French paperbacks. That and the unmistakeable smell of dog. The poodle told them to get in while she went to the front and cranked up the engine.
‘Pwoar!’ said Minnie as she climbed into the back. ‘Whassat awful smell?’
‘Minnie,’ hissed Major. ‘Don’t be so rude. This poodle is on the run too, and she’s probably taking risks to help us.’
‘Don’t peg that piggy pong on the pug,’ said Minnie. ‘I reckon you let one rip!’
But before Major could respond to this, they both felt the car jerk to life. Cyd appeared at the side window with the crank in her mouth. She dropped it through the open back window so that it just missed Minnie’s tail.
‘Oh,’ Cyd said. ‘So sorry.’
Then she climbed into the driver’s seat, fiddled with the controls, put a chew toy in her mouth, and they were off. Now, as you know, not all dogs smell bad to us humans. But cats generally can’t stand the smell of dogs, not unless they’re washed three times a week with lavender shampoo and then sprayed with fancy perfume. Needless to say, whatever Cyd’s history, she no longer had such a lifestyle. She was a pursued poodle in a pre-loved Purrgeot. You and I might have thought she was a bit fusty, but for Major it was so bad he had to open his window very subtly and sit with his nose close to the airstream. As for Minnie, she was a mucky moggie and didn’t give a fig for the froggy dog’s foggy fug, but she wasn’t going to let the poodle get away with nearly dropping a crank on her tail.
‘’Ere, Frenchy,’ she said. ‘Where d’you get your hair done, eh?’
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ said the poodle over her shoulder. ‘You couldn’t afford it.’
Major smirked and looked out the window. This was going to be an interesting ride.
They took backstreets all the way out of town, a long and circuitous route that avoided the city centre and all the streets where a police station might be. The car rumbled and grumbled, but it didn’t let them down.
‘Where you from?’ said Major when they’d been driving for an hour or so.
‘I was born in Marseille,’ said Cyd, ‘but I grew up in Malta. You know it? It is in the Mediterranean sea.’
‘A little,’ said Major. He’d been there with Ginger in the early days, when they were so in love it felt like the world belonged to them. He didn’t want to talk about it.
‘I’ve heard Malta’s quite grubby,’ said Minnie.
‘Probably the part you would most likely visit,’ sniffed the poodle. ‘I’ve never seen that side of it.’
‘Ladies,’ said Major. ‘Enough. You, Cyd, you’re bigger than this. And, Minnie, don’t meddle with a madame from the middle of the Med. You’ll only get in a maddening muddle.’
Somehow Minnie resisted responding to this, and the three animals sat in silence for a while. Major kept his nose close to the window and watched the sky darken. If he had worked things out correctly, he might be about to see Ginger again, and that gave him plenty to think about. Cyd gnawed on her chew toy in silence, punctuating its squeaks only with pulls on a hip flask she kept beside the handbrake. And Minnie fell fast asleep on the back seat, dreaming dreams of dynamite and deadly derring-dos.
Major must have slept too because when he next opened his eyes they were on the motorway already. It was dark, and he could see only as far as the headlights would allow. To the left of the car was the great dark forestiness of the Great Dark Forest; to the right, three lanes of traffic coming the other way down the busy road. Beyond that, more forest.
‘Where are we?’ he asked Cyd.
The poodle shrugged her shoulders. ‘No idea. We ’ave been on ze autoroute for maybe ’alf an hour.’
Major looked out at the blackness and wondered if Ginger had taken this same route in recent months. Or—and he shuddered at the thought—if she’d maybe decided to cross the forest on paw. Which meant of course crossing the motorway too.
Then Cyd shouted, ‘Zut alors!,’ and started braking hard. Minnie slid forward off the back seat and landed with a painful bump on the floor, and Major turned to see that a white panel van had crossed the central reservation and driven directly into the road in front of them. Cyd was slowing them so quickly that the tyres of the old Purrgeot filled their senses: they could smell burning rubber, they could see smoke trailing behind them, they could feel the car wobbling and wibbling as it lost traction, they could hear the tyres screaming on the tarmac beneath them, and they could taste the acrid taste of fear because no way would they slow down enough to avoid hitting the white panel van.
A BIT OF BLOODTHIRSTY REVENGE
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, ‘Golly jeepers, isn’t this a great book. I’m going to recommend it to all my friends, and I can’t wait to see the movie.’ And you’re thinking, ‘Gosh, cats/motorway/coincidence?’ And yo
u’re thinking most of all, ‘Thank goodness there’s no more nonsense about those awful witches.’ Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Because give me a B, give me a U, give me an RR, Ingo! (Try that again with arm gestures. It works really well.)
When we last left Rodney Burringo, he was steaming and wilted and had just blown up a little old lady. Well, we all know what that feels like, but let me tell you, his day didn’t get any better when Janice came stumbling downstairs to complain about the noise and then started screaming when she saw the state of her front door.
‘Shut up, you stupid witch!’ shouted Rodney, which of course didn’t help either of their moods.
‘My door!’ howled Janice. ‘What have you done to my blooming door?!’
And then she saw that the sprinkler system had been set off and poured water all over her living room.
‘My soft furnishings!’ she screamed. ‘My carpet and, boo hoo hoo, my television!’ Then she stopped screaming and turned with a horrifyingly evil look at Rodney.
‘What have you done?’ she hissed at him. ‘What did you do?’
‘It wasn’t me,’ Rodney snapped back at her. ‘It was those cats! That stupid fluffy mongrel you brought back from the cat shelter and that ginger lump. They blew up the door and escaped.’
Well, it’s a good job you’re hearing this third-hand because if you’d been there you would have witnessed the most horrible metamorphosis since the Incredible Hulk. Janice scowled so hard that her ears shot into points which pierced the brim of her hat. Her nose hooked over so far that it scratched the warts on the end of her chin. Her breath grew rank and toxic, her teeth turned pointy and yellow. Her nails extended into curling grey claws, and her spine stuck out from the skin of her back.
‘Raaaaaaa!’ she screamed. ‘Raaaaa! I’m going to get them and squeeze them so hard that their guts come out of their bumholes! I’m going to wear their eyeballs like a pearl necklace, and I’m going to make loofahs from their tails! Get me them, get me them, get me them NOWWWWW!’