by Frank Kusy
Ginger the Buddha Cat
Frank Kusy
Published by Grinning Bandit Books
http://grinningbandit.webnode.com
© Frank Kusy 2013
‘Ginger the Buddha Cat’ is the copyright of Frank Kusy, 2013.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, digital or mechanical, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
Dedication
For Sarah Monaghan, my Fee-Fee friend.
Ginger the Buddha Cat is the sequel to the #1 Amazon bestselling cat book Ginger the Gangster Cat
Also available as a paperback
http://authl.it/134
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. Birth of the Buddha Cat
2. The Expanding Nature of Sausages
3. A Mid Previous-Life Crisis
4. Ginger meets his Match
5. The Choosing of the Chosen One
6. He ain’t heavy, he’s my Buddha
7. Bring on the Frou-Frou
8. The Sausage of Love
9. Sparky goes online
10. Carpet Guy
11. Fly me to the Moonik
12. Ginger does his Wurst
13. Sausages or Enlightenment
14. Ginger attains Pussyhood
About the Author
Prologue
Ginger was having a dream.
Not one where he was teasing Ben the dog at number 25.
Nor the kind where he was scoffing a sombrero full of tapas treats from Barcelona.
In this dream, he was sitting on a cushioned throne, being waited on by adoring humans who fulfilled his every wish. His name was known throughout the land, and wherever he went, cats turned out in their thousands to pay him homage.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he was recalling the very first of his nine lives upon this earth.
As a rather fat, rather greedy, Buddha cat in ancient India.
Chapter 1
Birth of the Buddha Cat
One sleepy, sunny day in Surrey, as Ginger was patrolling his patch, he spotted a familiar black-and-white shape on top of the garden shed.
‘Oi, Sparky!’ yelled up the big fat cat. ‘Wot you doin’ up there? Are you talkin’ to them squirrels again?’
But Sparky didn’t answer. He had been meditating on a tree for hours, and was lost in thought.
‘I said,’ puffed Ginger, clambering slowly to his side. ‘Wot you doin’ up ‘ere?
‘I thought you were going to Butcher Bob’s?’ murmured Sparky, shaken out of his trance.
‘Yeah, I just got back. Can’t you see this string of sossidges round my neck?’
Sparky kept staring at the tree. ‘What’s a sossidge?’ he eventually enquired.
‘What’s a sossidge?’ echoed Ginger incredulously. ‘You should know, we scored enough of ‘em in Barcelona, remember? A sossidge is the most scrumptious snack known to Cat! I dunno wot ooman invented it, but they should give him a medal. ‘Ere, you wanna try one?’
‘No, thanks,’ said Sparky, turning towards his orange friend. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘All the more for me then,’ salivated Ginger. ‘You can’t beat a bit of Butcher Bob’s!’
The small patchwork cat regarded him strangely. Should he let Ginger know the results of his tree-related reflections or should he keep them to himself? He took a deep breath and went straight to the heart of the matter.
‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time,’ he said quietly.
‘Oh yeah, wot’s that, then?’
‘Well, it’s about the time we first met, when you snatched that big bag of prawns from ol’ Joe and hid under his Buddhist altar to eat them.’
‘Har, har, that was a laugh, wasn’t it? That stoopid ooman of yours didn’t know wot hit him!’
‘Yes, well, why did you hide there of all places? It was the only reason he didn’t kick you out!’
Ginger scratched his head in puzzlement. He hadn’t thought about it.
‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. ‘But I got a feelin’, a very strong feelin’, it weren’t no accident.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ said Ginger, squirming with embarrassment, ‘I’ve been gettin’ these weird dreams lately. And in one of them, I was a Buddhist.’
‘You? A Buddhist? Really?’
‘Yeah, I know it’s hard to believe, but me and this Buddha geezer go way back. Just like that, we were!’
Ginger crossed two of his claws, and tipped Sparky a wink.
‘It’s quite a long story,’ he said. ‘So stop me if I bores you. But once upon a time, in a land far, far away, I was the Buddha’s cat…’
Just then, there was a high-pitched whistle, followed by a cry of ‘Sparky! Ginger! Come on in – Star Trek’s just starting!’
‘Oh,’ said Sparky, disappointed. ‘I’d much rather hear your story.’
‘Time for me foot massage,’ grunted Ginger. ‘I’ll fill you in later…’
*
Joe was fiddling with the TV remote control when the two cats appeared.
‘It’s my favourite episode’, he told them. ‘The one where Data tells his mate: “Geordi, I cannot stun my cat.”’
The long, bearded hippy slumped down on the futon, and let them assume the position. Sparky on his lap, like a little furry Sphinx; Ginger to his side, one paw held up for a deep-tissue massage.
‘You’ll enjoy this!’ he crowed happily. ‘Six episodes, back to back, and not even a commercial break!’
But his feline companions did not last six episodes. They did not last even one. Bored to distraction by strange humans talking futuristic gobbledegook, they slowly closed their eyes.
And before they knew it, they were in land of Nod.
Nothing prepared Ginger and Sparky for what happened next. Linked by destiny, the two cats began viewing Ginger’s first lifetime through the very same eyes.
It was a mystical, almost magical, shared dream experience.
*
The round wicker basket drifted slowly down the Ganges, its small, fat orange occupant peering miserably out of it.'Cor, I don't half feel hungry!' baby Ginger thought to himself. 'And what's with all this wet stuff? I need a poo.'So it was that when Bas the temple cat spotted him, he was nibbling experimentally on his basket and lowering his fat little bottom over the edge of it.‘I say,’ the sleek black cat called from the riverbank, ‘you can’t do your business here. It isn’t hygienic!’
Just then, the basket caught in a mesh of bull-rushes and after spinning around a bit, it came to ground.
‘I can’t help it,’ whinged Ginger, struggling weakly ashore. ‘I’ve been stuck in this thing for days. And no, don’t ask, I’m no Moses cat. I just lost me mum.’
‘You lost your mother?’ echoed the dark stranger, coming closer.
‘Well, actually, she lost me. She put me in this basket, along with a few tit-bits, and it rolled down a slope and fell in this huge patch of wet stuff. What is it anyway?’
‘It’s water. And this particular water – the River Ganges – flows right through this sacred land of India.’
‘Cor!’ said Ginger. ‘You’re a regular brain-box, aren’t you? And you don’t half talk posh!’
The tall, slender cat surveyed him with amusement.
‘I’m not posh. I’m just educated. I was a god to millions in Egypt, where I came from, and I haven’t lost the accent. I got fed up – quite literally – of being stuffed with food and worshipped, so I travelled here, to this small village in the middle of nowhere, in search of a simpler life.’
‘You gave
up all that food to live here?’ said Ginger, looking at the miles of surrounding sand dunes. ‘What’s your name – stoopid?’
‘My real name is Bas,’ smiled Bas. ‘But everyone round here calls me Billy.’
‘Billy?’ scoffed Ginger.’That is stoopid!’
‘Not really. You’re Billy too.’
‘You what?’
‘Billy is the name of every cat in India. The humans here are called Hindus, and the Hindu word ‘billi’ means cat!’
‘What’s an ‘ooman’, then?’ asked Ginger hungrily. ‘Is it tasty?’
The large black cat hugged its sides with mirth.
‘Oh, you are a caution!’ he spluttered. ‘Tasty humans! Ha, ha, ha! You don’t know anything, do you?
Ginger eyed him with distaste. This superior, infinitely wise, stranger was getting on his nerves.
‘What I meant to say,’ Bas corrected himself, ‘is that you must be a very young cat, with all nine lives ahead of you. You’ve got a lot to learn.’
‘Is that right? Well, what if I don’t want to learn. And who wants nine lives anyway? This one is bad enough. Lost me mum, nearly drownded, close to starving, can’t even go for a poo without being told off. What’s so great about life?’
The temple cat became suddenly serious.
‘You must never talk against life,’ he said sternly. ‘Life is the most precious of all treasures. Even one day of life is worth more than all the food in the world.’
‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!’ jeered Ginger. ‘Who put that nonsense in your head?’
‘The Buddha,’ said Bas. ‘He’s the wisest, most loving human to have ever lived, and he’s coming to our village. You should meet him.’
‘Nah, I’m all right. I’ll take my chances out here.’
“Out here”? There’s nothing out here. What do you intend living on, you plump little fatling – grubs and beetles? Or are you going to climb back in your basket and fish for flies?’
Ginger briefly considered. This snooty black cat might be annoying, and more than a little bit bonkers, but he did talk sense.
‘Okay, boss, or Bas, or whatever you call yourself,’ he said stiffly. ‘Lead me to your village...’
*
The two cats woke at the exact same moment, and exchanged a look of concern.
‘Wot happened there?’ said Ginger, wiping the sleep from his eyes.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Sparky. ‘But I was in your dream, wasn’t I? And it was very exciting! What happens next?’
‘I’m not a bloomin’ soap opera!’ complained Ginger. ‘And wot are you doin’ in my dreams anyway? It ain’t natural.’
‘Perhaps so,’ admitted Sparky. ‘But I’ve been having dreams of my own lately – ones in which I am a learned temple cat that can read and write human.’
‘Really? You is one strange pussycat.’
‘No stranger than you, apparently. And did you really meet the Buddha?’
‘Well, we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we? I haven’t dreamt that bit yet. All that I do know is that I must have rubbed him up the wrong way – serious, like – because my next seven lifetimes were rubbish!’
Chapter 2
The Expanding Nature of Sausages
The following day, Joe discovered he was fat.
He had suspected it for some time – the pounds had been simply piling on ever since he’d broken his leg the year before – but this was the day he found out for certain.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, his weekly game of cards with little old ladies, and as he sat down to play, one of them poked him rudely in the tummy and said, ‘I couldn’t help noticing, but you’ve put on a lot of weight recently!’
He was so upset that he put down his cards, hobbled back to his van, and drove home to complain to his wife. But Madge was not sympathetic.
‘What are you growing in there?’ she said, giving his tummy another poke. ‘We’ve just spent four days with my parents in Germany, and all you did was eat sausages. It wasn’t enough that you had them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I came out of my father’s study one day to find you huddled guiltily over a plate of back-up bangers that you’d persuaded my mother to cook.’
‘I didn’t persuade her,’ Joe defended himself. ‘She offered!’
‘Yeah, right,’ scoffed Madge. ‘What is it with you and sausages, anyway? What do you like so much about them?’
‘Everything,’ said Joe with gusto. ‘I like the look of them, I like the taste of them, I like the feeling of them going down, and I like the fact that they come out exactly the same shape as when they went in.’
Madge flicked back her tousled blonde hair, and tried to decide what to do with him. ‘Well, it won’t do,’ she lectured him. ‘You say you’re a Buddhist, that you want to become a more rounded spiritual being, but as far as I can see, the only thing growing rounder is your stomach!’
*
By some curious coincidence, Ginger was having the same problem as Joe.
He had gone out for his constitutional afternoon poo, and when he tried to come back in again, he had become firmly lodged in the cat flap.
‘Oh gawd,’ he thought to himself. ‘I’ve been here before, and it wasn’t good!’
With his head and front paws in the kitchen, and the rest of him denied access by his huge swollen tummy, he just hung there – like a furry framed portrait – until Madge turned up and found him.
‘Here’s someone else who needs to lose weight!’ she called back to Joe. ‘He’s really done it this time!’
Joe struggled into his stretch trousers and came to her side.
‘Good lord,’ he said. ‘Poor old Ginge!’
‘“Poor old Ginge”, my eye!’ scoffed Madge. ‘If he gets any fatter, we won’t need a new cat flap – we’ll need a new kitchen door!’
Joe thought long and hard, and came up with a solution.
‘I know,’ he said brightly. ‘Let’s put this on him!’
And with that he produced a shiny 3-D Buddha sticker – a legacy of his last trip to India – and super-glued it to the top of Ginger’s struggling head.
‘There, that’ll do it!’ he crowed. ‘He won’t catch anything now!’
‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ puffed Madge as she helped push Ginger back out into the garden. ‘He looks well upset!’
Ginger was past being upset. He was beside himself with rage. Not only had these stoopid oomans called him fat (when in his opinion he was just “well rounded”), but they had stuck something between his tattered orange ears that simply would not come off. He pawed at it, and scratched at it, and scraped it against the cold patio stones, but no, it was locked solid.
‘Well, there’s my street cred gone!’ he fumed to himself. ‘I’ll just have to kill sumfink to make myself feel better!’
But he couldn’t kill anything. Every mouse, rat, squirrel, or pigeon he advanced on took one look at the flashing, luminous Buddha on his head and ran away.
‘Blimey!’ he exclaimed as he saw himself reflected in the garden pond. ‘I look like a furry, orange traffic beacon!’
*
It was past dark when Sparky came across his truculent friend. He was slumped miserably in the middle of the lawn, nibbling a blade of grass.
‘Have you turned vegetarian?’ he enquired innocently. ‘Is it anything to do with that smiling human on your head?’
‘No, and no!’ retorted a cross Ginger. ‘They’ve done me up a kipper, those oomans of yours! I can’t get in to reach my bowl and I can’t stay out because I’m frightening away my prey. I’m goin’ to starve!’
Sparky suppressed his amusement. The resemblance between the big, fat Buddha on Ginger’s skull and Ginger himself was uncanny. Even down to the bright orange saffron robes that the 3-D sage was wearing.
‘Shall I bring you some food from my bowl?’ he offered. ‘It’s rabbit tonight. You like rabbit.’
‘Yeah, that’d be nice,’ said
Ginger, suddenly giving way to a big yawn. ‘Only right now, I’m goin’ to have a kip. You can join me if you like. I feel anuvver dream comin’ on...’
And as Sparky yawned back, and lay down beside him, the two cats slowly slipped out of consciousness and into la-la land.
*
‘Ooh, you’re in luck!’ said Bas, guiding little Ginger into the small, modest temple. ‘Someone’s brought us dinner!’
Ginger gazed into the small bowl on the temple steps. It held three small squiggly things, with shiny black shells.
‘Dung beetles!’ cried Bas happily. ‘My favourite!’
‘Dung beetles?’ echoed Ginger. ‘Are you sure? They’re the beetles what roll their own poo about, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, what a treat!’
Ginger eyed his new friend with suspicion. Was he mad? He knew all about dung beetles from his mother. She had called them “snackerels”, and it was the first thing she’d given her kittens to eat after she’d weaned them off milk. Ginger had just one word for them, and that was ‘disgusting’.
‘If that’s dinner,’ he said firmly, ‘I’ve had it. Why can’t you stroll down to that river of yours and bring back some tasty fish?’
‘Oh, you don’t know, do you?’ replied Bas, popping a dung beetle into his whiskery mouth. ‘According to my priest, the Buddha lives on just one bowl of rice a day. It’s his way of reaching Nirvana, or absolute happiness. And rumour has it, that when he comes to visit, he’ll be choosing one of us cats to share his enlightened state. Well, that’ll be me of course, because...’
‘Hang on!’ interrupted Ginger. ‘What’s this Buddha bloke need a cat for? Is he lonely? Hasn’t he got enough oomans to play with?’
‘...Because,’ continued Bas stiffly, ‘I eat even less than he does. Besides, I can read and write human, so I can be his cat secretary. I can inscribe all his speeches, pass along all his wisdoms, give thanks for all his offerings...