The Library Cat

by Philip Ardagh

  And that direction was the bottom of the weird and wonderful beanstalk. Apparently, it had once been part of a Jack and the Beanstalk display in the children’s library, and when the display was changed the beanstalk took up permanent residence in the staffroom, being too good to throw away.

  The beanstalk had been made to look as if it were sprouting from a small grassy mound made from Astroturf, like a plastic-grass blanket. During an earlier exploration of the room, Beancat had discovered a gap between the back of the mound and wall. Not only that, if she could get the bug-spray can in the gap, a loose flap of ‘grass’ could cover it! She could plant it like one of the magic beans from which the beanstalk grew in the fairy tale!

  This was the hardest part but, once she had rolled the can against the wall, she was able to push it with her head towards the beanstalk base…

  Suddenly she heard the distinct footsteps of Marcia heading for the room!

  Thinking quickly, Furry Purry Beancat lay down flat against the skirting, hiding the can behind her. She shut her eyes and concentrated hard on looking like she was fast asleep.

  ‘You do choose some funny places for your cat-napping, Furry!’ Marcia said with a chuckle as she walked into the staffroom. ‘All this goin’ on around you, and not a care in the world!’

  If you knew what was really going on, you wouldn’t believe it, thought Beancat, keeping her eyes firmly closed.

  Lying on a large can of bug spray to keep it hidden wasn’t the most comfortable position to be in, but it didn’t take long for Beancat’s pretend nap to turn into real sleeping. Cats are such professional sleepers. When she awoke, she found herself alone again.

  Furry Purry Beancat got to her feet, stretched, then got straight back to pushing the bug spray behind the beanstalk base…

  Success! She managed to get it in the gap and the loose flap of pretend grass hid it perfectly.

  Her furry, purry body swelled with pride. She’d had a plan. She’d put it into action and it had worked. Operation Magic Bean was a total success. Daphne and Gregory were safe for now.

  If only saving the library could be so easy!

  CHAPTER 6 THE MEETING

  The first meeting of the Save Gothport Library campaign wasn’t held in the library itself because, as Marcia explained, this was against council rules. It was held in the local Scout hut, instead. It had been built after the Second World War as a temporary building with a corrugated-iron roof, but was still standing nearly eighty years later. And it was packed. All the chairs were being sat on and people were standing round the edges and in the aisles.

  There was a very small ‘stage’ at one end, with three chairs and a lectern. Marcia the librarian sat in one, a man with short stubbly hair, who was wearing a save libraries T-shirt, sat next to her, and next to him was a woman wearing an extraordinary hat and a huge mayoral chain of office (in other words, a chunky gold mayor’s chain).

  So YOU’RE Mayor Angela Haycroft, thought Furry Purry Beancat, who was sitting in the front row. Well, to be more accurate, she was sitting on Reg the caretaker’s lap who was sitting in the front row.

  The meeting started with Marcia welcoming everyone and thanking them for coming. Then she introduced the mayor, who made her way to the lectern.

  There was a smattering of applause: a few polite claps rather than a real welcome.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, though her expression suggested that there was a nasty smell VERY close to her nose. ‘I am here this evening to say that there is absolutely NO need to have a Save Gothport Library campaign when you will not be losing your library. A new centre will be built housing a swimming pool, health spa and self-service library corner, launching Gothport Leisure into the twenty-first century…’

  Those are exactly the same words Reg read out of the newspaper, thought Furry Purry Beancat.

  ‘What’s a self-service library corner?’ shouted someone in the audience.

  ‘An entire corner of the building dedicated to library services, which members of the community will be able to access and use without the reliance on staff—’ began the mayor.

  ‘An entire corner is still just a corner!’ someone interrupted.

  ‘And what “library services”?’ shouted someone at the back.

  ‘Er, borrowing books, I suppose,’ said the mayor.

  ‘Zere is much more to libraries zan books, Mayor Haycroft!’ said a man.

  Furry Purry Beancat recognized that voice. She raised her head. You tell ’em, Mr Pasternak! she thought.

  There was a cheer from the audience.

  ‘And what do you mean, please, when you say without the reliance on staff?’ asked Yusuf, standing up in the front row. He’d been sitting right next to Reg and Furry Purry Beancat. ‘You say this as though it’s a good thing. But librarians are what make libraries libraries!’

  There was a big CHEER from the audience.

  Mayor Angela Haycroft looked far from happy. ‘I don’t know if you’re from around here,’ she said, glaring at Yusuf, ‘but—’

  Marcia was having none of this and leapt to her feet. ‘Mr Abadi is a user of the library, which is more than can be said of many of those making decisions about its future…’ She glared at the mayor.

  There was another cheer.

  Mrs Haycroft raised her hands for silence. ‘You will have a new swimming pool!’ she said firmly. ‘There will be running machines! And a self-service library corner! It’ll be part of a whole new leisure complex in Grant Road.’

  ‘Grant Road? But that’s two bus rides away!’ wailed Joan.

  Just then, Furry Purry Beancat’s super-cat eyesight caught the tiniest glint above the mayor’s hat… It was light reflecting the thinnest strand of silken thread.

  Of spider thread.

  And at the end of that thread was Gregory, slowly lowering himself.

  How on earth has he got here? Furry Purry Beancat thought. Then she remembered the tickle in her tail she’d felt on the way over, as she’d lain draped across Reg’s shoulders. Had Gregory been hitching a ride in her fur? She grinned to herself. The cheek of it!

  She watched in awe as Gregory came nearer and nearer his target, then disappeared behind Angela Haycroft’s head.

  That was when the mayor screamed and started flailing her arms about and reaching back to her collar.

  Gregory must have managed to slip down inside her clothes and run around her back because his victim was now doing the most extraordinary dance across the stage.

  Beancat’s biggest concern was for Gregory’s safety. He might easily get squashed!

  Marcia had run over to the mayor to try to find out what was wrong.

  ‘Are you all right, Mayor Haycroft?’ she asked with concern.

  ‘You did this!’ spat the mayor, jiggling about. ‘I don’t know what or how, but you did this! And you would do well to be careful what you say,’ she said, her voice much lower so the audience wouldn’t hear her, though swivel-eared Beancat did. Loud and clear. ‘As someone working for the council you should think very carefully about speaking publicly against it… or who knows what might happen!’

  At that exact moment Beancat saw that Gregory had somehow got free of the mayor’s clothes and was scuttling across the floor of the stage. The trouble was, Mayor Haycroft spotted him at the exact same time.

  She raised her foot to stamp on him.

  Furry Purry Beancat was off Reg’s lap before you could say ‘Bitey Scratchy Beancat’, which was what Beancat had become. She hurled herself on to the stage or, more accurately, directly on to the mayor.

  Instead of stamping on Gregory, Angela Haycroft toppled backwards, grappling with a terrifying furball of teeth and claw. She landed unceremoniously on her bottom with a bump.

  Her job done, Furry Purry Beancat became Furry Purry Beancat again, jumping elegantly off the mayor and strutting off with head and tail held high.

  Reg looked on in horror, wondering what had made his beloved cat behave that way (not that he
liked the mayor one bit), and Marcia was helping the mayor to her feet. The mood of the room, however, was very much on the side of a certain FPB.

  ‘Beancat! Beancat! Beancat!’ shouted the audience, jumping to their feet and clapping. It soon became a chant! ‘Beancat! Beancat! Beancat!’

  A man in a brown suit who’d been sitting in the front row on the other side of the aisle to Beancat, Yusuf and Reg now got to his feet, picked up Angela Haycroft’s hat, and stepped up on to the stage, steering her to the fire exit.

  ‘Forget their silly little campaign,’ Mayor Haycroft hissed to him, almost spitting her words out. ‘And when their ancient library closes its doors for the last time, I want that cat put in a cat home.’

  Beancat heard every word.

  There were cheers at the mayor’s departure.

  The man with the stubbly hair and the Save Libraries T-shirt stood up and walked to the lectern. ‘Hi, everyone,’ he said. ‘After all this excitement, it’s time to talk tactics. My name’s Brian Ibbotson and I’m from the national Save Libraries campaign…’

  Furry Purry Beancat took the opportunity to follow Angela Haycroft and the man through the fire exit. She found herself on a short path running diagonally across a small patch of grass.

  ‘Pssst!’

  Furry Purry Beancat looked around but saw no one.

  ‘Pssst!’ said the voice again.

  Beancat looked around a second time.

  ‘I’m here, you annoying purrball!’

  Now who would speak to her like that? Aha! Only Graham the children’s library mouse, of course. ‘Where are you, Graham?’ she meowed.

  Graham appeared from behind a tuft of grass at the edge of the path. ‘Here! Honestly, I thought cats were supposed to have good eyesight!’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You’re not the only one who’s worried about the library. It’s my family’s home too, you know.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Beancat. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘And it’s lucky I came,’ he said. ‘Look who I’ve rescued!’

  Furry Purry Beancat moved closer and there, on the mouse’s back, was Gregory!

  ‘Gregory!’ Furry said. ‘You’re alive!’

  ‘Only just!’ said the spider, sounding very sorry for himself.

  ‘He’s fine,’ said Graham, ‘apart from a kink in one leg.’

  ‘Such a relief,’ said Gregory, not sounding in the slightest bit relieved. ‘I had no idea you were a doctor.’

  ‘That was a very, very silly thing you did back there,’ said Beancat. ‘Why on earth did you do it?’

  ‘Because I didn’t like that Angela Haycroft and the things she was saying about our lovely library. I couldn’t stand idly by and twiddle my thumbs.’

  ‘Spiders don’t have thumbs,’ Graham pointed out.

  Gregory chose to ignore him. ‘And the four good things spiders are good at are: spinning and weaving, catching dinner, tickling people and frightening them!’

  Gregory climbed off Graham, limping slightly, and made his way a short distance across the path before climbing up Furry Purry Beancat’s leg. ‘Thank you, Graham. Not that I was necessarily worth rescuing…’

  ‘My pleasure.’ The mouse replied. ‘And you did a very brave thing, Gregory.’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ agreed Beancat. ‘A very brave but DANGEROUS thing. Heaven knows what Daphne will have to say about it.’

  ‘True,’ said Gregory. ‘And, Beancat?’

  ‘Yes, Gregory?’

  ‘Thank you for saving my life.’

  CHAPTER 7 NEW BEGINNINGS

  Daphne didn’t have anything to say about it because, when Furry Purry Beancat and Gregory got back to the library – with Graham dashing off ahead – they found that she had just laid her eggs. And there were hundreds of them!

  Daphne had made a silk spider-thread mattress for them to lie on and was now busy weaving them a silk blanket to go on top.

  Furry Purry Beancat had never seen anything like it. Then again, she may well have done, of course, but she had no memory of it!

  ‘Can I help?’ asked Gregory.

  Daphne paused for a moment and turned to look at him unblinkingly with all her eyes. ‘Do I ever ask for your help when weaving is involved?’

  ‘No, my dove!’ said Gregory meekly.

  She turned back to her weaving.

  It’s such delicate work, thought Furry Purry Beancat. So fast and skilful.

  In next to no time Daphne and Gregory’s eggs were covered by the silk mattress beneath and the silk blanket above, but Daphne’s work didn’t end there. She carried on weaving.

  ‘What’s she doing now?’ Beancat asked Gregory from a safe distance, not wishing to disturb the new mum.

  ‘She’s making an egg sac to hang them up in,’ said Gregory. ‘Lucky that’s not my job. I’d probably mess it up and it would fall and squash them all before they’d even hatched.’

  They were in Reg the caretaker’s room. The one which had, over the years, become storage for broken bits of library furniture and discarded bits and bobs that the staff didn’t know what to do with but didn’t want to throw away.

  To do her best to protect her eggs and future hatchlings from Reenie and any bug spray she might get, Daphne had gone far back in the pile, near a wall. Furry Purry Beancat would probably never have found her without Gregory. She’d had to SQUEEEEEEZE through the gaps between the furniture – chairs, tables, an enormous roll-top desk – like a slippery eel.

  It’s easy to forget that Furry Purry Beancat is, in truth, a lot slimmer than she looks, so can slip through much tighter spaces than you might imagine. It’s because so much of her is furry, purry FUR!

  Suddenly, Beancat felt a sneeze rising in her nose. Well, there was LOTS of dust around! She worried it might be the sort of sneeze that would scatter an egg sac, silk mattress, silk blanket and hundreds of spider eggs to the four winds. So she turned round as quickly as possible to sneeze in the opposite direction, and lost her footing on the leg of broken chair, tumbling forward in a most un-ladylike, un-catlike, un-Beancatlike manner!

  ‘There you go again,’ sighed Gregory.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Daphne, who realized that Beancat must have taken a dive rather than sneeze over her precious darling eggs.

  Beancat had come to rest on what looked like the top crust of a large oval pie with crimped edges.

  This was no pie crust. It was cold, like stone. Beancat could make out some of the words carved into it. There was a name – LADY FRANCIS MULHOLLAND – and the phrase GRANTED IN PERPETUITY TO, followed by more writing half hidden by furniture.

  ‘Any idea who Lady Francis Mulholland is or was?’ she asked Gregory, having read what she could see of the pie-crust-shaped thingummy.

  ‘Mulholland?’ asked Gregory in obvious surprise. ‘Why, Daphne’s family is called Mulholland.’

  WHAT? thought Beancat in surprise. How strange is THAT?

  Daphne did her trick of dropping down on a silk thread, as if appearing out of nowhere. ‘Yup. It’s true. Any spider born in the library foyer has traditionally been a Mulholland.’

  ‘Have you finished the egg sac?’ asked Gregory.

  ‘Yes, all done,’ said Daphne. ‘I’m exhausted.’

  Her husband scuttled off to look at her handiwork.

  ‘Why’s he limping?’ asked Daphne.

  ‘A long story,’ said Furry Purry Beancat. ‘Congratulations on laying all those eggs.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Daphne. ‘Why were you asking about the name Mulholland?’

  ‘It’s written here,’ said Beancat. ‘And why are spiders born in the foyer called Mulholland?’

  ‘I suppose because that plaque you’re standing on must be the one that used to be on the wall of the foyer a long, long time ago, back in the days of my however-many-times-great-grandparents.’

  ‘Must it?’

  ‘Yes, apparently there used to be a Mulholland plaque out there,’ said Daphne, ‘wit
h lots of webs woven in and around it. It’s part of the spider folklore of this library.’

  ‘Have you any idea what perpetuity means?’ asked Beancat, who is not only a surprisingly knowledgeable cat but also one who can read, which is rarer still. But she can’t be expected to know the meaning of every word. Who does, human or feline?

  ‘I’m afraid not. Now, forgive me, Furry, but I’m exhausted and need to get some sleep.’

  ‘You do that,’ said Furry Purry Beancat. ‘Sleep well.’

  * * *

  That night, Beancat herself didn’t sleep well. She kept on worrying that she would wake up the next day and find herself in another of her nine lives without having saved the library!

  Fortunately for all, that didn’t happen and the following morning Beancat patrolled the foyer before any of the staff arrived. There was no sign of where the plaque in Reg’s room might once have been fixed to the wall. Although there were posters and a corkboard and a fire-alarm panel, all of which could be hiding evidence of where it once had been.

  She inspected the black-and-white tiles on the floor. They were old but still remarkably clean considering the number of boots and shoes that must have traipsed over them in all weathers over many, many years.

  Something was niggling in the back of Furry Purry Beancat’s mind, which made her do a patrol of the whole library. In the local history section she looked up at the old map of the county and then across to the brown-and-white photo. In the old days, before colour photos, they were in black and white and before that, in the very early days of photography, brown and white.

  And this was the one with a BROWN-AND-WHITE FLOOR!

  THAT’S what I’ve had in the back of my mind, thought Furry Purry Beancat and she started purring very loudly.