I took a peek at ‘this’. It was hard. It was lumpy. It was yesterday’s grub.
And I wasn’t eating it.
I walked away. The last thing I heard was Reverend Barnham calling after me: ‘Gome back and finish your supper.’
In his dreams! I was off out. I met up with the gang – Tiger and Bella and Pusskins – and told them I hadn’t had supper. They were hungry too, so we sat on the wall and had a bit of a yowl about where to eat.
‘Fancy peeling the pepperoni off a leftover pizza?’
‘Fish without chips?’
‘I could murder a nice bit of steak.’
‘Who’s thinking stir-fried beef strips with scraped-off soy?’
In the end we went Chinese. (Love those ducks’ feet!) Tiger strolled off on a smell tour down the alley to find the right place, and then we played ‘Rip the Bags’. (We all won that one.) Before you knew it, it was a pleasant supper on the wall.
‘Very tasty.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Nice choice. We must remember to eat here more often.’
‘And generous portions. Here is a family not afraid to waste food properly.’
Unlike my friend, the vicar. Next morning he was still shoving the dried-up grub in front of me. ‘Tuffy, I’m not opening a fresh tin. If you were truly hungry, you’d eat this.’
Oh, would I? I didn’t think so.
While he was waiting, the vicar stared out of the window. ‘Look at that mess in the garden! Greasy paper wrappings! Ripped-up takeaway food cartons! And that awful yowling kept me awake for hours. Don’t think I’m letting you out again tonight.’
I might be deaf to nagging, but I have ears. Thanks for the warning, Reverend! I crept upstairs and patted at the latch on the small bathroom window until it was the way I like it: far enough down to look as if it was still closed from yesterday; far enough up for one good paw push to open it.
As for that mess in the garden – don’t knock it! It was breakfast.
3: Mistake!
OKAY, OKAY! So it was a bit mean to hold that night’s Talent Contest right under the vicar’s bedroom window. Bella sang ‘Beoooooooooooooooooootiful Dreeeeeamer’. Tiger sang ‘Rolling Along to New Orleeeeeeeeeeeeans’. Pusskins did his ‘Yodelling Song’, and I did my brilliant imitation of Ellie when the car door slammed on her finger.
Still, no need for the vicar to get his knickers in such a twist. ‘If I catch a single one of you, I’ll have your guts for garters!’
I didn’t come home early. But everyone needs their sleep, so in the end the gang and I split up, and I strolled back. It was a beautiful morning. The only thing spoiling it was his voice. I could hear him three streets away.
‘Tuff-eee! Tuff-eeee!’
I crept along in the shadow of next-door’s hedge. Melanie was leaning over it. ‘Please, Reverend Barnham,’ she interrupted him. ‘Does praying work?’
He stared at her as if she’d asked him something like, ‘Do trains eat custard?’
Melanie tried again. ‘You’re always saying to people, “Let us pray”. Well, does it work?’
‘Work?’
‘Yes. Do people get what they pray for? If I prayed really, really, really hard for something, would I get it?’
‘What sort of thing?’ Reverend Barnham asked her suspiciously.
Melanie clasped her hands together. ‘A pet all of my own to cuddle. A pet who is soft and furry and warm, just like Tuffy behind the hedge here.’
Well, thank you, Melanie! I took off, fast. And he was chasing me. That’s why, instead of going up the apple tree as usual, I took that flying leap on to the handle of the lawn mower, and then up in the pear tree.
But when you get to the top of that, you find you have only two choices…
1. You can jump from the top branch through a closed and locked bathroom window. (Uh-uh! My best escape route rumbled!)
2. Or you can go back down, then jump from the lowest branch on the mower handle, and down on the grass again.
Which – since my flying leap upwards had sent the mower spinning – turned out to be impossible as well.
4: Stuck up the tree
GIVE HIM HIS due, he tried everything. He cooed. He cajoled. He wheedled. (There’s not much difference between cajoling and wheedling, except wheedling’s more whiny.)
Then he tried threatening. ‘You’ll miss your supper, Tuffy.’ (Scarcely a threat to make me tremble, given what was on offer.)
Then simple nastiness. ‘You can stay up that tree till you rot, Tuny!’ (Charming.)
The fact is, I wasn’t faking it. I was dead stuck. Don’t think I would have chosen to spend half of my morning on one side of the tree, listening to him getting rattier and rattier…
‘Come down at once, Tuffy! Get down here!’
… and the other half on the other side, listening to Melanie on her knees, with her hands together and eyes closed, praying and praying…
‘Oh, please, please send me something soft and furry, just like Tuffy next door, to put in my straw basket and cuddle. I’ll give it my comfiest pillow to sleep on, and feed it fresh tuna and cream.’
Fresh tuna! Cream! Didn’t the little lady know I had missed my breakfast?
After a while, I couldn’t stand listening any longer. I moved back to the other side of the tree. (Who could blame me?)
The vicar was clearly getting hungry too. After a while, he left off threatening me and went inside to make his breakfast. (No yesterday’s grub for him, I noticed. Through the window came the sweet smell of sausages and bacon.)
They always say that breakfast is good for the brain. It certainly stoked up his little patch of grey matter because, a few minutes later, he came down the garden carrying a stool.
And climbed on it.
And he still couldn’t reach me.
I wasn’t being difficult. I really wanted to come down. If he had managed to reach up even nearly high enough, I would have been prepared to drop in his arms. (I might have scratched him a little, but hey! Cats are famous for being ungrateful, so why worry?)
In fact, I actually tried to help, creeping towards him along the branch. But then the branch started sinking. (That’s diets for you. Hard to keep to.) And as the branch got thinner towards the end, I weighed it down more and more, till it practically turned into a dry ski slope.
I didn’t dare go further, so I stopped.
But watching the branch sink under my weight did seem to have given the vicar an idea…
5: Genius!
HE WENT IN the garage, fetched out a length of tow rope and came back under my tree. Climbing on the stool, he tossed one end of the rope over my branch.
‘Right!’ he said grimly. ‘Slip knot!’
I yowled. Was he planning to hang me? I don’t often wish I could talk, but I admit that at that moment I wished I could rush back to the other side and drop a suggestion to Melanie: ‘Hey, Sugar! Give over praying for something soft and cuddly, and phone the cops. This vicar is trying to kill me.’
He muttered his way through the slip knot. ‘Round and through, then round and through again.’
(I kept up the yowling.)
He tugged the knot tight, then pulled on the rope. I dug in with my claws. The branch came down, but not quite far enough for him to reach me.
He tried again. This time, he managed to pull the branch a little further down. (I nearly fell.) But it still wasn’t quite far enough.
‘Jump!’ he said. ‘Jump the last bit, Tuffy!’
I gave him the blink.
‘Jump, Tuffy!’ he said again.
I glowered at him. (If you had taken a rolling pin to my eyes, and flattened them, they couldn’t have got any slittier. The look I gave him could have crawled through a closed Venetian blind.)
‘Chicken!’ he said.
Okay, okay! So I spat at him. What are you going to do? Throw your woolly at me? He called me a chicken! He was practically begging for it. He as good as said, ‘Spit in my eye, Tuff!’
So I did.
He glowered back at me.
And then – oh, creepy, creepy! The glower turned into a little smile.
‘Ah-ha!’ he said.
I’ll tell you something. People who don’t really like you shouldn’t say ‘Ah-ha!’ It makes those who know they aren’t liked very nervous.