Suddenly she noticed that hers weren’t the only tracks any more. A delicate pattern of forked prints was spattered over the snow by the fence. And perched on top of the fence, eyeing her cautiously, was a blackbird!
[Êàðòèíêà: img_13]
It whistled shrilly and hopped down into the next-door garden. Fluff trotted along the path of tracks eagerly. She’d got the hang of walking in the snow again now, lifting her paws higher than usual. The tracks led underneath the fence, and Fluff wriggled after them, not even remembering that she’d planned to stay in her own garden. The blackbird was on the bird table now, gobbling breadcrumbs that she’dput out. It must have been that morning, because Fluff could see the prints of Mrs Jones’s wellies in the snow. She gazed hopefully up at the blackbird for a while, but it just squawked and chattered at her angrily. Clearly it didn’t fancy coming down to be chased. She hopped from footprint to footprint instead, and realized that Mrs Jones must have gone down to check on the pond as well. Her prints led right up to the edge. Fluff stood in them and leaned over to look. The pond was frozen! She could see the water-plants poking out in places, snow drifted up around them, but most of the pond was covered with strange, clear, greenish ice. Fluff couldn’t see the fish at all, they must be hiding away at the bottom. Cautiously, she put a paw on the ice, and it skidded. She jumped back quickly. She’d already fallen over once, and the ice was horribly cold.
The pond was close to Mrs Jones’s fence, and there was an inviting gap underneath. The next garden smelled really interesting; somehow the cold was making all the smells so much better! Fluff flattened herself to the ground and squirmed through the gap, her whiskers twitching excitedly. Then she squirmed some more, and then she wriggled. Then she stopped wriggling. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was stuck!
[Êàðòèíêà: img_14]
Chapter Three
[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]
Fluff hunched her shoulders worriedly, trying to work out what had gone wrong. The gap had looked perfectly big enough– her whiskers had fitted through, so the rest of her should have been able to. Then she realized – it was her collar. It had caught on something, maybe a nail sticking out of the fence. Suddenly Fluff panicked and started to struggle, pulling backwards and forwards desperately, mewing frantically and scrabbling with her paws. She mewed for Ella to come and help her, forgetting that Ella was at school. But after a couple of minutes she was too exhausted to struggle any longer, and she slumped to the ground, her neck aching where the collar was pulling at her.
Fluff lay panting miserably, wondering what to do. She supposed she would just have to wait for someone to rescue her. When she didn’t get home in time to meet Ella from school, they would start to worry, wouldn’t they? Or maybe Mrs Jones would come out to look at her pond again. Fluff shivered. It was going to be a horribly long, cold wait.
Fluff mewed with frustration. It was just so stupid. Her collar was too big, and it had got caught. It wasn’t her fault! She gave a furious wriggle, and suddenly felt the collar stretch. Perhaps instead of trying to pull the collar off the fence, she should be trying to get out of the collar altogether. She pulled downwards, trying to stretch the collar even more. It hurt a bit, but the collar did seem to give. Now if she could just pull herself backwards…
[Êàðòèíêà: img_15]
Fluff popped out of the collar, feeling as though she might have pulled her ears off. She twitched them. No, they were still there. She’d done it! Feeling very proud of herself, she examined the collar. There wasn’t a nail, just a sharp splinter of wood sticking out of the fence. Fluff hadn’t been as far as the next garden on her travels before, so as she came out from under the fence she looked around carefully, trying to work out if this was another cat’s territory, or even worse, if there was a dog around. Everything smelled all right, but she wasn’t sure how the snow changed smells, and she wanted to be extra cautious. As she sat watching, she noticed a strange metal thing in the middle of the garden, a pole, with things hanging from it. Fluff sat with her head on one side, trying to work out what it might be. Suddenly two birds flew down to perch on the hanging bits, and she realized it was full of birdseed. Fluff ’s ears pricked forward, and she sank into a hunting crouch. If only she could get closer… Fluff hadn’t had much opportunity to practise her hunting skills yet, but she was keen to learn. Her mother had tried to teach her how to catch mice back at the farm, but Fluff thought birds looked more fun to chase.
With a heavy flumping sound, a pair of enormously fat wood pigeons thumped down on to the snowy grass. They were too big to perch on the feeders, but there were a few bits of seed and nuts scattered about in the snow underneath, and the pigeons set to gobbling them up greedily.
Fluff’s heart began to beat faster with excitement. This was her chance! How pleased Ella would be if Fluff brought her back a pigeon! She left her hiding place and crawled closer on her tummy, low to the ground, her paws muffled by the snow. The pigeons completely ignored her, too busy making sure they didn’t miss any bits of seed that might be half-buried in the snow. With a massive burst of energy, Fluff pounced, fastening her teeth into the tail of the nearest pigeon, which let out a loud squawk of surprise. She’d done it! She’d actually caught something!
[Êàðòèíêà: img_16]
The pigeon looked round, saw that it was being attacked by a cat in the middle of its lunch, and panicked. All right, so it was only a very small cat, but then pigeons are known for having very small brains.
Squawking in horror, the pigeon tried to fly away, but this was a bit difficult with a cat attached to a vital part of its flying equipment. Fluff hung on grimly as the wings beat up and down. Her first catch wasnot getting away. Seeing that flapping wasn’t going to work, the pigeon changed its tactics, and began to runand flap, trying to build up some speed to help lift itself off the ground. Rather like a feathery plane thundering down the runway, it set off across the lawn. Fluff was dragged along behind like a waterskier, her paws making great tracks in the snow.
At last the pigeon managed enough lift and pulled itself off the ground with a mighty effort, taking Fluff with it. Her front paws left the ground, and she peered down worriedly. Surely the pigeon couldn’t actually fly off with her… There was no way she was going to let go! Luckily for Fluff, the tail gave up instead. A great clump of feathers came right out, and the pigeon flew off looking decidedly bald. It landed clumsily at the top of a nearby tree, and squawked abuse at Fluff, furiously preening its mangled tail. Fluff sat on the ground, panting and spitting feathers. Did that count as catching a pigeon? she wondered. Could she claim it as half a pigeon, perhaps? She heaved a happy sigh, and spat out a last feather.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_17]
Fluff gazed up at the pigeon, still angrily squawking at her, and noticed that it had started to snow again. She danced around the lawn, pouncing on the twirling snowflakes. This was so much fun! It was cold, of course, but her thick fur was keeping her cosy, and in a few minutes she would head back to her cat flap and the lovely warm house. She chased round and round, whisking her tail, still full of excitement after her hunt. The snow was coming in big, thick flakes now, large enough to snap at with her teeth.
Fluff was enjoying herself so much that she didn’t notice how heavy the snow was becoming. The pigeons and the other birds had disappeared, and it was terribly quiet. Fluff opened her mouth and tried to catch a particularly plump and dizzy snowflake, and then looked around in surprise. She couldn’t see! The whole garden was a mass of whirling white and grey, and Fluff couldn’t see anything beyond two whisker-lengths away. She shuddered. This was too much like her scary journey a couple of months before. She needed to get home at once. But – where was home? Fluff gulped. She couldn’t even see the fence.