Paws and Whiskers (11 page)

I haven’t spelled the word ‘theatre’ wrongly! Noel Streatfeild was a very popular English author who wrote many wonderful family stories – but she occasionally wrote for the American market too. I’m particularly fond of this sweet picture book
The Theater Cat
about a delicate little cat called Pinkie who’s paid fifty cents a week to catch the mice in the Ballet Theater (that’s the way Americans spell it). Pinkie is pretty hopeless at his job because he’s afraid of mice, but he adores the ballet – and his knowledge and expertise prove especially useful.

It’s a bizarre little story, but somehow very touching – and especially comforting if you feel a bit of an odd one out.

THE THEATER CAT

Pinkie was a slim, exquisite black cat. His tastes were elegant and he took great pride in his looks and was often to be seen peeping in mirrors, to be sure his face was clean and his whiskers tidy. He was a persnickety eater, leaving on his plate any scrap of food which seemed to him coarse or badly cooked. When offered ice cream he would accept a portion only if it were pink; and that was the reason he was christened Pinkie.

By profession Pinkie was a mouser. He was employed as a mouse catcher by the Ballet Theater. Every Friday night when the artists were paid, there was an envelope for Pinkie with his salary of
fifty cents inside; but every Friday Pinkie trembled when he opened his envelope, in case, as well as his salary, there should be a slip of paper saying he was dismissed. For the dreadful truth was, Pinkie was a failure. Everybody in the theater knew it and everybody spoke about it.

The doorkeeper said, ‘That Pinkie ain’t worth a nickel. He’s paid to catch mice, but I have to get ’em. Thinks himself too highfalutin’. If I were boss around here, I wouldn’t keep him another day.’

‘You could not be more right,’ the wardrobe mistress agreed. ‘But what can you expect from a delicate type like that?’

The ice-cream girl thought she understood. ‘Can’t really blame the cat. Pinkie’s the right name for him, seeing he only eats pink ice cream, but that’s no name for a working cat; kinda gives him ideas. Better if he was called George.’

Every week as he fixed the pay envelopes the manager muttered, ‘Have to get rid of Pinkie. What does he think I’m paying him for? He just sits and watches the dancers. Never knows what a mouse looks like.’

It’s a fearful thing to know you are in a career for which you are not fitted, and Pinkie knew just that. The reason he did not make the grade was a shocking one.
He was afraid of mice
. But he was sticking to his
job as long as it would stick to him, for even greater than his fear of mice was his love of the ballet.

Every ballet the company danced Pinkie knew, which was natural for he never missed a rehearsal or a performance. He would stand in the wings, swaying softly with the dancers, or shuddering from the final hairs on the tips of his ears to the end of his delicately tapering tail at a clumsy pirouette or an awkward lift. The dancers knew what a critic Pinkie was and one would say to the other, ‘The ballet even went over with Pinkie, so we must have been good.’

It was at the final dress rehearsal of a new ballet that Pinkie was publicly shamed. It was a lovely ballet; Pinkie’s eyes glistened with ecstasy. ‘Beautiful!’ he purred. ‘Superb!’ ‘What a line!’ Then it happened. The leading ballerina was about to spring across the stage into her cavalier’s arms, when a mouse ran across her feet. She screamed. She fell. She sprained her ankle. The mouse ran. The company ran. Pinkie ran. In fact, Pinkie ran faster and farther from the mouse than anybody else.

When the ballerina had been carried to her dressing room and order restored, the manager, his face black as thunder, came onto the stage. ‘Where’s Pinkie?’

Pinkie, trying to look more like a black shadow than
a cat, crawled to his feet. The manager was so angry his voice wobbled. ‘No star! A new ballet opening this evening! If the show flops, who is to blame? You! The theater mouser who ran when he saw a mouse! You’re fired! The cashier will pay you off after the show.’

Pinkie lay at the side of the darkened stage sobbing his heart out. Fired! The news that he was a failure would be known in every theater. The mouser who ran at the sight of a mouse! What a coward! Better be dead than labeled that way. What future was there for a cat with such a reputation? What was he to do? How could he live if he never saw another ballet? How could he see a ballet unless he worked in a ballet theater? He would never earn enough to buy a seat. Never watch another ballet! Never! Never! Never! As this dreadful knowledge sank in, Pinkie cried more and more, until it was as if he were drowning in his tears.

Suddenly he caught his breath. ‘Hic-cup, boo. Hic-cup, boo.’ Somebody else was crying, too. Swallowing back his tears, Pinkie tiptoed across the stage. Lying under a piece of scenery was a girl of twelve, the principal ballerina’s understudy. Words tumbled out of her with her tears.

‘This was my big chance . . . the break I’ve been
waiting for . . . but I’ve never had a rehearsal . . . I don’t know the steps well enough . . . I’ll never make good now . . . I can’t dance if I don’t know the steps . . .’

Pinkie’s heart under his shining black shirt front was swollen with pity. The understudy was underrehearsed. Here was her opportunity to become famous, and she would miss it because she had not practiced the steps. Then a thought flew to him, and happiness flowed through him. He began to purr. Who had given this little ballerina her chance? Pinkie the no-good cowardly cat. It was up to him to see she did not fail. Pinkie tapped the dancer with a paw. His paw was so soft and his tap so gentle and the dancer was crying so much that he found it hard to attract her attention, but at last she raised her head and looked at him. The moment her eyes were on him, he sprang into the air and raised himself on the toes of his hind legs. His front paws he held delicately curved above his head. The dancer recognized the pose for her first entrance. She scrambled to her feet, swallowed her tears, and stood behind Pinkie. She raised herself onto her points and lifted her arms. Softly as a little cloud, moving as delicately as a flower petal stirred by a breeze, Pinkie started to dance.

The rehearsal lasted for more than an hour. Finally the curtain rose. The performance of the new ballet
started. There was never an evening like it. When the performance was over, the audience shouted and clapped. The company curtsied and bowed. The understudy took curtain calls alone, with the company, and with the conductor, but the audience would not let her go. ‘Speech!’ they called. ‘Speech!’ She took a deep breath, and stepped forward.

‘Thank you for your kindness. But if I have danced well tonight, you shouldn’t clap for me, but for the great master who coached me at the last minute. Are you there, Pinkie?’

Pinkie, blinking in the dazzle of lights, walked onto the stage. The conductor held one of his paws, the understudy the other. The audience rose to its feet.

‘Pinkie! Pinkie! Three cheers for Pinkie! Pinkie the ballet-dancing cat!’

I expect you know the story of the two Alice books, even if you’ve never read them.
Alice in Wonderland
and the sequel
, Through the Looking-Glass,
are the most famous classics of children’s literature. There have been countless adaptations on stage and screen. Maybe you’ve seen Tim Burton’s 3D version or the Disney cartoon. There’s even an episode of my
Dumping Ground
where Jodie becomes Alice and all her friends turn into crazy Lewis Carroll characters.

Both books are the most extraordinary original fantasies – but I remember feeling disconcerted by the stories as a child. I felt I could take only so much delightful nonsense. Reading the Alice books felt a
little like being tickled mercilessly. However, I loved the beginnings and endings of both stories – especially the start of
Looking-Glass
where Alice is playing with her black kitten.