Tigger (6 page)

I woke up at dawn as Mum and Dad were rustling papers in the kitchen. When I got there, I found them packing coloured eggs and tiny chocolate rabbits into little paper bags. They looked smug and secretive and told me to be very quiet so the children wouldn't wake up. The three of us were going on a top-secret mission. Breakfast could wait.

Two minutes later, we slipped noiselessly out by the kitchen door. The birds were trilling their morning songs and the sky was pale blue as the sun rose behind the tall trees. It was going to be a perfect spring day. As the three of us tiptoed across the dewy lawn, I felt a sudden thrill of excitement in the air. Whatever we were up to was going to be fun!

We walked all around our garden, and wherever there was a good hiding place – under an overhanging bush or in the fork of a small tree, behind a fallen trunk or in the centre of a clump of yellow spring flowers – we placed some of the coloured eggs and chocolates. There were dozens of little nests everywhere by the time we had finished.

Back at the kitchen door, we turned around to see whether we could spot them. They were pretty well hidden, but if you looked carefully, you could just spy a speck of pink here and a splash of blue there. It was all very intriguing. I just hoped the real rabbits weren't going to find the chocolate ones and take them away to their burrows. Or, banish the thought, the goat didn't come back!

When the children woke up and came down for breakfast, they were pretty excited and kept looking out of the window, but Mum made them eat their cereal, followed by pieces of toast and hot chocolate. The meal seemed to go on forever.

We were saved by the sound of cars coming up the drive. Several families with young children spilled from them and rushed towards our house with waves and gleeful shouts. I sat on the deck to welcome them, but my dignified gesture went unnoticed in the noisy welcome. Soon everyone raced off down the garden together. The hunt was on; I followed on their heels.

For the next half hour, there were children everywhere, screaming and laughing, some spying hidden nests, some running right past them without seeing anything, some actually
treading
on eggs before noticing them. I don't think kittens could ever be
this
silly. Meanwhile, the parents got in everyone's way, clicking cameras and exclaiming in great surprise whenever a new nest was found. Mum and Dad seemed surprised, too. Unbelievably, they had already forgotten that it was us who put the nests there in the first place. I was clearly the only one in the garden who had any sense left.

It took them a long time to find all the eggs and chocolates, but once they were done, everyone sat down in a large circle to eat their treasures. That seemed a sensible enough thing to do; I quickly caught myself a small mouse and joined the circle. It was quite delicious, and everyone else enjoyed their snacks, too. Most of the children looked as though they could do with a bath when they had finished: they had brown faces and sticky hands. I made sure they didn't touch me. Since only the tail was left of my mouse, I wandered off to find my sunny spot on the deck, leaving the parents to clean up their offspring as best they could.

They stayed all day and ate lots of food. The adults had sparkly, bubbly water in tall glasses. The children played games, laughed, cried, sang, argued and generally made a lot of noise, so after a while I retreated to my mossy wood pile in a quieter corner of the garden to have a little snooze. Next thing I knew, the visitors' cars were filing past my hiding place, sticky hands waving from windows, goodbyes sounding across the garden as the sun threw long shadows on the lawn.

It was safe to emerge from my mossy wood pile. The garden looked a bit tired: here and there, squashed chocolate bunnies and the odd coloured egg lay scattered on the lawn, along with plastic cups and paper serviettes. Back in the house, Mum and Dad were resting on the sofa, looking exhausted, while the children were finishing up the last of their chocolates. I was finally able to have a peaceful meal, without having to worry about children tripping over me.

Later on, we tidied up the garden, the house and especially the kitchen. It had been a tiring day, but an exciting one, too. For a long time afterwards, I kept stumbling across forgotten nests of eggs and chocolates during my hunting expeditions. As the days grew warmer, the chocolate melted and oozed out of the shiny paper. The ants obviously liked chocolate; they feasted on it for weeks. It had been a successful party for everyone.

A couple of days after the party, the travel bags made their appearance again. It was the first time after my traumatic experience in the cat prison some months ago. Naturally, I was aghast and ran straight under the double bed. They would not be able to prise me off the bedroom carpet; it was very thick and I had buried my claws deep in its pile. When they came to talk to me, I hissed at them and refused to listen. Soon five faces were lined up on one side of the bed, upside-down, smiling and cooing. I was not fooled. No matter what they promised me, I would stay put.

A visitor came in the afternoon, a young girl with long hair and a bright voice. I had never seen her before. Her face lined up next to the other five on the side of the bed. She talked to me for a long time, while I pretended to sleep. I stayed put right through dinnertime, even though my stomach was rumbling, and never moved even when Mum and Dad climbed into bed above me and everything went quiet. I slept fitfully, expecting the worst when dawn finally broke.

Again, faces appeared; I gave them a long, cold stare. Eventually they gave up. Bags were picked up, feet walked past the bed and out of the door, the front door slammed shut. They were gone. I was all alone in the house! They had gone and I could stay – and do what I wanted… Yes!

I shot out from under the bed and downstairs to the window overlooking the drive. They were just leaving. I gave them a little wave with my tail as the car disappeared in the trees. So that was that. I sat for a while, surveying the deserted garden, listening to the sounds of the empty house. Nothing but the ticking of the kitchen clock and the quiet hum of the fridge. Well, at least I was free, and I was home. I went to the kitchen, where I found a full bowl of food and one of milk; there was also a litter tray nearby, which seemed a little odd. But I was starving and set about eating first of all. I ate everything in one go, then started wondering where my next meal would be coming from. I hadn't thought about that while I was ravenous. Still, no use worrying about it now. I would go out and hunt. Catching my own food would be good. I would be totally independent of humans and look after myself like a wild cat in the bush. No problem – it would be fun! I ran downstairs to my cat door.

It was locked – in broad daylight! How could they leave me trapped inside the house, unable to hunt, unable to run or reach my favourite hiding places? Now I remembered the litter tray in the kitchen. I should have known! Well, we would see about that. I worked on the door for most of the day, using claws, teeth and everything I could think of. The plastic frame came off easily enough, but the glass panel was tightly fitted and stubbornly resisted me.

By the afternoon I was exhausted and had to take a rest on the sofa. This holiday was going to be no fun at all – only marginally better than the cat prison. I was bitterly disappointed in my family. They had gone off to have a lovely time, leaving me home alone without food, drink or access to mice. The unfairness of it all eventually sent me to sleep.

I woke up to the sound of the kitchen door opening. Judging by the position of the sun, which was just sliding down behind the trees, it was dinnertime. Were they back already? I ran upstairs to investigate. As I rounded the corner into the kitchen, there was the girl with the long hair and the bright voice. She called me by my name, then squatted down and waited for me to come over. At least she had manners. I walked across to her with my tail held high and allowed her to stroke me. It might pay to be friendly to her. She might know where my food was kept. Sure enough, after a while she went into the pantry and came back with my food, which she poured into the correct bowl. Then she added milk to my other bowl, just like Mum. It was a relief to find she was well-trained. When she had finished, she stepped back and invited me to eat. I was quite hungry and didn't need telling twice. While I ate, she sat down at the kitchen table and talked to me. Afterwards we had a little game in the living room. She was nice. I liked her voice and her shiny auburn hair that fell right down onto the soft, pink carpet when she lay down to play with me. She told me her name was Lily; it suited her. We lay together on the carpet for some time while she talked and I purred.

Unfortunately, Lily had to leave when it grew dark. I was sorry to see her go and tried to squeeze through the kitchen door after her, but she pushed me back gently and locked the door behind her. She told me she would come back the next day.

I slept in great comfort on Mum and Dad's bed. It was quite nice not to have them there, fidgeting and pushing me out of the way. I was able to stretch out as long as I liked. When I woke up, the house was still eerily quiet. I had my lonely breakfast, then waited for the girl with the long hair to come back as the kitchen clock still ticked the minutes away and the fridge continued to hum. She didn't come. It was pretty boring alone in the house. I decided to have another go at my door. Again I worked for a long time, squeezing my claws in behind the glass panel, pushing and pulling as hard as I could.

I was about to give up when grey cat Piglet appeared outside. What a stroke of luck! I explained the situation and he understood straight away. Now we worked together, he from the outside, I from the inside, four pairs of claws and a good many sharp teeth. In no time at all the glass panel was beginning to give and finally, with a satisfying ‘plop', it fell on the mat outside. I dashed out of the hole and was free! Grey cat Piglet was very pleased to see me. I thanked him sincerely and we set off together for a great day's hunting.

We returned in the afternoon to see Lily with the long hair driving up to the house. Piglet said he had to go home, so I trotted up to the kitchen door on my own to welcome her. She stopped short when she saw me and seemed unsure what to do. She wasn't nearly as friendly as yesterday and did not bend down to stroke me. When she unlocked the door, I tried to walk in with her, but she shooed me away, slipped in quickly and shut the door. Strange creature! I wandered around the house to my cat door, jumped through and walked upstairs into the kitchen.

I might have been a totally different cat: as soon as she saw me in the kitchen, she was back to her usual bright, happy voice, said hello, stroked me, served dinner, played, trailed her hair on the carpet and seemed in every way back to normal. Humans! No use worrying about their behaviour too much. It could easily drive a cat crazy trying to work them out.

After Lily left, I went back outside for some night-time hunting, a rare treat, and then retreated to Mum and Dad's bed exhausted and ready for a long sleep. My dirty paws and the remnants of my last kill, a juicy bat, would have to wait until the morning. I was too tired to wash, and my meal would be alright on Dad's pillow.

There followed several more fantastic days of complete freedom and peace. Lily came in the late afternoons like clockwork, never recognized me outside the kitchen door where I waited for her, but was always full of affection when we met again inside the kitchen seconds after. She looked after me very well, even emptied my clean litter tray each day, and I became quite fond of her.

When my family came back, it was evening and Lily was with me. They looked pleased to see us getting along so well and had a long chat with Lily about me, my excellent appetite and all my talents. Then she told them about this other ginger cat who had apparently been prowling around outside every time she came to see me. Mum gave me a thoughtful glance, while Dad scratched the top of his head the way he does when he tries to solve a tricky problem. I blinked back at them in equal puzzlement. I had never seen another cat, except for Piglet and he wasn't ginger. How could I have missed an intruder on my patch? Lily said goodbye to us and seemed genuinely sad to leave me. I hoped she would come back again some time.

After we had waved her off, Mum and Dad took the bags upstairs while the children and I went to watch TV in the basement room, where it felt a little cool because my door had been open all those days. The children didn't mind, as their favourite show was just starting. Some loud exclamations from the bedroom above disturbed us at first, but we turned the TV up a notch or two and settled down. Not long after, Mum and Dad joined us.
They
noticed my open door straight away. Dad examined my work with expert appreciation, while Mum clapped her hands and screamed in delight at all the dead mice and moles I had lined up for her on the doormat. I purred at her and told her it was nothing. Then I helped Dad put the door back in its frame. I think he regretted locking it in the first place, because it was quite a fiddly job, especially without Piglet's assistance from outside. While we did that, Mum changed the sheets on the big bed and generally tidied up our bedroom. It was good to have them back, and best of all Mum said they weren't going to leave me alone again for a long, long time.

Caroline's best friend came over for a sleepover; they were both very excited. The three of us went up to Caroline's room to put up the spare bed. Then I sat on it and watched the girls give each other fancy hairstyles. They piled each other's hair up high in various ways to see how many pins and ties they could fit on their heads. The pins looked sharp and nasty, and I didn't like the look of the ties either. They had a tendency to shoot off from the girls' fingers like lethal projectiles, and I kept my distance until they had used them all up. Then they started painting each other's faces with little brushes and powder puffs. I checked all the different paints and powders with my paws and made pretty, multicoloured paw print patterns on Caroline's desk and on the carpet. Soon the room was full of pink and blue powder that made me sneeze. The girls looked a bit scary once they had applied lots of bright blue around their eyes, thick, black lines to their eyebrows and poisonous shades of red to their lips. When they approached me with a brush and one of the powder puffs, I retreated to the safety of the kitchen, where Mum was preparing dinner.

After dinner, we went back upstairs again to listen to music and to talk. I listened to the music while the girls talked. Emily and Robin weren't allowed in. When Mum came to say it was time to go to sleep, the talking changed to whispering, but it didn't stop. I nodded off at the foot of Caroline's bed to the sound of whispers and giggles.

I woke up in the middle of the night. The girls were just getting out of bed. I had a quick stretch before joining them. We crept silently past Mum and Dad's bedroom door, down the stairs and into the kitchen. The girls opened fridge and pantry and prepared a midnight feast on the kitchen table. The spread was magnificent: we had cheese, ham, crackers, biscuits and a whole giant bar of chocolate between us. The chocolate was delicious. I had never tasted any – Mum believes in healthy snacks for cats. Now I wished I'd eaten some of the chocolate eggs and bunnies at Easter.

When we had had enough, we went outside into the dark, silent garden. A full moon bathed lawn and trees in a silvery light. The bushes all around the lawn gave off a heady scent; their white blossoms looked like brilliant stars fallen from the sky. The air was warm and still. Somewhere in the forest an owl was hooting. The girls got bikes out of the garage and raced them up and down the driveway and round and round the house. Then they bounced on the trampoline. I expected Mum and Dad to appear on their balcony at any moment, but they never heard us, so I did a bit of hunting and caught another bat. There were hundreds of them flying around us. The big, yellow moon had set and dawn was just breaking when we finally crept back into the house and upstairs into our beds. This time the whispering and giggling stopped quite soon, and the three of us slept soundly.

The sun was high in the sky and the rest of the family looked as though they had been out and about for hours when we finally crawled downstairs. Mum was working in the vegetable garden, talking encouragingly to the lettuces, while Dad could be heard hammering in the garage. Emily and Robin were preparing a teddy bears' picnic. A blanket was already spread out in the shade of a small tree; tiny plastic cups and plates were arranged on it in a circle. About a dozen teddy bears had been jammed into a trailer that was being towed towards the picnic site by Robin in his little red jeep. I went to join them just as the party arrived by the blanket. Emily and Robin sat the teddies down on the blanket, where they stared with glazed expressions at the plates and cups before them. I squeezed into a gap between them and received a plate as well.

Emily poured tea into the little cups and set a birthday cake down in the centre of the blanket. It had candles on it. Emily lit them with a match while Robin admonished the teddy bears, who kept tumbling over. We all sang ‘Happy Birthday' to one of the teddies. He tried to look pleased but refused to blow out the candles afterwards, so Emily and Robin had to do it for him. Emily cut slices of cake for everyone and placed them on the plates. The feast could begin. Unfortunately, the teddies didn't seem to know how to eat and drink, so Emily, Robin and I helped them. The tea turned out to be water and tasted disgusting, but the cake was very nice. I had two pieces; Robin had at least five. He pretended to give them to one of the teddies, then popped them quickly into his own mouth while Emily wasn't looking.

When the cake was all gone, we played ‘Pass the Parcel'. The teddy bears clearly didn't know how to play the game: they just kept rolling over whenever the parcel came their way. Emily and Robin had to help them constantly, which left me free to play with the little toys that came out of the parcels as they were opened – key rings, rubber balls and more pink hair ties. It really was a great party. As we rested on the blanket afterwards, I noticed that there was fruit in the tree above our heads – small green balls, some of them just turning a little red. Emily told me they were called plums, and that we would be able to eat them soon, once they were ripe. I thought I preferred birthday cake.

The party broke up soon afterwards: the teddies were jammed back into the trailer and Robin drove them up to the house, while Emily and I followed with the blanket and the picnic basket containing the tea set. It was a glorious early summer day – I fancied a little snooze on my mossy wood pile in the deep shade of the oak trees.