Paws and Whiskers (13 page)

GOBBOLINO THE WITCH’S CAT

One fine moonlit night little Gobbolino, the witch’s kitten, and his sister Sootica tumbled out of the cavern where they had been born, to play at catch-a-mouse among the creeping shadows.

It was the first time they had left the cavern, and their round eyes were full of wonder and excitement at everything they saw.

Every leaf that blew, every dewdrop that glittered, every rustle in the forest around them set their furry black ears a-prick.

‘Did you hear that, brother?’

‘Did you see that, sister?’

‘I saw it!
And that! And that! And that!
’

When they were tired of playing they sat side by side in the moonlight talking and quarrelling a little, as a witch’s kittens will.

‘What will you be when you grow up?’ Gobbolino asked, as the moon began to sink behind the mountains and cocks crowed down the valley.

‘Oh, I’ll be a witch’s cat like my ma,’ said Sootica. ‘I’ll know all the Book of Magic off by heart and learn to ride a broomstick and turn mice into frogs and frogs into guinea-pigs. I’ll fly down the clouds on the night-wind with the bats and the barn owls, saying, “
Meee-ee-ee-oww!
” so when people hear me coming they’ll say: “
Hush! There goes Sootica, the witch’s cat!”
’

Gobbolino was very silent when he heard his sister’s fiery words.

‘And what will you be, brother?’ asked Sootica agreeably.

‘I’ll be a kitchen cat,’ said Gobbolino. ‘I’ll sit by the fire with my paws tucked under my chest and sing like the kettle on the hob. When the children come in from school they’ll pull my ears and tickle me under the chin and coax me round the kitchen with a cotton reel. I’ll mind the house and keep down the mice
and watch the baby, and when all the children are in bed I’ll creep on my missus’s lap while she darns the stockings and master nods in his chair. I’ll stay with them for ever and ever, and they’ll call me Gobbolino the kitchen cat.’

‘Don’t you want to be bad?’ Sootica asked him in great surprise.

‘No,’ said Gobbolino, ‘I want to be good and have people love me. People don’t love witches’ cats. They are too disagreeable.’

He licked his paw and began to wash his face, while his little sister scowled at him and was just about to trot in and find their mother, when a ray of moonlight falling across both the kittens set her fur standing on end with rage and fear.

‘Brother! Brother! One of your paws is white!’

In the deeps of the witch’s cavern no one had noticed that little Gobbolino had been born with a white front paw. Everyone knows this is quite wrong for witches’ kittens, which are black all over from head to foot, but now the moonbeam lit up a pure white sock with five pink pads beneath it, while the kitten’s coat, instead of being jet black like his sister’s, had a faint sheen of tabby, and his lovely round eyes were blue! All witches’ kittens are born with green eyes.

No wonder that little Sootica flew into the cavern
with cries of distress to tell her mother all about it.

‘Ma! Ma! Our Gobbolino has a white sock! He has blue eyes! His coat is tabby, not black, and he wants to be a kitchen cat!’

The kitten’s cries brought her mother Grimalkin to the door of the cavern. Their mistress, the witch, was not far behind her, and in less time than it takes to tell they had knocked the unhappy Gobbolino head over heels, set him on his feet again, cuffed his ears, tweaked his tail, bounced him, bullied him, and so bewildered him that he could only stare stupidly at them, blinking his beautiful blue eyes as if he could not imagine what they were so angry about.

At last Grimalkin picked him up by the scruff of his neck and dropped him in the darkest, dampest corner of the cavern among the witch’s tame toads.

Gobbolino was afraid of the toads and shivered and shook all night.

My teacher used to read us
Just So Stories
when I was at primary school. Maybe your teacher has read them to you, and even asked you to make up your own animal fable.
The Cat That Walked by Himself
has always been my favourite, though I dislike the passage where the wild Man throws his boots and little stone axe at the cat.

The Cat in the story is such a real cat, so clever and artful. My Jacob is sometimes a cat who likes to walk by himself, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone – and he too will kill mice and be kind to babies just so long as they do not pull his tail too hard. Little Lily is unusually gregarious for a cat and
will always choose to walk with Jacob rather than wander off by herself.

Thomas was the cat of mine who walked by himself – and went on walking. He was a little stray, a slinky black boy who slept under my garden shed and pressed his face longingly against the French windows, desperate to get indoors. He made friends with Jacob and did his best to ingratiate himself with me, lying down and waving his paws, trying to make himself look as cute as possible.

It worked. Thomas lived with me very happily for two years. Then he started getting into violent scraps with a new fierce cat living further up the road. He began to stay out longer and longer, and didn’t seem very hungry when he came home. He was clearly being fed somewhere else. Then one day he sauntered off – and never came back.

I went up and down the roads searching for him, I leafleted the neighbourhood with his photo, and stuck posters on lampposts. I phoned all the nearby vets, because Thomas had been chipped and so could easily be traced. No one had seen hide nor hair of him.

He might have been in some terrible accident, of course – but I like to think he’d simply decided it was time to stroll off elsewhere. I hope he’s very happy, wherever he is now. My heart still stops whenever I
see a sleek little black cat running along the pavement. It’s never Thomas – but I still haven’t given up hope that he’ll stop walking by his wild lone and come back home.

THE CAT THAT WALKED BY HIMSELF