The Cat Who Came in Off the Roof (3 page)

I’d be out on my ear the same day, thought Tibble. Now he could hear them talking to each other, the young lady and the cat. They were making little purring, miaowy kind of noises.

“What’s Fluff saying now?” he asked as a joke.

“He says your peppermints are in a jam jar on the top shelf of the bookcase. You put them there yourself.”

Tibble stood up to have a look. She was right.

3

The Tatter Cat

“I
still don’t believe it,” Tibble said. “You being able to talk to cats. It must be something else. Some kind of mind-reading or something.”

“Maybe,” Minou said dreamily. She yawned. “It’s time for me to get in my box,” she said. “Can I take this old paper?”

“Are you sure you don’t need a blanket or a pillow or anything?”

“No, no, not at all. Fluff likes to sleep on your feet, so I’ve heard. Everyone has their own preference. Good night.”

“Good night, Miss Minou.”

At the door she turned round for a moment. “I heard a bit of news while I was out and about,” she said. “On the roofs here in the neighbourhood.”

“News? What kind of news?”

“The Tatter Cat is due to have another litter any time now.”

“Oh,” said Tibble. “It’s a shame, but I’m not allowed to write about cats any more. They say it’s not interesting enough.”

“Too bad,” said Minou.

“Did you hear anything else?”

“Just about Mr Smith being so sad.”

“Mr Smith? Do you mean the school teacher? I was talking to him today. He’s the one who helped me get you down out of the tree. He didn’t look sad.”

“He is though.”

“That doesn’t sound like interesting news either,” Tibble said. “Is he just down in the dumps or is it something in particular?”

“Next week it will be twenty-five years since he was made head teacher at the school,” Minou said. “He was really hoping there’d be some kind of festivities. An anniversary celebration. But, no.”

“Why not?”

“Nobody knows about it. Everyone’s forgotten. He thought people would remember… but they haven’t.”

“Can’t he remind them?”

“He refuses. He’s too proud. That’s what Cross-eyed Simon says.”

“Cross-eyed Simon? That’s his Siamese.”

“Exactly. He’s the one I spoke to. And he told me all about it. And now I’m going to get into my box.”

She said a quick “
Mrow
” to Fluff. And Fluff said “
Mreeow
” in reply. That was probably “Sleep tight”.

Tibble grabbed the phone book. It was much too late at night, but he still dialled Mr Smith’s number.

“I’m sorry for calling so late,” Tibble blurted, “but I just heard that you’ll be celebrating an anniversary soon. Twenty-five years as head teacher. Is that right?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then Mr Smith said, “So some people have remembered.”

“No, cats…” Tibble was about to say, but he stopped himself just in time.

“Of course they have,” he said instead. “How could anyone forget something like that? You don’t mind me writing an article about it, do you?”

“I’d be delighted,” said Mr Smith.

“Could I drop by to talk to you about it? It is
rather
late… but I would very much like to hand in the article tomorrow morning. Something about your life and about the school…”

“Come straight over,” said Mr Smith.

It was three in the morning by the time Tibble got back home again. He had a pad full of notes about Mr Smith’s life and work. He tiptoed through the attic and, before sitting down at the typewriter, peeked into the junk room.

Minou was curled up in the box asleep.

She saved me, thought Tibble. I’ve got an article. I just have to write it up.

When he finally went to bed, he told a sleepy Fluff: “I’ll hand it in tomorrow. It’s a good article. And it’s real news.”

Fluff lay down on his feet and went back to sleep.

I’ll thank her in the morning… this strange Miss Minou, Tibble thought, and then he fell asleep too.

But when he got up the next morning she was gone.

The box was empty. There was fresh newspaper spread out over the bottom and everything had been left neat and tidy. Her clothes were gone as well and so was her case.

“Did she say anything, Fluff, before she left?”

“
Mrow
…” said Fluff. But Tibble didn’t understand.

“Well,” he said. “I’m actually quite relieved. I’ve got my attic to myself again.”

Then he saw the article lying on his desk. “It’s fantastic,” he cried out loud. “I’m going into the office and I’ve got something for the paper. They won’t fire me. At least… not today.” His happiness disappeared. He’d be trudging around town again tonight searching for another story.

There was a smell of coffee. He went into the kitchen and saw that she’d made some coffee for him. And done the dishes too. That was nice.

The window was open. She’d left the way she’d come: through the attic window.

At least the weather’s better, Tibble thought. She won’t have to wander around in the rain. He wondered if she was out talking to cats again? If she’d stayed here… he thought. If I’d let her stay… maybe she’d have brought some news home for me every day. He felt like shouting out through the window, over the rooftops, “Puss, puss, puss… Mi-nou!”

But he restrained himself. “Bah, how selfish can you get?” he said to himself. “You only want to let her stay because you think there might be something in it for you. What a nasty character trait! Forget about her and find your own news. Don’t be so shy. Anyway, she’s gone for good. She’s probably miles away by now.”

But at that moment Minou was very close by. She was sitting 
on the roof of the Social Security Building, the highest roof in the vicinity. She was talking to the Tatter Cat.

The Tatter Cat was called that because she was battered and tattered. She was always dirty and she usually had muddy paws. Her tail was thin and wispy, there was a chunk out of her left ear and her coat was drab and patchy.

“Your kittens are due soon,” Minou said.

“Oh, put a cork in it,” said the Tatter Cat. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s ever going to stop. My whole life’s one stinking litter after the other.”

“How many children do you have?” Minou asked.

The Tatter Cat scratched herself at length. “How would I bleedin’ know?” she said. She had a filthy mouth. But living on the street will do that to a cat. “Anyway, let’s not talk about me,” the Tatter Cat said. “This thing with you is much, much worse. How can something like that even exist? What did it?”

She stared at Minou with fear in her yellow eyes.

“I wish I knew. And the worst thing is, I’m not even
all
human. It’s all so half and half.”

“But you are all human. From head to toe.”

“I mean
inside
,” Minou said. “I still have almost all my cattish characteristics. I purr, I hiss, I rub up against people. I wash with a flannel, but otherwise… I wonder if I still like mice. I’ll have to try one.”

“Do you still know the Great Yawl-Yowl Song?” the Tatter Cat asked.

“I think so.”

“Sing a few bars then.”

Minou opened her mouth and a horrific, raucous caterwauling came out of it, a howling, shrieking, wailing sound.

The Tatter Cat joined in immediately and together they screeched at the top of their voices. They kept going until someone opened a nearby attic window and hurled a large empty bottle at them. It hit the roof between them and smashed to pieces, driving them apart.

“All in the game!” the Tatter Cat cried cheerfully. “You know what? It’s only temporary! You’ll get over it. Someone who sings as well as you do,
stays
cat. Feel your upper lip. You sure you don’t have any whiskers?”

Minou felt her lip. “No,” she said.

“And your tail? How’s that?”

“Gone completely.”

“Do you feel sometimes to see if it’s growing back?”

“Of course. But there’s no sign of it. Not even a tiny little bump.”

“Have you got a house?” the Tatter Cat asked.

“I thought I did for a while… but I think it’s off.”

“With the young guy from the paper?”

“Yes,” said Minou. “I’m still kind of hoping he’ll call me. I left my case over there behind a chimney, in the gutter.”

“You’re much better off on the streets,” the Tatter Cat said. “The life of a stray. Come with me. I’ll introduce you to tons of my kids. Most of ’em have really made something of themselves. One of my sons is the canteen cat in the factory. And one of my daughters is the Council Cat. She lives in the Town Hall. And then there’s…”

“Shhh… be quiet for a sec,” Minou said.

They stopped talking. From across the roofs they heard a voice, “Puss, puss, puss… Mi-nou, Mi-nou, Mi-nou-nou-nou-nou.”

“There you have it,” Minou said. “He’s calling me.”

“Stay here,” the Tatter Cat hissed. “Don’t go to him. Don’t give up your freedom. Next thing he’ll be taking you to the vet in a basket… for a jab!”

Minou hesitated. “I think I’ll go anyway,” she said.

“You’re mad,” the Tatter Cat said. “Come with me. I know an old caravan at the back of a yard… that’ll be a roof over your head. You can take things easy while you turn back into a cat.”

“Puss, puss, puss… Mi-nou!”

“I’m going,” Minou said.

“No, stay here! Use your brain. If you have a litter, they’ll drown your kittens.”

“Puss, puss… Miss Minou!” the voice called.

“I’ll come and visit,” Minou said. “Here on the roof. Bye.”

She jumped down to a lower level, nimbly climbed a sloping, tiled roof and lowered herself down on the other side. Then she crawled along the gutter on all fours, grabbed her case, stood up and stepped over in front of the kitchen window.

“Here I am,” she said.

“Come in,” said Tibble.

4

The Cat Press Agency

“S
it down, Tibble,” the Editor said.

Tibble sat down. It had been exactly one week since he had last sat on this chair, blinking in the light. It had been a very unpleasant conversation, but things were different now.

“I don’t know what’s got into you, Tibble,” his boss said. “But you’ve changed a lot. Last week I almost kicked you out, you know that? I was going to fire you, I’d made up my mind. I guess it was pretty clear. Then I said I’d give you one last chance. And lo and behold! In this one week you’ve come up with all kinds of interesting news. You were the first to know about Mr Smith and his anniversary. And you were the first to know about the new swimming pool. That was
secret
. But you
still
found out about it… I can’t help but wonder, how did you find out about that?”

“Well…” Tibble said. “I talked to some people here and there.”

“Some people here and there” was just Minou. And Minou had heard it from the Council Cat, who always sat in on the closed council meetings at the Town Hall.

“And that article about the hoard they found next to the church,” his boss said. “A pot full of old coins buried in the churchyard! You didn’t waste any time with that one either. You were the first on the scene yet again.”

Tibble smiled modestly. One of the Tatter Cat’s daughters had provided that bit of news. It had been the Church Cat, Ecumenica. And she herself had found the pot of old coins while scratching in the churchyard for simple toiletry reasons. Tibble had gone straight to the verger and told him. And then he’d written an article about it.

“Keep it up, Tibble,” his boss said. “You don’t seem to be shy at all any more.”

Tibble blushed. It wasn’t true… unfortunately. He was still as shy as ever. The news all came from the cats and he only needed to write it up. Although… he did often need to check that the things he’d heard were actually true. But usually a single phone call was enough to take care of that. “Excuse me, Mr Whatever, I heard that so-and-so did this or that, is that true?” Up till now it had always been true. The cats hadn’t told him any fibs.

And there were so many cats in Killenthorn. Every building had at least one. Now, at this very moment, there was one sitting on the window sill in the Editor’s office.

It was the Editorial Cat. He blinked at Tibble.

That cat listens to everything, Tibble thought. I hope he doesn’t tell nasty stories about me.

“And so,” the Editor continued, “I’ve been thinking of increasing your salary at the end of the month.”

“Thank you, sir, great,” Tibble said. He snuck a glance at the Editorial Cat and felt himself blushing again. There was a hint of cold contempt in the cat’s eyes. He probably thought Tibble was grovelling.

A little later, out on the street, where the sun was shining, Tibble felt a tremendous urge to run and skip; he was that relieved.

And when he saw someone he knew, he shouted out “Hello” at the top of his voice.

It was Bibi, a little girl who lived nearby and sometimes visited him in his attic.

“Would you like an ice cream?” Tibble asked. “Come on, I’ll buy you an extra-large one.”

Bibi was in Mr Smith’s class at school and told Tibble that they were having a drawing competition. She was going to do a really big picture.

“What are you going to draw?” Tibble asked.

“A cat,” Bibi said.

“Do you like cats?”

“I love all animals.” She licked her big pink ice cream.

“When you’ve finished your drawing, come and show it to me,” Tibble said and went home.

Minou had been living in his attic for a week now and all things considered it wasn’t too bad. What it actually came down to was that he now had two cats instead of just one.

Minou slept in the box. And she did most of her sleeping in
the daytime. At night she’d go out through the kitchen window, then wander over the rooftops and through the back gardens, talking to the many cats in the surrounding area and not coming home to her box until early in the morning.

The most important thing was that she provided him with news. The first few days it had been Fluff who had busied himself searching for the latest stories. But Fluff wasn’t a real news cat.

He mostly came back with gossip about cat fights, or boasting about a rat he’d smelt near the docks or a fish head he’d found somewhere. He wasn’t really interested in human rumours.

No, the great source of news was the Tatter Cat. She knew everything.

That was mainly because she was a stray who swiped her meat scraps from all layers of society. And because she had an extensive family.

The Tatter Cat had children and grandchildren all over town.

Minou met her at night on the roof of the Social Security Building and always took a small bag of fish for her.

“Thanks,” the Tatter Cat would say. “My daughter, the Council Cat, is waiting for you at the Town Hall. She’s sitting on one of the marble lions out the front and she’s got some news for you…”

Or “The Butcher’s Cat wanted to tell you something. He’s in the third garden on the left after the chestnut…”

That same night Minou went down the Social Security fire escape, slunk over a courtyard and slipped through a rear gate into an alley. And from there to the prearranged spot where some cat or other would be waiting.

“Soon we’ll have to change our meeting spot,” the Tatter Cat said. “My kids are going to be born in a few days, I can feel it,
and then I’ll have to stay close to the little monsters and won’t be able to come up on the rooftops. But that won’t matter, the message service will still work. All the cats have been informed. They know your human is waiting for news and they’re watching out for it. They’re keeping their eyes peeled and their ears open. They’ll pass it on.”

“Where are you going to have your kittens?” Minou asked. “Have you found a good spot?”

“Not yet,” the Tatter Cat said. “But I will.”

‘Can’t you move in with us? In the attic?”

“Never!” the Tatter Cat cried. “I’ll never give up my freedom! And stop nagging.”

“My human’s very nice,” Minou said.

“I know. He’s a good human, as far as that goes… But I just don’t like the species. They’re not too bad until they grow up… some of them at least. Do you know Bibi?”

“No.”

“She’s drawing me,” the Tatter Cat said. “In detail! And she likes the way I look, even now, with this big gut. She thinks I’m beautiful! Can you believe it? Anyway, I’ll let you know where I am when the time comes. Somewhere in town, close to a radio.”

“Why close to a radio?”

“I like a bit of background music when I’m having kittens,” the Tatter Cat said. “It makes it easier. And more cheerful. Remember that, if it ever happens to you.”

When Minou came home with some news story or other and told Tibble how she’d got it, he cried, “It’s all so organized! One cat passes it on to the next… it’s a kind of cat press agency.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” Minou said hesitantly. “A cat press… it makes me think of a garlic press. Squished cat.”

“Not a
cat-press
agency,” Tibble said, “a cat
press agency
”.

The arrangement had saved him and as far as he was concerned things were going excellently.

Sometimes, when he came in, he’d find Minou in a corner of the room. She’d be crouched down on the floor, dead still and staring at a hole in the skirting board.

“Miss Minou! That’s one more habit you have to break! Lying in wait at a mouse hole! That’s not the kind of thing a lady does!”

She stood up and tried to get back into his good books by rubbing her head against his shoulder.

“That’s not right either,” Tibble sighed. “Real ladies don’t rub up against people. At most they rub them up the wrong way. I wish you’d stop doing all these catty things.”

“Catty is not the correct word,” Minou said. “It’s called
cattish
.”

“Fine, cattish. But I feel like you’re getting more and more cattish. It would be much better if you had more to do with people. Instead of just seeing cats all the time. You should go out on the rooftops less often and down on the street more—in the daytime.”

“I don’t dare, Mr Tibble. I’m scared of people.”

“Nonsense, people aren’t scary at all!”

She looked at him for a moment with her slanting eyes, then turned away shyly.

How can I say something like that? he thought. When I’m so shy and scared myself? When I prefer the company of cats?

But he decided to stick to his guns.

“What’s that I see!” he cried.

Minou was washing herself. She’d licked her wrist and was rubbing behind her ear with the wet spot.

“That takes the cake! Yuck!”

“It’s just…” Minou stammered, “I was hoping it would make it go faster.”

“Make what faster? Washing?”

“No, that’s faster in the shower. I mean, turning into a cat. I still haven’t given up hope that… I’d just prefer to be a cat again.”

Tibble slumped down on the couch.

“Listen,” he said. “I wish you’d stop all this nonsense. You never
were
a cat. It’s all in your imagination. You dreamt it.”

She didn’t answer.

“Honestly,” Tibble went on. “Absolute nonsense.”

Minou yawned and stood up.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get in my box,” she said.

Fluff curled around her legs and, together with the grey cat, she made her way over to the corner of the attic where she kept her box.

Tibble called after her in an angry voice, “If you
were
a cat…
whose
cat were you?”

No answer came. He heard a quiet, purring miaow. A
conversation
in Cattish. Two cats talking behind the partition.