Рейчел Уэллс: Alfie Cat In Trouble

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016

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Text © Rachel Wells 2016

Illustrations © Katie May Green 2016

Rachel Wells and Katie May Green assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.

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Source ISBN: 9780008172084

Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008172091

Version: 2016-03-17

For my wonderful son, Xavier

Sitting under a bush, I stared at a van, which two big men were unloading furniture from. I was about to move closer when my best cat friend, Tiger, appeared.

‘Alfie?’ she said.

I flicked my tail up in greeting. ‘Hello, Tiger. Look, people moving in!’ I was always excited by the sight of a removal van. You see, I am a doorstep cat. I visit more than one house and have lots of humans who think they own me. Of course, in reality I own them. But that is why removal vans have such a fascination for me. They mean new people, and new people need a cat.

I might make some new friends to play with and if I’m lucky they might even give me yummy food – pilchards are my favourite.

‘Alfie, this isn’t even our street, what are you doing here?’ Tiger was annoyed by my doorstep antics. She had one family and she liked it that way. But I loved my families – I had three altogether: one main home and two others, but I always say you can never have enough humans. Or pilchards for that matter.

‘It’s only round the corner.’ We were in the street next to mine, Edgar Road. ‘I’m in trouble again,’ I admitted.

‘What did you do?’ Tiger raised her whiskers.

‘Why do you always assume it’s my fault?’

‘Because it usually is, Alfie.’

I raised my whiskers back at her in protest, but Tiger was right. ‘It’s to do with baby Summer – she isn’t sleeping. She cries all the time. She sounds like you when someone steps on your tail.’

‘Thanks Alfie.’ She glared at me with her yellow eyes. ‘Anyway, what has that got to do with you being in trouble?’ She licked her brightly striped fur; it was clear why she had been named Tiger.

‘I’m just trying to explain,’ I huffed. ‘I’m tired, and Claire and Jonathan are tired and grumpy.’

‘And?’

‘And at breakfast I was half-asleep so I stumbled into my food bowl. My paws got covered in food so I panicked and somehow managed to tread it all into the carpet.’ I shuddered as I remembered how Claire and Jonathan, my normally lovely humans, had shouted at me and called me a ‘pest’.

‘So, they’re cross?’ Tiger asked, sounding sorry for me.

‘Yes, so I decided to lie low for a while. And in doing so I’ve found a new family, just to spend a bit of time with.’ I wasn’t planning on running away or anything like that.

‘I guess that’s fine but I know you. Don’t get too involved with them – don’t poke your whiskers into their business,’ Tiger said. I nuzzled her neck.

‘Don’t be silly, of course I won’t,’ I replied. Honestly, Tiger didn’t need to worry so much. After all what could possibly go wrong?

I made my way to the new house. It was easy to sneak in – the door was wide open, and the men were still carrying furniture so no one noticed me. I found myself in a big room that opened onto a kitchen.

There was a tall, thin man unpacking a lot of fruit onto the kitchen counter. There were more bananas, oranges and apples than I had ever seen. He seemed to be taking a great deal of care, polishing them and putting them down very gently. It seemed a little strange.

‘Dear, could you leave that and help me?’ a woman shouted. She was shorter than the man, with big glasses and hair like a bird’s nest with lots of pencils sticking out of it.

‘But my fruit,’ the man replied.

‘I am sure it’ll be fine for a few minutes, Dear,’ she said. ‘We need to organise the furniture.’

I watched as the two removal men moved sofas, tables and chairs while the woman kept changing her mind about where they should put things. They huffed and puffed as they went backwards and forwards a lot.

‘But Mrs Clover, you said it’d be fine here!’ they complained as they lifted the biggest sofa I’d ever seen.

‘Yes, well I thought it was, but it just doesn’t look right. Please can you put it by the window? Yes, that’ll do nicely. What do you think dear?’

The man, I assumed Mr Clover, was staring at an apple, which was painted a bright yellow.

‘What? Oh yes, oh lovely.’ He obviously wasn’t paying attention but Mrs Clover seemed happy.

There was a little girl in the corner of the room. She had a book hiding her face and seemed not to notice the commotion. I thought about approaching her, but then a boy entered the room. He looked a bit scruffy: his clothes were far from neat, he had a cheeky round face with freckles dotted across his nose and messy hair. He was carrying a box, out of which he kept dropping things. As some of them rolled towards me, I saw they were stones. He looked a bit lost. He tried to get his parents’ attention but his voice wasn’t heard in the commotion.

Mrs Clover was giving orders; Mr Clover was looking lovingly at his yellow apple and the girl had her head in her book. With a thump, the boy suddenly dropped his box and stones flew out across the floor.

‘AHHHHH!’ Mr Clover shouted. Both the boy and I looked on in horror as Mr Clover skidded on a stone, slipped along the wooden floor and ended up with his head in a plant pot.

‘Stanley, what have you done?’ Mrs Clover screeched. She sounded cross. Stanley was red-faced as he started scooping his stones up. ‘You are such a calamity,’ she bellowed.

‘Sorry, sorry but it’s my special stone collection,’ the boy protested, sadly.

‘My head, it’s stuck, it’s stuck!’ Mr Clover shouted, his voice muffled by the pot. As he tried to pull it off, he banged into the wall.