Энн Файн - The Killer Cat's Birthday Bash

Oh, very friendly. So I spat again, taking good care to make it land on his trousers.

Ellie’s mother could see that, at this rate, we would be up all night. ‘You’d better come and sleep with me,’ she said to Ellie. ‘And Dad can go in the spare bed.’

Ha, ha. I spend a lot of time on that spare bed. But I can curl up. I wouldn’t care to sleep in it if I was long and thin like him. It’s just Lump City, that old bed.

He knew it too. On his way out, he gave me a pretty mean look. I put on a snooty air and tried to show him by the way I stalked past that that is what you get for choosing not to hold a party for your own precious pussy.

Ghosts in the closet and lumps in the bed. That’s what you get. And serves you right.

5: When poodles fly

THE COUNTDOWN BEGAN. If you’re a friend of mine, it was a countdown to my birthday. If you are not, it was a countdown to Halloween.

I did a good bit of sulking.

Okay, okay! So I did more than sulk.

I brought in dead things while they were eating lunch, and shed hairs over their pillow cases, and scratched great holes in all their precious carpets.

All in all, I had an excellent week.

Finally the big day came. Early that afternoon, the family drove off to get the stuff for their party. I’d seen the list. Food. Scary decorations. Halloween masks … I’d scoured it from top to bottom several times but hadn’t seen the very important words ‘ A present for Tuffy ’. And that could not have been because they didn’t have the money, because when they came back with armfuls of expensive shopping I saw they’d splashed out on something that wasn’t even on the list.

A floodlight for the front of the house.

He’s not the world’s best handyman. So when I saw him going to the tool cupboard to find the things he needed to wire it up, I thought it wiser to leave.

It was a bad time to be out and about. Just before dark. Dogs everywhere, all being taken out for the last proper walk before their families sit down to supper. That’s the worst thing about dogs. Everything they do makes trouble for others. Think about it. When they get bored with staying home and doing all the stupid things they do — ‘Come!’ ‘Beg!’ Fetch!’ ‘Down!’ —they have to make a nuisance of themselves fussing and whimpering to get their owners to take them out. Me? I just stroll out of the door.

Dog owners have to find the lead, and then untangle it. They have to find a couple of plastic bags in case the dog leaves a mess. (Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!) Half of the owners even have to stuff their pockets with treats just to get the dog to the park and back.

Dogs hate it when we laugh at them. But, really! It’s a bit pathetic to be that size and not be trusted even to cross a road all by yourself. Or find your own way home.

Still, it was daft of me to get in that argument when I saw Mrs Pinkney dragging Buster away from the nastiest lamppost in town.

‘Diddums still wearing his baby rein?’ I couldn’t help jeering.

Whoops! I hadn’t noticed Buster’s great-aunt Tilly coming the other way.

‘Just watch it, Fatso,’ she growled.

‘Don’t pick on Buster or I’ll pick on you.’

I looked down my right side. Then I looked down my left. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t see myself trembling with fright. But that may be because I think I have the edge on anyone being tugged around on a long piece of string.’

‘You think you’re so clever?’ she snarled. ‘If cats are so wonderful, where are the guide cats for the blind? Why don’t the police have sniffer cats?’

‘Yeah!’ Buster jeered. ‘All you lot do is go around stalking songbirds.’

‘Better than barking at them all day like a squirty little lame-brain.’

He lunged and, startled, Mrs Pinkney dropped the lead.

I took off like a rocket.

‘You wait,’ threatened Buster’s great-aunt Tilly as I shot past her. ‘Our gate isn’t always properly shut. I’ll get you one day.’

‘When poodles fly!’ I yowled back from the safe side of the wall. But I was glad that Tiger had put his paw down about having no dogs at the party.

6: Not long now

I DIDN’T FORGET to invite Misty.

‘Yo, dude!’ she yowled. ‘A party! Excellent! That rocks.’

Then I remembered Muff and Puff. ‘Why bother to call it a party?’ they asked me when I told them. ‘Isn’t that what we do all the time? Stay out all night and make a noise?’

‘You’re not invited,’ I reminded Pudge the terrier. ‘No dogs at this party.’

‘Oh, boo woofing hoo,’ he jeered.

‘Will there be games?’ asked Fluffball.

‘Only the usual,’ I said. ‘Hide in the Hay Bale. Shred the Straw. Cry Mouse! Oh, and we’ll probably have races round the rafters.’

Together we strolled along to the barn. Up in the hay loft, Georgie was ignoring the spiders’ grumbling as he scooped up their cobwebs and draped them around the rafters in attractive festoons. ‘I’m going for a natural, no-frills look,’ he explained to us. ‘Folksy. Naive. And I am tending to stick with the earth tones.’

‘Do you mean brown?’ asked Fluffball.

Georgie gave her a stern look. ‘Come on!’ he scolded. ‘Look around. We’ve a style rainbow here. Khaki and chestnut; oatmeal; toast, mushroom and rust; biscuit; bran and tobacco leaf; coffee and fawn–’

We left him reeling off his precious shades of muddy brown and went to look at the food.

Snowball was standing proudly in front of a hay bale spread with delicious goodies. ‘Most of it comes from KeenKost,’ he explained. ‘Today is their clear-out day. And I have laid my paws on some excellent pâté only a day past its date stamp.’

I peered into one of the tubs. ‘Well, whisk my whiskers! Is this double cream?’

‘Nothing’s too good for the birthday boy!’

I peered over the edge. Below, the horses were shifting from hoof to hoof.

‘Getting excited, guys and gals?’ I asked them. ‘Well, it’s not long now!’

7: Spooking the horses

IT WAS A brilliant party. It absolutely rocked .