Энн Файн: The Killer Cat's Christmas

I just gave him the cold cat stare as he went out. Then, sticking my paws over my ears, I tried not to listen as Ellie and Lancelot and Lucilla pranced about all afternoon, singing that great long boring nursery rhyme about the three prissy little kittens who spent their whole time losing their mittens, and finding their mittens, and getting their mittens dirty, and washing their mittens, and drying their mittens and –

Oh, excuse me. Their life’s so dull I fell asleep just telling you about it.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

10: Chocolate coins and sausages

THAT NIGHT, IN Ellie’s bedroom, The Three Ninnies couldn’t stop whispering excitedly. ‘Yippee! Christmas Day tomorrow!’

‘We’ll wake to find our stockings on our beds!’

‘And we’ll have sausages for breakfast!’

‘Then we’ll unwrap the presents under the tree!’

‘Eat a lovely big lunch!’

‘And super-duper Christmas pudding!’

‘Then everyone will come in the front room to watch our show!’

‘It’ll be magic!’

I settled down on Ellie’s bed. She put her arms round me. ‘Oh, Tuffy! I do love you so.’

She’s not so bad. I gave her a brief purr. I was quite looking forward to the stockings myself.

No such luck. Right in the middle of the night a huge hand scooped me up and dumped me out on the landing. ‘I think these stockings will be safer away from you.’

Well, thank you, Santa! All the other doors were closed, so I just settled on a nice warm towel I pulled down from the bathroom rack. It wasn’t a bad night, though I was woken ridiculously early by frantic squeals. ‘Look! Santa’s left our stockings!’

‘Chocolate coins!’

‘I’ve got a little jumping frog.’

‘I’ve got a clockwork mouse.’

Oh, please! How old are Ellie and the twins? Three ? You wouldn’t catch me playing with a clockwork mouse – unless it was to push it into Aunt Ann’s furry slippers and give her a heart attack.

But I still reckoned it would be more fun to watch them unpacking their stockings than to hang around the bathroom on my own.

So I jumped up on Ellie’s bed.

She threw her arms round me. ‘Oh, Tuffy! Christmas is magic , isn’t it? You think so too, don’t you, even though you don’t like chocolate coins.’

Who says I don’t like chocolate coins? They’re bright and gold and shiny, and fun to bat off the bed.

Okay, okay! So twist my tail! Some of the ones I batted went down that giant hole that Mr I-Can-Fix-It-All-By-Myself made in the floor when he was sorting out that leaking pipe. Is it my fault the hole’s so deep she couldn’t fish them out again?

No. It is his .

But not having quite so many chocolate coins as usual meant Ellie got hungry sooner. So we all went down for breakfast. There didn’t seem to be too much Christmas Spirit coming my way. Nobody offered me a special breakfast. To get some sausages, I had to creep up beside Lancelot and jump in his lap, knocking his elbow.

Success! The sausage he was trying to cut flew off on to the floor.

If it had been a mouse, I couldn’t have pounced faster.

Got it!

I reckoned it was safer to take my prize out in the garden. So I rushed through the cat flap.

The last thing that I heard behind me was Mr Not-Very-Nice bolting it closed behind me.

Well, happy Christmas to you too!

11: Showers of falling food

WHILE I WAS looking for a way back in, the grown-ups must have cleared away the breakfast things and started to prepare for Christmas lunch. By the time I had found the only bedroom window that was unlatched, and squeezed inside, the turkey was already stuffed and trussed, and sitting forlornly in its tray, waiting to go in the oven.

I ask you. Honestly! They all go on and on about the way that I chase sparrows. But I would never treat a bird like that.

Hypocrites!

Anyhow, once it was safely in the oven (out of my reach) the four of them went through to the front room, to join the children, and unwrap the presents.

I had forgotten about the labels my tail had accidentally flicked away, out of sight under the carpet.

Uh-oh. The trouble started almost at once.

‘Who is this gift for? It doesn’t say.’

‘This one doesn’t have a label.’

‘Neither has this one. Or this.’

I couldn’t help but look a bit uncomfortable. (I hadn’t realized I’d flicked off so many.) The children rooted around, lifted their heads and wailed, ‘We’ve looked at all the presents, and not one has a label.’

‘What are we going to do ?’

‘We’ll simply have to guess .’

That didn’t work too well, and arguments broke out all over. ‘I think this one is probably for me.’

‘No, dear. I think that Santa brought that one for Lucilla.’

That set Lucilla off. ‘But I don’t want it, Mummy. I like this present much better.’

‘But that one was meant for Ellie.’

‘How do you know ?’

‘I just do, dear.’

‘You can’t read Santa’s mind!’

‘Neither can you!’

We were a little short on Christmas cheer. And then a scuffle started when Lancelot tried to snatch back a present that Ellie’s father said was not for him. The carpet rucked up underneath his shoe, and there they were – all of the labels.

And one or two telltale ginger hairs, off my tail.

‘A- ha !’ cried Ellie’s father.

Everyone turned to look at me. I turned to look at the door. I don’t think it was my fault that, just at the moment that I fled towards it, Ellie’s mother was coming in carrying a giant plate of tiny tarts and titbits and fancy little things on sticks.

I just think I was lucky that, in the showers of falling food, I managed to get clean away.

12: Star of the show

I SKIPPED LUNCH. And the washing up. And all that fuss when Aunt Ann realized that there were lumps in her cake icing, and she would have to keep stirring.

I wasn’t going back outside. Cold, wet and miserable. So I stayed out of sight, hiding in one of Uncle Brian’s welly boots till I heard Ellie walk past.

‘Tuffy! Tuff-eee!’

I stretched up in the boot to see which way she was headed. That was a big mistake. The boot began to wobble and I lost balance.

Out I spilled, on to the floor.

She scooped me up. ‘Time for the show,’ she told me. ‘And guess who’s going to be the star!’ She nuzzled her nose in my fur. ‘ You are! You’re going to be the very best of all of us because you’re so clever .’