Энн Файн: The Killer Cat's Christmas

Books by Anne Fine

The Diary of a Killer Cat

The Return of the Killer Cat

The Killer Cat Strikes Back

The Killer Cat’s Birthday Bash

The Killer Cat’s Christmas

Jennifer’s Diary

Loudmouth Louis

Notso Hotso

Only a Show

The Same Old Story Every Year

Stranger Danger?

The Worst Child I Ever Had

For older readers

A Pack of Liars

Crummy Mummy and Me

Flour Babies

Goggle-Eyes

Madame Doubtfire

Step by Wicked Step

The Tulip Touch

ANNE FINE

Illustrated by Steve Cox

PUFFIN

For Isaac and Olly

PUFFIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

puffinbooks.com

First published 2009

Text copyright © Anne Fine, 2009

Illustrations copyright © Steve Cox, 2009

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

ISBN: 978-0-14-193055-8

Contents

1: Horrible, horrible, horrible!

2: ‘Oh, goody gumdrops! Hoppers!’

3: ‘The whole of Christmas in a cattery!’

4: Surprise, surprise!

5: Frog in a wedding dress

6: Screams and tears

7: Twanging the spider’s web

8: Chasing half-dead mousies

9: Bare at the bottom

10: Chocolate coins and sausages

11: Showers of falling food

12: Star of the show

(Unlucky) 13: The fairy on the Christmas tree

1: Horrible, horrible, horrible!

OKAY, OKAY! SO run off sobbing, but I did not kill that moth on purpose . It was not my fault. I do agree that I reached out to biff it once or twice. But it was annoying me, flapping round and round my face.

And I’m not sure that it’s dead anyway. I mean, I saw it sort of flapping off, looking a bit lopsided. But after that it disappeared. For all I know, the thing’s still somewhere in the house, minding its own business and mucking about wherever it wants.

Unlike me, locked in this garage in disgrace, after a horrible Christmas.

So go on, ask me. ‘Dear, dear Tuffy, why was your Christmas so horrible?’

And I’ll explain: because it is a festival that wasn’t made for cats. Just think about it. There’s a tree we’re not allowed to climb.

And there are tempting dangly decorations we’re not allowed to touch.

And there are glorious glittering strands of bright, bright tinsel hung far too high for us to reach. Shiny wrapped presents we have to keep our paws off.

And, if we’re really unlucky, horrible cold white snow all over the garden.

No. Not my favourite time of year.

So go on. Ask the next question. ‘But, Tuffy, what on earth happened ? How come you’ve ended up locked in the garage?’

I’ll tell you. It was because this Christmas was even worse than usual. This Christmas was terrible.

Frightful.

Awful.

Miserable.

All wrong.

Horrible, horrible, horrible. That’s what it was.

I’ll tell you the whole story.

2: ‘Oh, goody gumdrops! Hoppers!’

THE CAR DREW up outside and out they all spilled, as usual. Our Christmas visitors. That’s Ellie’s Aunt Ann, her husband, Brian, and the soppy twins.

I hate having visitors. They park their bottoms in the comfiest chairs. They dump their suitcases in all my favourite corners. They rattle their clothes around in the cupboards I like to use to take a quiet nap. Their stupid great feet keep stumbling over my food dish.

But Ellie loves company. She couldn’t wait to rush out of the house to greet her cousins. ‘Lucilla! Lancelot! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!’

She might have been glad they were here. I have a forkful of brain inside my head so I wasn’t quite so keen. As she ran one way, I sneaked off the other to find somewhere good to hide.

I heard them wheel their suitcases inside. ‘Where’s Tuffy? We must say hello to darling, darling Tuffy!’

They searched the house. But I was stretched out flat on top of the cupboard in the hall. They couldn’t find me, so they finally gave up.

‘Forget Tuffy for a moment,’ said Lancelot. ‘Let’s do something else. Let’s play on the bouncy hoppers.’

‘Oh, goody gumdrops! Hoppers!’

The three of them rushed off. Phew! I jumped down from the cupboard and went upstairs. The bathroom window was ajar, so I crept out and spent a quiet half hour on the garage roof, secretly watching the three of them bounce up and down the drive, clutching the sticky-up ears. It was a laugh. Ellie kept falling off. But then Lucilla started to sing some half-baked bouncing song that she’d made up about ‘sweet little mousies in housies’.

It got on my nerves, so I took off. I picked my way along the tree branch and jumped down on the fence.

Lucilla saw me. ‘Tuff-eee! Tuff-eee!’

She bounced towards the fence so hard she couldn’t stop. Is it my fault the fence is wobbly? I didn’t mean to stick my sharp little claws out quite so far to get a grip as I swayed this way and that.

Or keep them out when I fell off the fence, on to her hopper.

Poooooooooooooooooooooof…