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Books by Anne Fine

A Pack of Liars

Crummy Mummy and Me

The Diary of a Killer Cat

Flour Babies

Goggle-Eyes

Jennifer’s Diary

The Killer Cat Strikes Back

Loudmouth Louis

Madame Doubtfire

Notso Hotso

Only a Show

The Return of the Killer Cat

The Same Old Story Every Year

Step by Wicked Step

Stranger Danger?

The Tulip Touch

The Worst Child I Ever Had

ANNE FINE The Killer Cat

Strikes Back

Illustrated by Steve Cox

PUFFIN

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)

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(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, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1310, 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

First published 2006

1

Text copyright © Anne Fine, 2006

Illustrations copyright © Steve Cox, 2006

The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

All rights reserved

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

www.penguin.com

978-0-14-191764-1

Contents

1:

Not the best photo

2:

Whoops!

3:

One little biff

4:

‘A riot of beauty’

5:

A droplet of advice

6:

Little Miss Last Ugly Pot

7:

Cat and mouse

8:

Before six o’clock tonight

9:

‘Run, Daddy! Run!’

10:

A moral victory and a good result

1: Not the best photo

OKAY, OKAY. SO stick my head in a holly bush. I gave Ellie’s mother my mean look. It was her own fault. She was hogging my end of the sofa. You know – that sunny spot on the soft cushion where I like to sit because I can see out of the window.

Down to where the little birdy-pies keep falling out of their nests, learning to fly.

Yum, yum…

So I gave her this look. Well, she deserved it. All I was trying to do was get her to move along a bit so I could take my nap. We cats need our naps. If I don’t have my nap, I get quite ratty.

So I just stood there looking at her. That is ALL I DID.

Oh, all right. I was glowering.

But she didn’t even notice. She was busy flicking through the new brochure from the College of Education. ‘What class shall I take?’ she kept asking Ellie. ‘What would suit me best? Art? Music? Great books? Dancing? Yoga?’

‘Do they have classes in fixing up old cars?’ said Ellie’s father. ‘If they do, that’s the one to take.’

He’s right. That car of theirs is an embarrassment. It’s a disgrace. It’s just a heap of bits that rattle along the road sounding like a giant shaking rocks in a tin drum, spewing out smoke. And they will never, ever have the money to buy a new one.

The best class for Ellie’s mother would be a ‘Build A New Car Out Of Air’ class. But I doubt if the college offers that.

I upped the glower a little – not out of nastiness, you understand. Simply to let her know I wasn’t standing there admiring her beauty. My legs were aching.

She looked up and saw me. ‘Oh, Tuffy! What a precious little crosspatch face!’

I’m like you. I hate being teased. So I just glowered some more.

Oh, all right. If you insist on knowing all of it, I hissed a bit.

And then I spat.

And, guess what? Suddenly she was diving into her bag and had whipped out her camera and taken a photo.

It didn’t show me at my best, I must admit. I looked a little grumpy.

And you could see a bit too much of my bared teeth.

And perhaps my claws looked a shade too large and pointy. And a bit stretched out, as if I were about to lean forward and take a chunk out of someone’s leg unless they shifted along the sofa a bit to let someone else on to the sunny patch.

No. Not the best photo of me.

But she seemed to like it. And it gave her an idea.

‘I know!’ she said. ‘I’ll take the art class. We do painting and pottery. But the first thing I’m going to do is a portrait of Tuffy just like the one in the photo. Won’t that be lovely?’

Oh, yes. Very lovely indeed. Lovely as mud.

2: Whoops!

SHE DID IT, too. Can you believe this woman? She actually managed to get that heap of scrap metal they park outside our house to burst into life. Then she drove off in it, waving, to her first art class.

And came back with a portrait of me.

I watched from the warm spot on the garden wall where I do a lot of my thinking.

‘Marvellous!’ said the traffic warden as Ellie’s mother was pulling the painting out of the back of the car. ‘A most realistic tiger.’

‘I say,’ Mr Harris from next door called over the hedge as it was being carried up the path. ‘I like that. Is it a poster for the new horror film they’re showing in town?’

‘Lovely!’ said Ellie’s father. ‘You’ve captured the look perfectly.’