1: THE MIGHTY MOUSERS

 

 

   Once upon a time there was a cat town called Catsville. Nearly all the inhabitants were cats (though there was also a colony of sheep, who mowed the lawns in the park, a crowd of assorted pigeons and sparrows living in the trees around the square in front of Catsville town hall, and a special animal hotel for the occasional rabbit or dog that might come to Catsville on business).

   Cats ran everything - cats with neatly brushed coats worked in the shops and offices, tabby cats with bushy tails swept the streets, and smart black police cats wrote parking tickets by day and kept Catsville safe at night. The shops all stocked catfood and cat preferences like fish and liver and cream, and cat doctors and nurses looked after any sick cats in a special cats' hospital.

   Most of the Catsville cats were good cats who respected their neighbours, and behaved themselves. But some of their kittens were rather mischievous, and four of the most mischievous kittens formed themselves into a gang called 'The Mighty Mousers' during one summer holidays. The Mighty Mousers all came from good homes, but they made a thorough pest of themselves, waiting at street corners to pounce on unsuspecting passers-by, and occasionally frightening nervous little old lady cats quite out of their wits.

   They also annoyed the smart black police cats, who ticked the four kittens off sharply, and threatened to report them to their parents if they continued misbehaving. So the four kittens switched to climbing trees, much to the annoyance of the Catsville pigeons and sparrows, who felt that kittens belonged on the ground.

   The pigeons were so upset that they even organised a feathered protest meeting, and dropped a letter of complaint outside the cats' police station. But the cat police replied that they were much too busy keeping order to bother about worried birds, and some privately discussed recipes for pigeon pie.

   One day the Mighty Mousers met to plan some new mischief. They knew one of the pigeon families had just hatched out a clutch of eggs, and they thought it might be fun to climb the pigeons' tree and frighten the baby pigeon chicks.

   They lay on the bank of a stream running through Catsville, lazily trying to catch fish with their front paws as they plotted.

   ‘Maybe we could creep up on them unawares and miaow at them suddenly,’ said Nathaniel, a black kitten with a white bib. Nathaniel's father sold fast cars, and Nathaniel liked chases and surprises.

   Salem, a handsome grey Persian and chief Mighty Mouser, shook his head. ‘I've a much better idea,’ he purred. ‘I think we should kidnap them. We can climb up in a gang, one day when the mother and father pigeon are away looking for food, and bring the chicks back down with us. Then we can ask their parents to pay ransom for them in nice fat sardines.’

   He swished his left front paw at a passing minnow as he spoke, but the minnow was much too quick for him, and fled with a quick flick of its tail.

   ‘Why don't we just eat them?’, asked Oliver, a hungry-looking tabby kitten who came from a poor home, and was always half-starved. ‘My tummy is rumbling, and I could do with a snack.’

   Jack, the fourth kitten, began to lick his lips hopefully.

   Salem turned down his whiskers - it was his way of showing that he disapproved. ‘We'd get into trouble,’ he miaowed sharply. ‘My dad plays cat golf with Inspector Black, the head of the Catsville police, and he'd be very angry. He might get Inspector Black to lock us all up.’

   The other Mighty Mousers all looked very alarmed. The lock-up at the Catsville police station was very cold, and cat prisoners had to sleep on a bare concrete floor and eat very cheap catfood.

   Salem called a vote, and Nathaniel and Jack both backed his kidnap plan. Oliver went on grumbling about eating the chicks, but the three other Mighty Mousers told him to shut up, and they agreed to raid the pigeons' nest early next morning.

   The four met as it was just starting to grow light. Salem arrived at the pigeon's tree with a little basket smelling strongly of fish strapped to his collar. He held out half a sardine to Oliver.

   ‘Here's some breakfast for you.’ He knew that Oliver never ate breakfast, and that half a nice fat sardine was the only way to keep him under control.

   Oliver ate the fish hungrily. But he still looked naughty as he licked the last morsel from his whiskers. ‘I'm going to eat chicks, if I want to eat chicks,’ he muttered to himself under his breath. ‘Some cats really don't know what it's like to go without.’

   The Mighty Mousers began to sharpen their claws. Each took it in turn to stretch up against a tree and claw it busily, because they needed sharp claws for climbing, and then they practised getting off the ground.

   Finally, when they were all ready, they trooped off towards the pigeons' tree, with Salem in front as the chief Mighty Mouser, and Nathaniel - who had extra-sharp ears - at the back as a guard.

   Salem sniffed at the tree carefully, and then climbed in a rush, gathering himself into a tight ball and catapulting himself up the side to a handy branch in a flash of grey fur. The three other Mighty Mousers followed.

   The pigeons' nest was very quiet. The four kittens peered in over a rim of woven twigs at four little pigeon chicks cowering together in a clump of quivering grey feathers, and Salem poked in a paw.

   He prodded the nearest chick gently. ‘You, my fine-feathered friend, are coming with me,’ he miaowed softly.

   ‘Oh, dear pussy, sweet pussy, please don't eat me. I'm sure you're going to eat me.’ The pigeon chick was sobbing, and trying its best to bury its head under its tiny wing.

   Salem sniffed. He was not really a cruel kitten at heart, and the chick's tears made him feel very guilty. But the three other Mighty Mousers were watching him, and Oliver was licking his lips. ‘We're not going to eat you,’ he replied gruffly. ‘We're just going to take you down to the ground and get your parents to buy you back.’

   ‘You're going to eat us. We're sure you're going to eat us.’ The four chicks began to sob together in a chorus of tiny squawks.

    Oliver eyed them with an evil leer.

   ‘Come on, out of here.’ Salem prodded again. He did not much like being up in a tree, and wanted to get back onto firm ground. The chick was still sobbing, so he took it gently by the back of its neck, held it against his chest, and slid down the tree again.

   Oliver and the two other kittens followed. Oliver showed signs of wanting to run off, but Salem made him carry his chick to a den the kittens had made in long grass by the stream.

   ‘We'll tell the pigeons they must pay a sardine for each chick,’ he told the other kittens.

   ‘Plus a sardine for luck,’ Oliver added quickly.

   Salem nodded. Five sardines seemed a fair kidnap ransom. But he decided to put Nathaniel in charge of the den, because Oliver had begun licking his lips again in a most alarming way, and it was plain that he had no mind to be patient.

   Then he padded softly back to the pigeons' tree. Two pigeons were now sitting on the edge of the nest, weeping bitterly, whilst a number of other pigeons were either trying to console them, or flying round and round in anxious little circles.

   Salem cleared his throat. ‘Ahoy up there. I'm the head of the Mighty Mousers, and we've kidnapped your chicks.’ He had to miaow at the top of his voice, because the pigeons were making quite a noise.

   There was a sudden hush. The pigeons all looked down at him. One began to sharpen its beak, but two others held it back.

   ‘We want five sardines. Give us five sardines, and you can have your chicks back.’

   The pigeons began to squawk angrily. ‘We can't. We don't have sardines. We don't know what they are.’

   Salem shifted uneasily from one front paw to the other. He thought of Oliver licking his lips, and tried again. ‘They're fish. They're good to eat.’

   ‘We eat grain, we don't eat fish.’ A big pigeon flew down to settle on a branch a little above Salem, just out of jumping reach. ‘We can give you some bits of biscuit. It's all we have.’

   Salem felt his paws grow cold. He had a vision of Oliver with a mouthful of grey feathers, and he shivered, even though it was a hot summer day. ‘You must get me some sardines from a cat shop.’ His voice trembled a little.

   ‘We can't shop in cat shops.’ The pigeon's voice was very sad.

    Something moved at Salem's side, and he realised that another cat was standing beside him. He looked at the newcomer out of the corner of his eye, frightened that it might be a black police cat. But the newcomer was a girl, a pretty tortoiseshell Persian, about the same age as himself.

   Salem swallowed. He knew the girl was called Roxanne, because she was in the same kitten class as himself at school, and he had tried talking to her once or twice, because she was so pretty. But she had always turned up  her whiskers and ignored him.

   ‘Why are those poor birds so upset?’, she asked in a very soft, gentle purr.

   Salem blushed to the roots of his fur. ‘We've kidnapped four pigeon chicks, and we're holding them to ransom. They've got to pay us five sardines.’

   ‘But we don't have any sardines,’ the big pigeon explained again, and now tears were running down his feathers.

   The girl cat frowned. ‘Don't you think you're very cruel?’ It was plain that she disapproved strongly.

   Salem did not know what to say. It had all started out as such an adventure, and now he felt like a real criminal. He looked down at his front paws and hung his head.

   The girl Persian felt in her fur, and took out a little purse, rummaged in it for a moment, and took out a five sardine note. She held it out to Salem. ‘Take this, and bring the chicks back here,’ she said.

   Salem hesitated.

   ‘Go on, do it straight away.’ Her miaow was very sharp.

   Salem hurried back to the den. He found Oliver waiting hungrily at the entrance.

   ‘Where are the sardines?’ Oliver was holding his chick tightly against him, almost suffocating the poor little bird.

   Salem held up the five sardine note. ‘They've paid this as ransom,’ he said. ‘We're taking the chicks back.’

   The four Mighty Mousers carried the pigeon chicks back to the foot of the tree. A group of pigeons had gathered on the ground to wait for them, but the rich girl Persian cat was nowhere to be seen.

   Salem looked around in alarm.

   ‘Your friend has gone, but she left a message.’ The big pigeon had stopped crying, and now looked quite cheerful as he watched his companions gather the chicks up on their wings to airlift them back to their nest. For a moment the air was filled with the sound of pigeons shouting and screaming with joy.

   ‘She told me to tell you that she thinks you are a good kitten at heart, but that you have fallen into bad ways,’ he went on. ‘She said you must stop being naughty, and learn to be good, and then perhaps she'll talk to you one day at kitten school.’ He smiled a big pigeon smile. ‘I'm sure you'll try very hard.’

   Then he flapped his wings, and the next moment he was gone, winging his way upwards to join all the other pigeons.

   Nathaniel and Jack and Oliver eyed Salem enquiringly.

   Salem thought for a minute, and then arched his back, and straightened his tail, and stood very proud. It was plain that he had made a very important decision.

   ‘From now on I'm going to be a good kitten, instead of a Mighty Mouser’, he said. ‘Oliver can have my sardine, as well as his own. From now on I'm going to do good deeds.’ He tossed his tail, and strolled off, his mind full of a pretty tortoiseshell girl Persian, to start practising. He had made up his mind to be quite the very best kitten in Catsville.