Salem was as good as his word about mending his naughty ways. He began to help nervous little old lady cats across busy streets, and carried their shopping bags for them. He also made the three other Mighty Mousers behave themselves as well. Nathaniel, the black kitten with a white bib, helped schoolteacher cats organise lollipop patrols, whilst Jack ran useful errands, and Oliver began delivering copies of the Cat Gazette for a large can of salmon a week.
The pigeons living in the Catsville trees watched, and clucked together approvingly, and the big pigeon flew down to Roxanne's home to make regular reports.
‘He is really being very good,’ he cooed admiringly on one of his visits, a day or so after the kidnapping with the happy ending.
Roxanne smiled, because she rather liked Salem. ‘I hope he keeps it up.’
‘I'll help him,’ the pigeon cooed. He was a wise bird, and knew that chicks and kittens were only naughty when they had nothing to do. But he had also seen a lot of good plans tuck their heads under their wings and fall asleep. ‘I'll find him a challenge.’
A day or two later he was gossiping with a group of sparrows. Most pigeons considered them rather cheeky little birds, and much too nosy for their own good. But the big pigeon knew that they missed very little of what was going on in the world, and believed strongly in keeping his beak close to the bowl.
The sparrows told him some unpleasant tales about a gangster cat called Morgan and his dreadful wife Clarissa, living with a gang of nasty thin mangy cats in a hollow tree in a wood just outside Catsville. Morgan crept into Catsville at night with his gang to raid dustbins and rob cat larders, whilst Clarissa climbed trees to steal birds' eggs. They were both very clever as well as very bad, and always had lots of money.
‘She has promised him a prize goldfish for his birthday,’ one of the sparrows chirped. ‘She plans to serve it up with cat biscuits and cream sauce.’
The big pigeon listened with alarm. Many of the richer Catsville cats kept goldfish as pets, and every year they held a Prize Goldfish Contest to pick the best and most beautiful fish of all. Sometimes they also bought and sold goldfish in a special goldfish auction at the end of the Contest.
‘She must be planning to steal one,’ he thought to himself. ‘I'd better tell the cat police.’
He flew straight to the cat police station. But the duty cat police constable shooed him away.
‘We are watching Morgan and Clarissa very carefuly, and nobody is going to steal any goldfish at all,’ he miaowed sharply. He held a low opinion of pigeons, considering them messy, untidy creatures. ‘ecurity at the Prize Goldfish Contest is going to be very strict indeed.’
The big pigeon clucked disapprovingly to himself, and flew off to tell Salem.
‘Perhaps you and your friends can keep watch,’ he said.
Salem promised to organise special kitten patrols, and gathered Nathaniel, Jack and Oliver together to practise prowling and shadowing and stalking, so that they could be real experts by the time the Contest started.
The whole of Catsville buzzed with excitement when Contest Day came. Some cats brought very special exotic goldfish, with fanlike fins and tails, to the Catsville town hall in big smart bowls decorated with wavy green water plants, whilst other cats had goldfish in every colour of the rainbow.
Wise cats walked around making clever comments about breeding and colouring, whilst the goldfish blew bubbles at each other and traded notes about the brands of goldfish food they liked best. Some of the cats who could speak goldfish, and some of the goldfish who could speak cat, chatted together, or practised their languages - for goldfish is very hard to learn, being mostly bubbles, whilst fish find it generally very hard to purr.
The Mighty Mousers prowled slinky prowls. Salem stayed close to a very big bowl with a very exotic goldfish indeed because he knew a few bubbles and wanted to practise them. But the goldfish sniffed rather grandly.
‘You don't have to bother,’ he said rather rudely in very passable cat. ‘I speak your language very much better than you will ever speak mine.’ He bubbled out a very convincing purr to make his point, and Salem had to admit that he did speak cat pretty well, even if he spoke with rather a damp accent.
‘I'm going to win first prize,’ the goldfish continued. ‘I won last year, fins down, no contest. I'm the only fish here who can speak really good cat, and I'm the only goldfish in the world who can change into other kinds of fish.’
Salem was most impressed. ‘What kinds of fish?’, he asked.
‘Well, I have to stick to my own size, more or less’, the goldfish explained. ‘I can't do a very good whale, or shark. But watch this.’ He took a deep breath, and began to turn a greyish colour all over, and then from grey to black.
‘Now I'll tuck my fins in’, he said, folding all his fins neatly, except for a small one on his back, and sinking to the floor of his bowl, so that he looked rather like a big black pebble.
‘See?’, he bubbled. ‘Now I'm a puffer fish, and I'm deadly poisonous.’
He puffed a couple of times, and then began to change back, though it took him a minute or two to unfold his fins again and recover his normal gold and silver and orange colouring.
Salem miaowed admiringly.
‘Yes, I do think I'm rather special.’ The goldfish fluttered his tail to work away a last shade of grey. ‘People call me Brilliant Timothy. My cat family want to find me a really beautiful girl goldfish so that we can start a special new breed of our own.’
Salem was just about to ask some more questions when he noticed Morgan and Clarissa approaching, so he hid instead.
The two gangster cats stopped at Timothy's bowl. ‘This is the one, Morgan, my love,’ Clarissa purred in a nasty voice. ‘Isn't he beautiful?’ She sat down and began to scratch herself. She was long, and thin, and a sort of dirty grey colour, and her tail looked like a bit of dirty string.
‘Oh, he looks really delicious, Clarissa, my love.’ Morgan licked his lips hungrily. He was a fierce looking Manx, with a ring in his right ear and no tail at all. ‘He's the most scrumptious goldfish I've ever seen in my life.’
Brilliant Timothy smiled a dazzling goldfish smile, because he thought Morgan and Clarissa were being nice. But Salem shivered, and hair stood up all along his back.
Then the judges arrived. Brilliant Timothy delicately flared his fins, swam round his bowl in elegant patterns, and made a little speech in his very best cat. All the judges were most impressed.
They whispered together for a moment, and then the chief judge took a big red and gold rosette marked 'First Prize' and stuck it to his bowl.
The cat goldfish owners all purred in agreement, and all the other goldfish blew happy bubbles, because goldfish are never jealous.
Morgan the gangster cat, and Clarissa, his dreadful wife, licked their whiskers. They had moved away from Timothy's bowl, and were now talking to a shifty looking Siamese in a dark corner. Salem tried to creep up close, to hear what they were saying, but Morgan spat at him fiercely and hissed, and he was forced to back away, because he knew that he was no match for three big bad cats.
However he did hear some counting, and saw Clarissa hand the Siamese a bag. Then the Siamese hurried off looking very pleased with itself. Salem miaowed to himself with frustration.
Fortunately Nathaniel prowled past a few minutes later.
‘Watch these two,’ Salem whispered, explaining about the Siamese. ‘I must go and find him, before he does something wicked.’
He hurried away, to find the cat goldfish owners holding an auction at the other end of the town hall. He reached the auction just in time to see the auctioneer sell Brilliant Timothy to the Siamese.
Salem was horrified. ‘Stop! Stop the sale!’, he shouted.
All the cats turned to look at him.
‘He's just bought Timothy for Clarissa and Morgan,’ he explained. ‘Clarissa wants to serve Timothy up with cat biscuits and cream sauce.’
Brilliant Timothy, who had just changed hands for a very large sum in sardine notes, turned a pale shade of greyish green.
The Siamese looked fierce. ‘He's mine,’
Salem looked at the cat auctioneer imploringly. ‘He cheated.’
‘I did not,’ hissed the Siamese. ‘I bought him fairly and squarely.’
The cat auctioneer nodded sadly. ‘I'm sorry. He did.’
Salem felt like crying. He lay down and buried his nose sadly in his front paws, and thought of Roxanne, and wondered what she would do at a time like this.
Then he had a brilliant idea. The cat goldfish owners were now all busy watching another goldfish being auctioned, and the Siamese had gone off to the auction office to pay for Timothy.
He crept up to Timothy's bowl. ‘You're going to have to do your puffer fish trick again,’ he whispered.
Timothy bubbled silently. He looked much too frightened to do anything except float greyly in the middle of his tank.
‘Turn into a puffer fish, and Morgan will be much too frightened to eat you,’ Salem explained. ‘He may even put you back into the sale.’
Timothy shivered. ‘I'm not sure I can,’ he said very nervously. ‘I'm so scared. I don't want to be eaten, really I don't.’
‘Come on, of course you can.’ Salem stared at Timothy, willing him to be brave. ‘Remember, you're the only puffer goldfish in the world.’
Timothy closed his eyes and stopped bubbling. For a moment his underside began to darken from silver to grey. But then it went green again.
‘I can't do it,’ he sobbed. ‘I'm too frightened.’
Salem was a kindhearted kitten. But he felt that it was now time for desperate measures.
‘Cat biscuits and cream sauce,’ he miaowed.
Timothy turned even greener. He closed his eyes again, and his underside began to darken again, and in a minute he was almost pitch black and folding his fins neatly around him. A moment later he was a large black pebble on the floor of his tank.
‘Stay like that,’ Salem ordered, and hurried off to find the Siamese.
He found him in a corner again with Morgan and Clarissa, with all three looking very pleased with themselves.
Salem walked straight up to them. ‘Timothy has turned into a poisonous puffer fish,’ he miaowed.
The three bad cats glared at him.
‘Push off, kitten,’ growled Morgan’
‘Come and look, if you don't believe me,’ replied Salem, staying well out of claw reach.
The three bad cats followed him reluctantly to where Timothy was still lying folded up on the floor of his tank.
Morgan, Clarissa and the Siamese stared at the tank in dismay.
‘What have you done to my scrumptious dinner?’, howled Morgan in a fury.
‘What am I going to do with my cat biscuits and cream sauce?’, wept Clarissa.
Then they both turned on the Siamese.
‘This is all your fault’, they both screamed, and began boxing the Siamese unmercifully. ‘It was your idea to buy him in the auction, and now we've spent all our money on a horrid poisonous puffer fish. What are we expected to do with him now?’
An elegantly brushed cat with a gold medal on a thin gold chain around his neck stepped forward to separate them. ‘Perhaps I can help.’ He smiled politely. ‘I have a small travelling circus, and I'm always looking for animals that can do tricks.’
Timothy began to turn from black to grey.
‘Will you buy him?’, cried the Siamese, patting a big bump on his forehead.
‘I'll give you what you paid for him,’ answered the elegant cat, pulling out his wallet.
He was just about to hand some ten sardine notes to the Siamese when Clarissa snatched them out of its paw.
‘That's mine,’ she screamed, and the three bad cats ran off, hissing at each other.
Timothy was now back to his normal goldfish self. ‘I think I'll start practising being a shark’, he said brightly, as the photographer from the Cat Gazette began taking pictures of him from every possible angle.
Naturally the story of Brilliant Timothy, the fantastic changing goldfish, was front page news in the Cat Gazette next day, and the newspaper also published a large picture of Salem, together with a glowing account of his rescue.
Everyone in Catsville queued up to congratulate him. But Salem seemed to be waiting.
Then a car stopped outside his home at teatime. Roxanne's father got out, followed by Roxanne with her prettiest ribbons tied around her neck. He held out his paw.
‘Congratulations, Salem’, he purred. ‘Roxanne thinks you're a rather wonderful young cat, and I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps you'd like to come to tea?’
Roxanne blushed, and Salem was almost too tongue-tied to reply. The big pigeon, perched on a nearby branch, had to prompt him into stammering a polite acceptance. Then he blushed in turn as Roxanne gently kissed him on the tip of his small pink nose.