Cats in the Belfry Read Free Page A

like a flue brush. All the thanks I got, too, for assuring him that it really was a squirrel and not the first sign of DTs, was that he made a gate-to-gate tour of the village telling everybody I was potty. What they would say when they heard I went round now with a screaming cat on my head I shuddered to think.
    Â Â When Sugieh's feet toughened up and she began to venture outside on her own we had more trouble. The first time she went into the garden unaccompanied she climbed up to the garage roof, slid down the back slope and fell into the water-butt. She got out by herself, stalked into the house stiff-legged with indignation and delivered such a harangue, while green, stagnant water dripped steadily off her tail onto our poor Indian carpet, that Charles slunk out in self-defence and made a cover for the butt on the spot. Unfortuntately the next time she went into the bathroom and saw Charles lying in the bath she remembered her own narrow escape, gave one horrified yell, and plunged in to the rescue. Charles had his eyes shut at the time and when Sugieh landed on his stomach screeching like a banshee it frightened him so much he leapt up and nearly stunned himself on the first-aid cabinet, which had been fixed over the bath in the first place to keep it out of Blondin's reach.
    Â Â After that Sugieh fell into the bath so often trying to save us from drowning that we had to tie a notice to the taps reminding us to lock the door before we turned them on. Then – presumably to counteract the effect of getting wet so much – she took to standing, when she talked to us, with her rear bang up against the electric fire. Twice she caught the tip of her tail alight, though she was so busy lecturing us she never noticed it. On each occasion Charles threw himself across the room in a magnificent rugby tackle and put out the flame before it touched her skin, but he said it was bad for his heart at his age, and it wasn't doing mine much good either. In the end we had to buy small-mesh guards that completely spoiled the look of any room they were in, and tie them to every fire in the house with string.
    Â Â Worst of all was the problem of food. When she lived with Anna, Sugieh had, it seemed, eaten her prescribed two cereal meals, two meat meals and four yeast tablets a day with meek obedience. But not with us. As from the second day, by which time she had summed us up as a couple of suckers and dead easy to handle, she refused to eat any more cereal. When we had liver, which she was supposed to have not more than once a week, or bacon which she wasn't supposed to have at all, she sat on the breakfast table, no matter who else was there, and dribbled like Oliver Twist. On the other hand she ate rabbit – which was good for her and so cheap at that time that the butcher looked pained if I asked for less than a pound – only when the spirit moved her, so that I was for ever tipping dishes of turned-off meat into the lane for the benefit of less fortunate little cats. Needless to say as soon as the less fortunate little cats arrived Sugieh went out, elbowed her way through the crowd and scoffed the rabbit with such gusto that one old lady practically wore a groove in the front path coming in to tell us that our dear little cat was eating scraps in the lane, and did we think perhaps we didn't give her enough to eat?
    Â Â She condescended to eat a little steak occasionally, but even then it had to be tossed to her piece by piece, and aimed so that it landed directly in front of her. If it dropped so much as an inch beyond her reach she ignored it. If it fell on her fur she ran upstairs and hid under the bed, screaming that we had hit her. If we put down a whole plateful of food at any time she shook her back leg delicately in the gesture she used to indicate she had finished with her earth-box and walked away with her ears sleeked back in horror at our grossness.
    Â Â She liked milk, but only if she was