Cats in the Belfry Read Free Page B

allowed to drink it standing on the table, out of a jug. We got over that by keeping her milk in the jug and filling our own cups surreptitiously, so as not to offend her, from the bottle, which we kept behind the bookcase. People said we were foolish, and we ought to make her drink out of a saucer. They didn't know Sugieh. She was the living example of an iron hand in a small, blue-pointed glove. The only thing she would drink out of a saucer was coffee – and that was only because the coffee cups were too small for her to get her head in.
    Â Â As for her yeast tablets – obviously Anna had indelibly impressed on her the importance of eating those regularly if she wanted to grow up a big strong cat and keep human beings in their place, but she ate them in such a revolting manner, with her face screwed up and her mouth open, dropping half-chewed tablets onto the carpet and then licking them up again, each time more soggy and repulsive-looking than the last, that we just dumped four of those in front of her every night and bolted into the kitchen, so that we wouldn't have to watch.

THREE
    Help! Kidnapped!

    W hen I went home one evening after Sugieh had been with us for about a month and announced that my firm wanted me to go to Liverpool on business and it would mean my being away overnight, Charles looked at me in horror. Who, he asked, was going to look after the cat?
    Â Â He was, I said brightly. There was nothing to it. Just give her shredded rabbit for supper, making sure there weren't any bones in it; fish for breakfast – be very careful about the bones in that and be sure it didn't boil over on the stove; change her earth-box night and morning – if she yelled at him with an urgent expression on her face it meant it wanted changing in-between as well; wipe her if she got wet; see that she didn't play with Mimi, who had designs on being the only Siamese in the district and was inclined to try to murder Sugieh if nobody was looking; make sure she had her yeast tablets and didn't stay out after dark; see that she didn't—
    Â Â At that moment there was a loud splash, followed by a wail. Sugieh, who had been looking for fresh fields to conquer ever since she was barred from the bathroom, had fallen down the lavatory. She couldn't have chosen a worse time to do it. If I had, even for a few brief seconds, hoped that Charles would agree to looking after her, that moment was now past. He took one look at her as I hauled her squirming and yelling from the depths, shuddered, and said he had just had an idea. We would ask my grandmother to have her for the night, then he could drive me up to Liverpool by car and we could both have a rest.
    Â Â My grandmother loved animals and had, fortunately, not encountered Sugieh to date, so we had no difficulty in fixing that up. What we hadn't bargained for was that since that first journey out from town, when she sat sedately on my lap watching the traffic with wide-eyed interest and occasionally – hypocrite that she was – smirking affectionately up into my face, Sugieh had developed a Thing about cars.
    Â Â The moment I got into the car with her the morning of that ill-fated trip, before Charles had even so much as pressed the starter, she began to yell: Charles patted her on the head as she sat on my lap and told her not to be a silly girl, she knew she liked carsy-warsies. With Sugieh, of course, that was just asking for trouble. By the time we got to the top of the hill leading to the main road she was standing on her hind legs, clawing frantically at the window and shrieking for help. Charles said it was the noise of the bottom gear upsetting her; once we got on the flat road she'd be all right. I have no doubt at all that Sugieh understood every word we said, because by the time we were halfway to town and the road had been flat as a pancake for miles all the other drivers were gesturing violently at us as they passed, threatening to