The Cat Who Came in Off the Roof Read Free

up everything he’d typed in a rage and rummage through the drawers in search of his peppermints. He had the idiotic idea that he couldn’t think or write without a peppermint, but meanwhile it was getting later and later.
    “I should actually go back out,” he said. “To see if anything’s happening anywhere. Something I can write about. But Idon’t think anyone’s out on the street any more with this weather. Strange that Fluff’s staying out on the roof so long. Usually he comes back a lot sooner. I think I’ll just go to bed. Tomorrow I’ll go up to the boss and say, ‘I’m sorry, you’re right. I don’t have what it takes to be a newspaperman.’ And he’ll say, ‘Yes, I think it would be best if you started looking for something else.’ And that will be that. I’ll go and look for another job.”
    There was a quiet noise in the kitchen.
    It was the bin.
    “That’s Fluff,” Tibble said. “The scrounger! He’s trying to get the fish bones out of the bin. Even though he’s already had a whole fish. I’d better go have a look, otherwise he’ll tip the whole bin over and I’ll have to clean it all up.”
    Tibble got up and opened the door to the kitchen.
    He was shocked by what he saw.
    It wasn’t Fluff. It was a woman. The young lady from the tree, who was now digging around in his rubbish bin. There was only one way she could have got in—through the window that opened out onto the roof.
    The moment she heard him, she spun around just as she was stuffing a big fish skeleton into her mouth with her paws. No, no… with her
hands
, Tibble thought immediately, but she looked so much like a wet, timid stray cat that he’d almost gone, “Psssst, scat!” But he didn’t say a word.
    She took the bones back out of her mouth and gave him a friendly smile. Her green eyes were slightly slanted.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just sitting on the roof with your cat Fluff. And it smelt so delicious. That’s why I stepped in through the window for a moment. He’s still out there.”
    She had a very respectable and ladylike way of talking. But she was soaked through. Her red hair was stuck to her head in clumps and her jacket and skirt were sopping and formless.
    And suddenly he felt so sorry for her. She was just like a sad, half-drowned cat. A hungry stray!
    “I’m afraid we ate all the fish,” Tibble said. “But if you like… I could give you a sauc—” He’d almost said a saucer of milk. “… A glass of milk. And a sandwich perhaps? With sardines?”
    “Yes, please,” she said politely, but meanwhile she was dizzy and wild-eyed with hunger.
    “Perhaps you can put that back then,” Tibble said, pointing at the skeleton in her hand.
    She dropped it in the bin. And there she sat, shy and wet on a kitchen chair, watching Tibble open a tin of sardines.
    “May I ask your name?” Tibble said.
    “Minou.
Miss
Minou.”
    “I’m—”
    “Mr Tibble,” she said. “I know.”
    “Just Tibble. Everyone calls me Tibble.”
    “If you don’t mind, I’d rather stick to
Mr
Tibble.”
    “What were you doing up on the roof?” he asked.
    “I um… I was looking for a job.”
    Tibble looked at her with surprise. “On the roof?”
    But she didn’t answer. The sandwiches were ready. Tibble went to put the plate down on the floor, but changed his mind. She probably eats like a person, he thought. And he was right. She ate her sandwiches very daintily with little bites and nibbles.
    “You have a job at the newspaper,” she said between mouthfuls . “But not for long.”
    “How do you know that?” Tibble cried.
    “It’s what I heard,” she said. “That article didn’t work out. The one about me up the tree. Too bad.”
    “Now, stop right there,” Tibble said. “I’d like very much to know who told you that. I haven’t spoken to anyone about that at all.”
    He waited until her mouth was empty. It was the last bite. She picked up the last crumbs with a finger and licked it