The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood Read Free

began to wash a pretty white paw.
    Tabitha Twitchit leaned forward and gave her a disapproving glare. “Felicia Frummety,” she said sternly, “you should be working, not napping. Hill Top Farm is simply swarming with rats. You have not been doing your job.”
    Tabitha, who lived with Mr. and Mrs. Crook at Belle Green, was in her third term as the president of the Village Cat Council. Her most important duty (at least she thought it was important, and perhaps you will agree) was supervising the other cats in the crucial business of keeping Near Sawrey free of rats, mice, voles, and other objectionable creatures. And Tabitha was the sort of cat who took her responsibilities seriously.
    Crumpet gave a sarcastic mew. “What? Miss Felicia Frummety, condescend to catch a rat? I doubt it, Tabitha. She’s afraid to get those pretty white paws dirty.”
    Tabitha sighed. “I fear you’re right, Crumpet.” She fixed Felicia Frummety with a long look of rebuke. “We seem to have a shirker in our midst.”
    “I am NOT a shirker!” Felicia exclaimed, annoyed. “I just don’t see the point of bothering with rats, that’s all.” She turned down her mouth in an expression of disgust. “A mouse is a sweet, delicate morsel, and nutritious, too. But rats—”
    She shuddered all the way down to the tip of her tail, which was exceedingly clean and white. “They’re tougher than old boot-leather, and covered with indigestible hair. They smell like a rubbish-bin, and they bite!”
    “Biting,” Crumpet said darkly, “is in the nature of rats.” She was quite out of patience with Felicia, a conceited young puss who gave herself airs. The other members of the Cat Council each took a turn at patrolling the gardens for voles—all but Felicia, who felt she was too good for what she disdainfully called “common alley work.”
    “Rats are formidable foes,” Tabitha said, in the tone of one who knows whereof she speaks, “and every cat worth her salt has been bitten more than once. We wear our scars proudly, as a badge of honor.” Now retired from active duty, Tabitha herself had one torn ear, a slash across her nose, and a missing claw, testimony to her reputation as a respected ratter. “But you have no scars, Felicia, for you are afraid of being bitten. Fear is not in the nature of cats. Cats,” she added emphatically, “have courage.”
    “ You may call me Miss Frummety, if you please,” Felicia retorted loftily. “And I am not afraid! Not two days ago, I chased a rat right down his rat-hole. I frightened him so thoroughly that he hasn’t shown a whisker since.”
    “Ha,” grunted Crumpet skeptically. “Probably skipped straight out the back way. You’re lucky he didn’t come round and bite that pretty tail of yours, MISS Frummety.”
    “Be that as it may, Felicia,” Tabitha said, “I have been instructed by the Council to inform you that you have been officially censured for your inability to keep Hill Top Farm free of rats. We have countenanced your refusal to participate in the nightly vole patrol, but dereliction of duty is intolerable.”
    Felicia arched her back, hissed, and jumped off the wall. “Dereliction of duty!” she spat furiously. “Rubbish!”
    Tabitha went on as if Felicia had not spoken. “Understanding that the situation at Hill Top is out of control, the council has authorized me to offer you a special assistant—a volunteer cat who will come in and help you get rid of the rats.”
    “Help ME!” Felicia exclaimed indignantly. “Stuff and nonsense. Hill Top Farm is my affair, and mine alone. You know the Rule, Tabitha Twitchit. No poaching on private property. So you and your council can keep your collective noses out of MY house, MY barn, and all MY outbuildings.” Having delivered this tart riposte, she twitched her gingery tail disdainfully and stalked off in the direction of the barn, her nose high in the air.
    “How . . . how insulting!” Tabitha sputtered heatedly. “The