The Killer Cat's Birthday Bash Read online

  Books by Anne Fine

  The Diary of a Killer Cat

  The Return of the Killer Cat

  The Killer Cat Strikes Back

  The Killer Cat’s Birthday Bash

  Jennifer’s Diary

  Loudmouth Louis

  Notso Hotso

  Only a Show

  The Same Old Story Every Year

  Stranger Danger?

  The Worst Child I Ever Had

  For older readers

  A Pack of Liars

  Crummy Mummy and Me

  Flour Babies

  Goggle-Eyes

  Madame Doubtfire

  Step by Wicked Step

  The Tulip Touch

  ANNE FINE

  The Killer Cat’s

  Birthday Bash

  Illustrated by Steve Cox

  PUFFIN

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi − 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published 2008

  1

  Text copyright © Anne Fine, 2008

  Illustrations copyright © Steve Cox, 2008

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

  means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written

  permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

  978-0-14-191763-4

  Contents

  1: Not my fault

  2: ‘You talkin’ ’bout me?’

  3: No dogs

  4: Ghosts in the closet

  5: When poodles fly

  6: Not long now

  7: Spooking the horses

  8: Here comes Ugly Club

  9: Terrifying Beast

  10: The very best of shows

  1: Not my fault

  OKAY, OKAY. SO spank my furry little bum. I held a party.

  And, go ahead. Stuff me with sorry pills. It all ended up a bit of a mess.

  Well, more than a mess. A disaster.

  Well, more than a disaster. A real riot.

  But it was not my fault. If Ellie hadn’t got so bored she rooted through the cupboard and found that old photograph album, I would never have known the date of my birthday. None of it would have happened.

  So you blame Ellie. Don’t blame me.

  2: ‘You talkin’ ’bout me?’

  IT WAS A horrible day. Horrible. The rain was splattering against the window panes. The wind was howling. So Ellie lay face down on the rug and flicked over the pages of the album.

  ‘Oooh, Dad! Here’s one of you the day you tumbled in that muddy ditch.’

  (Best place for the man, if you want my opinion.)

  ‘Oooh, Mum! Come and look at this photo. Your hair looks lovely.’

  (On Planet No-Style, maybe. But not here.)

  On and on Ellie went, squealing away like that baby mouse Tiger and I gave such a good fright behind the wheelie bin. In the end I decided I couldn’t stand it any more, and made for the door.

  Just then she squealed again. ‘Oh, here’s one of Tuffy! Doesn’t he look sweeeeeeeet?’

  I turned to give her one of my ‘you talkin’ ’bout me?’ looks. She didn’t even notice. She was too busy oohing and aahing and fussing and cooing. ‘Oh,

  come and look at this, Mum. Tuffy looks so cute!’

  I’m not going to hang my head in shame and make excuses for myself. Back then I was a ball of fluff. I was a kitten. Baby kittens are sweet.

  Ellie picked out another photo. ‘Oh, look! Tuffy is gorgeous!’

  I couldn’t help it; I was curious. So I strolled back to take a look. And sure enough, there was this photo of me, all huge and trusting eyes, and fur around me like a fluffy cloud. I looked like something off one of those soppy birthday cards your great-aunt sends to your mother.

  I nearly threw up. But Ellie was pointing to the writing underneath the photo as she read it aloud.

  ‘Our enchanting new kitten. Born on 31st October.’

  She looked at her mother. ‘It’s October now,’ she said. ‘That means it’s nearly Tuffy’s birthday.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Ellie’s mother.

  I thought so too. But Ellie’s father had to introduce a sour note into this warm family moment.

  ‘31st October?’ he said. ‘Isn’t that Halloween? The time when everything evil and ugly and dangerous crawls out to stalk the land.’ He snorted. ‘A very suitable day indeed for Tuffy’s birthday!’

  Rude man. But did I bother to give him the blink? No. I was too busy thinking.

  31st October. My birthday, eh?

  Then why not hold a party?

  Well, why not?

  3: No dogs

  ‘RIGHT,’ BELLA SAID. ‘First we must decide on where we’re holding this birthday bash of yours.’

  ‘My house, of course,’ I told them.

  ‘It’s my birthday and my party, so we’ll have it at my house.’

  Bella sighed. ‘Have you forgotten what day it’s going to be?’

  ‘No,’ I said, and couldn’t help turning sarcastic. ‘Unless I just happened to step out tonight without my brain, it’s on 31st October.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Bella. ‘And that’s the night your family plans to hold a big Halloween party for everyone on the street.’

  ‘Really?’ I was astonished. ‘News to me.’ I turned to Tiger. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘Sure I knew,’ Tiger told me. ‘This morning I was just sitting minding my own business on the front door mat when the invitation came through the letter box and fell on my head.’ He ran a paw over his fur. ‘I can still feel the lump.’

  ‘I knew too,’ Snowball told me. ‘My family have already fetched their dressing-up box down from the attic.’ She scowled. ‘And Tanya thought it would be amusing to put a bonnet on me.’

  ‘What did you do?’ asked Tiger.

  ‘Scratched her, of course,’ said Snowball. ‘Really hard. She won’t try that again.’

  Everyone chuckled, except for me. I wasn’t in the mood.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ I grumbled. ‘You live in a house for years. They feed you, try to cuddle you and make you think that you’re a member of the family. And then they send party invitations all round the town without even mentioning it in front of you!’

  Bella could tell my feelings had been hurt. ‘Perhaps you simply weren’t around to hear them talking about it,’ she suggested soothingly.

  I thoug
ht back over the week. It’s true I had spent most of every day out scaring squirrels. And every evening out with the gang. In fact, when I thought about it, I’d only stepped inside to see what sort of grub they’d put in my dish before deciding whether I’d rather stroll down to the fish shop and knock the lid off their waste bin.

  But still, I felt a bit sore. If my own family had decided to hold a party, you would have thought they might choose to celebrate my birthday, not stupid Halloween.

  No. I was miffed enough to take a stand.

  ‘Right, then,’ I said. ‘We’ll have my party somewhere else. How about round the recycling bins?’

  ‘Bit dangerous,’ warned Bella. ‘All those cars backing up in the dark to dump their papers and bottles.’

  ‘Under the scout hut?’

  ‘You’re joking,’ Tiger said. ‘It’s really hard to squeeze in through that hole, and then it’s freezing.’

  So that settled it.

  ‘All right,’ I told them. ‘We’ll hold my birthday bash in the Fletchers’ barn.’

  ‘That means we’ll have to invite the horses too.’

  Everyone groaned. Horses. Just think about them. Cloppy great feet. Giant black nostrils you could climb up inside and then get lost. Legs as knobbly as Granny’s furniture. Basically, a horse is just a huge pudgy barrel on great long matchstick legs, with feet like upturned teacups.

  Party animals? I don’t think so! But you can’t hold a party in someone else’s home, and not invite them.

  ‘Okay, then. Horses it is.’

  ‘What about dogs?’ asked Bella.

  We all turned to stare.

  ‘Dogs?’ Tiger said, and shuddered. (He’d only just got down from the last tree young Buster had chased him up.) ‘No. Absolutely not.’

  Snowball is more of a softie. ‘Not even that harmless little thing from Laurel Way that looks like a tiny toilet brush on legs, and is so soppy it can’t even jump off a bed?’

  ‘No,’ Tiger said. ‘Not even that one. If any dogs are invited, I’m not coming.’

  So that was settled, then. No dogs.

  4: Ghosts in the closet

  ON THE WAY home, I hatched a little plan to pay my family back.

  More fond of ghoulies and ghosties than of their own pussy cat, were they?

  Well, I’d show them.

  I sidled through the back door, then up the stairs and into Ellie’s bedroom. Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes was sitting up in bed, reading a book.

  I jumped up beside her and snuggled.

  ‘Oooh, Tuffy!’ she said. ‘You are so nice and sweet and cuddly.’

  I kept my temper. It nearly choked me but I even managed to cough out a purr.

  ‘Oh, Tuffy,’ she said again. ‘I love it when you’re all contented and cosy, and fall asleep in my arms.’

  I kept my eyes closed and I counted to ten. Then, just as she lifted her arm to turn her page, I sprang to my feet and stared at the closet.

  Ellie raised her eyes from the book. ‘What is it, Tuffy?’

  I arched my back, and kept up the mad stare.

  ‘Come on, Tuffy,’ Ellie soothed. ‘It’s just the closet. The only things inside it are clothes and shoes.’

  I gave her a quick ‘don’t you believe it’ blink, and made my hair shoot up on end.

  Now she was getting nervous. ‘Tuffy?’

  She slid out of bed and went towards the closet.

  ‘Yoooooowwwwwwwwllllll!’

  It was the clearest message not to go a single step closer. You didn’t have to be a cat to understand: Whatever you do, don’t open that closet door!

  Terrified, Ellie fled downstairs.

  I took a break. Then, when she came up again a few minutes later, holding her parents’ hands, I sprang back into ‘Terrified Cat Staring At Ghosts In The Closet’ mode.

  You could tell from the look on Ellie’s father’s face that she had dragged the two of them away from something rather good on telly. He gave the most perfunctory glance around the room, then glowered at me.

  I kept up the arched back and the stiffened fur, and stared at the closet.

  Ellie’s mother slid the closet door open. She pushed the clothes hanging from the rail to one side and peered in. ‘Nothing strange in here.’

  ‘Check the other side,’ begged Ellie. (She was really scared.)

  Ellie’s mother checked the other side. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Check both sides at once,’ insisted Ellie. So under her orders Mr Grumpy-Wumpy poked his head in on one side and Mrs A-Whole-Lot-Nicer poked her head in on the other, and they flapped all the clothes about.

  ‘Ellie, there’s nothing unusual in here.’

  I gathered myself up, did a frantic little ‘I am terrified’ dance and spat at the closet.

  Ellie burst into tears and shouted angrily, ‘Well, Tuffy doesn’t seem to think there’s nothing in there! And animals are famous for seeing ghosts.’

  ‘Because they’re stupid,’ Ellie’s father said, still glaring at me.

  Oh, very friendly. So I spat again, taking good care to make it land on his trousers.

  Ellie’s mother could see that, at this rate, we would be up all night. ‘You’d better come and sleep with me,’ she said to Ellie. ‘And Dad can go in the spare bed.’

  Ha, ha. I spend a lot of time on that spare bed. But I can curl up. I wouldn’t care to sleep in it if I was long and thin like him. It’s just Lump City, that old bed.

  He knew it too. On his way out, he gave me a pretty mean look. I put on a snooty air and tried to show him by the way I stalked past that that is what you get for choosing not to hold a party for your own precious pussy.

  Ghosts in the closet and lumps in the bed. That’s what you get. And serves you right.

  5: When poodles fly

  THE COUNTDOWN BEGAN. If you’re a friend of mine, it was a countdown to my birthday. If you are not, it was a countdown to Halloween.

  I did a good bit of sulking.

  Okay, okay! So I did more than sulk.

  I brought in dead things while they were eating lunch, and shed hairs over their pillow cases, and scratched great holes in all their precious carpets.

  All in all, I had an excellent week.

  Finally the big day came. Early that afternoon, the family drove off to get the stuff for their party. I’d seen the list. Food. Scary decorations. Halloween masks… I’d scoured it from top to bottom several times but hadn’t seen the very important words ‘A present for Tuffy’. And that could not have been because they didn’t have the money, because when they came back with armfuls of expensive shopping I saw they’d splashed out on something that wasn’t even on the list.

  A floodlight for the front of the house.

  He’s not the world’s best handyman. So when I saw him going to the tool cupboard to find the things he needed to wire it up, I thought it wiser to leave.

  It was a bad time to be out and about. Just before dark. Dogs everywhere, all being taken out for the last proper walk before their families sit down to supper. That’s the worst thing about dogs. Everything they do makes trouble for others. Think about it. When they get bored with staying home and doing all the stupid things they do — ‘Come!’ ‘Beg!’ Fetch!’ ‘Down!’ —they have to make a nuisance of themselves fussing and whimpering to get their owners to take them out. Me? I just stroll out of the door.

  Dog owners have to find the lead, and then untangle it. They have to find a couple of plastic bags in case the dog leaves a mess. (Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!) Half of the owners even have to stuff their pockets with treats just to get the dog to the park and back.

  Dogs hate it when we laugh at them. But, really! It’s a bit pathetic to be that size and not be trusted even to cross a road all by yourself. Or find your own way home.

  Still, it was daft of me to get in that argument when I saw Mrs Pinkney dragging Buster away from the nastiest lamppost in town.

  ‘Diddums still wearing his baby rein?’ I couldn’t help jeering. br />
  Whoops! I hadn’t noticed Buster’s great-aunt Tilly coming the other way.

  ‘Just watch it, Fatso,’ she growled.

  ‘Don’t pick on Buster or I’ll pick on you.’

  I looked down my right side. Then I looked down my left. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t see myself trembling with fright. But that may be because I think I have the edge on anyone being tugged around on a long piece of string.’

  ‘You think you’re so clever?’ she snarled. ‘If cats are so wonderful, where are the guide cats for the blind? Why don’t the police have sniffer cats?’

  ‘Yeah!’ Buster jeered. ‘All you lot do is go around stalking songbirds.’

  ‘Better than barking at them all day like a squirty little lame-brain.’

  He lunged and, startled, Mrs Pinkney dropped the lead.

  I took off like a rocket.

  ‘You wait,’ threatened Buster’s great-aunt Tilly as I shot past her. ‘Our gate isn’t always properly shut. I’ll get you one day.’

  ‘When poodles fly!’ I yowled back from the safe side of the wall. But I was glad that Tiger had put his paw down about having no dogs at the party.

  6: Not long now

  I DIDN’T FORGET to invite Misty.

  ‘Yo, dude!’ she yowled. ‘A party! Excellent! That rocks.’

  Then I remembered Muff and Puff. ‘Why bother to call it a party?’ they asked me when I told them. ‘Isn’t that what we do all the time? Stay out all night and make a noise?’

  ‘You’re not invited,’ I reminded Pudge the terrier. ‘No dogs at this party.’

  ‘Oh, boo woofing hoo,’ he jeered.