The Killer Cat's Christmas

  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

  The Killer Cat’s Christmas

  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

  Illustrated by Steve Cox

  PUFFIN

  For Isaac and Olly

  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 2009

  Text copyright © Anne Fine, 2009

  Illustrations copyright © Steve Cox, 2009

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  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

  ISBN: 978-0-14-193055-8

  Contents

  1: Horrible, horrible, horrible!

  2: ‘Oh, goody gumdrops! Hoppers!’

  3: ‘The whole of Christmas in a cattery!’

  4: Surprise, surprise!

  5: Frog in a wedding dress

  6: Screams and tears

  7: Twanging the spider’s web

  8: Chasing half-dead mousies

  9: Bare at the bottom

  10: Chocolate coins and sausages

  11: Showers of falling food

  12: Star of the show

  (Unlucky) 13: The fairy on the Christmas tree

  1: Horrible, horrible, horrible!

  OKAY, OKAY! SO run off sobbing, but I did not kill that moth on purpose. It was not my fault. I do agree that I reached out to biff it once or twice. But it was annoying me, flapping round and round my face.

  And I’m not sure that it’s dead anyway. I mean, I saw it sort of flapping off, looking a bit lopsided. But after that it disappeared. For all I know, the thing’s still somewhere in the house, minding its own business and mucking about wherever it wants.

  Unlike me, locked in this garage in disgrace, after a horrible Christmas.

  So go on, ask me. ‘Dear, dear Tuffy, why was your Christmas so horrible?’

  And I’ll explain: because it is a festival that wasn’t made for cats. Just think about it. There’s a tree we’re not allowed to climb.

  And there are tempting dangly decorations we’re not allowed to touch.

  And there are glorious glittering strands of bright, bright tinsel hung far too high for us to reach. Shiny wrapped presents we have to keep our paws off.

  And, if we’re really unlucky, horrible cold white snow all over the garden.

  No. Not my favourite time of year.

  So go on. Ask the next question. ‘But, Tuffy, what on earth happened? How come you’ve ended up locked in the garage?’

  I’ll tell you. It was because this Christmas was even worse than usual. This Christmas was terrible.

  Frightful.

  Awful.

  Miserable.

  All wrong.

  Horrible, horrible, horrible. That’s what it was.

  I’ll tell you the whole story.

  2: ‘Oh, goody gumdrops! Hoppers!’

  THE CAR DREW up outside and out they all spilled, as usual. Our Christmas visitors. That’s Ellie’s Aunt Ann, her husband, Brian, and the soppy twins.

  I hate having visitors. They park their bottoms in the comfiest chairs. They dump their suitcases in all my favourite corners. They rattle their clothes around in the cupboards I like to use to take a quiet nap. Their stupid great feet keep stumbling over my food dish.

  But Ellie loves company. She couldn’t wait to rush out of the house to greet her cousins. ‘Lucilla! Lancelot! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!’

  She might have been glad they were here. I have a forkful of brain inside my head so I wasn’t quite so keen. As she ran one way, I sneaked off the other to find somewhere good to hide.

  I heard them wheel their suitcases inside. ‘Where’s Tuffy? We must say hello to darling, darling Tuffy!’

  They searched the house. But I was stretched out flat on top of the cupboard in the hall. They couldn’t find me, so they finally gave up.

  ‘Forget Tuffy for a moment,’ said Lancelot. ‘Let’s do something else. Let’s play on the bouncy hoppers.’

  ‘Oh, goody gumdrops! Hoppers!’

  The three of them rushed off. Phew! I jumped down from the cupboard and went upstairs. The bathroom window was ajar, so I crept out and spent a quiet half hour on the garage roof, secretly watching the three of them bounce up and down the drive, clutching the sticky-up ears. It was a laugh. Ellie kept falling off. But then Lucilla started to sing some half-baked bouncing song that she’d made up about ‘sweet little mousies in housies’.

  It got on my nerves, so I took off. I picked my way along the tree branch and jumped down on the fence.

  Lucilla saw me. ‘Tuff-eee! Tuff-eee!’

  She bounced towards the fence so hard she couldn’t stop. Is it my fault the fence is wobbly? I didn’t mean to stick my sharp little claws out quite so far to get a grip as I swayed this way and that.

  Or keep them out when I fell off the fence, on to her hopper.

  Poooooooooooooooooooooof…

  Okay, okay! So pump me up with air, and tie a knot in me. I clawed a hole in her hopper. For heaven’s sake, it was an accident! How was it my fault that it sort of shrivelled under her, and she fell off?

  I hurried under the thorn bush. Lucilla rolled over on to her hands and knees and started wheedling into the greenery. ‘Oh, Tuffy, dearest! Don’t you remember us? It’s me, Lucilla. Lancelot’s here too. Oh, please come out so we can cuddle you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lancelot echoed. ‘Oh, darling Tuffy. Please come out.’

  Oh, I came out all right. But on the other side, and straight back up on the fence. From there, I jumped on the garage roof, and into the house through the bathroom window.

  So go on! Boil me in bubble bath! Maybe I wasn’t quite as careful as I should have been, walking alo
ng the sill. Perhaps some of the fancy bottles of shampoos and lotions did get tipped on to the floor. But it wasn’t me who left the tops off. So how was I supposed to know that they were going to make a mess like that – a huge, foaming, slimy puddle of froth and goo and gel? All I was trying to do was get away to somewhere I’d be left in peace.

  And maybe choosing to hide under Ellie’s mother’s best silver party frock was not the smartest idea. But I didn’t pull the stupid thing off its hanger. It fell off by itself as I rushed in the closet. Okay, so maybe I did root about a bit, trying to make myself comfy. But how was I to know I’d pop off all those sequins? All I was doing was trying to take a little nap. Can’t a pet take a nap in his own house without Ellie’s mother ending up sitting in a heap on the carpet, picking the cat hairs off a ruined frock and sobbing her heart out?

  I ask you. Honestly! How wet is that?

  3: ‘The whole of Christmas in a cattery!’

  IT WOKE ME up, though, all that boohooing from Ellie’s mum. Then Mr Grumpy rushed up the stairs to find out what was going on, and things turned nasty. There were some harsh words.

  ‘You furry vandal!’ Ellie’s father snarled. ‘You foul and spiteful beast!’

  I played it cool, raising an eyebrow at him.

  He hates it when I put on my ‘not bothered’ look, and flick my tail at him. ‘Look what you’ve done!’ he fumed. ‘You’ve turned a beautiful and expensive frock into a filthy rag!’ He waved it in my face. ‘Look at it! Torn to shreds!’

  Now Ellie had arrived, with Lucilla and Lancelot in tow. They all stuck up for me. ‘Oh, please don’t blame Tuffy!’ begged Lancelot.

  ‘He didn’t mean to spoil the frock!’ insisted Lucilla.

  ‘He’s just unsettled from having visitors,’ Ellie explained to her father.

  But Mr Blame-The-Cat-For-Everything was not having that. He wagged his telling-off finger. ‘Don’t you believe it! This whiskery little waster knows full well what he’s about. And I tell you this house would be a far, far better place if we just made the sensible decision to ask the vet to simply –’

  I didn’t catch the last few words. Ellie had let out a fearsome screech, and clapped her hands over my ears.

  I wriggled free in time to hear the end of his next threat: ‘– or spend the whole of Christmas in a cattery!’

  Up came Ellie’s hands again. This time, when I tugged back my head enough to hear, the only words I caught were: ‘– in some strong cage!’

  Ellie was almost in tears. And so were Lancelot and Lucilla.

  ‘Oh, please don’t say that, Uncle George!’

  ‘No, don’t say that!’

  But Ellie’s father was still in a rage. ‘Well, it’s my view that –’

  ‘No!’ Ellie cried. ‘We three will look after Tuffy! You needn’t worry. We’ll keep him well away from you.’

  Her father was still scowling. ‘And well away from all the clothes in the cupboards? And the tree? And all the food? And all the presents and the decorations?’

  ‘Yes! Tuffy won’t spoil anything, I promise!’

  Ellie pounced on me. And since for once I felt I would be safer out of there, I let her scoop me up and carry me off, down to the living room, well away from Mrs Still-Red-And-Weepy-Eyes, clutching the torn shreds of her ruined frock, and Mr Total-Grump.

  4: Surprise, surprise!

  SO THAT’S HOW I ended up sitting like Goody-Two-Shoes on the sofa in the front room, while Lucilla and Lancelot drooled and drivelled over my brains and beauty.

  ‘Oh, Tuffy! You’re so lovely.’

  ‘Your fur’s so soft.’

  ‘And you’re so clever.’

  ‘I wish we had a cat.’

  ‘Oh, Ellie! You’re so lucky!’

  It just went on and on. I stood it for about a minute or two, and then I reckoned it was time to leave, so I stood up.

  Quick as a flash, all three of them reached out to stop me. I was trapped.

  ‘No, Tuffy! We promised!’

  ‘Just to keep you safe!’

  ‘You have to stay!’

  I tried to wriggle free. Lucilla shut the door and Lancelot checked the window latch. Ellie could see that I was getting nervous, so, ‘Never mind,’ she soothed. ‘Let’s think of something to play.’

  Play? What does she think I am? Some newborn fluff ball? But it is always best to know what’s going on, so I stopped struggling long enough to listen. What was it going to be? Hide and Seek? (I hoped not. Most of the hiding places in this house are mine, mine, mine.) How about Murder in the Dark? (Step on me by mistake, and I will scratch a good chunk out of you!) Perhaps they’d choose Tiddleywinks. (Better take care. Flick just one wink at me, and you are dead.)

  Surprise, surprise!

  ‘Let’s put on a show!’ Lucilla said.

  ‘Yes!’ Lancelot echoed. ‘Let’s put on a little show!’

  Ellie was bouncing up and down, clapping her hands. ‘Oh, goody gumdrops! I love doing special little shows!’

  I was embarrassed. (Ellie’s such a drip.) But I did think I might at least be left to sit up on the dresser and sneer. I mean, you can’t train cats to act or dance. No one would even try. You might be able to boss dogs about. But never cats.

  So I thought I’d be safe with special little shows.

  Well, more fool me.

  5: Frog in a wedding dress

  SO GUESS WHAT The Three Softies finally decided that they were going to do.

  Yes. Just my luck. A show of nursery rhymes that have a cat in them. Is that tattered old book that you grew out of years ago still on your shelf? Shall we run through some of the sweet little baby songs your granny used to warble to you when you were still in nappies?

  There’s ‘Ding Dong Bell, Pussy’s in the Well’, of course. Then there’s that merry old favourite, ‘Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle’. After that, there is the tragic tale of ‘Three Little Kittens who Lost their Mittens’. And ‘Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been?’

  Not to mention the sickly, revolting, soppy and Ellie-ish one I really, really hoped they had forgotten: ‘I Love Little Pussy, Her Coat is So Warm’.

  Guess which they started with.

  That’s right. The one I hate the most. ‘I Love Little Pussy’.

  Ellie was star of this show. The twins started bossing her about. ‘Ellie, sit in front of the tree so all the sparkly decorations twinkle around you.’

  ‘Be careful not to let Tuffy go. Remember what your dad said.’

  ‘Tip your head to one side, and smile.’

  ‘Spread out your skirts. You’ll look like a princess!’

  Oh, I don’t think so! Ellie was dressed in that frilly-dilly party frock she grew out of years ago. If you want my opinion, she looked more like an overgrown cream puff than a princess.

  The Two Big Dafties kept on rearranging her. ‘Put that arm more closely round Tuffy.’

  ‘And show your pretty ring. That’s right. Oh, Ellie! Now you look like something out of a fairy tale!’

  (She did too. Like a frog in a wedding dress.)

  They started in on me.

  ‘Stop struggling, Tuffy. Try to look happy for the show!’

  I didn’t see why I should try to look happy. There I was, held too tight, and stuck under that stupid tree. Pine needles kept falling in my fur, and I was worried that the great fat lump of a Christmas fairy on the top would tumble through the branches on to my head. She’s far too big and heavy for the tree. But Ellie made her, way back in nursery school, so everyone has to pretend she isn’t the same shape as an exploding lavatory roll, and doesn’t have a face that makes her look more like a squashed tomato than a pretty fairy.

  6: Screams and tears

  ALL RIGHT, ALL right! So spank me! I lost my temper. You would have lost yours too. (Faster than I did, probably.) I was so sick of being petted and fussed over and sung to by Ellie.

  The trouble is that Ellie has a voice like one of those corncrake birds that a
re so famous for singing like two sticks being rubbed together. In fact, if you want my opinion, two sticks being rubbed together would make a much, much nicer noise than Ellie does when she sings.

  Folding her arms round me, she began that stupid song for the ninetieth time.

  ‘I love little pussy, her coat is so warm,

  And if I don’t hurt her she’ll do me no harm.’

  Well, she was dead wrong, wasn’t she? Because it was a nasty scratch I gave her. (Mind you, it was not deliberate. I was just putting up a paw to try to stop her stroking me. So how was I supposed to guess that she had just decided her show would be much better if she suddenly leaned down to kiss me on the nose?

  Me. A cat! Kissed on the nose! If you ask me, she was pretty well asking for trouble.)

  As you can imagine, there were screams and tears. Her mum and dad and Uncle Brian and Aunt Ann rushed in to find out what was going on. And suddenly everyone was peering at this teensy-weensy little bead of blood on Ellie’s arm – you practically had to have a microscope even to see it – and Uncle Brian was running round and round in circles, shouting about rabies.

  Rabies! I was a bit put out, I can tell you. For one thing, Ellie’s had her shots. And, for another, it’s mad dogs and bats and things that give you rabies, not a musically gifted cat who’s simply had enough of hearing someone singing like two sticks rubbed together.

  I tell you I was so fed up that I walked out. Nobody noticed because they were all still fussing over Ellie. And that’s how I ended up inside a cupboard. All alone in the dark. Just two big staring eyes hiding from everyone, misunderstood as usual, and not at all looking forward to Christmas Day.