The Halloween Pumpkin; a short story

The Halloween Pumpkin

Ginger was a very unhappy kitten.  Kittens are rarely unhappy for very long, but Ginger felt sad most of the time, because he knew nobody would ever want him in a forever home.

Ginger had been born into a litter in the Puissant Pedigree Pussy Parlour [established 1202], an establishment famed for its quality witches’ cats, bred for their magical ability and witchy looks. This is to say, all the cats were black.

Except Ginger.

Ginger did not know why he was not black.  Velvet, his mother, was black, and had produced a litter of exactly six kittens every other year – the regulations on how often the Queens could have kittens were strict, to keep them healthy – and his sire, long haired Cauldron Jake, was pure black as well, without a single white hair.

Velvet had a tiny tuft of white hair on her tummy, but only visible if you were the kitten made to drink milk as far away from her face as possible.  Ginger reminded himself that she had no right to be cross with him, as she was not perfectly black either.  All his sisters, however, were as black as soot, and they jeered at him, as soon as the kittens were old enough to understand that being black was not merely desirable, but necessary.

“Well,” said Agatha Broomhandle, the proprietor of the Pussy Parlour, “perhaps he’ll grow up to be a good mouser, and we can give him a home here.”

Agatha was a kindly witch, fat and jolly, and she spent a lot of time grooming the cats and cuddling them.  Ginger would not mind staying with her, but it would be because he was a failure, and it wasn’t his fault!  But he would be taunted by all the kittens of the future, and he did not want that.

Agatha could see how depressed poor Ginger was, and gave him extra petting, but sighed.  She knew as well as he did that he would be bullied by the others for being different.  Well, Halloween was approaching, and the newest young witches who had shown magic would be given Halloween gifts of cats of their own, as well as broomsticks to fly on, and the kittens were ready to display. 

“Oh Ginger,” said Agatha, “I wish I knew whether to display you and hope, or whether to hide you, in case any of the little girls say anything hurtful.  If only you were old enough to have learned to talk!”

“I can talk,” said Ginger, stopping purring long enough to do so.  Being cuddled by kind Agatha made even sad Ginger purr.

Agatha almost dropped him.

“Remarkable!” she cried.  “Most kittens don’t learn to talk properly until they are at least six months old!”

“I know the broom-balancing spell too, and I can do it when my sisters don’t push me off,” said Ginger, a little resentfully.  Not all of his sisters had learned it properly yet.

“My goodness, Ginger, you are talented!” said Agatha. “Well, well!  Would you like to be displayed with the others?”

Ginger thought about it.

“Yes,” he said.  “I won’t hide!”

“Brave boy!”  said Agatha, kissing him on the head.

Ginger endured it.  Kittens had to endure being kissed by humans.

The kittens were all groomed and put in the big playroom where the little girls could come and meet them. 

“You won’t be chosen, so I don’t know why you don’t go and hide your stupid orange fur in the tunnel,” mewed Sootella, one of Ginger’s sisters.

“I’ll be chosen for sure,” said Fluff, another sister, who had inherited longer hair, as Ginger had, from Cauldron Jake.

“And so will I,” said Silky Sukey, a smooth, shorthaired sister.

Ginger snorted. 

“You can’t stay on a broom, Sukey, they won’t choose stupid kittens.”

Silky Sukey hissed at him, and Agatha, watching over them, cleared her throat pointedly.  For a human she was fairly adept at understanding a lot of what cats said in their own language. 

All the little girls who had shown that they could do magic were let in.  The youngest was about seven, a little girl with a gap where a new tooth was growing; the oldest was a red haired girl of almost eleven, and delighted to have found her magic at last.  They had already been to Brimstone and Stirr’s shop for their first proper training cauldron, and to Twigg and Sweeppe’s broomstick shop for their brooms, and they had brought their brooms with them, to see how well the kittens could balance.

Most of the little girls tittered to see a ginger kitten in with the black ones, which upset Ginger a little bit again.  All the black kittens rushed forward, mewing hopefully. Ginger hung back.

The biggest little girl came over to him.

“Oh, you poor baby, I expect they’ve been rotten to you, like the other girls were rotten to me for being a slow starter,” she said. 

“Yes, they have been,” said Ginger.

The young witch’s eyes widened.

“I thought you couldn’t speak yet?” she whispered.

“Well, I listened and learned, and I can do the broom-balancing spell, and I think I can do the fly-faster spell on a broom too,” said Ginger.

“Oh!  Well we gingers ought to stick together,” said the little girl.  “What is your name?”

“Ginger, but it’s a bit … ordinary,” said Ginger. “What’s yours?”

“Faustina Kettle,” said Faustina.  “Well, if you would like a name change, I know exactly what to call you; you shall be my Halloween Pumpkin!”

Pumpkin jumped straight into Faustina’s arms and purred and purred.  

Ok, so the Luddite has succumbed to Kindle...

Having started tentatively publishing my other books on kindle, I've finally decided to go with putting Tabitha Tabs and the 365 Cat Tales onto kindle too.  I hope that will please my followers! 

At last, 365 cat days is published!

The link I have on the side bar is to Amazon UK, but it's available from Amazon too Here
The royalties from sales of this one will be used for helping with cat rescue. 

Here's a sample of October:

October 9^th

Kitkat [4]

Kitkat, like most Siamese cats, loved to explore, and if this happened to be up and down the shelves of a neighbour’s flat, why Surely Nobody Minded Him Taking Liberties?  Wouldn’t Anyone Be Proud To Let Him Kip On Their Bed?  Perhaps he was slightly less welcome when being a paper weight on papers or books his host was trying to use than otherwise but Kitkat was so sweet he could get away with it!

October 10^th

Max [6]

Max was one of those cats whose propensities for falling in the pond came close to being fatal more than once as he had no idea how to help himself by swimming.  It did not help his ego that the worst Wolfie ever did was to get a wet tail.  It Wasn’t Fair, said Max,  Having A Pond Left Untidily All Over The Place Right Where A Fella Can Forget It’s There And Fall In.  On his first summer he fell in the pond four times and proceeded to do so at least once every summer thereafter.

October 11^th

Sophie [4]

Sophie was loath to come in at night and led her people many a merry dance.  She would stand, as if waiting, and as mumstaff or dadstaff came close enough to think they could pick her up, she would spring lightly away, dancing sideways, sometimes darting under a parked car and peeking out, her whiskery face seeming to laugh at their frustration.  It’s A Good Game Played Slow, she said. 

Brittney goes visiting

My friend Carol asked for a story about her cat visiting his ‘adopted cousins’ in England so this is a whimsy about what they might say and do. He is to be found on http://brittneythecat.wordpress.com/ well worth a visit

Brittney had been waiting a long time to visit Biff, Jasper, Worrals and Rebel in England. He was sad that Merlin would no longer be there, but he was looking forward to meeting the others! He was sure it would be very different to Las Vegas!

The four English cats were also looking forward to it; the girls eagerly, because Cousin Brittney had written on the computer how much he admired them, Jasper with interest and only a little bit of trepidation such as he felt about all new things; and Biff with some wariness, for Brittney was older than he was, and might want to take charge!

When Brittney was let out of his carrier by his mommy – the English cats knew American cats had mommies not mummies and that he would mew with an accent – Worrals kindly showed him all the litter boxes so he could make himself comfortable.
“Of course sometimes we do a wee outside,” she said, “but if the ground is damp, we like to come in and use our tray. Except Biff; he ALWAYS does EVERYTHING outside, except at night. It’s not safe to be out at night so we stay in when it’s dark.”
“I’ve never been outside!” said Brittney. “Gee-miaow, I think I’m scared and excited! Don’t you have coyotes and packs of feral dogs and wicked SPCA people who steal cats for the pound, even when they have collars on?”
“Gosh, Brittney, we don’t have any of those things!” said Worrals, her eyes wide in horror. “We have to stay off the road because of bad wicked cars, but when you see them every day, you know they are BAD and the noise is scary. Merlin thought he could handle them” she added sadly.
“Well the one that chased him was a feral one and it was going too fast” said Rebel. “Come outside and climb trees, Brittney!”
“Meow! What fun!” said Brittney. “I don’t know anything about outside!”
“Permit us to show you around” said Biff, condescendingly, greatly relieved that he had a good start on Brittney. “And little Worrals, don’t do what you did the other day and go running so far up the tree in your game of tag with Rebel that you need mummy and daddy to rescue you.”
“I was very young, then,” said Worrals quickly, “At least a week younger than I am now!”
Biff gave a superior smirk,
“Come and see our purrgola” said Jasper. “It’s for purring in. It has three seats, and mummy says at a pinch you can squeeze nine humans in if they’re very friendly, so it’s a nice size for three cats.”

Brittney looked about the big garden, there was a yard in the L-shape of the house where washing lines were hung with washing, too high to jump and swing on, he thought wistfully, and up the hill behind the house was the garden, with old mossy steps to get up, and just convenient at the top of one, a greenhouse.
“I like to sleep in the greenhouse” said Jasper. “Mummy put me down a carpet specially to sleep on. It’s my square of carpet. But you may use it” he added hastily.
“Meow, I want to see all the garden!” said Brittney, bounding up the steps. There was a meadow of flowers and grasses at the top, much of it in dappled shade from the trees arranged just so.
“You can always find shade if you want it, or dappled shade, or a sun puddle” said Rebel. “Really our humans are moderately intelligent; you’d almost think they were cats!”
“And where is the purrgola?” asked Brittney.
“This way!” Worrals ran along a path of stones with grass and low growing plants between them. Three benches made three sides of a square, and four posts grew out of the ground. There was a pile of timber.
“Mummy and daddy are rebuilding it” said Biff. “The old roof came in with snow; too many plants made it too heavy. This one won’t be as fancy but it will be easier to climb on and bask in the last rays of sun in winter, as an alternative to the asphalt on the shed roof.”
“So many SMELLS out here!” gasped Brittney. “So many flowers, and green smells and oooooo NIP!” he ran to the patch of nepeta and rolled ecstatically, chewing on the leaves.
The others decided to join him. Then they decided that five cats could just about fit into the purrgola if Worrals and Rebel shared a seat, and Jasper politely invited Brittney to share a seat with him. Biff took his place in the middle of his seat and nobody expected him to share.
“Oh I AM going to like staying in England!” said Brittney.
“The only problem is the sudden showers,” said Jasper, “and there’s a big cloud…”
The first drops of plashing rain fell upon the cats.
“Oh! Oh! The roof of Outside is leaking!” cried Brittney.
Mummy and Mommy both came to the back door to call, and five damp cats ran in! There were fluffy towels to dry them on, which Biff moaned about as undignified but everyone else rather enjoyed.
By the time they had been dried and eaten some tuna, it was sunny again.
“Oh yes” said Brittney, “I DO like England; even though the roof leaks.”

Sample of 365 cats

This is the first two days from the book I'm working on, 100 years of cats, 365 tales

January 1^st

Tom-Tom

    Tom-Tom’s story goes back more than a century.  He was the only bakery cat that Master Baker Charles ever made a pet of.  Perhaps it was because he was such a helpless little ball of pale gold fluff as a kitten; he looked up, and Charles was a doting foster papa more than just an employer, in a time and place where cats normally had to earn their keep. 

Tom-Tom grew up to be an expert ratter, and over night used to leave a pile of rodent corpses on the back doorstep to display his prowess and sit over them, his face plainly saying Look How Well I’ve Done Saving The Flour From These Rampaging Rodents. His attitude on eating rat when he could be fed was to give anyone who suggested it a LOOK as though to ask And Would You Eat Rat When There’s Better To Be Had?  Charles reckoned that as he hunted for the joy of doing his bit in the bakehouse he deserved to be indulged.

       Tom-Tom had his own chair at the table with his plate on the chair; and he would sit up and beg like a dog.  His helping went on his plate and he would eat it daintily, then sit politely and wash his face while everyone else finished.  He was a very good natured cat and would ride in the little girls’ dolls’ pram.  But Charles would never permit his daughters to abuse Tom-Tom’s trust by dressing him in dolls’ clothes.  Tom-Tom lived to a ripe old age – especially for a working cat at the beginning of the twentieth century – and died at fifteen just before the outbreak of the First World War.

January 2^nd

Basil

     Basil means kingly and the name suited our hero down to the ground.  Basil was black and white and had a penchant for striking regal poses. His nose was as aristocratic as any that might be found on a pedigree Siamese.  Basil would have told you that It Was More Aristocratic Than Anyone’s Nose.  In his house and neighbourhood he was cock of the walk, even in his last couple of years, at twenty years old and more.  He held dominion over two large cats, a Labrador and a terrier, not to mention his human slaves.  Basil did not walk; he progressed.  And he was never seen without his dignity.

     In a new neighbourhood, when his humans had moved, an ageing Basil could expect to be the target for established cats; but with consummate aplomb and leadership he marshalled his forces.

      Sitting at the end of the lane, he looked a perfect target for aggressors; and many an established cat decided to see him off.

      Halfway up the lane however was a big clump of bushes; and any marauding cat found out too late that hidden within them were Marvin and Kryten, Basil’s cohorts!  Basil sat and smirked; Hah, My Minions Have Managed To Show Them Who Is Boss! He seemed to say as Marvin and Kryten routed all comers.

      The lesson usually took.

More pages from my sketchbook and news of a new book....

Properly speaking these are more worked up as paintings....

Ginge and Dennis [watercolour]

Felicity, Biddi and Tabitha.[watercolour]

This was the last time we had kittens, we got Felicity and Biddi for our son [from the shelter of course] and ended up with Felix [a ginger boy] who had been thrown out of a car.  Tabitha and Dennis  belonged next door but reckoned they owned us too.  
Their stories will appear in '100 years of cat tales, 365 stories of cats' on which I am working.  There'll be a story for every day of the year and pen and ink illustrations throughout.  I'll be posting some samples.

This one is in coloured pens and is the picture of a visitor we had until her rightful home was discovered, when she was found to be named Cindy; but for me she was always Nefertiti....

Next, Flossie, another neighbour's cat - this one is painted onto paper I've made.

and finally in this offering, some studies of Siameses washing....