Favourite Cat Stories: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips, Kaspar and The Butterfly Lion

Monday, December 27th 1943

It’s my very last night in my own bedroom. Until now I don’t think I thought it would ever really happen, not to us, not to me. It was happening to everyone else. Everyone else was moving out, but somehow I just didn’t imagine that the day would ever come when we’d have to do the same. But tomorrow is the final day and tomorrow will come. This time tomorrow my room will bè empty – the whole house will be empty. I’ve never slept anywhere else in my whole life except in this room. For the first time I think I understand why Grandfather refused to leave for so long. It wasn’t just because he was being stubborn and difficult and grumpy. He loves this place, and so do I. I look around this room and it’s a part of me. I belong here. I’ll start to cry if I write any more, so I’ll stop.

Tuesday, December 28th 1943

Our first night at Uncle George’s and it’s cold. But there’s something worse than that, much worse. Tips has gone missing. We haven’t got her with us.

We moved up here today. We were the last ones in the whole village to move out. Grandfather is very proud of that. We had lots of help. Mrs Blumfeld came and so did Adie, along with half a dozen other Yanks. We couldn’t have managed without them. Everything is here, all the tea chests, all the furniture. Most of it is stored in Uncle George’s granary under an old tarpaulin. But the cows are still back home on the farm. We’ll go back for them tomorrow, Grandfather said, and drive them up the lane.

Uncle George has made room here for all of us. He’s very kind, I suppose, but he talks to himself too much and he grunts and wheezes a lot, and when he blows his nose it sounds like a foghorn. He’s very dirty and scruffy and untidy, which Mum doesn’t like, and I think he’s a bit proud too. I was only trying to be polite, because Mum said I should be, when I asked him which chair was his before I sat down. Uncle George said: “They’m all my chairs Lil.” (I wish he wouldn’t call me Lil, only Mum and Dad call me that.) He was laughing as he said it, but he meant it, I know he did. I think it’s because he’s Mum’s eldest brother that he’s a bit bossy with us. He keeps saying Dad shouldn’t have gone off to the war and left her on her own. That’s what I think too, but I don’t like it when Uncle George says it. Anyway, she’s not on her own. She’s got Grandfather and she’s got me.

.Mum says I have to be very patient with him because he’s a bachelor, which means that he’s lived on his own all his life which is why he’s untidy and doesn’t know how to get on with people very well. I’ll try, but it’s not going to be easy. And what’s more, he looks like a scarecrow, except when he’s in his Home Guard uniform. When he’s in his uniform he looks very pleased with himself. Grandfather says he doesn’t do much in the Home Guard, that he just sits up in the lookout post on top of the hill. They’re supposed to be looking for enemy ships and planes, but Grandfather says they just have a good natter and a smoke.

I miss my room at home already. My bedroom here is not just cold, it’s very small, a bit like a cupboard – a cupboard I have to share with Mum. Barry’s in with Grandfather. It was the only way to fit us all in. Mum and me have to share a bed too, but I don’t mind that. We’ll cuddle up. She’ll keep me warm! I haven’t got a table, so I’m writing this sitting up in bed with my diary on my knees.

I wish Tips was here. I miss her and I’m really worried about her. She ran off when everyone came to the house to carry the furniture out. I called and called, but she didn’t come. I’m trying my best not to be worried. Mum says she’s just gone off on her wanders somewhere, that she’ll come back when the house is quiet again. She’s sure she’ll be there when we go to fetch the animals tomorrow. She keeps saying there are still three days to go before they close the farm off, but I can’t stop thinking that after that we won’t be allowed back for six months or even more. What if Tips isn’t there tomorrow? What if we can’t find her?

Barry’s happier than ever, because he’s got two farmers to work with now, and two tractors. But what’s more surprising is that Grandfather is happy too. I thought he was going to be very sad when we left home. I was there when he locked the door and slipped the key into his waistcoat pocket. He stood looking up at the house for some moments. He even tried to smile. But he never said anything. He just took my hand and Barry’s, and we all walked off without looking back. He made himself at home in Uncle George’s kitchen right away. He’s got his feet in the oven already, which you can see Uncle George doesn’t like. But Grandfather’s much older than he is, so Uncle George will just have to put up with it, won’t he?

Oh yes, I forgot. This afternoon Adie introduced me to his friend Harry, while they were carrying out our kitchen table. He’s from Atlanta too, and he’s black like Adie is. They’re both quite difficult to understand sometimes because they speak English differently from us. Adie does most of the talking. “Harry’s like my brother, Lily, not my brother brother, if you get my meaning, just my friend. Like twins, ain’t we, Harry? Always on the lookout for one another. Harry and me, we growed up together, same street, same town. We was born on the same day too – 25th November. Both of us is eighteen, but I’m the oldest by six hours – that’s what our mamas told us, and they should know I reckon. Ain’t that right Harry?” Harry just smiled at me and nodded. “Harry don’t say much,” Adie said, “but he thinks real deep.” The two of them worked together all day, fetching and carrying. They must be very strong too. They picked up Grandfather’s dresser all by themselves. No huffing, no puffing. They just picked it up as if it was light as a feather.

I keep thinking I hear Tips outside, but every time I look it’s Uncle George’s ginger tomcat mewing round the yard. I just hope Tips gets on with Uncle George’s cat. Tips doesn’t much like other cats. But if I’ve got to be polite to Uncle George, then she’ll have to be polite to Uncle George’s cat, won’t she? This time tomorrow Tips will be here and everything will be just tickety-boo! That word always makes me smile, even when I’m sad. So I’ll write it again: tickety-boo, tickety-boo. The lamp’s just gone out so I suppose I’ll have to finish now.

Thursday, December 30th 1943

I still can’t find Tips. I’ve been looking for her all day today – and all yesterday too. I looked in every barn, every shed. Grandfather opened up the house again for me and I went into every room, up into the attic too. I looked in all the cupboards, just in case she’d got herself shut in by mistake. Grandfather even climbed up a ladder to look in the roof valleys. I wandered the fields, tapping her bowl with a spoon, calling and calling, then listening for her. All I could hear were cawing crows and the sound of the wind in the trees and the rumble of a tractor engine in the distance. Once they’d driven the cows and sheep up the lane to Uncle George’s everyone came back to help me. Mrs Blumfeld went off to search the village on her bike, with Barry on the back. They didn’t find Tips, but they did find lots of Yanks. They were all over the place, they said, in lorries and jeeps and some of them in tanks.

Mum still says I’m not to worry. Grandfather says that cats have nine lives, that Tips will turn up as she always does, and it’s true she always has. But I do worry. I can’t think about anything else now except Tips. She’s out there somewhere in the night, cold and wet, hungry and lost, and I’ve only got one more day to find her before they close off the farm. I’m going to get up early tomorrow; Barry says he’ll come with me. We’re going to look and look until we find her, he says. I’m not coming back to Uncle George’s until I do.

Our farm looked strange when I went back today, so empty and silent: a phantom farm, a house full of ghosts.

Be there tomorrow, Tips. Please be there. It’s your last chance.

Friday, December 31st 1943

I never want to live another day like this. I think I knew right from the start we wouldn’t find her. There were too many people out looking – I knew they would only frighten her away, and they did. If it had just been Barry and me and Mum and Grandfather, maybe we’d have found her. Tips knows us.

It wasn’t her fault. Mrs Blumfeld was only trying to be helpful, but she’d gone and told everyone how Tips was lost and she brought practically the whole village along with her. She was there at dawn organising the search. The Yanks came too, dozens of them, Adie and Harry telling them all the places they had to look. They combed the whole farm: every barn, every feed bin, every corner of every field, all along the stream. They went searching down in the bluebell wood, down in the disused quarry, and I went with them, trying to tell them all the time to go more quietly, just to look, not call out. But it was no use. I could hear them all over the farm, banging tins, trying to call her, trying to sweeten Tips in.

All morning long it drizzled and in the afternoon a sea mist came rolling in over the fields and covered the whole farm in thick fog, so you couldn’t see further than a few feet in front of you. There was no point in even looking any more. We listened instead, but there was nothing to hear. Even the crows were silent. I think I’ve been crying off and on all day, as the hours passed and hope faded. Barry kept on and on telling me he was sure we’d find her sooner or later and in the end I got cross and shouted at him, which I shouldn’t have done. He was only trying to cheer me up, trying to be nice. That’s the trouble with him, he’s always trying to be nice. Uncle George just said that a cat’s a cat, that there’re other cats I can have, which didn’t exactly help.

It was nearly dark when one of the Yanks with upside-down stripes on his arm said he was sorry but they had orders to close the place off now, so we had to leave. Adie came up and gave me some chocolate. “Hershey bar,” he said. “It’ll make you feel better. And don’t you worry none, Lily. I ain’t making no promises, but if that old cat’s still living out there, we’re gonna find her, one way or the other. You can be real sure of that. So don’t you worry none, Lily, y’hear.”

They closed the barbed wire behind us then, cutting us off from our home and from Tips. I promised myself as I watched them that I would go back and find her, and I will too. I will. I gave Barry half my Hershey Bar to make up for being so mean to him, and we ate it before we got back to Uncle George’s. Adie was right. It did make me feel better, but I think that was more because I gave half of it to Barry.

I’m coughing a lot and I’m feeling hot and sweaty all over. I have been ever since we got back. Mum says I’ve caught a chill and that I have to stay in bed tomorrow else it’ll get on my chest. I hated today, every horrible minute of it – except for Adie and the Hershey bar. The only hope I’ve got left is that maybe, just maybe, Adie and Harry might still find Tips. I’ve got this feeling they might. I don’t know why. One thing’s for sure though: if they don’t find her then I’m going to crawl in under the wire and find her for myself, no matter what they say. They can put up all the barbed wire they like. They can shoot all the shells they want. Nothing’s going to keep me out. I’m never ever going to give up on Tips. Never.

Wednesday, January 12th 1944

This is the first time I’ve felt like writing in my diary for days. Mum was right, I did catch a chill that day when we all went out looking for Tips, and it did go to my chest. Mum told me I had a temperature of 104 for nearly a week and the doctor had to be called because I became delirious. That sounds like it means I was just happy – I certainly was not. It meant I was out of my head. And I must have been because I remember very little. I only remember bits of the last few days. I remember Barry coming in after school and telling me what the new school in Kingsbridge was like and giving me get-well cards from Mrs Blumfeld and the class. I remember waking up to see Grandfather and Mum sitting in the chair watching me, or just sitting there sleeping. And from time to time I could hear the murmur of voices downstairs and Uncle George blowing his nose like a foghorn.

I’m much better now, but Mum says I’ve got to stay inside for at least another week. Doctor’s orders, she says, but I think they’re just her orders. She always gets very fierce and strict with me when I’m ill. She’s been feeding me soup and then sitting and watching me, just to make sure I finish it. She makes me eat stewed apple every day and I have to drink lots of warm milk with honey in it. She knows I hate milk. But now she’s got the perfect excuse to make me drink it. “It’ll build up your strength, Lily,” she says. “Drink it.” And she always stays until I do.

As for Tips, there’s still no sign of her. No one has been back to look for her, of course. But I haven’t given up. I still keep hoping she’s all right, that one day she’ll come and find us. She’s a good hunter, she can take care of herself. She knows warm places to go. I try to hope and believe Adie will find her somehow. But then when I think about it again I know he won’t. I keep thinking of her lying dead in some ditch. I try not to think like that. I try so hard. Soon as I’m better, I’m going to go looking for her. I promised myself I would, and I will.

Mum came up today and read me a letter from Dad. It’s such a long time since I saw him I find it difficult to see his face in my head any more. I tried to hear his voice as she was reading the letter, but I couldn’t. He says they had corned beef and tinned potatoes for Christmas lunch, and they wore paper hats made out of newspaper, sang Christmas carols and thought of home. He sounded so sad and far away. When Mum finished reading she was sad too. I could tell she wanted to cry but she wouldn’t let herself.

Wednesday, January 19th 1944

I’ve been planning it for days, working it all out and screwing up my courage to do it. And today I did it. But it didn’t work out at all like I had planned.

I’m getting really good at telling lies. I told Mum I just wanted to go out for some fresh air, that I was fed up with being cooped up. I nagged and nagged and finally Mum gave in, but only because it was a nice, sunshiney day, she said. She wrapped me up as if I was going out into the Arctic – gloves, hat, scarf, coat, the lot – and she told me to keep out of the wind, and I had to promise her I’d be back inside an hour. I promised…with my fingers crossed.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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