Suzanne Conboy-Hill

‘Now you’ll come in at night,’ Joe told Roscoe, the big, orange, cantankerous-looking tabby he was trying to stuff into a carrier. Not flippin’ likely, said Roscoe, although of course he didn’t because he was a cat. Instead, he arched his back, flipped his bottom over Joe’s arm, and catapulted himself onto the dresser, the top of which was crammed with Joe’s mother’s precious ornaments. He skipped across the figurine with the peach crinoline and skidded the china egg full of earrings and little gold studs into the framed picture of Joe’s mother smiling at the glazed face of someone who looked like Des O’Connor.

Joe jumped up and flung a grab at Roscoe, who leaped over the back of the dresser, taking two pot mice and a fancy glass decanter down with him.

‘Ruddy cat!’ Joe had already made three attempts to bung Roscoe into the container, but it was still far fewer than it had taken Cats’ Protection when they had tried to prise him away from PreciousPersians.co.uk. Their owner had already seen a number of unsalable progeny following his randy incursions. Roscoe had been in and out of their carriers so many times, that his ‘rescue’ name was a no-brainer.

‘This is Houdini,’ the Cats’ Protection lady had said, showing Joe into a double-doored pen at the bottom of her garden in High Salvington. ‘And he’s a handful.’ Houdini cast a baleful eye at Joe. ‘Breaks out of everywhere.’ Houdini extended a paw towards the chicken wire, and half-lidded his gaze. ‘Breaks into places as well. He stole two Felix pouches and a pair of knickers one time.’ It seemed Houdini’s rap sheet was extensive, and the perp closed both eyes with a what can I say? sort of look about him.

‘You should get him chipped; we’ll give you a voucher.’

‘No need, I have a friend who’s a vet, he’ll do it.’ Joe had never actually asked if Tom was a vet but he worked at the vet college so he most likely was, right? Whatever; he’d know someone who knew someone. Joe peered at the large orange backside filling the grille of the lock-down that was Houdini’s ride home. ‘Right then, we’re off. Wish me luck!’

So, now here they were, Joe grappling with an armful of renamed, hacked off cat, and said hacked off renamed cat kicking up a storm behind Joe’s mother’s dresser, in amongst the broken knickknacks he’d contrived to get down there.

‘It’s not an option!’ Joe hefted a pile of old books into one end of the gap between the wall and the dresser. But before he could get to the other end, Roscoe shot out like a cork from a bottle of well-shaken bubbly and flew straight up the curtains. Joe made a lunging grab and Roscoe relocated, twinkle-toed along the top of the pelmet and then tipped himself, like a long sinuous slinky, down the edge of the window frame – straight into the laundry basket.

‘Gotcha!’ Joe had never moved so fast. Risking life, limb and, at the very least, tetanus, he leaped on the basket, scooped out the yowling bundle of affront, and stuffed him into the carrier, still wearing the mohair mix cardigan Joe’s mother had folded carefully into the basket for hand washing. They were off.

‘So, want to see how it works?’ said Tom, trigger finger itching over the button marked ‘ON’. ‘Look in the yard.’ His mouth curled up at the edges, like a schoolboy who just found a sticky, half sucked toffee in his pocket. ‘Go on, look!’ He thumbed the button. Every cat in the yard came to a halt. Roscoe, in his carrier, stood suddenly to attention and yowled through the hatch. Every cat; black, white, tabby, long, tall, boxy, scruffy, velvety, long haired, and bald, turned as one towards its own pen. Long legs, short stubby legs, legs with plumes, frills, and pantaloons, and legs like chicken drumsticks, began to march – left right left right left – right into the pens, and with a SWOOOSH, all the doors closed behind them.

            ‘See? All home and dry and not running amok in the streets, caterwauling the neighbours to distraction!’ Tom waved his arm in a wide flourish, like a magician after a trick. ‘Now, let’s get Roscoe’s GPS fixed up and loaded with his safe routes.’ Tom unhooked the lid of the carrier. He reached in with a green razor and shaved a tiny patch from the back of Roscoe’s neck. Then, with hands flying like a prestidigitator, he blobbed on a speck of his special glue, plinked a minute chip on top, hummed a hair dryer over the spot, and snapped the lid back on. ‘Chipped!’ he announced. ‘Just the programming now …’

            Roscoe growled. If cats could be not amused, Roscoe was not amused. He sizzled a low hiss.

            Joe’s mouth flapped open, like a cat flap, his mind sniggered. He tried to close it and failed.

Tom was beaming like all his summers had come at once. He poked at his iPad and swiped some stuff across the screen. ‘There you go, first working prototype of the Tom Tom-Tom! Satisfaction guaranteed!’

Roscoe extended a lazy leg. He begged to differ. He was, after all, Houdini of High Salvington.

First published by Every Day Fiction, 2012.