“I think I’d rather go back home,” Minou said. “I’m scared.”
They were on Green Square in front of the Metropole Hotel, where the reception for Mr Smith was being held. There were a lot of cars out the front and people were streaming into the hotel.
Minou was wearing her new gloves, but now she’d seen how busy it was, she felt very nervous.
“Don’t be afraid,” Tibble said. “Look, there’s Bibi coming out of the hotel.”
Bibi skipped up to them with a beaming smile on her face.
“What have you got there?” Tibble cried. “A camera!”
“First prize,” said Bibi. “I won first prize in the drawing competition.”
“And rightly so!”
“It’s hanging on the wall,” Bibi said. “In the reception room. They’ve hung up all our drawings. And they let me help present the gift.”
“Are you going back in again?” Minou asked.
Bibi shook her head. “This afternoon is for grown-ups,” she said. “We’ve already had our party. At school.”
She walked on and Tibble said, “Come on, Miss Minou, let’s go in. And remember! No purring, no hissing and don’t rub up against anyone, not even the fishmonger.”
“There won’t be any dogs, will there?” Minou asked anxiously.
“No. Dogs don’t come to receptions.”
Inside, it was extremely crowded. Mr Smith and his wife were sitting on a raised platform with floral arrangements left and right, and the children’s drawings were on the wall behind them. It was a lovely exhibition and the picture of the Tatter Cat was hanging in pride of place with a card saying First Prize next to it.
“Ah, look!” cried Mr Smith. “There’s Tibble. My dear Tibble, I’m so pleased you could make it. Look at the present I got from all the people in the neighbourhood. A colour TV! Isn’t that fantastic?”
Tibble shook Mr Smith’s hand and said, “This is my secretary, Miss Minou.”
“How do you do?” said Mr Smith. “I believe I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? In a tree…”
Other people came up to shake his hand and congratulate him and Tibble and Minou walked on. All round the room there were groups of people gathered together to talk. There was the fishmonger. He waved at Minou and she blushed. And the baker’s wife nodded hello as well and Minou started to feel more and more at ease.
It’s going well, thought Tibble with a sense of relief. She’s not cattish at all today.
Mrs Van Dam was there too, in her fur coat, talking to a few other ladies, who nudged each other and looked in their direction.
Minou started getting nervous again. “Just ignore them,” said Tibble.
They came to a table with all kinds of delicious snacks on it. Pieces of sliced sausage on toothpicks. And blocks of cheese on toothpicks.
“Can you just help yourself?” Minou asked.
“Later,” said Tibble.
Now a large man wearing glasses and a pin-striped suit came in.
The room fell silent. Everyone bowed their heads low and respectfully in greeting.
“Is that the Mayor?” Minou whispered.
“No,” Tibble whispered back. “It’s the owner of the factory, Mr Ellmore. He’s really important. And he does a lot of good.”
“What’s he do that’s good?” Minou asked.
“He gives money to all kinds of charities.”
Minou had more questions, but people around them had started going “Shhhh”.
“Mr Ellmore’s about to speak,” they said. Everyone pushed forward to listen and Minou and Tibble got separated in the crowd.
Tibble was pushed over to one side while Minou was jostled all the way to the front, close to the small table behind which Mr Ellmore was giving his speech.
“Mr Smith,” he began, “Ladies and gentlemen…”
Everyone was quiet.
“I am delighted to see so many people here this afternoon…”
Mr Ellmore was holding his car key in one hand and swung it gently back and forth over the table while speaking.
He swung it gently back and forth over the table.
Tibble looked at Minou and saw to his shock that her eyes were moving from side to side like at a tennis match. She wasn’t listening at all, she was just staring intently at the swinging key, like a cat that’s seen something move.
She’s about to cuff it, thought Tibble, and he coughed very loudly, but she didn’t notice.
“Many among us were once taught by Mr Smith…” the speaker continued. “And we all—”
Whack.
Minou’s gloved hand smacked the key and sent it clattering over the table.
Mr Ellmore was dumbstruck and stared at Minou with astonishment. All the people around her glared. Now she looked like a trapped cat searching for an escape route. Tibble tried to push forward, but all of a sudden she dived down and disappeared among the skirts and legs as she headed for the big table covered with snacks. She was gone.
Fortunately Mr Ellmore resumed his speech and the listening people soon forgot the incident.
Tibble snuck glances left and right and tried to look under the table. Had she crept in under it?
Now the speech was over and Mr Smith gave a few words of thanks. Then waiters came round with trays of drinks and people began eating the snacks. Tibble moped around between the drinking, mingling groups. Where was she?
Maybe she’d slipped out of the door without anyone seeing? Minou was very good at slinking around and tip-toeing and slipping away unnoticed. Maybe she was home in the attic, in her box.
Tibble sighed. It had all gone so well. She hadn’t hissed at anyone and she hadn’t scratched anyone… She hadn’t even rubbed up against the fishmonger, but now she’d come up with something new. Another cattish trait.
He decided to stay a little longer.
Minou hadn’t gone home. She was still in the hotel. She’d made it through a door without anyone noticing and now she was in another room. A smaller room, a kind of conference room. There was a table with chairs, a big planter box in one corner with lots of plants in it and a goldfish bowl on a cabinet.
She was alone in the room and she walked straight over to the fishbowl. Two fat goldfish were swimming around in slow circles with gulping mouths and bulging eyes. Completely at ease, swishing their tails now and then.
Minou bent over the fishbowl.
“This is really not allowed,” she said to herself. “It’s so cattish. In a moment I won’t be able to control myself. Leave now, Minou… turn around.”
But the fish were magnets. Two golden magnets tugging on her eyes. All by itself, her right hand with the beautiful long glove reached out to the bowl, just above it and—Voices sounded close by and she pulled her hand back just in time. Just in time, she hid behind the planter box, because the door opened and two people came in.
One was Mr Smith. The other was Mr Ellmore.
Minou crouched down behind the ferns and creepers and didn’t make a sound.
“I was hoping to speak to you for a moment,” Mr Smith said. “It’s so busy in there, and nice and quiet here. This is what it’s about: we, the local residents, would like to set up an association. The Animal Lovers’ Association.”
Ah, thought Minou behind the plants. News for Mr Tibble. I’d better listen carefully.
“You know that there are an awful lot of animal lovers here in Killenthorn,” Mr Smith said. “Almost everyone has a cat. The aim of our association is to help as many animals as possible. We want to set up a home for poor stray cats, we’d like an animal hospital… and we hope to show films about animals. I myself…” Mr Smith continued, “am busy preparing a public reading about cats. It’s going to be called ‘The Cat Through the Ages: A Feline History’.”
More news, thought Minou.
“And I wanted to ask you,” Mr Smith said, “if you would be willing to be the president of our Animal Lovers’ Association.”
“Hm…” said Mr Ellmore. “Why me?”
“You’re so well known,” Mr Smith said. “And you’re so popular here in town. You’re also a known animal lover. You have a cat yourself, I believe.”
“I have a dog,” said Mr Ellmore. “Mars.”
Minou started to quake so violently in her corner that the plants began shaking too. Mars! That was the dog that had treed her twice already.
“Hm…” Mr Ellmore said again. “Of course I’d love to do it, but you see… I’m so terribly busy. I’m already in so many associations and on so many committees. I’m already president of the Child Welfare Commission…”
“It won’t involve a lot of work,” Mr Smith said. “You won’t need to do very much. It’s more about your name. Everyone has so much faith in you.”
Mr Ellmore walked across the room and back again with his hands behind his back. He came very close to the planter box, looked at the goldfish for a moment and then peered at the plants for what seemed like a very long time.
He can see me, thought Minou.
But he just pulled a dry leaf off a geranium and said, “Well, all right then.”
“Wonderful, wonderful,” cried Mr Smith. “Thank you very much. We’ll be in touch. Now I’d better get back to my party.”
They left the room and Minou dared to breathe again.
She came out and saw an enormous black tom sitting on the ledge of the open window. It was the Hotel Cat. The Metropole Cat.
“That room’s off-limits,” the cat said. “I’m not allowed in there. Because of the fish. Did you see them?”
“I almost caught one,” Minou said. “I have to go back to that room with all the people… but I’m scared.”
“Your human’s looking for you,” the Metropole Cat said. “Out the front, on the terrace. If you climb out through the window you can go round the side. Then you won’t need to go through the people.”
With a little leap Minou was outside.
“Bye,” she said and walked around to the front, where Tibble was pacing back and forth.
“Miss Minou…” he began in a strict voice.
“I’ve got some more news,” she said.
She told him what she’d overheard and Tibble nodded gratefully.
But when they were back home in the attic, he said, “I think you really need to do something about it… all these cattish traits… this cattish behaviour of yours…”
“What can I do about it?”
“You have to go see a doctor.”
“I don’t want to,” said Minou. “Doctors give you jabs.”
“No, I don’t mean an ordinary doctor.”
“What do you mean? An animal doctor?”
“No, I mean a head doctor. The kind of doctor you talk to when you have problems.”
“I don’t have any problems,” said Minou.
“I do,” said Tibble.
“Then you should go to a head doctor.”
“My problems are caused by you, Miss Minou. By your strange habits. It was going so well this afternoon at the reception. You were behaving yourself perfectly… until you suddenly whacked that key ring with your paw—I mean, with your hand. Secretaries don’t do things like that.”