Prologue

 

We were in total darkness, confined in something like a drain.

The way was rough and uneven.

My paws and underbelly dripped with water and I could just make him out, crawling along in front, his white fur streaked with mud and something else... blood? It was bitterly cold and I was chilled to the bone.

Both of us were panting with effort, near exhaustion, for it seemed as though we’d been crawling for hours, yet it was only minutes.

From ahead a weird sound carried down to us, a muted whisper-chant,  a faint but shrill mantra that rose and fell with intensity as if carried on a freakish breath of air.

With alarm we noticed we were drawing nearer and nearer to it, the sound rising to a high-pitched cry as we came towards it. Soon we could make out the words...

“Die cat! Die cat! DIE CAT!”

We stood still, very afraid. We could hear scuttling and rasping sounds. In the confined space it seemed all around us - a scrabbling and scratching like a hundred pointed claws scraping on rock.

Then, in front of us, tiny pinpricks of light, nothing like glow worms but ... Yes... eyes.

I peered through the darkness at Blotch. His complete coat was fluffed to twice his usual size, his back arched and ridged, his ears flattened and his teeth bared in hatred. He let out a tremendous howl.

“Geronimo!”

 

Chapter 1

 

MAX and BLOTCH

 

It’s a pretty chancy business when you first jump over the back fence. Particularly if you’ve been told not to. But a cat’s got to do what a cat’s got to do.

My name is Monifieth Maximilian. I know - it’s a terrible mouthful for a small cat and that’s why Peter calls me plain Max. But I’m not just an ordinary everyday cat, I’m a pedigreed Burmese, so I was given a fancy name. When your father is the mighty Amazonian Brown Belvedere, Supreme Brown Burmese Cat of the Year, and your mother the dainty Champion Monifieth Ethereal, you need a name worthy of your heritage.

Anyway, having a fancy name didn’t help me much the first time I ventured into the Open. It didn’t help me being small either. It’s a problem when you’re the runt of the litter because you don’t seem to grow as big as other cats, and back fences then become a bit of a challenge.

Because I jumped over the back fence that day my whole life changed.  I grew up really fast. Instead of just becoming a domestic pet of no consequence, I became Co-ordinator of the Great Rat Eradication Program of Our Town - pretty awesome when you think about it.

If I hadn’t jumped over the back fence that particular day I wouldn’t have met Blotch, or Gingernut, Ticklewhiskers or Midnight. Well I might have met them eventually, but we would never have become the Gang of Five.

The Marshalls (that’s the people who chose me from the Cattery where I was born) lived at the end of Our Town. All the back fences in their street faced the Open. This was wild, mysterious country of grassy clumps, curly bracken and ferns, thorny bushes with berries, and other peculiar vegetation, which stretched right to the great dark trees on the hillside. The Giants (some cats call them People) kept the grass mown against the fences, but further out into the Open it was so tall it was over my head.

I was feeling antsy on the day I first jumped over the fence too. Being antsy is a sort of irritation. Your nose quivers, your skin twitches, your tail flicks and your whiskers go all taut and vibrate. You crave action - you do daft things.

I think the fact that I had been expressly told not to go into the Open and being antsy is what drew me into the wild grass. It sort of gave me the strength to scramble to the top of the fence and then jump down the other side.

Into adventure.

Out there was freedom. Out there were new enticing smells - earthy, grungy, sour, sweet. Smells… of other creatures. There were beetles, grasshoppers and alien insects with wings, which buzzed, whirred and hummed.

There were bigger, nastier things...

I was chasing a brown butterfly when a small furry thing ran straight out in front of my nose. Instinct, that sort of automatic performance regulator, told me it must be a real mouse, which was pretty interesting considering I’d only seen toy ones before. Something went ‘ding’ in my head, and with huge excitement I gave chase.

A real mouse. Mee-Yow!

“Leave it, brother, it’s mine,” shouted a voice behind me. “Geronimo!”

A flash of fur streaked past me.

We crashed into the undergrowth ahead making a considerable din, flattening a patch of thistles and skidding to a halt in a puddle of mud. The newcomer rounded on me fiercely.

“Now look what you’ve done,” he spat. “It’s gone. That was my dinner, that was.”

Another cat stood there, fur bristling, whiskers taut, claws extended, teeth in a snarl.

His coat was dirty white with extraordinary piebald patches of black, ginger and grey scattered over him in odd places. One black bit splodged his cheek, and another his ear. Half his whiskers were black and the other half white and bent in different directions, giving him a sort of screwball look.

Fixing me with green eyes narrowed to slits, he stalked slowly and purposely towards me, daring me to move. His tail waved from side to side like a palm frond in a storm as he crouched ready to spring.

I cringed back and kept absolutely still. 

“S... s... sorry,” I stammered. “The mouse... er... it was the first real mouse I’ve seen. I didn’t know you were chasing it.”

“What?” he hissed, right in my face.

“My, er, first, er, mouse...” I dropped my gaze, screwed up my eyes and waited for him to Pounce.

“Your what? Your first mouse? Your first mouse!”

            He rose from his crouch slowly and his tail stopped swinging.

“Your first mouse,” he repeated, staring me down again. Suddenly he burst into mewls of laughter. His fur gradually subsided flat against his body and his face lost its mean angry scowl.

“Good grief, and it had to be mine.” He peered at me. “Where have you sprung from, anyway?”

“I came over the fence today,” I said, indicating the line of back fences and Peter’s House in particular. “I’ve never been in the Open before. I... I’m really sorry about the mouse...”

“What’s your name?”

“Monifieth Maximilian. What’s yours?”

I relaxed a bit. Maybe he wasn’t going to beat me up after all.

“Monny what?”

This time he fell over on the ground and rolled in the dirt, four paws in the air, mewling with laughter.

“It’s a pedigree name,” I said hesitantly but proudly, rather annoyed he should think it funny. “My father is the great Amazonian Brown Belvedere and my mother is...”

“Oh no. A pedigreed pussy,” he taunted, picking himself up. Dirt and twigs stuck to his fur but he did nothing to shake them off. 

“Well I’m just plain Blotch. I don’t know who my father is and my mother didn’t stick around. I don’t have a House or anywhere nice to sleep and I have to fend for myself.”

He turned to go. I was immediately upset. I couldn’t imagine a cat without a House and Family, not knowing where the next meal was coming from. He was the first cat I’d been in contact with since I arrived at the Marshall’s and although he was scruffy and not very clean, I rather liked him. 

“Don’t go, Blotch,” I said. “Peter calls me Max for short.”

He turned back and eyed me thoughtfully. He was very lean and hungry looking, very unkempt. I began to feel a little sorry for him, especially as I seemed to have robbed him of his dinner.

“If you’re hungry I can get you some food,” I offered, hoping to please him. “I have a chicken wing on my plate I didn’t eat this morning. Would it do?”

He considered me a moment, blinked, then nodded.

“I guess it would go a little towards compensation, mate.”

I turned and started back across the grass, my new companion hot on my heels. Blotch shinned over my fence as though he was just jumping a small log, while I scrabbled and hitched myself up and over. I hid him behind our shed while I trotted inside to my plate where the chicken wing still lay.

Alexander, Peter’s father, had put a little door called a cat-flap into the bottom of the back door so I could get in and out when I liked. I took the wing in my teeth and ran out again before anyone could see me and streaked across the garden to the shed.

He fell upon the offering and devoured it, growling softly to himself as he ate. 

“Do you think there might be more chicken wings where that one came from, mate?”

“Oh I’m sure there are.”

“Okay,” he said, sprawling in the dirt. “I’ll forgive you the mouse.”

I flopped next to him, pleased. He was my very first cat friend and we talked for some time.

“My best friend’s Gingernut,” said Blotch. He looked me over again with a practised eye. “I guess he might be interested in making your acquaintance. He’s a ginger tabby. Lives up the other end of the street with his Mother.”

“Cool,” I said. Wow, this was great. More friends. I couldn’t wait to tell Peter.

            “And there’s a mad black cat called Midnight, who belongs to the old lady Giant on the opposite side of the street to you. I’ve noticed her once or twice out in the scrub.”