A Friend Called Alfie. Rachel Wells
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a treat as a reward, but they were giving him treats before he did anything. All the treats had gone, and Pickles was none the wiser in how to do an assault course.
‘I know,’ Tommy said. ‘I’ll go and get George, he can show Pickles how it’s done.’
I raised my whiskers, George, hopefully, would be pleased to be given such a role. I waited until Tommy came back upstairs, George wriggling in his arms. He didn’t seem that happy, actually.
‘Right, George, please can you show Pickles how to do an obstacle course,’ Tommy begged. George came to where I was and sat with his back to the children. Oh dear.
‘What’s wrong?’ I whispered.
‘They ignore me, and now they want me to show the dumb puppy how to do something so basic,’ he hissed back.
‘George, they love you, they pretty much ignored me too, but Pickles is new to them. Perhaps show them how fantastic you are and it might help Pickles too,’ I coaxed, gently.
‘I am fantastic, aren’t I?’
‘You are, son.’
‘Meow,’ George said loudly and he went to join the children. As they cheered him, I saw him preen, and I was happy how easy it was for us all to be friends, or almost friends in any case.
Connie and Aleksy sat on the stairs holding hands and whispering to each other, but the important thing is that they didn’t sneak off into one of the bedrooms, so I didn’t have to worry too much. I jumped onto Aleksy’s lap.
‘Hey, Alfie,’ Aleksy gave me a nice head scratch.
‘I tried to bring Hana, but she didn’t want to come, I think she just wanted some peace and quiet,’ Connie said. I didn’t blame her for staying away, this was not for the faint-hearted, although she normally came with us, she didn’t always. Suddenly Pickles knocked into George, and sent him flying, with caused George to yowl and land on his tail. Then George, showing his balance, fell off the stool and landed on Pickles, who cried out, but seemed unhurt, and the children all shrieked with laughter. George really did seem to be taking Pickles under his wing and he tried to show him calmly exactly how an obstacle course was done.
‘Wow, Pickles actually does follow George,’ Toby said. ‘He’s almost doing it right now!’
George basked in all the praise.
‘Right, children, can you come and eat please.’ Claire’s voice floated up the stairs. Everyone carried on doing what they were doing. ‘NOW,’ she shouted, and we all traipsed downstairs, the children a little reluctantly, I was far keener.
George and I had a bowl of fat pilchards awaiting us, and Pickles tried to muscle in.
‘Not for you,’ Matt said, scooping him up, thankfully. I was a very tolerant cat, but no one came between me and my pilchards. Pickles let out a cry. ‘No, Pickles, you need to eat only puppy food, mate, I’m afraid. You don’t want to get fat do you?’
Pickles looked as if he would very much like to get fat.
After eating, the children went out into the garden, Pickles was fast asleep in his bed, and George and I were satisfyingly full after our lovely meal. Harold was asleep in the living room, snoring contentedly. I felt my heart swell with love for all my friends and I wished it could always be like this.
I went through my mental checklist alone in the garden before Pickles would inevitably break through the cat flap again. It was October already, time was passing, and winter was creeping ever closer. I did prefer the warm weather, not least because I had an old leg injury, which flared up more in the winter. Anyway, I wasn’t going to dwell on that. I was going to make the best of things, which is what this cat always did.
My chaperoning skills were going to be essential today because George hadn’t been able to visit Hana for a couple of days. Knowing how happy they made each other, I knew he needed to do that. After Claire dropped the children at school, she’d be home most of today, so it wasn’t as if I would be in sole charge of Pickles, thankfully.
Marcus took Harold to somewhere called a ‘Senior Centre’, a place where he could socialise with other old people, most of whom he claimed not to like, so I really had no idea why he went. But with a day to herself, Claire would clean the house, do the laundry, tidy all the children’s rooms, and change all the bedding – it was quite exhausting to watch. When she’d finished that she would then sit down with a well-deserved cup of coffee and her book – and hopefully me, before going to pick the children up from school. It wasn’t easy being a housewife, which I believe is her official job title. It was hard to see how anyone could have an outside job, and look after a house and children once you’d seen Claire in action.
Claire used to love working, she’d had a good job in marketing, but after she had Summer, she lost a bit of her ambition. Then when Toby came to live with us, she felt the children were her priority. It turned out she loved being a mum more than anything, and she was lucky, with Jonathan’s job and the fact she was very sensible with money, she was able to devote herself to doing what she loved. Also, I was unsure how we would cope if Claire and Jonathan both worked as we all needed a lot of taking care of. Not to mention what would happen to Pickles after all. I like to think it was seeing me taking care of those I cared about that made Claire realise it was what she wanted to do. And we were both quite good at it.
Back to my checklist. All my humans were doing well at the moment, I thought, as I ran through them one by one. The children were happy and not arguing with each other, and of course, having Pickles had perked them up the way George had when he first came to live with us. Aleksy and Connie were happy and perhaps the most sensible teenagers the world had ever seen. And the adults were not causing me problems for once. We were all happy and harmonious on Edgar Road, including my extended families in the neighbourhood of course. Even Pickles.
Then there were the cats. Luckily my lovely friends were all fine; having lost Tiger I did fret about the other cats a bit, but they all seemed in good health. Dustbin’s new girlfriend was definitely an interesting turn up for the books. George was coping; even though he still missed Tiger, but we were dealing with that. It would take a lot of time to heal. It became more important to me to understand what was actually going on with Hana and him. It wasn’t just out of noisiness, but concern. Or that’s my story, and I am sticking to it.
Life was calm, and I just crossed my paws that the turmoil of last year was long behind us. Not that having Pickles was particularly calm, but you know what I mean.
The cat flap bashed, and George sprang through it, followed at a more leisurely pace by Pickles.
‘Hello, Alfie,’ he said, as he stood on the grass then he bent down to lick it. He was actually very cute, even his wrinkly face seemed adorable to me now.
‘Pickles, how are you?’ I asked.
‘I am very well. I was a bit sick this morning, but Polly said it was because I wasn’t supposed to eat the children’s breakfast – Henry fed me some off his plate, so he’s in a bit of trouble but how am I to know?’
‘It’s hard, I agree. Pickles, the general rule of thumb is that if it’s in your food bowl, then it’s yours. If it’s not, then it isn’t,’ I explained.
‘No, that seems far too hard to remember.’ His wrinkled face wrinkled even more. ‘I think I’ll just have to take my chances.’
‘See what I mean?’ George hissed. ‘Pickles, show my dad how you climb trees.’
‘Yes, yes, I will.’ We watched as Pickles approached a tree in the garden, and started trying to climb its trunk. It was fruitless, his front legs slid off