Mrs Wubbles - The Cat Who Smiled

MRS WUBBLES - THE CAT WHO SMILED

Michael sat up in bed, listening. He heard the trees rustling in the spinney at the bottom of the garden. But there was something else too...

He could hear a light scrabbling sound, like tiny feet could make, somewhere in the walls. The downy hair on the back of his neck bristled and tickled. Then there was a wump! Something landed on the bed next to his feet.

Michael groped for the in-line switch on the power cord to his bedside lamp. A pair of green eyes full of electric light glared back at him from the foot of the bed.

“Phew!” said Michael, breathing a huge sigh of relief. “It’s you, Mrs Wubbles. I thought it was something really scary.”

“Silly boy,” said the black and white cat. “Cat’s aren’t scary... well, not unless we’re talking about big cats like lions and tigers; but not us domestic types... we’re just soft ol’ pussy-cats.”

Michael looked dumfounded. “I have to be dreaming,” he said, more to himself than to the cat. “This can’t be happening. Cats can’t talk... whether they’re pussy cats, lions and tigers, or whatever.”

“Oh can’t they?” said the cat. Her whiskers were wet with something dark and sticky-looking. She licked at them.

“They can’t,” Michael repeated to himself, as if he was trying to convince himself more than anything. “It’s impossible.” He pinched himself.

“Well,” said Mrs Wubbles, “I wouldn’t worry about it for now. It’s the rats you really ought to be more concerned about.”

Mrs Wubbles licked the last of the blood off her whiskers, licked her paws and began washing her face.

Inside the wall, Michael could hear the little claws scrabbling at the plaster to get out. His heart thumped loudly.

When the claws broke through the plaster, he noticed the cat, smiling at him through slitty eyes, a smug ‘I told you so’ look on its face.