Bear in the Woods Page 2

  ‘You should put P-P-Pumpkin on his lead,’ said Joe as they entered through the gate in the picket fence.

  ‘I can’t,’ said April. ‘Didn’t bring it.’

  ‘W-what?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Your dog is a deranged psycho,’ said Fin. ‘You can’t take him down the main street of town off the leash.’

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ said April. ‘These are country people. They’re used to animals.’

  ‘They’re used to shooting them or sending them to slaughter at an abattoir,’ said Fin.

  ‘Pumpkin only attacks people when they are threatening to me,’ said April.

  ‘Or when you order him to,’ said Fin.

  April smirked. ‘Yes, that too.’

  Pumpkin trotted over to pee on the statue in the centre of the gardens.

  ‘Can you at least get him to stop peeing on public monuments?’ pleaded Fin.

  ‘It’s an ugly statue,’ said April. ‘He’s improving it.’

  To be fair, April was right. It was an unusually ugly statue. It was hard to tell exactly what it was. It looked like some sort of monster had emerged from a lagoon and was raising a big club to savagely beat its victim. Fin peered up at the sculpture.

  ‘Is it me, or is the lagoon monster wearing lipstick?’ he asked.

  The monster’s lips did look surprisingly red.

  ‘It’s probably the blood of its victims,’ said April. ‘That’s just the sort of thing this town would want to commemorate with a public sculpture.’

  They passed through the gardens, turned into Main Street and were surprised to discover it was busy. Normally on a Sunday morning the town was slow to wake up, but this morning there were dozens of residents about. They were putting up giant yellow flower decorations, moving huge flowerpots and decorating the windows of shops. Even the normally miserable Good Times Cafe had gone to some trouble. They had sticky-taped a hand-drawn picture of a flower to their window.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked April.

  ‘Check it out,’ said Fin, pointing to Constable Pike on a stepladder halfway down the street. On the opposite side of the road, Mayor Albright was standing on the awning of a shop. They both started pulling on ropes at the same time and a huge banner was hoisted up off the bitumen of the road until it was drawn across the street. It read:

  Welcome to Daffodil Day!

  ‘Not another stupid festival,’ said April.

  ‘At least this one doesn’t involve insects,’ said Fin. (The town’s previous festival had been the annual cockroach races. For more information see The Peski Kids: The Mystery of the Squashed Cockroach.)

  Suddenly, Pumpkin barked. ‘Arf!’

  ‘What is it, sweetheart?’ asked April. She scanned the busy street. There were strange people, unusual decorations, power tools being used – any number of things that could have caught her dog’s attention.

  ‘Arf arf!’ Pumpkin barked again, and then he took off.

  Now Pumpkin was a small dog, but when he hit top speed he really moved. His ears flopped up and down, his long hair billowed back in the wind and his tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth. He looked adorable as he shot like a rocket down the footpath. But the Peski kids were well aware, Pumpkin was not adorable.

  The little dog had spotted a cat in a cat stroller, right outside the post office. The cat yowled and hissed as Pumpkin descended at full speed. But Pumpkin could not be intimidated by a rugby full-forward, so he was not going to be intimidated by a four-kilo cat. He started barking aggressively as he raced the last few metres.

  Thankfully cats are generally a sensible species. The cat gave up any attempt to hold its ground, leapt out of the stroller and fled, Pumpkin close on its heels.

  ‘Pumpkin, let the kitty cat go!’ called April. She was running after the two animals. ‘You’ve just had breakfast, you haven’t got room for another meal.’

  The cat apparently decided that it wasn’t going to outrun the crazed beast, so it took evasive action by running up the nearest telegraph pole.

  Pumpkin skidded to a halt at the base, barking loudly and pawing at the aged timber. April pulled her jumper off over her head and tied the sleeve cuff to Pumpkin’s collar as a makeshift leash.

  ‘Come away from there,’ said April. ‘We haven’t got time to play now. We’ve got to go to the post office.’

  ‘No, you don’t!’ snapped Constable Pike, jogging over. ‘You stay right where you are.’

  Joe and Fin had caught up at this point too.

  ‘S-s-sorry,’ stammered Joe. ‘We’ll take the d-d-dog straight home.’

  ‘Princess Anastasia!’ wailed a buxom, well-dressed older woman, emerging from the post office and seeing her empty cat stroller ‘My baby! Where are you?’

  Joe pointed to the top of the telegraph pole. The cat hissed.

  ‘Nooo!’ cried the woman. ‘What happened? She looked about for some sort of explanation, her eyes settling on Pumpkin. She gasped. ‘You wicked dog!’

  April pulled Pumpkin close. ‘My dog is not wicked. He just has the normal canine instinct to want to kill and eat cats, which given how terrible cats are for native wildlife seems entirely justifiable to me.’

  ‘How dare you!’ wailed the woman. ‘Your dog attacked my Princess.’

  ‘Who pushes a cat around in a stroller anyway?’ asked April.

  ‘Princess Anastasia likes fresh air,’ said the woman.

  ‘She told you that, did she?’ asked April sarcastically. ‘Or was it a voice in your head?’

  The woman then raised her handbag and belted April hard about the head. April put her hands up and deflected the blow, but Pumpkin leapt to his mistress’s defence and sank his teeth into the lady’s shin.

  ‘Aaagghhh!’ cried the woman, collapsing on the ground. ‘Mad dog! I’ve been bitten by a mad dog!’

  ‘I was assaulted by this mad old lady first!’ cried April.

  ‘I saw everything,’ said Constable Pike.

  ‘So did I,’ declared Mayor Albright, who had joined the crowd of onlookers. She stood out because she was the only person in town, or indeed any town within a five-hundred-kilometre radius, who would wear a lilac pants suit. ‘Your dog is the troublemaker here. This town has strict by-laws with regard to pet ownership.’

  Joe groaned.

  ‘We really should read the town’s by-laws,’ said Fin. ‘If we knew what they were, it might be easier not to break them.’

  ‘And Mrs Bellamy,’ Constable Pike turned to the lady who owned the cat, ‘I know that you are a pillar of society, that no one in Currawong can bake a honey cake as delicious as you, and I know you were provoked, but you really shouldn’t hit children with your handbag.’

  ‘It’s traditional in Currawong,’ said Mrs Bellamy. ‘Agnes Dalrymple started it.’

  ‘Mrs Dalrymple hit an adult with an umbrella fifty years ago,’ said Constable Pike. ‘These days, if you’re called up before the magistrate in Bilgong, they’re not going to care about local traditions. Hitting kids just looks bad. No matter how annoying they are.’

  ‘Constable, surely you should be addressing the more serious issue of rescuing that poor cat,’ said Mayor Albright. ‘Daffodil Day is coming up. Tourists will be flooding in from around the world. We can’t have a dead cat dangling from a telegraph pole on Main Street.’

  ‘Aaaaggghhh,’ wailed Mrs Bellamy, collapsing in Constable Pike’s arms.

  ‘And now Mrs Bellamy has collapsed!’ Mayor Albright turned on the Peski kids. ‘Do you realise what you’ve done? Who’s going to make honey cake for all the tourists now?’

  ‘People shouldn’t eat so much cake,’ said April. ‘It will give them diabetes.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Constable Pike. ‘We’ll get Princess Anastasia down from the pole.’

  ‘You do realise when you repeat that stupid name you lose all appearance of dignity,’ said Fin.

  April snorted. ‘Constable Pike didn’t have much to start with.’

  Constable Pike pulled out his phone and dialled. He waited a few moments, then the other person picked up. ‘Hello, sorry to disturb you … yes, I’m sorry. I know, I’m sure you do have a lot of muck to shovel, but we’ve got a situation on Main Street. Cat up a telegraph pole … Ahuh, ahuh, thank you.’

  He hung up.

  ‘Is she coming?’ asked Mrs Bellamy, clutching her pearls anxiously.

  Constable Pike nodded. ‘As soon as she changes out of her wellies she’ll be on her way.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Joe.

  ‘The Cat Lady,’ said Constable Pike.

  Joe, Fin and April did not have high expectations of a woman whose job title was the ‘Cat Lady’. They sat on the kerb waiting for her to arrive. Constable Pike considered handcuffing them to something, but the bench at the bus stop had just been painted for the Daffodil Festival and he didn’t want to scrape it up and get himself in trouble with the mayor.

  More and more Currawong residents had gathered around, delaying their shopping or morning cup of coffee to see how the cat drama would unfold. Completely unrepentant, Pumpkin barked and growled at everyone. He even tried to bite any small children dim-witted enough to pat him.

  Eventually the murmur went up. ‘She’s coming’ and ‘That’s her car’.

  Joe leaned forward to get a better view. An extremely battered and dirty station wagon was chugging its way down Main Street, black smoke billowing out from behind.

  ‘That car is burning oil,’ said Fin. ‘It needs servicing.’

  ‘It needs washing,’ said Joe.

  ‘No way. The dirt is the only thing holding it together,’ said April.

  The car cruised to a halt right in front of them. The Peski kids had to leap up, because the tyres scraped the kerb where they had been sitting.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ said Constable Pike respectfully, as he bent at the waist to look in through the window.

  There was no response, just a fumbling with the latch and then the car door swung open, hitting Constable Pike in the groin.

  ‘Ugh,’ he said, struggling not to collapse in pain.

  Two small feet swung out of the car and the Cat Lady unfolded herself, bracing against the doorframe as she stood upright.

  ‘She’s going to rescue that cat?!’ exclaimed April.

  The Cat Lady was not impressive. For a start, she was very short. But that was not her most surprising feature. She was also incredibly old, somewhere between seventy-five and one hundred and five. It was hard to tell because she was so small and skinny. She was more wrinkled skin than anything else. The Cat Lady’s clothes weren’t very impressive either. It looked like she had just driven in from a farm because she was wearing muddy old trackpants, a flannel shirt and a moth-eaten cardigan over the top.

  ‘Your service to the community is greatly appreciated,’ said Mayor Albright, holding out her hand.

  The Cat Lady looked at the mayor’s hand, then peered at her face. ‘Who are you?’

  It was the first words the Peski kids had heard her speak. She sounded very old too.

  ‘I’m the mayor of Currawong, Rowena Albright,’ said Mayor Albright.

  The Cat Lady made a snorting noise. ‘I didn’t vote for you. Have you fixed the bridge into town yet?’

  ‘Well, we have taken the issue in hand,’ said Mayor Albright. ‘A feasibility committee is doing a thorough study and they’ll report late next year.’

  ‘Hmmpf,’ said the Cat Lady. ‘That means “no”, so I won’t be voting for you next time either then.’ She turned to Constable Pike. ‘Where’s this cat?’

  ‘Up the telegraph pole,’ said the constable, pointing upwards. The Cat Lady looked at his finger, then slowly tipped her head back to see the top of the pole. She adjusted the bifocals on her nose and peered harder. Fortunately, at that point the cat gave a loud mewl so she was able to locate it by sound.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said the Cat Lady.

  ‘Please, you must save her,’ said Mrs Bellamy. ‘Princess Anastasia has a thyroid condition. If she doesn’t eat every hour she gets hangry.’

  The Cat Lady peered at Mrs Bellamy. ‘So the cat is fat then?’ She turned to Constable Pike. ‘You didn’t tell me I’d have to rescue a fat cat.’

  ‘No so much fat as big boned,’ said Constable Pike.

  Mrs Bellamy wept even louder.

  ‘She’s probably been feeding it her stupid honey cake,’ said April.

  The Cat Lady made a disparaging grunting noise in the back of her throat as she contemplatively chewed her gum.

  ‘How do you think she’s going to get it down?’ Fin whispered to Joe. ‘Shoot it?’

  Joe shrugged.

  ‘She’s too old. She can’t see well enough to shoot anything,’ said April. ‘Maybe she’ll use a chainsaw to cut down the telegraph pole.’ April liked chainsaws. She had asked Santa for one every Christmas since she was two years old. Santa had not been forthcoming. As a result, Santa had been on April’s naughty list for the same amount of time.

  ‘Hold my gum,’ said the Cat Lady. She reached into her mouth, pulled out a wad of well-chewed spearmint and handed it to Constable Pike. He looked utterly disgusted but dutifully held it on his fingertip. The Cat Lady went towards her car, paused, then in an amazing feat of athleticism leapt up onto the bonnet.

  ‘Wow!’ said Fin.

  The Cat Lady then stepped up onto the roof of the car, sprang onto the telegraph pole and scampered up it like a monkey climbing a coconut tree.

  ‘Cool!’ said April, in awed admiration.

  ‘This town just gets weirder and weirder,’ said Fin.

  ‘What if she f-f-falls?’ worried Joe.

  Constable Pike scoffed. ‘The Cat Lady never falls.’

  Now she was at the top of the telegraph pole, the Cat Lady slowed down to thread herself through the powerlines.

  ‘Won’t she get e-e-electrocuted?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Only if she touches two lines simultaneously and completes a circuit,’ said Fin. ‘One is fine. Otherwise birds would be cooked every time they rested on the wires.’

  But the Cat Lady was clearly an expert. She showed no sign of high-voltage electrocution. She skillfully pulled herself up onto one of the horizontal bars that held the lines so she was sitting next to the cat. Princess Anastasia seemed to think this was perfectly natural and went to her for a scratch.

  Cats often seem magnetically attracted to little old ladies. This is because at heart all cats are ruthless predators, just like their brethren, the wild lions of the Serengeti. They instinctively know they can prey on the elderly, manipulating them emotionally until they pamper to their every need. But the Cat Lady was not an average little old lady. As soon as Princess Anastasia was close enough, the Cat Lady scooped her up, stuffed the cat into her capacious cardigan and shinnied back down the telegraph pole in the blink of an eye. In less than fifteen seconds total she was back standing on the roof of her own car.

  ‘That was the single most impressive thing I’ve ever seen,’ said April.

  The Cat Lady stepped down onto the bonnet of the car and handed the cat over to its owner.

  ‘Oh thank you, thank you so much,’ gushed Mrs Bellamy, before addressing her cat. ‘Princess Anastasia, are you all right? Were you traumatised by the naughty doggie?’

  The Cat Lady held out her hand to Constable Pike. He instinctively held up his own to help her down. She slapped it out of the way. ‘I don’t want your hand, nitwit,’ she snapped. ‘My gum.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ said Constable Pike, remembering the gum on the fingertip of his other hand. He held it out to her. She popped it back in her mouth and jumped off the bonnet.

  Now this is where things went terribly wrong (or even wronger, if you include Pumpkin’s wicked behaviour and the Peski kids getting in trouble with the police). Because for whatever reason, whether she was distracted by the return of her gum, or her poor eyesight meant she misjudged the distance to the ground, the Cat Lady miscalculated her jump and landed on Joe’s foot.

  ‘Ow!’ said Joe, although it didn’t hurt that much. The Cat Lady weighed less than fifty kilos wringing wet.

  But the Cat Lady’s ankle twisted awkwardly as her foot landed half on, half off Joe’s giant toes, and she collapsed on the concrete pavement with a sickening thud. Okay, it wasn’t so much a thud because she was a very little old lady, more of a crumple, but it was dramatic and it made everyone wince, because anyone who has ever had a granny does not like seeing little old ladies collapse on the ground (unless you have an evil granny, but that’s another matter).

  ‘You’ve killed the Cat Lady,’ someone from the crowd cried out.

  ‘I didn’t m-m-mean to!’ panicked Joe.

  Constable Pike grabbed Joe by the upper arm and held him with a firm grip. ‘Assault is a serious crime, boy.’

  ‘I didn’t assault anyone,’ protested Joe. ‘She landed on my foot.’

  ‘There’s always an excuse with you Peski kids,’ said Mayor Albright.

  Fin crouched down next to the Cat Lady.

  ‘Now the little one is finishing her off,’ cried another person from the crowd.

  April stood on tippy-toes and scanned the faces. She spotted a familiar head of blonde hair in plaits. ‘I know that’s you Matilda Voss-Nevers, shut your cake hole.’

  ‘She’s threatening me!’ accused Matilda. Matilda was a girl from their class at school who found great satisfaction in being right, as well as informing other people when they are wrong.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ agreed April, letting go of Pumpkin’s improvised leash. ‘Pumpkin, atta–’

  Joe clamped his free hand over April’s mouth before she could order her dog to do more damage.

  Meanwhile, Fin gently removed the Cat Lady’s shoe, plucked an iceblock from a nearby child bystander, which made the child burst into tears, and held the frozen block against the lady’s ankle.

  The Cat Lady’s eyes flickered open. ‘I’m not dead, you morons. I just twisted my ankle.’

  ‘She’s alive!’ exclaimed Mrs Bellamy. ‘Thank heavens.’

  ‘Don’t give heaven the credit,’ said April. ‘Fin’s the one who stuck an iceblock on her foot.’