The cat was on the trampoline again, leaping, bouncing, wailing, crying. It was impossible to tell if it was having fun or not, and even if anyone had been awake, no one would have dared come down to see.
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Notes:
1. Written on May 16th, 2023
__________“Stop being weird, Claire,” Ethel said.
“I’m not being weird,” Claire said, from inside the bin. “I’m being loud.”
To prove her point, she kicked the metal bin as hard as she could while standing inside it, causing it to gong like a bell.
“You can be two things at once, you know?” Tina said, quietly and seriously.
“You can’t,” Claire said.
“You can,” Ethel said. “And you are.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m not weird at all,” Claire said. “Daniel’s weird.”
“Daniel’s not weird he’s whimsical,” Tina said.
“Bringing the cat to the shops isn’t whimsical, it’s weird,” Claire said. “Really weird.”
“She wanted to see where cat biscuits came from,” Daniel said. “And now she knows.”
The cat meowed to let everyone know she did know now and everyone crouched down to stroke her except Claire, who began kicking the inside of the bin again until she had everyone’s attention.
“Daniel’s weird, I’m loud, Tina’s, urgh, thoughtful, and Ethel’s contrary,” Claire said.
“I’m not contrary!”
“You are!” Claire declared, banging the bin lid against the side of the bin to finalise the pronouncement. “And that’s that!”
“What about Mum?” Tina asked.
“Mum’s exasperated,” Agnes said, emerging from the shop with several carrier bags full of spilt cat biscuits. “And Daniel, if that cat ever wants to know where fish come from, don’t you dare take her to the pet shop, okay?”
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Notes:
1. Written on April 25th, 2023
__________There were cats in places they should not be. On shelves, in drawers, stretched out asleep on the computer keyboard and curled up asleep on the record player turnstile and the dashboard of our car. There were cats in my backpack and in Mum’s handbag. They were in the bath, in the shower, on the toilet seat and in the sink and the cupboard under the sink and the one above the sink somehow too. I don’t know how they could fit in there but they could and they did and there was nothing we could do to stop them.
There were cats in our pockets and cats in our sleeves and there was a cat curled up in the hood of my coat even though I was wearing the coat and the hood was up but still it was in there purring and doing that thing cats do with their claws when they’re happy until my entire scalp was pinpricked with blood.
We tried to phone for help but there was a cat sat on the phone and then we tried to call for help but there were kittens in our mouths by now and they looked out at the world with cute unblinking eyes from the middle of our faces.
There was nothing we could do but acquiesce to their demands.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on October 14th, 2022
2. There is no finer sight in life than a cat in a place that it should not be.
“So that’s what happened,” Tina told everyone, having relayed what she overheard her Mum telling Anna and Oya in the kitchen. “I can’t believe it. Right under our noses and we never suspected a thing!”
“I suspected a thing,” Claire said.
“So did I,” Ethel said.
“I suspected it first,” Claire said.
“We all suspected something, Claire,” Tina said. “Just not that thing.”
“Well I suspected everything,” Claire said. “And I was right!”
“Shut up Claire,” Ethel said.
“You shut up!” Claire said back.
“No you shut up!” Ethel said.
“Anyway,” Tina added. “Now we just have to hope someone finds him before he does all this again to somebody else somewhere else sometime else.”
“Before who does all what again to where and when and why?” Daniel asked.
“The LODGER!” Claire shouted. “Who else would we be talking about?”
“I don’t know,” said Daniel. “So what did he do now?”
“Tina just told us what he did, Daniel,” Ethel said.
“Oh,” Daniel said. “I wasn’t listening.”
“Well you should have been listening,” Tina said. “I’m not saying it all again.”
“But I was playing with the cat,” said Daniel.
“That’s no excuse!” Claire said. “We were all playing with the cat and we still heard.”
“Heard what?”
“Heard EVERYTHING!”
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Notes:
1. Written on October 7th, 2022
__________
1. The witch only celebrated palindromic birthdays. 101 was her favourite so far. She didn’t consider the single digit years to truly count. Even the two digit ones seemed a little suspect, but she forgave them simply because otherwise she’d have had none before today.
2. An exodus of dolls at dawn. Crawling, walking, tottering, skittering. Past the cherry tree and the swing and the well and the hollow and the copse and the abandoned boat.
3. Not for the witch a present given. Instead, from her a promise extracted. Cackles of glee, watched by eyes wide in terror.
4. Up above, the crows circled above the hill like vultures. In the trees all around squirrels whispered secrets to each other like sentient social media accounts. And down below, cats patrolled the woods like, well, cats. Anything that moved was pounced upon with the utmost glee. Prisoners subsequently released purely so they could be caught again, tormented some more.
5. On their return, the children couldn’t help but notice the way the doll’s dresses were covered in jam, the way their lips were smeared with icing, crumbs speckling their hair like dirt. No amount of questions would make the dolls admit where it was they had been, nor what it was they had done, why it was their eyes were tinged with so much shame.
6. All they would say was that it was done now. There was no turning back.
7. “What does that even mean?!” Claire said loudly.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on May 17th and 18th, 2022, and also a little bit extra on October 7th, 2022
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