BAD CAT, GOOD CAT. Lynne Banks Reid

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6. A Good Wash

      One evening a few weeks later, Turk didn’t come in when David called him for his dinner.

      David was very worried. What if he’d run away, or got lost? But he hadn’t. He pretended not to hear David calling. He hid under a bush, until it got dark. Then he jumped on the wall and started making the most horrendous noises.

      Boy cats often do that. They yowl and they growl and they screech. Then other boy cats come and join in. It’s like a cat-party, only often they have a fight. That makes even more noise.

      David’s parents and Paloma’s parents couldn’t get to sleep because of the awful row Turk and his pals were making.

      “Let’s not get Paloma a cat, if it’s going to make a noise like that!” said Paloma’s dad.

      “We’ll get her a girl cat,” said her mum. “Girl cats don’t yowl and screech and fight.”

      Next morning David woke up early. He ran downstairs in his pyjamas and opened the back door. Right away he saw Turk.

      But he got a shock. Turk wasn’t even grey. He was black – and red. He’d been fighting and rolling in the dirt. One of his ears was bleeding where another cat had chewed it.

      David rushed out in his bare feet and picked Turk up in his arms. He didn’t care about anything except that his cat was hurt.

      “Oh, you poor thing!” he said, stroking him. Turk was tired and hungry and his ear was stinging. Being stroked felt good. Just what I need, he thought. David carried him indoors.

      When David’s mum came downstairs to make breakfast, she was tired and cross from not sleeping. She found David, with dirty feet and dirty pyjamas, sitting on the floor of the kitchen. The fridge door was open. David was feeding Turk bits of raw fish. (Delicious! thought Turk, and nipped David’s finger trying to grab a bit more.)

      “Just look at that awful cat! He’s filthy! Put him down, David!” she said. “And stop feeding him! That fish was for our dinner!” She slammed the fridge door. “Isn’t it enough he kept us awake half the night?”

      David could tell she was really annoyed. But he didn’t put Turk down. He held him tight and ran upstairs with him to the bathroom.

      “What you need is a good wash,” David said to him. “If you’re not clean, Mum will want to get rid of you!”

      He shut the door so the cat couldn’t get out. Then he ran some warm water into the washbasin. He picked Turk up and tried to dip him into the water to wash him.

      It’s funny that all those cat books David had read didn’t tell him that cats don’t like getting wet.