Fredcat's Tails
No Christmas presents?
Fredcat had always believed in self improvement, which fits in well with the "American Way". To this end, Fredcat had been slowly increasing the number of humans with whom he could communicate. It was not always wise, however, to let humans know that one could speak their language in case they took advantage of this skill (to Fredcat's detriment).
Claudia is puzzled
But this ability was put to the test when, last Christmas, some friends of his heard noises from the floor above. As it happened, the house where Fredcat lived had an attic, but this was "unfinished". One would think that a house would not be sold if its attic was incomplete, but that again, is the "American Way". The idea is that it costs less for the owner to buy a house with an unfinished attic, taxes are lower, the builder has less work to do and the new owners can decide how they wish to use the additional space at their leisure. Sometimes the space is just left unfinished!!
The upshot was that Fredcat had repeatedly found the door to the unfinished attic firmly closed. (Actually, Fredcat thought it was just another door in the wall, hummed Mr. B., tunefully.) and this suited his best human friend, Cathie, who didn't have to concern herself about Fredcat falling through cracks in the attic floor, with no means of escape.
Fredcat was concerned about these noises from the attic as he was playing host to a few of his friends for the holiday season. He did not like the noises above, and neither did his friends. "What is that rustling?" said Claudia. "It appears to come from the room above, or perhaps even from the roof!" said Nikita. "But there is no way that we can find out unless we can get upstairs to the hidden attic," said Fredcat.
"Perhaps it is Father Christmas," suggested Claudia. "That's possible," considered Fredcat, "but it is rather early, there are still a couple of days to go before he arrives. It might be a practice run, though! There are so many houses to visit, this time of the year, that it makes sense to work out the best entrances and the quickest routes to each of them. That could save Father Christmas quite a lot of time overall."
Worried Nikita
"Could it be a squirrel?" asked Nikita, "They seem to be all round here and they might have got into the attic and be having a party themselves!" "I don't think so," said Fredcat, "I think they were all caught in cages and released a few days ago." "If it is Father Christmas, then how can he get into the living room, where the Christmas tree is, if the door to the attic is always locked?" enquired Claudia, "Always assuming the living room is where Father Christmas is going to leave all the Christmas presents. I think he usually leaves them around the base of the Christmas tree, or sometimes in the stockings we hang up from the mantelpiece." That question stumped them all for a few moments. Then Fredcat said, "If the door of the attic is always locked then the only way into the living room is via the chimney. Let's go have a look at it."
They all went to the living room and examined the fireplace. It was perfectly normal except for one thing - there was a glass cover which completely enclosed the fireplace. How could anyone possibly get down the chimney and then get through the glass cover into the living room? It was impossible. The cover served two purposes; first, to stop any embers dropping onto the carpet and setting fire to it, and second, to stop people (and cats!) falling into the fire.
"Unfortunately," said Fredcat, "that means that Father Christmas won't be able to use the traditional route down the chimney into the living room." All three cats sat around, stumped and rather gloomy. It was not a pleasant prospect to have to go without presents, just because there was no way for Father Christmas to get into the house. "And I have already procured some goodies for Father Christmas to eat, and I planned to raid the 'fridge for some fresh milk for him. I am sure he would have appreciated that," remarked Fredcat, grimly. "Now it will all go to waste!"
At that moment there was a loud knocking. There, bold as brass, was a squirrel, clinging onto the screen covering the living room window. He clearly wanted to be let in. There was some confusion about this request as none of the three cats were sure about this. They decided, prudently, that they would stay on the living room side of the window for safety's sake and keep a window between them and the squirrel. They had no idea about the ferocity of an apparently tame squirrel but, like the three little pigs, they were being as careful as they could.
"Well, squirrel, what do you want?" asked an emboldened Fredcat. "Hi! Allow me to introduce myself, I'm called Squire," said the squirrel, "and I couldn't help but notice that you are having trouble over the delivery of Christmas presents". The three cats looked at each other. This was indeed, a remarkable squirrel. And, they admitted, he appeared to be quite fearless, and he acted in a rather sophisticated manner ....
Squire
"All you need to do is to open the glass door on the front of the fire," Squire said smugly. "Impossible," said Fredcat, "It is too tightly fixed to the fireplace and anyway, it is a security feature that we cats are not allowed to touch!" "Yes, of course," went on Squire, "but humans can remove it. All you have to do is ask them and it will be done, you are the master of the Fredcat household, are you not?"
"The glass almost always stays on and the humans only remove it when there is trouble with the fire itself," pointed out Fredcat. "And I am not keen on asking for this to be done. I use my talking skills to a select few beings, and if I ask for the glass to be removed, I will have to provide an explanation for that request. I am unhappy about approaching them; the fewer people who know about my ability to talk to humans the better!"
"Then you will have to be more cunning!" continued the unabashed Squire. "Persuade the humans that the fireplace is not working and then they will remove the glass cover!"
"That might just work," cried an excited Claudia. "Anything to ease the path of Father Christmas' entry," she went on. Fredcat thought for a moment, "I suppose we could try it out," he said. Squire grinned, and promptly vanished up the netting to explore the rest of the house.
The three cats settled down to some serious plotting. It was necessary to persuade the humans that the fire was faulty - so the first step was to turn down the heating controls. That was easily accomplished. Within a short time the rooms were already beginning to chill alarmingly. Cathie was soon on the case. "Have you been changing the temperature controls," she demanded of Mr. B. "It is freezing here!". Mr. B. checked the downstairs heating controls and re-adjusted them. "It will be OK now," he reported. But within a very short time the controls were again re-adjusted downwards by the inventive cats.
It was not long before Cathie was complaining again. So, assuming that the temperature controls were now OK, Mr. B. soon turned his attention to the fire itself. He was puzzled because it remained cold, even though the gas fire was lit! After fiddling with the fire's on/off switch, he declared that he would see if he could get more heat by cleaning the fire's gas jets. The glass cover was taken off and laid aside but Mr. B. was distracted by the cats demanding milk, which quickly led to him turning his attention to making a cup of tea for Cathie.
As soon as he had left the living room the cats darted back and carefully carried the glass cover to the back of the TV where nobody ever went (the hiding place was full of dust, of course, but that didn't worry our feline friends). Later when Mr. B. remembered the glass cover he saw that it was back in place. Or rather he didn't (if you see what I mean, because glass is transparent) but he assumed that Cathie had replaced the glass and, being rather a lazy oaf, didn't look further too closely.
This was a great! Now Father Christmas had complete access to the living room and the cats were able to have their presents delivered after all. Only it didn't work out quite like that. Early on Christmas Day, after a sleepless night (the three cats had found it impossible to sleep, they had tossed and turned all night as they heard what appeared to sounds of rustling) they came down at last to view their presents. But what a surprise awaited them!
Absolutely no presents! No presents under the tree, no presents in their stockings - even the milk and chocolate bar put out for Father Christmas had disappeared. Only the wrapper from the chocolate bar remained - along with a plentiful smear of chocolate on the wrapper! What had happened? The cats looked carefully at the fireplace, only to find its glass cover still hidden behind the TV. Hmmm!
Eventually, with a cryptic smile, Fredcat said, "I have an idea." He disappeared for a while, reappearing shortly to say to the assembled cats, "Let's go and have some breakfast." This puzzled Claudia and Nikita, but as they were guests (and also quite polite cats) they agreed, and made their way to the dining area. It was not exactly what they had had in mind to do at that stage of Christmas Day morning, but there was nothing else for it but to have a bite to eat. Cathie had prepared some tasty tit-bits for their early morning meal, so they set to, then popped outside for their morning constitutional. Alas, that hadn't helped any, and they later returned, feeling rather miserable.
It was then that they heard a furious racket coming from up above. Fredcat turned to Cathie and said, ever so politely, that as a Christmas treat, he and his two friends would like to see the attic. Cathie, feeling a bit sorry for the "three little sweeties" (her words), agreed and they made their way to the room above. What a sight! Caught in a squirrel trap was their supposed friend, Squire! And to their amazement they quickly discovered, hidden in various niches in the attic, all the cats' presents!!!
"So it was Squire who took our presents," said Nikita, "but how did you know?" she added. "Indeed so," said Fredcat. "I first became suspicious of Squire when he turned up offering gratuitous help and advice on how to get into the living room, seemingly without any prospect of gain for himself. This was not to help us cats, of course, but to ensure that he had easy entry into the Fredcat household. He had been prevented from entering the house via the damaged louvre in the attic, he realised that a more direct route was needed."
"And then, of course, when he saw that Father Christmas had left our presents he thought that he would snaffle those!" "But why take all the presents?" said Claudia. "Oh, he didn't particularly want all the presents," replied Fredcat, "he just wanted the nuts". "What nuts?!" said Claudia, "there are no nuts here!"
"Well, that's where you are wrong, Claudia. If you remember, he left behind a lot of chocolate when he stole the presents," said Fredcat. "Now who would leave chocolate? Most humans like chocolate, so it had to be something else. And, if you had looked more closely at the chocolate wrapper, you would have seen that the chocolate set out for Father Christmas was indeed a chocolate nut bar. And Squire, here, was after the nuts, not the chocolate!"
"So he stole all the presents just in case some of them contained nuts!" said Claudia. "And if we had left him alone he would have unwrapped all the presents, and destroyed them, just in case there were nuts inside," completed Nikita, in admiration, "How clever of you to work that out, Fredcat!" "Exactly," said Fredcat, with surprising modesty.
"But how did you get Squire to enter the squirrel trap?" enquired Claudia. "That was straightforward," said Fredcat, "I simply remarked to Mr. B. that I thought that there was still a squirrel loose in the attic, and he promptly set a further squirrel trap up there. He even complied with my suggestion to bait the trap with another bar of nut chocolate instead of using peanut butter!"
"And now all we need to do is to take the presents downstairs and then take our supposedly good friend, Squire, for a long trip to rejoin his three fellow squirrels caught not so long ago," he added.
"Squire was philosophical, Well, I suppose I have had a good run for my money, I have had loads of fun and I have been well and truly caught. I look forward to being re-united with my fellow squirrels elsewhere and I am sure I will live to fight another day!" "I am sure you will," muttered Fredcat dryly, "but not in the Fredcat residence!"
Mr. B. had listened to this tale with mixed emotions of wonderment and dismay. Where did this cunning cat get these ridiculous stories from! They were a complete fabrication and a travesty of the truth. "There was never a fourth squirrel," he barked, "it's all a fantasy tale. Rubbish!, rubbish!, all rubbish!, that's what it is," he shouted. "This is all simply designed to get our sympathy for an extra bowl of Christmas turkey," he added, "Furthermore, exactly how did Squire move the presents from the living room through a locked door and into the attic!! I tell you, it just won't work!"
At this, Cathie jumped in, "did you replace the glass cover when you were fixing the fire," she asked sweetly?" "Er, no, I thought you did," said Mr. B., blushing a little. "Where is it then?," she said, crossing her arms in a way that all women and men recognise. "It must have slipped behind the TV," said Mr. B. "And when did you last dust behind there?" she enquired.
This was not going well. Mr. B. turned around balefully, to have further words with the triumphant trio, but as usual, he found himself now yelling at thin air. They had all hopped it, and were not planning on returning till midday when the smell of roast Christmas turkey would attract them to their feeding area. They hoped that by then, the humans would have sorted out their differences.
So, a seeming satisfactory ending for Fredcat and his friends, but what do you think, constant reader? Hmmm...