Words in Hand

Long, long ago, there was an old woman who lived in the house. a beautiful house, a cottage and all around the cottage were lots of trees and the woman would stand outside, watching the world go by and enjoying the fresh air.

But underneath the floorboards of the house there were a lot of rats scurrying around. Yes, the rats were milling around, they were lovely, fourteen of them. And there was one large, important-looking rat with light brown fur. And they would talk around the fire and enjoy themselves and food was nailed to the rafters. Whereas up above there was a nasty old woman, who was always moaning and shouting at them, they were sick of her.

So one day the old woman got up and she decided 'I'll go to town to do some shopping.' So she walked on into town and she saw a pet shop. What was in the pet shop? Animals; dogs and cats and mice and everything, all sorts of things. And the woman thought and thought. (how) 'What kind of animal will I have? I've got something in mind about what to buy.' So she went in and she saw a parrot swinging drunkenly from its perch and cages with birds flapping around, and she rejected them all. I don't want this, or this, or that.

But meanwhile, what was happening, back at the house? The rat family were having a great time because the old woman had gone away shopping. They were free and they scurried all over the house, because there was nobody in there. They stole the cheese and they ate things and they read books and they swung from the bannisters and they nibbled at furniture, nothing was damaged, but they just enjoyed themselves. And the family said 'Good riddance! With the old woman not here it's much better for us, when she is, it's really awkward, and we're forced to stay down below. We don't feel comfortable, we'd much rather she was away so we'd have the house to ourselves.'

That evening the old woman came back. Do you remember I told you she'd gone to the pet shop? What did you come back with? She bought a cat. A beautiful, orange, striped cat. It looked really fierce and it prowled along. And the woman spoke to it, she was thinking about the rats that it could get rid of, and the cat padded along, eyes alert and they walked to the house. And the rats heard them coming and they scuttled back, way down beneath the floorboards. The woman opened the door and she spoke to the cat; 'I hope you like living in my house. Now remember what you must do!'

'Mmmm mmm.'

And they went into the kitchen. She poured out some milk into a saucer and gave it to the cat. And the cat meowed and lapped the milk, and the woman stroked it and it lapped the milk until the milk was all gone.

But the rats peered out from beneath the floorboards. 'Oh!' And they went down and spoke to the other rats and said: 'Up there there's a big fierce cat! I'm afraid of it. I'm frightened to go out there, we'll have to stay down beneath!' And the chief rat said: 'Stay down here? No! I'll show him. We'll have to do something, I'll have to plan something!'

The cat tried hard to catch the rats, but it had no luck because the rats were just too fast. They raced all over the house and the cat tried, but the cat was just too fat, it just couldn't catch them because they raced all over. The chief rat had said: 'I'll go this way, you go that way and somebody else will go up there and we'll race all over the place and the cat just won't be able to catch any of us we'll exhaust him. He just won't be able to catch us!' So they scuttled all over the place. And the cat tried but it didn't catch one, not one! The woman leapt onto the table and she screamed: 'Kill them!'

'I'm trying, I'm trying but there are too many of them!' And the woman stood there, she was annoyed, she was angry. She said 'You're no good!

At the end of the week, after a week that the cat had been there it hadn't caught anything. The cat looked at the woman and she said: 'You can't stay here any longer, you'll have to go back.' The cat trembled.

'Come on, with me, back to town.' So they walked. The cat slunk along behind, thinking of the milk and all the things that it would miss now that it had to go back. And they walked on in, back to the pet shop. The cat had to be returned.