Читать книгу A Friend Called Alfie - Rachel Wells - Страница 21

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, George, can you stop trying to trip me up,’ Claire snapped, as George followed her around, hanging around her legs too closely and hoping to get some scraps of food she was carrying. But Claire, preparing for the family get-together was stressed enough, without George adding to it.

‘George,’ I hissed. Trying to get him to come over. He bounded over to me.

‘What?’ he asked, looking at me innocently.

‘You know better than to annoy Claire when she’s stressed.’

‘But the food smells so good.’

‘And if we keep out of her way, we’ll get something nice, but for now, we need to let her get on with it.’

‘Claire, how much food do we really need?’ Jonathan asked, coming into the kitchen.

‘I don’t want anyone to go hungry,’ Claire replied.

‘You know it’s a good job I got a promotion; otherwise there’s no way we could afford all this,’ Jonathan moaned.

‘Oh shut up and go and get the drinks ready. Oh, and can you give the cats some food, to keep them out of my way.’

‘Meow!’I objected, I wasn’t in her way, it was all George. But I grinned at George, we were getting food, his annoying ways had worked in both our favour.

Family days were utterly precious, and my heart was full as the doorbell kept going, heralding the arrival of the people we loved.

Polly, Matt, the children and guest of honour Pickles arrived first. The children all crowded round Pickles, which I could tell annoyed George, although he had played with Summer and Toby that morning. Before I had much time to be fussed over by Matt, the door went again and in came, Tomasz, Franceska, Aleksy and Tommy. They made a huge fuss of George and me, which placated George. Tomasz picked Georgia up and cuddled him, Aleksy did the same to me. Franceska gave us both a stroke and Tommy took George out of Tomasz’s arms and ticked his head the way he loved. Before they even got past the hallway, the door went again. Sylvie and Connie came in, Connie make a beeline for Aleksy and Sylvie raising her eyebrows, but not objecting as they went off to the living room hand in hand.

‘Marcus has just gone to get Harold, so they’ll be here any minute. But I have to warn you, Harold said he didn’t sleep so well, so he’s a little moody today.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure George will cheer him up.’ George preened at that. He was the only one who could cheer Harold up after all, and I was so glad for anything that made him feel good about himself.

‘Watch what we taught Pickles,’ Henry said, to all of us. We watched. ‘Right, sit,’ Henry commanded. Pickles wagged his tail but didn’t sit. ‘SIT,’ Henry shouted. Pickles didn’t move,

‘You’re not doing it right, do it like this,’ Martha said. ‘Pickles, sit down,’ she commanded in her sweet voice, with a smile. Pickles barked.

‘I can do it,’ Toby said. ‘Pickles sit,’ he shouted. Pickles walked to the other side of the hall.

‘PICKLES, SIT RIGHT NOW!’ Summer shrieked. Pickles sat down, but then so did we all.

‘Well Summer wins the training prize I guess,’ Polly said.

‘No, she’s just the scariest,’ Claire said. ‘Summer, the secret to good puppy training is not to shout at him, he’s a baby, and you could scare him.’ She’d certainly scared me after all. Just as all hell threatened to break loose as Summer didn’t take criticism well, we were once again saved by the doorbell, and Marcus and Harold appeared. George, taking no chances, leapt into Harold’s arms, taking him by surprise.

‘Come in, and let’s get this party started,’ Claire said excitedly as everyone filed to different rooms in the house in a way which showed how used to being here everyone was. Like a proper family.

‘I’m happy to be here but to be honest, it’s getting colder than I like,’ Harold blustered. He loved to have something to complain about. It was September, and it wasn’t as hot as summer but it was hardly cold yet.

‘I can put the heating on for you,’ Claire offered, giving Harold a hug.

‘No, I can’t be doing with that central heating, it kills people,’ Harold said.

Really? Did it?

‘I don’t think it does, Dad,’ Marcus said, steering him to a chair. George was still attached to him. Those two, I thought, fondly.

‘Mark my words, in a few years’ time everyone will be talking about it. It’ll come out that it’s causing that global warming and the ozone layer and the lack of polar bears.’ George licked Harold’s face, he thought he was the cleverest man in the world.

I did sometimes wonder where Harold got his complaints from, and by the looks on the faces of my humans, they did too. Thankfully they all loved him very much.

I was in heaven as I moved from room to room to check on my loved ones. The women were in the kitchen, drinking wine, eating and chatting. The men were all in the living room, with drinks, plates of food and George who hadn’t left Harold’s side sitting together on the chair he was settled in. I had a suspicion they were sharing food, but I was too happy to tell him off. As long as he was having a good time, I would have to accept it. The children, along with Pickles, were upstairs joined by Tommy, who protested he was too old to hang out with the younger ones but actually secretly enjoyed making up games for them to play. What he’d done was to set up an obstacle course for Pickles on the upstairs landing. There was a toy horse jump, a tunnel that Summer used to love when she was little, a hoop which one of them had to hold for him to jump through and a stool for him to climb on and off. Pickles seemed very confused by this and kept getting it wrong.

‘No, Pickles, you don’t sit down in the tunnel,’ Summer who was the bossiest of all the children chided. Even her words didn’t work this time. The problem was that Polly had taught them that if they wanted Pickles to do something, they had to offer a treat as a reward, but they were giving him treats before he did anything. All the treats had gone, and Pickles was none the wiser in how to do an assault course.

‘I know,’ Tommy said. ‘I’ll go and get George, he can show Pickles how it’s done.’

I raised my whiskers, George, hopefully, would be pleased to be given such a role. I waited until Tommy came back upstairs, George wriggling in his arms. He didn’t seem that happy, actually.

‘Right, George, please can you show Pickles how to do an obstacle course,’ Tommy begged. George came to where I was and sat with his back to the children. Oh dear.

‘What’s wrong?’ I whispered.

‘They ignore me, and now they want me to show the dumb puppy how to do something so basic,’ he hissed back.

‘George, they love you, they pretty much ignored me too, but Pickles is new to them. Perhaps show them how fantastic you are and it might help Pickles too,’ I coaxed, gently.

‘I am fantastic, aren’t I?’

‘You are, son.’

‘Meow,’ George said loudly and he went to join the children. As they cheered him, I saw him preen, and I was happy how easy it was for us all to be friends, or almost friends in any case.

Connie and Aleksy sat on the stairs holding hands and whispering to each other, but the important thing is that they didn’t sneak off into one of the bedrooms, so I didn’t have to worry too much. I jumped onto Aleksy’s lap.

‘Hey, Alfie,’ Aleksy gave me a nice head scratch.

‘I tried to bring Hana, but she didn’t want to come, I think she just wanted some peace and quiet,’ Connie said. I didn’t blame her for staying away, this was not for the faint-hearted, although she normally came with us, she didn’t always. Suddenly Pickles knocked into George, and sent him flying, with caused George to yowl and land on his tail. Then George, showing his balance, fell off the stool and landed on Pickles, who cried out, but seemed unhurt, and the children all shrieked with laughter. George really did seem to be taking Pickles under his wing and he tried to show him calmly exactly how an obstacle course was done.

‘Wow, Pickles actually does follow George,’ Toby said. ‘He’s almost doing it right now!’

George basked in all the praise.

‘Right, children, can you come and eat please.’ Claire’s voice floated up the stairs. Everyone carried on doing what they were doing. ‘NOW,’ she shouted, and we all traipsed downstairs, the children a little reluctantly, I was far keener.

George and I had a bowl of fat pilchards awaiting us, and Pickles tried to muscle in.

‘Not for you,’ Matt said, scooping him up, thankfully. I was a very tolerant cat, but no one came between me and my pilchards. Pickles let out a cry. ‘No, Pickles, you need to eat only puppy food, mate, I’m afraid. You don’t want to get fat do you?’

Pickles looked as if he would very much like to get fat.

After eating, the children went out into the garden, Pickles was fast asleep in his bed, and George and I were satisfyingly full after our lovely meal. Harold was asleep in the living room, snoring contentedly. I felt my heart swell with love for all my friends and I wished it could always be like this.