In this narrated reading of Chapter 7, titled “Cat and Mouse,” the story is told from the cat’s first‑person perspective. The cat describes a series of mischievous encounters with a human (referred to as “Mr. All‑Innocence”) who repeatedly tries to remove an “ugly pot” from a shelf, using tactics such as pleading, physically pushing the cat, and smearing whipping cream on the pot to lure the cat into moving it. The cat recounts how it outwits these attempts, skating on the pot, creating a sour smell, and playing a prank on a boy named Gregory by startling him and scattering his mother’s note. After the human finally cleans the rug, the cat returns to find the human attempting a final trick: placing a fresh prawn inside the pot as a bait. The cat discovers a hidden stash of prawns in the tool shed, eats those instead, and thus avoids the trap. The narrative is playful, mischievous, and showcases the cat’s cleverness and love for fresh prawns.
Chapters
The Killer Cat Strikes Back, Chapter 7, Cat and Mouse. So then we ended up playing a sort of cat and mouse game. Guess who played mouse? He put the ugly pot back on the shelf in case the budding artist got suspicious. But he still wanted it gone and to be able to spread his hands, Mr. All-Innocence, and swear to Ellie's mother that it was I who broke it. Over the next weeks, he must have tried everything, and I mean everything. First, he tried wheedling and begging. You know the sort of stuff. Dear Pussy, kind Pussy, won't you do me one tiny incy-wincy thing for me? Well, as my old granny used to say, Please pass the sick bag, Alice. Then he tried picking me up and putting me on the shelf and pushing me along it. That's right, actually putting his hand on my bottom and trying to push me. He's still nursing the scratches from that one. And then he smeared whipping cream on the pot, hoping that I'd be greedy enough to jump up and lick the pot so hard it would move along the shelf and fall off the end. How stupid is that? Cream on a shelf? I had a really good time skating up and down, kicking drips over the edge. It took him days to get the sour smell out of the rug. I spent a lot of time that week out in the fresh air, amusing myself by chasing next doors Gregory out of the garden. Each time the poor boy came through the gate clutching a note from his mother, I'd leap out from behind the holly bush and stick all 4 paws in the air as if I'd flattened myself against the invisible wall right next to his face. Gregory would scream, drop the note he was holding, and rush off home. I'd kick the note out of the way under the holly bush, hiding the evidence, and go back to sleep on the wall. A stupid game, maybe, but I enjoyed it, and it passed the time until Ellie's father had spent enough time scrubbing the rugs to make the living room smell pleasant again. Then I came back inside to find my adversary in the war of the last Ugly pot, getting even more cunning. He'd dropped a fine fresh prawn inside the thing. There! he crowed. Try to resist that, Tuffy! Try to get that out without knocking the pot over the edge! Well, I was tempted. If there's one thing that I love, It's a fresh prawn. But then I thought, nobody, not even a moth wallet like Ellie's father, has the nerve to buy only one. There must be others. I went off to the tool shed and found the rest of them still in the bag, hidden from Ellie's mother, waiting for the secret little luxury snack he was planning for himself later. Things worked out nicely. I ate those instead.
