Wednesday 3 February 2016

The Dead Cat

For audio click here 

“Do you wanna see a dead body?” I said to Stan.
“What a real one?” Stan’s eyes lit up.
“Well a dead cat,” I replied.
“I suppose that’s good enough,” I could see the disappointment in those eyes.
I took the spade out of the shed and led Stan down the garden.
“We buried Whiskers here last week,” I said, and started digging.
"How did she die?" Stan asked.
“Hit by a car.”
“So there’ll be blood?” He seemed morosely interested in the macabre.
I was getting tired of digging and getting worried Stan would think the dead body of a cat with no blood would be an anti-climax.
“You take over,” I said. He didn’t look best pleased, but he took the shovel anyway.
We dug and dug, taking it in turns under the hot afternoon sun.
“How deep is it?" Stan said.
“I dunno, I thought we’d have got there by now, and my mum and Cath will be home soon.”
We took one more turn each but still didn't get to the cat.
“You're a bloody liar you are,” Stan said, and stormed off. This was a disaster; it would be all over the school come Monday.
I couldn't understand it. This was definitely where we buried her, but she was gone. Had another animal dug her up? Had she done a Jesus?
Now what did I do? Did I tell my mum? That would me mean having to admit trying to dig the cat corpse up. But if I didn't, then Cath my sister would go on thinking there was a cat under that homemade cross. Would that be fair?
“Mum,” I said when Cath was in the bath, “how quickly do bodies you know, um disappear after you bury them? You know turn to skeletons?”
“You mean decompose?”
“Yes, decompose how long does it take?”
“Oh, I think it takes a long time love, why?”
“Nothing mum.” I tried to return to watching Tomorrow's World.
I could feel her looking at me and my cheeks redden.  She knew when I was hiding something. "Tony, Robert Jones,” she said. "What have you been up to?"
“It was Stan mum, not me. He wanted to see a dead body… so… so… we er… dug up Whiskers, but... but Whiskers wasn't there!”
“Oh,” she said, and tried to return to watching Tomorrow's World.
That wasn’t the reaction I’d expected; no surprise, no worry and most of all no bollocking.
I wondered if she could feel me looking at her as her cheeks reddened.
“Mum, What have you been up to?” I said.
“It was your dad not me, we dug Whiskers up and er put her out with the um bins.”
"You did what?" Cath screamed. Neither of us had noticed my sister was standing in the door, tears running down her face. 



  

1 comment:

  1. Petra Goláňová6 February 2016 at 15:07

    ' "Mum, What have you been up to?” I said.'

    ReplyDelete