More Cats in the Belfry by Doreen Tovey

up the box it had gone. Out through the wire netting into the long grass behind the run, we decided, and it wasn't likely to come back. Tani's howling had been enough to frighten off an elephant. When we went back to the cottage, however, to make some coffee to restore our nerves, and Tani started up again, we realised it wasn't the adder she was protesting about. It was Jeanine. A stranger who'd had the temerity to intrude into Tani's Very Own Cat-house: her Refuge when Danger Threatened. And had it threatened! Tani bawled balefully from under the sofa. If she hadn't done her Defensive Call the kidnappers would have Got Her.
    Â Â It was at that point that Jeanine realised that her microphone, attached to her belt, was still switched on. The entire incident had been recorded. Tani's screaming opened and closed one episode of 'A Small Country Living', while the recording of our rescuing the cats formed part of it. People listening to it probably thought she was warning off the adder. What she was really doing was warning off Jeanine.
    Â Â That wasn't the end of it, either. After Jeanine had gone I cut down the long grass behind the cat-run and laced a foot-deep length of heavy polythene right round the wire netting to stop the adder coming back again, though after Tani's performance it was probably in a hole somewhere having a nervous breakdown. Later events were to show how wrong I was.
    Â Â For days I kept constant watch over the cats, going up regularly to check that they were all right in their run and listening, when I wasn't near them, to be sure nobody was screeching a warning. Thus, a week or so later, I came to be on the other side of the cottage from the cat-run, chopping down brambles in the lilac hedge that bordered the lane and stopping every now and then, as I couldn't see the run from that point, to listen to make sure all was well.
    Â Â Suddenly I heard the sound of hooves approaching and a voice I recognised booming out her latest achievements in horse-breeding. Not wishing to be caught – it was, I knew, a local female, accompanied by her much-henpecked husband, who would keep me talking for ages about her latest foal if she saw me – I got down on my hands and knees and took refuge under the hedge, only to hear the woman bawl, as she neared the gate, 'What on earth's that noise?'
    Â Â 'Don't know,' replied her weary spouse.
    Â Â 'Somebody's calling,' persisted the woman. Then, answering her own question, she announced, 'It's one of the Siamese on heat.'
    Â Â 'Thank goodness horses don't make that noise when they're on heat,' said her husband with feeling.
    Â Â I couldn't hear any howling with the cottage between myself and the cat-run, but Tani had been spayed… it must be another adder. I erupted from under the hedge, much to the couple's astonishment, and tore up the path – to find the two cats side by side, tails bushed like flue brushes, swearing horrible oaths at the ginger cat from up the lane, who'd come down to sit outside their run and tantalise them about being Shut In like Cissies.

SEVEN

    T hat story soon went the rounds as further evidence of my eccentricity. 'Mrs Haskins be tellin' people thee'st come up out of thic lilac like a Jack-in-the-box and frightened her hoss near out of his wits,' Fred Ferry informed me happily later. 'What wust thee doin' on thee hands and knees anyway?' he enquired hopefully.
    Â Â I wasn't telling him, but neither was I surprised to learn that I was being talked about. I always had been, ever since I'd been seen in the garden shortly after we moved to the cottage with our tame squirrel sitting on my head to get a better view of his surroundings, and Father Adams assured me that he'd told the person who'd seen me that I wasn't as daft as I looked.
    Â Â From then on there'd been a succession of incidents for people to mull over. When Cats in May was published, for instance, a television crew had come out to the