Emily Wiggins Has An Adventure

EMILY WIGGINS HAS AN ADVENTURE

by

ZANNA T. LAWS

Emily Wiggins was big, plump and cuddly. 

She used to be little and fluffy with big ears and huge eyes.

She learned very little when she was a kitten except who to go to for a prompt tea, who next to go to and pretend she hadn’t had that prompt tea and who would give her more and who NOT to go to when she was really hungry because they always forgot anyway. She also mastered the art of purring silently which greatly confused those who fed her and more so those who didn’t. Dropping from great heights was her speciality and toes had to be guarded at all times or else these poor unsuspecting digits were ferociously attacked and nibbled. She stalked birds for hours, but it they turned to look at her she ran away.  But what she really learned that was most useful in her young life was to perch like a parrot on her friend’s shoulder and see the sights of London that way.

And so life went on. No adventures befell her, unless you count the day at Hyde Park when her friend was listening to a Speaker there and Wiggins decided she could get a better view on the other side of the crowd and made for that spot via lots of startled peoples’ shoulders. Her friend could mark her progress by the direction of shrieks as a little furry bundle landed without introduction on an unsuspecting shoulder. The Speaker was quite upset and went home without finishing his speech. Or you could count the day she sat under a car and got covered with oil and had to have a bath.  She was not too happy about that and her friend discovered that Wiggins seemed to have about one thousand more legs than normal when water approached. It was doubtful if there was any distinction between who was the wettest!

But things changed as Wiggins got bigger and she decided to go and live in the country with her friend’s family where she could be terrified by more stony stares from birds. It was here in the country that her adventures really began. Because, as you must have gathered by now, Wiggins was no ordinary cat.

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One day as Emily Wiggins was strolling through the sun-dappled shade of her favourite woods, smelling the sweet scented flowers and gathering considerable amounts of yellow pollen on her nose from sniffing too deeply – she came upon an object that did not smell nice at all. It was big and yellow and had huge glaring eyes and the aroma that came from it was that of hot roads.

Wiggins stared at it and it stared back at her. Neither moved. Fur bristling Wiggins shot straight up in the air – spitting. The yellow creature still continued doing nothing. Feeling a bit foolish Wiggins smoothed her fur and investigated this monster more closely. As she walked to the back she could see the crushed and mangled remains of grass and flowers which marked the direction of this creature’s progress.

‘Why,’ she thought to herself, catching sight of the large black wheels, ‘it’s not a monster at all, just a big machine. But what is it doing here?’

It seemed her question was to be answered sooner than she expected. In the distance and rapidly approaching she heard the sound of men’s voices. Silently she whisked up a nearby tree and stretched out on a branch overhanging the large machine. One paw hung over the branch, lion fashion, but she withdrew it and tucked it neatly beneath her as the men came into view.

They were laughing and were obviously in the middle of a discussion that they found hilarious.

‘By the time the Council notices the mistake,’ one of them was saying, ‘the factory will be practically built and we will be far away with the loot – and then what can they do about their precious beauty spot?’ both men chuckled together.

‘I can see all the money we are going to make already,’ smiled the other man.

Wiggins bristled but remained unseen. What could she do? She must plan – and quickly it seemed.

After doing various incomprehensible things with the machine and letting drop no more vital information the men walked away, retracing their steps along the bruised vegetation. Wiggins growled deep in her throat – a very unladylike and undomestic cat-like noise indeed. It seemed the jungle cat is never very far away – even inside the most placid house-cat – and Wiggins was neither ordinary nor placid.

She remembered the word ‘Council’ and resolved to probe further inside that hallowed building situated in the centre of town. Thinking of disguises, Wiggins decided to stick to cat – but cat in the silent, furtive mode. Having made up her mind she sped through the wood and fields until she reached the outskirts of the town.

It was not a large place as towns go, built of softly golden Cotswold stone that gave great dignity to its slumbering age. However, as cats’ short little legs go, it was a vast metropolis.

Once Wiggins had reached the relative safety of the pavement – on the side of the street that she wanted – she made good speed. At last, the carved stone façade and white pillars of the Council building reared up before her thankful eyes. The door at the side of the revolving one was open too – what a stroke of luck. She didn’t fancy her paws’ chances in that large spinning thing. Gliding like a ghost – or a Wiggins interpretation of one – she slid into the foyer. It was cool in here and no-one seemed to have the slightest inclination to study things at floor level in the same way as they never looked up. What a lot they missed too, if only they knew!

At last she reached a door that seemed to hold promise. ‘Planning Department’ it said in large gold letters on a black background. This door was shut. However, it had the type of door handle that Wiggins had learnt to open. She now practised her art. At full stretch she hooked her front paws over the handle and swung delicately for a while until the door began to move inwards. Wiggins dropped to the ground and set one eye to the narrow crack between door and wall. No-one visible. She pushed with her hard little pink nose and forced the gap wider until she could worm her way through. Against one wall was a large board with lots of notices pinned to it. A title pronounced it as ‘Future Projects’.

‘Ah ha!’ said Wiggins, ‘this is it.’

There were lots of notices thrown haphazardly, it seemed, all over this board and it took quite a bit of searching before Wiggins arrived at the relevant one. It was, indeed, a notice for the forthcoming building of a large factory, but its location was not the wood but a disused quarry about half a mile away. The mistake was glaringly obvious. Both sites had, almost, the same name. ‘Bowood’ and ‘Bowood Quarry’. It was also obvious that the wood would require less preparation work for building and cost less money to do it with. The site would, therefore, be more attractive both scenically and monetarily. She could see now how the unscrupulous developers stood to make their profit.

‘Evidence,’ decided Wiggins, was what she required. She couldn’t reach the notice. Looking around the office she spied a square waste paper basket that wouldn’t be beyond her strength. So, flexing her muscles she pushed the bin to the notice-board. Teetering on the rim of the bin and then falling into it with a squeak a couple of times did not improve her temper, especially as she was beginning to panic somewhat – someone was bound to return to the office eventually. Surely they must do some work occasionally? An idea came to her and she knocked the bin over onto its side. This was much easier to balance on and at full stretch she was able to tear the notice from its drawing pin with not too much damage.

Folding the paper into a more manageable size was a bit of a problem. Realising that she would have to work on this a bit Wiggins concealed herself beneath a desk. She knew she had to fold the paper sensibly rather than screwing it up, which would be much easier, because her people would think she wanted a game of catch and would not be inclined to straighten out the paper to see if there was anything upon it.

Folding, Wiggins decided, was much harder than she had at first expected without hands but after she had employed all four paws, much tail wagging and hypnotic glaring at the notice, she finally had it in a useful sized package. Picking it up gently in her teeth she made for the door just as it began to open. The laughing, chattering secretaries returning from their lunch let out shrieks of delight and amazement as Wiggins shot between their legs like a furry bat out of hell. She raced home trying desperately not to dribble on the paper. An even more difficult task, she decided, than the folding episode.

Panting mightily, she arrived at her back door, went through the cat flap and dropped the notice on the mat.

‘I’ve not had this much exercise for many a long year,’ she gasped, ‘I’m not as young as I used to be. It almost seems that this business is driving me back into kittenhood.’

At last she was able to breathe normally again, and after a quick wash to remove the tangles of the day she howled and howled until the lounge-room door was opened and she could gain entry.

She strutted backwards and forwards in front of her people for a while, weaving in and out of their legs. As this produced no marked effect she leaped onto a knee and thrust her note under her chosen person’s nose.

‘Why, Emily Wiggins, what have you there, you little scamp?’

Wiggins breathed a resigned sigh of relief. So far so good. Now all she had to do was entice them to the wood and leave the rest up to them.

‘With my help I’m sure they can work it out, they do, after all, sometimes appear almost intelligent. I mean, they can open tins that contain my dinner and I can’t, but that’s really the only way you can tell them from us.’

Meanwhile her people had been reading the notice.

‘Oh, a new factory is going to be built in the quarry. Means more jobs. Good luck to them,’

This wasn’t the reaction Wiggins had anticipated but it was only to be expected. Plan ‘B’ must now come into operation. A protest, that’s what she must lodge – a demonstration, a demonstration of one!

So, spitting and with fur bristling she leaped up and down across the room with her forepaws outstretched. She now had their undivided and amazed attention! Then she leaped onto an available knee, and hopped up and down glaring into her person’s eyes and then leapt off again.

‘What on earth is wrong with her?’

‘I hope she’s not sick,’ one remarked.

This prompted Wiggins to play dead for a while, all four paws raised hopelessly to the ceiling. 

She chuckled to herself. It was working. Her people were really intrigued now – firmly convinced that she was terribly sick! She leapt into the air again and snatched the notice from her person’s grasp and dashed to the lounge-room door. It hadn’t been closed properly and like a streak of lightning she was through and away – but not so quickly that her people couldn’t keep up. Every time their inclination to follow seemed to be flagging, Wiggins hurled herself into more and more dramatic convulsions. At last they were within the outskirts of the wood and Wiggins espied the hint of yellow between the leaves. The broken paw routine brought her people to the spot where Wiggins wanted them to be.

‘Bulldozers – here?’ cried one.

And, indeed, Wiggins’ monster was no longer alone and already the job of clearing the wood had begun. An exhausted Wiggins was scooped up from the ground where she was attempting to recover her posture and some of her dignity too. It was apparent that her people were by no means out of the wood yet (Wiggins snorted at her dreadful pun) because an angry shout showed that they had been discovered. One of the men she had seen before came running up to her now frozen group, waving a pickaxe.

‘Oi, you!’ he yelled, ‘this is private property – clear off.’

‘It hasn’t been ‘til now,’ said Wiggins’ friend quietly, ‘I think the Council would be most interested in this little set-up.’

Wiggins wriggled mightily until she was set down on the grass. Nonchalantly she strolled past the angry man until she was behind him. He ignored her – no-one ever takes notice of a cat in a wood.

‘Well,’ the angry man was saying, ‘doesn’t look like you’ll get the chance to tell anyone, now does it?’

With that he yelled for some of his mates and at the same moment Wiggins grabbed him round the ankles with her forepaws and her friend gave him a rough push. The man fell silently, so surprised was he.

The three friends raced for the town – Wiggins bounding ahead every now and again with her tail held like a banner. When they reached town her people headed for the Council offices, but Wiggins, knowing she wasn’t needed resolved to go and do her impersonation of a starving moggy outside Mrs Perkins door. Mrs Perkins, you see, seemed to eat nothing but chicken and so always had scraps plus an easily fooled kind heart.

Later that evening after her second tea had turned her stomach into a large rounded furry mound Wiggins listened to her people recounting the tale of how the property developers had been arrested and how work was beginning on the restoration of the wood. She smiled to herself.

‘Good old Wiggins,’ she heard someone say through a sleepy haze.

ZZZ