was terrible that she had forgotten the pudding but it wasn’t the end of the world. She pointed this out to Miss McGee. “I’m really sorry, McGee,” she told her, “but I was so excited about the new family. Listen, I’ll paint the ceiling this afternoon; I’ll stand on the table and I’ll paint it, and I’ll buy you a new pan for Christmas. It’ll be an extra present. And I’ll make another pudding for us, I’ll do it right now.” Picking up a cookery book, she started to turn the pages, she even started to hum.
It was the humming that did it, the humming was the last straw to her friend McGee. “I don’t want you to make another pudding,” she wailed. “It’s a tragedy.”
It was Kitty’s turn to get cross now. “Don’t be silly, Florence,” she snapped. “If you call spoiling a silly old pudding a tragedy, what do you call it if something really awful happens? What do you call it if someone has a terrible accident, or even dies? Now that’s what I call a tragedy.”
McGee did not reply. Instead she snatched up the lid of the saucepan, which was lying on the kitchen floor, and hurled it at Kitty’s head. She missed and the lid hit a row of plates on a dresser and broke two of them. McGee, who had been sniffing miserably, now started to howl in earnest. In complete silence, like a person on television with the sound switched off, Kitty raised the cookery book she had been reading to find the pudding recipe, and threw it across the room in her friend’s direction. She missed, too, (neither of the old ladies was a very good shot), and the book plopped into the sink where the pages spread out like wings. “Now my best cookery book’s ruined as well!” McGee wailed, and she buried her face in her hands.
“You are RIDICULOUS!” screeched Kitty.
“Not so ridiculous as YOU,” screeched Miss McGee.
Then she threw a wooden spoon at Kitty, then a nutmeg grater, and Kitty threw another cookery book and an egg, and they both screeched and screeched.
In the middle of it all, Nicholas, who had come running in through his cat-flap for tea, ran out again, and pelted right along all four sides of Golden Square and away, and was gone all that night.
And in the morning, when the two rather shamefaced old ladies met in the kitchen for their breakfast, he was still missing.
They didn’t notice at first, they were too busy being embarrassed, creeping around the kitchen and making their separate breakfasts. Normally they helped one another and shared things.
“Excuse me,” grunted Miss McGee, “but I need to get the sugar basin down from that shelf,” and “Excuse me,” muttered Kitty, “I need to get myself some butter from the fridge.” But in reaching for this and that, they bumped into each other. Miss McGee burst out laughing and patted Kitty’s shoulder and Kitty squeezed Miss McGee’s arm (though they were not huggy people) and they both said, “Aren’t we silly?” and the quarrel was over. They had known each other for so long, you see, and they were such good friends. Having arguments was a waste of time.
Soon they were sitting at the kitchen table making a list. Christmas was coming and everybody made lists at Christmas; there was so much to do and to buy, even when you lived very quiet lives like Kitty and Miss McGee. The first thing was to get another pudding and they decided to buy one from Mr Moat at the corner shop. He sold excellent puddings, “as good as homemade”, or so he told his customers.
Kitty said she would pay because she’d burned theirs, but Miss McGee said no, because that wasn’t right, and that they would both pay. A tiny new quarrel was just starting up when Kitty suddenly interrupted herself and said, “McGee, it’s extremely quiet. Where is Nicholas?”
Miss McGee stared down at her feet. “I don’t know, I’ve not seen him this morning. Didn’t he come in when you boiled the kettle, for your first-thing cup of tea?” (Kitty always woke early and took a cup back to bed with her, till it got light.)
“No,” Kitty said. “I thought he might be with you.” (Nicholas adored the fat pillows on Miss McGee’s bed and sometimes snuggled right underneath them, especially during cold weather.) “I’ve not seen Nicholas since—” then she stopped because the rest of the sentence was going to have been “—since I threw the saucepan lid and the wooden spoon and the nutmeg grater and we shouted.” She didn’t say any of this because it was too embarrassing.
Nicholas didn’t come in for his breakfast and the rest of the morning was spent looking for him. They looked in their bedrooms and they looked in their sitting rooms and they looked in their spare rooms. Kitty climbed up to the dark, cobwebby attic on her long legs and searched among all the empty boxes and spare rolls of this and that which might come in useful one day. She unfolded all the spare paper shopping bags which they had hoarded away, and shook them out because Nicholas liked hiding in bags. It had occurred to her that he might have decided to hibernate this winter, like hedgehogs and tortoises. The weather was very cold and going to sleep until it warmed up again was such a good idea. But she couldn’t find Nicholas.
Meanwhile, Miss McGee was searching in the cellar which ran all the way under the house. She didn’t much like it down there; it was clammy and cold and there were lots of spiders. She only went into the cellar to get her jam jars when it was time for making jellies and jams and marmalade. Nicholas liked warm, snug places. He would only be down in the cellar if someone had shut him in by accident. But nobody had.
“Nicholas!” dumpy Miss McGee called into the echoey darkness and “Nicholas!” echoed the chilly damp walls in a kind of mockery.
“Nicholas!” shouted skinny Kitty who had climbed daringly on to the roof, through the attic skylight (after all, most cats loved climbing). “Nicholas!” mimicked the red roof tiles, spitefully. Upon Golden Square and the streets all round, an unearthly quiet had fallen. Kitty closed up the skylight and went downstairs to find Miss McGee. In her heart she knew that Nicholas was nowhere in the house. He had run away, because of their noisy quarrel.
All this looking had made the two old ladies very tired so, after their lunch, they dozed in their chairs. But when the church clock in the square bonged loudly, four times, they didn’t put the kettle on for tea, which was their usual habit, they wrapped up warmly and went walking in the cold December air. Miss McGee went towards one end of the little town and Kitty went towards the other.
Up and down the wintry streets they plodded, calling and calling for their little lost cat. They called “Nicholas” high and they called it low. Miss McGee used her silky-soft voice, the kind she used when she was spoiling Nicholas and had a special treat for him, and Kitty used her silly, high-pitched voice which always brought him running in from the garden because it meant food. But no cat came bounding along in response to either of these voices, and no one at all had seen him. They stopped every person they met and asked.
Then, when it was almost dark, and they were walking disconsolately to meet each other from opposite ends of Golden Square, they saw what looked very like a fluffy little cat, all gingery pale and making a rolling, haphazard progress along the pavement towards them.
“Nicholas!” exclaimed Kitty with joy and she bent down to stroke him. But because of the rain and the mist, she wasn’t wearing her spectacles, and what rubbed up against her legs wasn’t a nice, warm, furry thing at all, it was a big,
