Chorley didn’t miss his old grown-ups one bit. He had his very own, new grown-ups now.
He didn’t particularly like being put in a basket with wires on the front for the journey down the motorway. He wanted to see where he was going and called ‘wooowt, wooowt, wooooooooowt’ from the back seat. But it didn’t last long and he was soon in his new house with the blue front door.
His new grown-ups set down the basket, opened its wire door and started encouraging Chorley to come out. But Chorley didn’t need asking twice. There was no time to waste, there was much exploring to be done - he was out of there faster than you could say ‘pilchards and prunes’. So many new nooks and cranny’s and interesting looking ‘things’ to be investigated.
Chorley’s new grown-ups Tristan and Alison sat on their big comfy sofa with the furry blanket in their front room and watched Chorley, smiling as he surveyed every corner of his new home.
‘That’s that room done’ he thought at last. He was satisfied that he’d fully explored the front room – time now for a little nap, ‘now where would be a good place?’ he thought.
‘Ah’ he said, spotting the perfect place, ‘From up there, I’ll be able to see everything!’ Although he was only little, he stuck out his nails and clawed his way up the book case and went to sit on what looked like the perfect spot for nearly grown up kitten.
Unfortunately the tower of CD’s next to the old fashioned record player was a bit too wobbly to sit on. Chorley wobbled too and quickly lost his balance. He tried to jump to safety but ended up landing on the record player and as he landed, his leg knocked a special lever which made the turntable start to spin. Sitting slap bang in the middle, Chorley started to spin too. The first couple of times were fun. ‘Meeeeeooooooowwwww’ he yelled as the room flashed past him, the wind in his fur. ‘This is brilliant’.
But soon he started to feel dizzy so he stuck out his paw to slow himself down. But oh dear, he hit the special lever again, and instead of slowing down the turntable speeded up and started to go even faster. ‘Meeeeeeeoooooooowwwww’ yelled Chorley, he didn’t like it anymore. He did the only thing he could do, stuck out his nails and dug in his claws. He held on for as long as he could and just as he started to feel like his head might fly off, he lost his grip and flew across the room. Luckily his new grown-up Tristan had been very good at cricket at school and caught him with both hands before Chorley could hit the wall.
Chorley sat still in Tristan’s arms – his eyes had gone a bit whirly and he could feel yesterdays kitty biscuits coming back up to say ‘harrow’. He felt like a bit of an idiot. Then he thought of his mother and felt a little bit sad that she wasn’t with him anymore. Luckily his mother was a very wise old cat who had taught him lots of useful things before he’d left home. ‘Chorley Bucket’, she would say, ‘Sometimes things don’t go to plan. But you have a choice – you have to ask yourself, is your bucket half full or half empty?’ Chorley looked at his new grown-ups and decided that things weren’t so bad and that his bucket was probably half full. So he shook his ears, stood up, jumped down onto the floor and went off exploring again through the next door.
Tristan and Alison didn’t stop him. They wanted him to feel at home and so gave him a little bit of time to himself. Chorley headed for the kitchen, he could smell something lovely! Where was that lovely smell coming from? First of all he looked inside the washing machine. The door was open so in he climbed. He thought he looked a little bit like an astronaut in a spaceship and made a special note to spend more time in there in the future. But this time Tristan’s smelly running socks were already in there waiting to be washed so he decided that the lovely smell probably wasn’t coming from the washing machine and jumped out again quickly.
Next he decided to explore the rubbish bin. In his old house his other grown-ups often threw away tasty morsels. Chorley stuck his head into the swing-bin and sniffed. ‘Nothing nice in there’ he thought to himself. Although he had stuck his head in the bin lots of times before, he was growing up fast and that included his head, which got stuck. ‘Oh no’ thought Chorley as he yanked back to try and escape the bin. On the third attempt he managed to pull himself free - from the bin – but not from the bin lid. He skidded across the kitchen floor on his bottom wearing the blue plastic swing-bin lid like a big collar around his neck. He came to a stop and shook his head from side to side trying to shake himself free. It wasn’t easy but in the end he managed to open the lid wide enough to get his head out. ‘Phew’ thought Chorley ‘that was close, I could have been stuck wearing a bin lid forever, which would have made exploring much more difficult!’
Chorley still hadn’t managed to find where the lovely smell was coming from, so he walked around the kitchen and then looked up – ‘Ahh’ he thought, ‘there it is’ and with that he set about hauling himself up the drawer handles, just like climbing a ladder.
The roast chicken on the top of the cooker was almost within licking distance when his concentration was broken by ‘Chorley Bucket! What are you doing?’ Chorley was caught red handed. As he clung to the drawer handles, just one more rung between him and a yumtous chicken, he did the only thing he could think of. He smiled at his new grown-ups and sheepishly said ‘Harrow!’
No comments:
Post a Comment