Chorley gets a crush (6)

Chorley made a lot of new friends the evening he went to the pub to join in with the karaoke. From that evening on, he would regularly jump over the back wall, walk across the bowling green and after announcing his arrival with a loud ‘Harrow’ would settle himself down on his usual stool to join in with the conversation of the day. Some days it would be the football, others it would be the weather, it was always something different.

Harrow - what shall we talk about today?

Chorley felt that life as an almost grown up kitten was pretty good – his bucket was definitely half full and although he still thought about his mother, in the small town ‘up north’ with a lot of roundabouts, he needed her guidance less and less. He had his new grown-ups now who he liked very much, he had wise old Black-Jack with his white whiskers if he needed advice, he had Boris and Alan the fat woodpigeons to hang out with on the roof of the shed with and all his new friends in the pub.

The only thing that was missing from his life was a little bit of love, so one day when the conversation moved in that direction, faster than you could say ’pilchards and prunes’ Chorley jumped in for some advice.

‘Duck pond, bantams, geese, fencing’, said Ernie, the man with the round face who was always carrying eggs. Everyone immediately stopped talking, looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and carried on where they’d left off. Nobody understood what Ernie was on about.

‘Well’, said Disco Dave, ‘If I like a lady, I like to sing her a little song and then treat her to a fish supper at Pany’s chip shop.

‘If I like a lady, I invite like to her to my house, where I make her a nice quiche’ said one of the son’s from the ‘orange family’.

‘You make her a quiche?’ asked Chorley with a chuckle, shaking his ears which made the little bell on his red collar tinkle.

‘I do’, he replied. ‘I use some of Ernie’s eggs and I even make the pastry myself – I roll it out with a thermos flask!’

‘Chorley’, said the other ‘orange’ son. ‘If I like a lady, I take her out for a drive in my fast car, then we I find a nice car park where we can sit and look at the view’.

Chorley was very confused – he didn’t have a car and he couldn’t cook a quiche. What was he to do?

At that point, the ‘orange’ mother piped up. ‘Don’t listen to any of them Chorley, if you like a lady then what you need to do is give her a present, preforably something shiny.’

‘Ah’, thought Chorley, ‘That’s more like it.’

‘Why are you asking anyway? Do you have a lady in mind Chorley?’ asked the ‘orange’ mother.

Chorley did as a matter of fact. He was just a little bit in love with the beautiful lady with the dark hair and nice smile who lived a couple of doors down the road. As the year moved on and the weather got warmer, the beautiful lady would often leave her back door open. Chorley always announced himself with a loud ‘Harrow’ but she didn’t always hear him. Often she would find Chorley fast asleep on her bed – Chorley just wanted to be near her.

The beautiful lady with the dark hair was always very kind to Chorley. He’d spend many hours sitting on her while she tickled him. He needed a way to tell her that he had just a little bit of a crush, so a present was a very good idea.

Chorley spent a long time wondering what he could hunt down to give to the beautiful lady as a present. 

First he thought about finding a pet mouse for her, but they all ran too fast for him. 

The mouse ran too fast for Chorley.

Next he hunted down an escaped meat and potato pie from Panny’s chip shop that had been half eaten and then discarded. But he ate it by mistake before he could get it home.

Finally he remembered what the ‘orange’ woman had said – something shiny. A light bulb came on in his head and with that, Chorley went hunting.

Chorley had never caught one of these before - it was going to be very tricky and he would need to make sure that he wasn’t noticed. 

Once in the pub, Chorley jumped up onto a stool to survey the room. In the corner he could see the members of the bowling club, deep in conversation, discussing tactics for the next match against The Rochdale Rollers. 

Nobody saw a nearly grown up kitten with a red collar and white chin, steal something from the table and make off with it, out of the door and back over the bowling green.

The next morning when the beautiful lady with the dark hair and nice smile opened her back door, she found a lovely, shiny present on her door mat. It was a packet of pork scratchings that he had bravely hunted from the members of the bowling club the night before. 

Although the packet had been full when Chorley took it, he’d managed to eat them all by mistake on the way home, even licking out all the crumbs just to make sure the packet was nice and clean.

The beautiful lady looked around and saw Chorley hiding in the trees.

‘Chorley, is this from you?’ she asked holding up the packet which glittered in the sunshine. Chorley looked at her shyly. ‘It’s lovely, thank you very much’, she laughed.

From that day onwards Chorley always bought the beautiful lady something shiny as a present. Sometimes he would leave it on her doormat, sometimes he would leave it as a special decoration in her flower bed, but he never forgot and the beautiful lady with the dark hair and nice smile loved him all the more for it.

I love you Chorley Bucket.