Chorley gets stuck in! (5)

When Chorley was six months old, Alison and Tristan promised to take him out in their canoe for a trip down the Mersey river, right out to the sea. This was a long and treacherous journey with many hazards. 

‘When you are in the canoe Chorley’ Alison said, you have to sit very still and whatever you do, don’t dig your claws in. The canoe is full of air so if you do it will go ‘POP’!

Chorley knew that only grown up kittens went down the Mersey river in a canoe, so he was very excited. He decided to start practicing sitting very still immediately and set about finding the nearest thing he could to a canoe.

First he found the laundry basket. He jumped in and settled himself down. He shut his eyes and held his breath. ‘One, two, three, four .......’ At that moment, Alison walked past the basket where Chorley was hiding. Although Chorley was nearly grown up, he was still a kitten, and kittens like to play! 

'Harrow'!

‘Harrow’ shouted Chorley as he jumped out of the laundry basket to surprise Alison who jumped a mile. ‘Chorley – don’t do that you naughty kitten’, she said with a start. ‘I thought you were practising sitting still. That’s not a very good start – you’ll need to try harder’. 

‘Hmmmm – I’ll need to try harder’ thought Chorley as he went exploring to try and find somewhere else to practise sitting really still. He knew it was very important to get it right.

‘Ahhh, this looks a bit like a canoe’ thought Chorley as he jumped into the bath tub to practise sitting very still. He shut his eyes and held his breath. ‘One, two, three, four, five .......’ At that moment he heard the fridge door open. ‘Dinner’ thought Chorley as his stomach rumbled and before you could say ‘pilchards and prunes’ he jumped out of the bath and raced down the stairs. 

'Dinner'!

‘Harrow’ he said as he sat looking longingly at his food bowl. Alison laughed at him, ‘That wasn’t very good either, was it Chorley. You really need to concentrate, or we won’t be able to take you out in the canoe’.

Chorley went out through his cat flap into the yard. Tristan was there building a brick BBQ. ‘Harrow’ said Chorley, going over to see if he could help Tristan with his cement. ‘Best keep away Chorley, we don’t want you to get stuck in the cement’ said Tristan with a chuckle.

Tristan mends the wall and builds a BBQ

Pushing the cement into the bricks

‘Hmmmm’ thought Chorley, ‘I’m no use to anybody today’.

Then out of the corner of his eye, Chorley saw a big blue bucket over by the shed. ‘I’ll show them’, he thought. ‘I’ll sit in there really still and prove to everyone that I’m grown up enough to go out in the canoe’. And with that he jumped into the bucket and settled himself down, ready to sit really still. The bottom of the big bucket was wet and sandy, just how he imagined a canoe to be, so he closed his eyes and held his breath. 

Oh no - Chorley stuck in the cement!

He’d nearly got to ten when suddenly, ‘Chorley, what are you doing?’ shouted Tristan. Chorley opened his eyes and tried to move, but he couldn’t, he was stuck. He’d been sitting in the bucket Tristan had used to mix the cement.

‘Oh no’ thought Chorley as he shook his ears and wiggled his tail. He was back where he’d started life, stuck in a bucket and it didn’t matter whether it was half full or half empty when it was full of cement that had set hard as stone.

Tristan ran over to the bucket and tried to pull Chorley out, but Chorley was stuck fast.

Alison dashed out of the kitchen and joined in, putting her arms around Tristan’s waist, giving him a hard tug while he tried to pull out Chorley, but Chorley was stuck fast.

The old cat, Black Jack heard the commotion and came over to join the chain of people trying to pull Chorley out of the bucket of cement. But Corley stayed stuck.

Boris and Alan, the two fat woodpigeons flew into the yard and grabbed onto Black Jack. Everyone pulled and pulled, but they couldn’t get any grip with their feet so Chorley stayed firmly stuck.

It was only when Stanley the stripy snail who lived in the flower pots joined in, that they started to make progress. Stanley used all his slime to make a sticky path which gave some grip for the rescue party.

Stanley comes to the rescue.

‘Right everyone, on three, pull really, really hard. One, two, three – PULL’. And so everyone pulled and with the extra grip provided by Stanley the stripy snail, they started to march backwards like a winning tug of war team. They felt Chorley start to loosen and then suddenly – POP! Like a giant champagne cork Chorley was pulled out of the bucket and flew through the air, landing on top of Alan, one of the fat woodpigeons.

‘Sorry Alan’, said Chorley. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes’, squeaked Alan, winded. He ruffled his feathers and made a hasty exit up into the tree.

Later that evening, they all decided to have a party to celebrate Chorley’s rescue. Tristan lit the BBQ he’d built that afternoon and cooked some sausages.

‘Well Chorley’, said Tristan, ‘I think we know now that you can sit still for a very long time. But if we put cement in the canoe, it’s very heavy and it will sink. Maybe we need to wait until you are a bit older before we go sailing on the Mersey river’.

Chorley was very disappointed and let out a big sigh. He was very unhappy about how the day had worked out. There was only one thing that would make things better and that was a sausage. So as soon as he thought his grown-up’s backs were turned he crept up and helped himself from the plate on the table. 

'Chorley - you are a naughty kitten', said Alison laughing. But Chorley wasn't listening.

‘Sausages will help me to grow up quickly’, he thought as he tucked in to the big, fat, juicy sausage and started to plan his next adventure.

Chorley Finds his Paws (2)

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!’