Bron-33

Continued from Chapter 32: Bron-32 | ABCtales

Grace tapped gently on the door of Georgetta’s third-floor flat. “Come in … door’s not locked.” Her voice quavered, up and down, like a distant, distorted radio station. Bron clutched the pink carrier, which had by now become animated again, the soft walls bulging first on one side, then the other; Petouche had been quiet on the bus to Acton, terrified perhaps, or maybe just plotting her revenge for being unceremoniously scooped up from her station by the kitchen window.

“Georgetta! “What on earth are you doing, standing on that chair?”

“They’re everywhere! I counted at least five of them, all twirling, scurrying around, chasing each others’ tails. URRGGH! There’s one there now, just disappeared behind the cupboard!” Georgetta shuddered, a large pink jelly in a white taffeta dress.

She stepped down from the chair, slowly, planting her legs apart.

Bron unzipped the front of the pink holdall a couple of inches. Pink nose, a small black-and-white face framed by two fans of enormous whiskers. Bron held the holdall up to Georgetta.

“Well, here she is. Come to do the business.”

“Oh, isn’t she a little DARLING! Here, kitty, kitty, kitty-AAAARRRGGH!”

“Sorry, should have warned you.”

“OWWWW! She’s got a hell of a bite.” Georgetta sucked her plump white forefinger, her blue-lips crimsoned. “She’s not from Anglesey too, is she?”

“No, Purley, apparently. Time to unleash the beast?”

“Yes, go ahead!”

Bron opened the holdall. Petouche poked her head, a triangle of white under her chin, huge pointed ears, through the opening, sniffing the air, suspiciously. Then, slowly, she extended a leg, tipped by a white paw outside, then the other leg. Slowly, she slid her thin body out of the carrier. Her back legs had longer white tips, extending half-way up her forelegs. A low rumble, like a train rumbling across a bridge in the distance.

“I didn’t think cats growled, like that. More like a dog.”

“Petouche isn’t a normal cat.”

“She’s bonkers,” Grace supplied.

Petouche crept slowly across the linoleum, legs triangled out from her slim back body, hunkered down like a commando making a beach landing under enemy fire. She sniffed a chair leg, experimentally. She tensed, suddenly standing tall. There was a faint rustling from behind the cupboard.

Petouche shot forward, arrowing herself under the two-inch gap under the kitchen cupboard’s stubby feet. A screech, almost a human scream in miniature. Frantic scuffling, increasing in intensity, the THWAP-THWAP-THWAP! of paws and claws. Petouche re-emerged, her tiny mouth glistening, bright red.

“Oh God!” cried Georgetta. “She’s hurt herself!”

“That’s not her blood,” said Bron.

 

The final tally was five or six corpses. The bit with two front legs might have come from the piece of body that still had its back legs attached; it might have belonged to a different mouse. But all in all, an impressive count for five minutes’ work.

“Killer instinct.”

“Yes…yes, very much so. A real hunter” Georgetta was pale, shocked.

“Well, let us know if they come back. By the way, do you always leave your big black rubbish bags sitting around in the kitchen?”

“I try not to. I take them down to the bins, when I get a moment. But, it’s a long way down, six flights.”

“Prevention better than cure, you know.”

“Yes. I know! Point taken!”

 

Grace smoothed down the small blue square of paper on Nisa Superstore’s noticeboard, underneath an advert from someone asking for French conversation lessons.

“Dirty bugger,” said Grace. “Only after one thing, these guys.”

“Yeah,” said Bron. “Why don’t they just say: ‘Want to meet women and if I fancy you, I’ll shag you. If you’ll let me. If you’re stupid enough to let me.’”

“Well, I think our little offering’s clear enough.”

 

‘Pests a problem?

Let Petouche the Predator sort them out. Feline rodent control services.

No mess, no poisons, no chemicals. Humane. Money back if not delighted.’

 

“Better scratch out ‘humane’, said Grace. “It got pretty bloody in Georgetta’s place.”

“Yeah. Guess so. Don’t want to be done by those advertising standards people.”

“Chances are, no one’s going to answer.”

 

 

By the time reached home, an hour later, the green answering machine light on the phone was blinking frantically. Four messages. Bron scribbled down the address from the first message – somewhere near Vauxhall, then scooped Petouche up from the windowsill and thrust her into the pink holdall.

 

 

“Well, normally we’d charge £20 for a session. But seeing as you’re our first – sorry, seeing as you’re a first-time customer, we’ll reduce it to a tenner. How does that sound? I’m Bron, by the way, this is my assistant Grace. And here’s Petouche, in the bag.”

“Excellent!” said the guy, a tall, white-haired guy with the air of someone roused from a deep philosophical study to deal with the tiresome problems of the everyday world. “A saucer of milk, perhaps?”

“Nah. Keep her hungry, keep her keen. Don’t want her going to sleep on the job.”

 

Bron placed the pink holdall on the floor of sitting room and unzipped it. Petouche thrust out her angular head for a split second than squeezed herself out of the bag, like a length of black toothpaste.

Bron intoned, sweeping her hands, palms outstretched, back and forth in front of her: “Pysgod a bara. Cig moch. Lllefrith. Cofiwch talu y papurau…It’s an old Welsh curse. Used it for centuries in our family to ward off bad luck.” The man, leaning against the wall nodded.

Bron winked at Grace. It was an old shopping list of her Nan’s she’d been using as a bookmark.

Petouche hurtled across the kitchen floor and into the living room. Squeaks, shrieks, snarls. The customer flapped his hand in front of his face, open-mouthed.

 

The final tally was five dead. The survivors fled for their lives from Rosewood Mansions in all directions.

 

 

They jogged home slowly on the top deck of the No. 37. Petouche, now sated, slumbered in her holdall, wedged onto the narrow shelf by the front window; Grace held it steady. Bron had a brown shoebox on her knee; faint but frantic scrabbling noises could be heard coming from inside.

“Think we should give her the day off tomorrow?” said Grace.

“Mmm, maybe. Let’s see if she’s perky tomorrow morning.”

“It’s strange how she’s started bringing live ones back, dropping them at our feet. Thought that woman in Richmond was going to have a fit.”

“Yeah. Perhaps Petouche thinks we want to eat them. Like, she’s feeding us – we’re her children.”

“What do we do with these ones in the box. Let them loose in the park?”

“I’ve got a better idea. You know that shop down the road, the one that sells snakes and reptiles and suchlike?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“We get a few more  live ones, save them up. Then when we’ve got a dozen or so, we sell them to the shop. Be a little sideline.”

“But I thought they only dealt in reptiles - why would they want mice?”

“Snake food - Snakes’ll only eat live food.”

“UURRRGH! That’s so GROSS!  And cruel! NO!”

“Snake’s gotta eat, hasn’t it? And if they don’t eat our mice, they’ll be eating other mice. Might as well have ours as some other ones.”

“Let’s think about it.”

“You always say that when you don’t want to do something, don’t you, Grace?”

“Well, I dunno. It just seems a bit … feral.”

“Well, we are feral.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Bit strange that last place, the solicitors, not paying us straightaway. What’s an invoice?”

“It’s like, like a bill. I’ll type one up when we get home.”

“Know how to do it?”

“Yeah. Sort of. I think so. And I’ve still got a couple of stamps left over from Christmas.”

“Don’t waste them. I’ll go out on the bike and drop it off when you’ve done it.”

Continued in Chapter 34: Bron-34 | ABCtales