“What is this new bloody offside rule anyway? Not offside if the player is not interfering with play. How much is he bloody well interfering with play when he scores a goal? Can’t bloody well interfere with play more than that. Morons, the lot of ‘em,” ranted Frank, completely disillusioned with the law makers and referees of the glorious game.
“Miserable, eh? Anyway, we were undone with a Kipper blow,” replied Ali.
“It’s not Kipper blow, stupid, it’s a killer blow.”
“Whatever. We’re still top though, Dad; Scummers lost.”
“Don’t call them scummers. They are just another football team, or town or whatever you want to call them.”
Together they headed into the kitchen, tossing their jackets at the sofa behind them. They disappeared from sight before Frank momentarily reappeared and tossed his hat towards the jackets, missing totally and landing on Ed’s head.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, thought Ed, as he tossed it off, whilst beginning to notice the alluring smell of fish and chips.
“Sorry, Smunky,” said Frank as Ed followed him and the smell into the kitchen.
“We’ve got to give Smunky some, Dad, just a bit.”
“Okay then, a bit of fish and a few chips and that’s it,” replied his father.
“Great, he’ll love that,” said Ali as he unwrapped his portion and broke some fish off. He placed this together with seven chips onto a clean cat bowl and placed in on the floor before putting his own, much larger portion on a blue and white patterned plate, lashing it with salt and vinegar.
“Oh please, salt and vinegar for me, salt and vinegar please,” mewled Ed, standing on his back legs with his front clawing up the cupboard doors towards the seasonings.
“Is it my imagination or is he getting fussier and fussier? He surely can’t be asking for salt and vinegar, can he?” said Frank disbelievingly as cat noises blurted with desperation from Ed’s mouth.
“Wow, that’s strange. I’ll put some on and see,” replied Ali, before grabbing both pots and bending down to the bowl on the floor. Ed jumped down, setting all four paws on the floor simultaneously like a moon mobile. He followed him over, nudging his hand when he had the right amount of salt and just enough vinegar.
“That is unbelievable, Dad. Either I am imagining it or this is the most clever cat in the world.”
“Yeah, whatever. Let’s go and eat this. Then it’ll be time for bed,” replied Frank, heading into the living room with both plates in hand.
Brilliant, fish and chips. This has got to be better than being a tortoise any day of the week, thought Ed, as he began tearing at the food in true cat-like fashion, tossing it from side to side whilst trying to gnash at it with his jaws.
Once his treat of a meal was over he headed back into the living room. Ali and Frank had finished and Frank was bringing the plates back into the kitchen.
“It’s late, time for bed, young man,” said the father as he returned to the living room.
“All right, Dad.”
Ali got up, and they both left the room, Frank switching the light off as he walked through the door, his arm trailing behind him. Squeaks and moans came from the stairs as the loose thin floorboards of each step felt the force of the heavy footsteps. Soon the sounds had demised, leaving only the odd squeak as father and son went about their duties in their respective rooms.
***
Ed returned to the comfort of his basket and tried to get some sleep. He was restless with all the discoveries of the evening and soon decided on a bit of adventure instead.
Right, a bit of night life for me I think. It will be very interesting to check out these ‘night vision’ eye balls,” thought Ed, as he jumped out of his basket and strolled elegantly over towards the kitchen.
Might even find myself a little feminine feline companion. I wonder what that would be like. I wonder if I’d fancy her. thought Ed, marvelling at the prospect.
I definitely won’t suggest ‘Doggie’ position though. That might go down very badly, smirked the cat to himself as he pushed his way through the cat flap and into the mellow night.
He proceeded down the thin path and into the main overgrown garden. The bright fluorescent street lamp at the front threw a reasonable amount of orange light onto the scene but as soon as he got into the main part of the garden his whole focus started to change and he began to see the benefits of feline vision. It was as if the view was being filtered through some sort of strange photographic ISO machine, making it much brighter and whiter than it really was. Then, when he looked around back at the brighter path area it compensated so that everything seemed pretty evenly illuminated. Meanwhile his whiskers sensed everything in the locality with GPS accuracy, like the sensors in a modern car sounding when something’s too close.