I didn’t sleep too well with having to listen to George snoring like a pig all night; however, Fred slept sound as a log and only awoke when daylight filtered in through the kitchen window. He stretched himself and through a gaping yawn asked me what we were going to be doing for the rest of the day. I told him that I planned to take him to the circus, which left a blank expression on his face, until I told him what a circus was and then his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.
The first thing a cat must do upon waking following a sound sleep is to go into the garden for the ritual constitution; however, getting in and out of the cat flap was still proving to be quite a challenge for little Fred, who was struggling to come to terms with the technique needed to get his head at the right angle in order to begin the process. Therefore, with me pressing my paw onto the Perspex window to ease the opening pressure, he thrust his head forward and with a distinct kick from his back legs, he disappeared through the flap and into the garden. I could see that he would soon master the art of getting in and out and I reckoned that he would be able to do it all by himself in a couple of weeks time.
After we had finished watering and fertilising the garden, we came back in doors and immediately got stuck into what was left of a take away that George and his mates had left behind from yesterday’s celebrations.
Finally with breakfast and the daily constitutional out of the way, we left the house to the sound of George still snoring like a hog from the living room and headed toward the piece of wasteland at the back of Tesco’s, where the circus had been located. Because it was early morning and the first performance wasn’t due to start until early afternoon; all of the animals were still housed in their cages.
I told Fred that we would begin our tour by talking to the lion called Goliath who was housed in the end cage. Because Goliath was an old friend and could be relied upon to bring me up-to-date on what was happening out there in the big bad world, I always started with him.
When we reached the cage, Goliath, who was crouched on the floor of the gage gnawing his way through a giant sized bone, turned and seeing us raised himself up and wandered over to the bars. As soon as Fred saw him get up, his jaw dropped and he disappeared behind me trying to hide under my tail. I smiled as the big lion seeing the frightened look on Fred’s face, told him that he should not be afraid; because, at the end of the day he was only a much bigger version of little Fred. However, Fred with his eyes sticking out on stalks, stayed firmly hidden behind me.
I had only just finished talking with Goliath and turned to tell Fred that we would now move on to say hello to the elephants, when my heart stopped beating. Fred was nowhere to be seen; he had completely disappeared. Goliath, seeing my concern as I frantically called out to my son, let out a huge roar, which was answered almost immediately by one of the leopards in a cage further down the row. Goliath called over to me. “Casper the leopard says he saw a woman riding on a bike, bend down and pick him up whilst we were talking and put him into a Tesco plastic bag in her pannier. She went that way”, he said indicating the direction with a nod of his huge head.
Thanking him, I set off at a fast trot, with all sensors on full alert, searching for the mysterious lady riding a bicycle with my son inside a plastic bag on the front of it. As the panic continued to build inside me, I remember thinking that Patsy would kill me when she found out that I had managed to lose our son on his very first day out.
