This time the hunt was for Food Fit for Royalty.
He ran ahead with a trolley, eagerly scanning the
shelves for the right things to buy.
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The Cat and the King
The Cat and the King
By the time they reached
the check-out, the king
had tracked down:
frozen KING prawns,
Jersey ROYAL potatoes,
CORONATION
chicken sandwiches,
GOLDEN syrup,
GOLDEN Delicious apples,
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The Cat and the King
45
two RUBY grapefruits,
ROYAL icing in
four different colours,
six KING-size bottles
of cola (on special offer),
a KING-size bag of
cheese-and-onion crisps
and a KING-size box of
assorted toffees and chocolates.
What feasts they would have
back at Number 37!
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The Cat and the King
The Cat and the King
There was a lady in front of them at the
check-out. The king had never queued before,
and wasn’t sure he liked it, but luckily he was
distracted by the display of sweets. He added a
tube of mint IMPERIALS
to the shopping.
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47
It was soon their turn. The cat paid and it was
the king’s job to pack.
“Do you need a bag?” asked the cashier (who
looked vaguely familiar.)
Of course they didn’t need a bag – they had
the wheelbarrow.
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48
The Cat and the King
Chapter 5
It was late afternoon. The king and the cat sat at
the dining table, chewing toffees.
They’d been really busy, unloading the van,
putting away the shopping, then sorting out
where all the things from the
car-boot sale should go.
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49
They’d tried the furniture here,
and they’d tried the
furniture there.
The king was now an expert at lifting and
carrying and had been introduced to
pushing and pulling as well.
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50
It was nearly four o’clock by the time they
were able to have some lunch.
The king had never opened a pack of
sandwiches before. He had tried and tried
before giving up and handing it to the cat, who
had struggled quite a bit, too. But, when the
sandwiches were eventually freed, they had been
delicious.
The toffees and chocolates
were yummy as well, but
the king was looking a
little forlorn again.
“I miss my throne,”
he sighed, in between
chews.
The Cat and the King
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The king’s throne had been a very fine
piece of furniture.
I’m sorry to report that it was damaged
beyond repair in the Unfortunate Incident.
51
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The Cat and the King
The Cat and the King
They went into the living room and looked at
the armchair and the beanbag on either side of
the fireplace. The king wasn’t interested in the
beanbag, which was just as well, as the cat had
picked that out for himself. The armchair did look
quite comfy, but it really wasn’t grand enough to
be a throne.
The cat had a think.
He scrunched his shiny toffee-wrapper
into a tight ball so that it
looked like a precious stone.
He searched in the tool box,
and pulled out a tube of
extra-strong glue.
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The Cat and the King
53
He dabbed some on the pretend jewel and
stuck it firmly to one arm of the armchair.
“Bravo!” cried the king and, with great
enthusiasm, he began scrunching up the
wrappers that lay in a pile on the table. They
worked as a team, the king scrunching and the
cat dabbing and sticking.
They had to eat the rest of the toffees and
chocolates to free up the wrappers.
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The Cat and the King
An hour later, the chair was studded all over
with jewels and the job was almost done. The
cat fetched the feather boa from the laundry
basket and together they carefully positioned
it along the chair-back and glued it into place.
Then they stood back to admire their glittering,
sparkling, feathery handiwork.
The Cat and the King
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55
The king, grinning from ear to ear, lowered
himself gently into his magnificent new throne.
He settled back with a sigh – only this time it
was a sigh of happiness. The cat hopped on to
his beanbag and nestled down.
Within minutes they’d both dozed off.
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Chapter 6
The next day they needed to take the hire van
back. As they were motoring along, the cat could
see that the king was once again looking a bit
forlorn. The clever cat knew that the king was
thinking about his marching band and his Eleven
O’Clock Wave.
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Every morning from Monday to Friday, at eleven
o’clock precisely, the king would stand on the
castle balcony and listen to his
marching band as it paraded back
and forth, playing one of his five
favourite tunes. He never knew
which tune it would be, so it
was always a lovely surprise.
57
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After that, the king would spend five minutes
waving to the crowd that had come to watch him
standing on his balcony. It gave the king a lot of
pleasure to wave to the people as they cheered
and waved back, and it was a bit of exercise for
him, too.
5958
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The band was made up of six of the dozen
servants who worked in the castle. At five-to-
eleven the cat would blow a whistle, wh
ich
was the signal for them to change out of their
servant clothes, put on their band uniforms
and pick up their instruments.
Now, I will let you in on a secret. It was also
the signal for the other six servants to change
out of their servant clothes, put on their
everyday things and pretend to be the crowd
that had come to see the king. However, the
king didn’t realise this, and the cat made sure
that he never found out.
59
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The Cat and the King
The Cat and the King
Once the hire van had been returned, the king
and the cat went and stood at the bus stop. It was
the king’s second time in a queue, so he was still
extremely new to waiting.
He tried to be
patient like everyone else,
but it was very, very, very difficult.
He almost wept with joy when the bus
finally arrived two-and-a-half minutes later.
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The Cat and the King
The cat bought the tickets from the bus driver
(who had a familiar look about her.) Then they
clambered up to the top deck and found a seat
right at the front.
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62
As the bus set off, they heard a clock
somewhere striking eleven. They might not
have a marching band, but at least they were
in a good place for the king to do some waving,
which he now did most graciously to the
passers-by on the pavement below.
It wasn’t a great success:
not one person looked up and noticed.
The Cat and the King
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The Cat and the KingThe Cat and the King
The Cat and the King
The cat thought the king should try waving
from the back seat, even if it meant twisting
round quite a bit. Immediately behind their bus
was another bus (and there was another bus
behind that one, too, of course, because it’s a fact
that if you wait a long time for a bus, three will
come along all at once.)
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The Cat and the KingThe Cat and the King
So the king was able to wave to his heart’s
content to the people sitting upstairs in the
following bus – and they all smiled broadly and
waved right back.
By the time they reached their stop the king
was beaming with delight, even though his arm
ached quite a lot and he had a stiff neck.
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66
The Cat and the King
Chapter 7
The king and the cat settled into life at
Nu mbe r 37.
The cat now had his own room and he was
very cosy in there. At eight o’clock in the
morning he would climb out of his hammock,
go downstairs, make two cups of tea and take
one up to the king in his bedchamber. (They
bought the tea bags and milk on their second
trip to the supermarket – to begin with they
drank cups of cola.)
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67
The cat would then run the king a bath,
because the king didn’t know about turning taps
on or off.
The cat prepared breakfast whilst the king
was in the bath. I don’t need to tell you that the
king had never made breakfast, do I?
He had never even laid a table.
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The Cat and the King
The Cat and the King
The king’s favourite breakfast was a boiled
egg and soldiers and, as luck would have it, that
was the cat’s favourite, too.
(The eggs and bread and butter were bought
on the third trip to the supermarket – before
that, they started the day with grapefruit halves,
Royal Shortbread and apple slices dipped in
golden syrup.)
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The Cat and the King
After breakfast they did the dishes together
because there was no way the cat was going to
wash and dry. It was all very new for the king,
but he did his best and gradually learned not to
squeeze in so much washing-up
liquid when it was his turn
at the sink.
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The Cat and the King
That done, they went to the bus stop. Each
time the king got a tiny bit better at waiting,
but it was most definitely not his favourite
activity. When the three buses came together,
they boarded the first one, went upstairs, headed
waving, which made him very happy. The cat
knew, however, that the king was still missing
his marching band, and wished he could do
something about it.
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71
They hopped off at the supermarket to play
the hunting game, only the cat now chose what
to look for, and would give the king a neatly
written-out shopping list as soon as they entered
the store. They couldn’t bring the wheelbarrow
on the bus, but they had found
some useful shopping
bags in a drawer in
the kitchen.
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The Cat and the King
Now, there was another thing that the king
missed about life at the castle. He missed riding
his horses. They weren’t real horses. The king
found real horses a bit frightening, to be honest.
The Royal Horses had been carved out of wood
and painted bright colours, because the king had
had his very own merry-go-round. How he had
loved taking a spin on it!
And how quickly it had gone up in smoke
during the Unfortunate Incident!
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73
There weren’t any
horses at the supermarket,
but there was an ostrich,
a giant ladybird and a
motorbike with a smiley
face. If you put 50p in a
slot, you could sit on them
whilst they jiggled and
swayed and lights flashed
on and off.
So, as the prize for hunting down all the
groceries on the shopping list, the cat would give
the king money for a ride.
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The Cat and the King
The Cat and the King
He had decided he liked the motorbike best
because, unlike the ostrich and the ladybird,
it made a good, throaty BRRRRRM-BRRRRM-
BRRRRM noise.
(He liked the motorbike ride so much that he
was even happy to wait his turn if there was a
toddler on it before him.)
BRRRRRM!
B
RRRRRM!
BRRRRRM!
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75
The cat and the king didn’t normally bother
with the bus on the way home because, in actual
fact, the supermarket was only just round the
corner from where they lived.
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The Cat and the King
Chapter 8
One Thursday, after they’d got back from
shopping, the cat cooked lunch and the king
had his first go at table-laying.
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77
The cat rearranged the cutlery and they ate
their meal of spaghetti and pesto sauce. Have
you ever tried it? You should, because it’s really
tasty. It had been the cat’s choice and, even
though there wasn’t anything royal in
the name, the king loved it, too.
They had a Golden Delicious apple each
for pudding,
and then it was joke time.
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78
Back in the castle, the king’s jester would
come into the banqueting hall every day
after lunch, to tell a joke. The jester was
really one of the servants who, once the table
had been cleared, would quickly put on the