One day that sticks in my memory is the day that a passing cat threw up in the vicarage driveway.
My sister and me were in town in the car with two of our friends, Mim and Ham. Mum was driving.
When Mum had finished doing all the boring things she had to do in town, she said: “Right, I just need to call into the vicarage on the way home. I need to drop off the music and make sure that the Vicar knows that the reason that the words “bring sausages and perhaps a cold baked potato” appear right in the middle of the vestry minutes is because I copied the invites for the kids’ barbeque just before the vestry minutes were done and some of the words got mixed up.”
She drove the car part of the way up the vicarage driveway and said: “It will only take a minute, just wait here.”
Mum walked up to the vicarage door, knocked and said: “Oo-oooooh!”. Then the door opened and she went inside.
My sister said: “I want to be an architect when I grow up.”
I said: “I want to farm flying elephants when I grow up.”
Ham said: “I want to be Tarzan when I grow up and live in the jungle and swing on vines and wear togs!”
Mim said: “Look! A cat!”
There was a cat walking across the drive in front of the car. When it was exactly half way across the drive it stopped.
“He stopped!” said my sister.
“His tummy is going up and down.” I said.
“He’s throwing up!” said Mim.
“I’ll wind down my window so we can hear what noise he makes better!” said Ham.
The cat finished and casually continued to walk across the driveway. He disappeared into the vicarage garden.
We sat for a few seconds just looking at what the cat threw up and giggling.
“It looks disgusting!” said my sister.
“I’m going to look at it.”
said Mim.
She got out of the car and walked over to what the cat threw up, she looked at it, then came back inside the car.
“It had carrots in it!” she giggled.
Ham did his best to impersonate the noise the cat had made.
We all giggled again.
“Do you think the cat is all right?” I asked.
“Yeah, cats do that a lot.” said Ham.
“Wow! So is it true they have nine lives then?” I asked.
“Cats only have nine lives in some cartoons” said my sister “However, throwing up does not make you die.”
I though about the time I threw up when I bounced on my bed too much and the time I threw up when I spun around on Dad’s chair too much. I had not died but I thought that if I ran out of things to throw up then my insides might start to come out.
“So do cats keep more inside them so that they don’t run out of things to throw up?” I asked.
“They don’t keep more inside them. They just throw up little and often.” said my sister.
I sat very still for a moment, content in the knowledge that I had a very clever sister who never ran out of answers.
Mum came out if the
vicarage door. She did not see what the cat threw up, she walked right past it and got back into the car.
“What are you all smiling about?” Mum asked.
“Oh, nothing much.” we all replied.