Free The Cat Who Came in Off the Roof by Annie M.G. Schmidt Page A

“And that’s all there is to it.”
    Whenever Minou was angry, she got into her box to sulk. She was about to do that now, but Fluff came in through the kitchen window with a long-drawn-out miaow.
    â€œWhat’s he saying?” Tibble asked.
    â€œThe fishmonger?” cried Minou.
    â€œ
Rwo… wwieeu… row…
” Fluff continued. He told her an ecstatic story in Cattish, then disappeared again, back on the roof.
    â€œWhat about the fishmonger?” Tibble asked.
    â€œHe’s in hospital!”
    â€œReally? I thought it sounded like Fluff had good news.”
    â€œThe fishmonger got hit by a car,” Minou said. “It ran right into his fish stall. All the local cats are going straight there because there’s fish spread all over the road.”
    â€œI’m on my way,” Tibble said. “I can write an article about this.” And he grabbed his pad.
    â€œI’m going too,” Minou said. “Over the roof, that’s faster.”
    She tried to climb out of the window, but Tibble stopped her. “No, Miss Minou. I don’t want my secretary scrounging around an upset fish stall like an old alley cat!”
    Minou gave him a haughty look.
    â€œWhat’s more,” said Tibble, “there’s bound to be a lot of people there and you don’t like that.”
    â€œFine, I’ll stay here,” said Minou. “I’ll hear the news on the roof.”
    There
were
a lot of people in Green Square. A real crowd. The police were there, there was glass on the street from the broken windows and the fish stall was completely wrecked; there were slats and boards all over the place, the bunting hadbeen trodden underfoot and the last cat was running off with the last herring.
    Mr Smith was looking around too.
    â€œThey just drove off with the fishmonger,” he said. “They’re taking him to hospital. He’s got a broken rib.”
    â€œWhat happened?” Tibble asked.
    â€œA car! But the weird thing is nobody knows
which
car. It was a hit and run. Outrageous!”
    â€œWeren’t there any witnesses? Right in the middle of the day?”
    â€œNo,” said Mr Smith. “It was twelve noon exactly, everyone was having lunch. They all heard the smash but by the time they’d come out to have a look, the car had gone round the corner.”
    â€œAnd the fishmonger?”
    â€œHe doesn’t know either. One moment he was gutting some herring, the next thing he’s upside down, stall and all. The police have questioned everyone here in the neighbourhood, but no one saw the car. It must have been a stranger, someone from out of town.”
    Tibble looked around. There was a cat eating something on the corner of the square. The cats must have seen who it was, he thought. And I bet Minou has already been informed.
    He was right.
    â€œWe’ve known who it was for ages,” she said when Tibble arrived back upstairs. “Everyone’s told everyone else up on the rooftops. It was Mr Ellmore’s car. He was in it too. It was him.”
    Tibble could hardly believe it. “Come on,” he said. “Why would a man like that keep driving after an accident? He’d report it straight away.”
    â€œThe cats saw it,” Minou said. “You know how there’s alwayscats hanging around the fish stall. Cross-eyed Simon was there and so was the School Cat and Ecumenica too. They all saw it. Now you can put it in the paper.”
    Tibble sat down and started chewing his fingernails.
    â€œThat’s right, isn’t it?” asked Minou. “This can go in the paper, can’t it?”
    â€œNo,” said Tibble. “I’ll write an article about the accident. But I can’t say Ellmore was the driver. There’s no proof.”
    â€œNo proof? But
three
cats—”
    â€œYes,
cats
! But what good’s that? There wasn’t a single witness.”
    â€œThere