Free Snakes' Elbows by Deirdre Madden

astonishment it was sitting in the front window of his old teacher Mr Kelly’s house. Good Gobstoppers! Was it possible that he was the Haverford-Snuffley Angel’s new owner? Old Jelly-Belly-Kelly? He sneaked up to the window to have a closer look at the cat. Yes, there was no doubt about it: it was black with a white bib and socks and a splodge over its nose. This was definitely the cat he had seen at the auction!
    Just at that moment, he heard someone coming out of the front door of the house. His old teacher had never quite forgiven Jasper for putting a toad in his desk and mice in his coat pockets and for a thousand other mean tricks. To this day old Jelly-Belly used to chase Jasper down the street when he saw him, waving a cane and shouting, ‘Hi you boy! Come here!’ And so as soon as he heard the door opening, Jasper nipped smartly around the corner of the house and ran off up the road.
    He stopped to get his breath back outside the chocolate shop. But no! It was impossible! There, sitting on the step, was ANOTHER cat and it was also black with a white bib and socks and a splodge over its nose! It looked exactly like both the cat at the auction and the cat in Mr Kelly’s house. Jasper picked it up to have a closer look. One of its socks was longer than the other one. Did the auction cat have two socks the same length? Jasper couldn’t remember. Its bib went the whole way down to its tummy.Perhaps the other cat had a shorter bib? Jasper wasn’t sure. He was eyeball to eyeball with the cat now, who stared coldly at him.
    â€˜Has an angel come to live in your house?’ Jasper whispered.
    In reply the cat lashed out, dragged its claws down his cheek.
    â€˜Ow! That hurt, you little monster!’ He let the creature fall to the ground and it slunk off.
    As Jasper turned away a third cat darted across the road and jumped up on to a wall. It was also black with a white bib and socks and a splodge over its nose and as soon as he saw it he burst into tears. This cat on the wall really was Dandelion but there was no way Jasper could know this. They all looked so alike, he thought; there was absolutely no way of telling them apart. He wondered if they were doing it deliberately. Jasper had never liked cats. Dragging his feet with misery, he gave up and went home.
    *
    There were no coins or banknotes or gold in Jasper’s dreams that night, only cats: thousands and thousands of black and white cats. Each one was different from the others in only the smallest detail and it was impossible for him to know which was the one cat he needed to find. They swirled through Jasper’s mind, chasing their tails or washing themselves, snoozing or purring. Suddenly one of them spoke directly to him.
    â€˜Do you really want to know which one of us you saw at the auction? Well then, we shall tell you.’ With one voice, every last cat of all the thousands and thousands shouted, ‘IT WAS ME!’ Helpless with laughter, they fell around the place, and with a loud scream, Jasper woke up.
    Because he had slept so badly he was still tired on the Monday morning, and even more grumpy than usual. To make matters worse he had to go to work that day. As his car moved through the forest towards the factory he was once more in a deep sulk.
    Mr Smith greeted Jasper at the door of his office. ‘Let’s get straight down to business, shall we?’
    Together they went through an order form. ‘Hand guns, how many of those do you want?’
    â€˜Dunno.’
    â€˜I can let you have four hundred.’
    â€˜All right.’
    â€˜And what about stun guns, the same number?’
    â€˜I suppose so.’ Jasper wasn’t really paying attention as he sat there with his lower lip stuck out. Eventually Mr Smith put his pen down.
    â€˜Couldn’t believe what happened at that auction the other day,’ he said. ‘I mean, Mystery Buyer, my granny. Everyone knows it has to be that piano