WEEK THREE

Fat Cat who'd been hoping it was the old lady making a rather melodramatic entrance, was disappointed but not particularly surprised to see that it was Puck. Puck always turned up just when he was at his lowest ebb.
"And what" asked Puck, gazing around the room in what Fat Cat thought was a rather supercilious manner "might be the cause of that? No Evil Sorcerers hiding under the table or dragons tucked behind the curtains here as far as I can see."
Fat Cat who'd searched for the old lady in all those places knew that was true.
"So." said Puck, "the old lady has gone. Well that was only to be expected."
"Not by me." Fat Cat said.
Puck gave him a searching look. "I suppose you just expected her to stay here cooking and cleaning and washing and mending, looking after the garden and, more to the point, you."
Put like that, Fat realized it was exactly what he had expected.
"Hmm." Puck said, "I suppose you thought you were some kind of pet."
Despite all the thoughts he had been having that one hadn't entered Fat Cat's mind.
However, now that Puck had put it there it gave him a rather uncomfortable feeling. It wasn't so long since he'd given up his life with Ollie and Tash and Maia in the other world, for him to forget what being a pet animal was like and now he saw that was exactly how he'd been behaving taking for granted the fact that there was always food on the table, a safe garden to laze about in when it was hot and a comfortable fire to doze in front of when it was cold. And really he shouldn't have needed Puck to point it out to him. The chubby looking cat who' d stared back at him when he'd had a quick peep into the magic mirror to see if it could tell him where the old lady had gone, had looked nothing like the sleekly muscled figure, wearing the green hat and the raven's feather, who'd returned with the old lady to Faerie-land but he'd recognised it all the same.

"Well it's easily done." said Puck, "Far easier to go backwards and revert to what you know than to move forwards into the unknown."
A bell rang in Fat Cat's mind. The old lady had said more or less the same thing.
"Then that no doubt is where she has gone." said Puck. "and where you will no doubt find her."
It made sense Fat Cat thought, in the strange way things did in this world. And in any case, he didn't really think he had any choice in the matter. There was no warm fire to sit in front of and nothing - apart from a pumpkin which he'd only just noticed- that looked anything like food, on the scrubbed wood table.

Fat Cat's heart sank. And to make matters worse, the steady drip which had accompanied Puck's entrance was getting louder and more persistent. Fat Cat hated rain. He hated the way it reminded him of the night Ollie threw him out - the start of all his adventures. He had a horrible feeling this was going to turn out to be another one and he wasn't at all sure he was ready for it.
"If you wait 'til your ready for it." said Puck, "You'll never be ready."
Fat Cat knew that was true. "I suppose you wouldn't like to come with me." he said.
Puck nodded. "You suppose right." He said, and in a sudden blur of hair and wings he was gone.

Fat Cat stared at the window ledge. Perhaps Puck hadn't been there at all. Perhaps it was just a figment of his imagination brought on by hunger and lack of food. But Fat Cat knew it wasn't. It never was. And actually, he was beginning to doubt he had an imagination. The things he'd seen and things that had happened to him were beyond the wildest possible imaginings of any cat.

Reluctantly Fat Cat padded over to the back door, where, next to the old lady's long grey cloak, on a peg just the right height for a cat to reach, a green hat with a raven's feather and a velvet cloak hung. Fat Cat put the hat on his head and slung the cloak around his shoulders. Something heavy banged against his left knee. Fat Cat put his paw into the pocket and pulled it out. He recognized it immediately. It was the faerie stone. One of the many magical things he'd treated so carelessly and lost so easily. He couldn't think how it had got there. It must be magic he thought.

The thought was comforting. It was a sign not only that the old lady must have been thinking about him - for if he didn't know where it had come from he knew without a shadow of doubt who it had - but also that she intended for him to set out on this journey. Fat Cat was about to do just that when he realised there was a problem. The back door was shut and the handle was too high up for him to reach. Fat Cat paused. Perhaps that was a sign too. Perhaps he wasn't supposed to go. Perhaps he was supposed to stay here and wait for the old lady to return. But when he saw the trickle of rain running down the wall beneath the open window Fat Cat knew that it wasn't

Pushing his hat firmly down over his eyes and clutching the cloak tightly together with his teeth, Fat Cat leapt onto the window ledge and jumped.