Catscape Read Online Free

wanted.
    Suddenly her face changed. Looking over Murdo’s left shoulder her eyes widened. She gasped and pointed, “Murdo … behind you … a CAT!”
    Murdo spun round. As he did so, Heather grabbed a new packet of batteries from the table top and with a laugh jumped back out of the caravan, leaving the door flapping open as a final insult to Murdo’s security precautions.
    Murdo was red in the face, and Fergus wasn’t quite sure where to look for a few moments. “She seems nice,” he said, trying to break the silence.
    Murdo walked over stiffly and shut the door. “She is impossible — how can I be expected to work under these conditions?” he said, tight-lipped with anger. He turned back to the whiteboard and shook his head violently as if to rid himselfof any memory of Heather’s intrusion. “Now where were we?”
    There was another knock at the door.
    “Go A-WAY,” said Murdo.
    “That’s charming,” said a woman’s voice.
    “Oops, sorry, Mum,” said Murdo instantly changing his tone. “Em, … password please.”
    “It’s your mother,” said the woman opening the door, “I don’t need a password.”
    Fergus concluded that Murdo really needed a review of his security systems. Murdo meanwhile just stood shaking his head slowly and sadly, as if wondering where it had all gone wrong.
    Murdo’s mother, Mrs. Fraser, stood in the doorway, “Heather told me you had company, Murdo. I just wondered if you boys wanted some lunch … but I would need an introduction first,” she added, turning and smiling at Fergus.
    Murdo introduced Fergus and within ten minutes the boys were sitting at the kitchen table in the house, with steaming bowls of soup and crusty bread in front of them. Mrs. Fraser asked Fergus lots of questions about what he liked doing, where he lived and who he lived with, and he soon began to relax and feel really at home.
     
    Meanwhile, after the security breaches, Murdo seemed to have regained some of his earlier enthusiasm. His mum knew a little bit about his efforts to find the cats and Fergus was amused to hear himself being described as a “colleague working in the same field.” Fergus did notice that he didn’t mention the curious mystery of the DataBoys, however, and began to wonder if Murdo wasn’t really that interested in the malfunctioning watches. However, he was proved wrong when Mrs. Fraser left the room for a few moments and Murdo leant towards him with a determined whisper.
    “I’ve been thinking. We can’t just concentrate on the cats. We need to move things along with the watch investigation too.I don’t know how we can do it but we have to find out what’s underneath that manhole cover. Any ideas?”
    Before Fergus could answer, Mrs. Fraser came back into the room and Murdo instantly picked up where he had left off about the missing cats. “So we really need to get back and plan our next moves on the case, Mum. Can we go?”
    Mrs. Fraser had a smile on her face that revealed years of listening patiently to Murdo. “Murdo wants to go, but I have the power to make him stay with just two words,” she said looking at Fergus. Fergus smiled back and waited to see Mrs. Fraser work her magic words.
    By now Murdo was sidling out of his seat. “Mum, we’ve got work to do!” he said impatiently.
    “Sponge pudding,” said Mrs. Fraser.
    Murdo stopped in his tracks and his round face changed to a combination of pleasure at the thought of his favourite dessert and sadness that his mother had got the better of him once again.
    “I’ll get the syrup,” he said, changing direction to fetch a chair so he could reach up to a cupboard. He plonked a tin on the table and pulled a teaspoon from a nearby drawer. Sticking the end of the spoon’s handle under the edge of the lid, Murdo worked his way around it and prised it open to reveal the sticky smooth golden contents.
    By now, Mrs. Fraser had put a bowl with a steaming chunk of sponge pudding in front of each of the boys,