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speak. Now new frightening noises were added to the beating raindrops and the tramping feet. The bell of the church at the end of the road began to toll and a band of bugles and drums struck up in time to the marching footsteps. The frantic pair of cats wondered what new terror was being unleashed against them and their kind. Unhappily they couldn’t know they were hearing the sounds of a scout troop’s Sunday church parade.
    The noise blared and thumped for a while, then abruptly ceased. Only the church bell continued to chime, while the cruel rain slackened to a patter. It was an age before the cats even felt safe enough to talk.
    ‘We’re still . . . in the . . . city,’ Pinkie gasped. ‘We’ll never . . . get away.’ She shuddered.
    ‘We escaped the men last time,’ Sammy said. ‘We can do so again.’
    ‘And again and again?’ Pinkie said. ‘How many times before they catch us in the end?’
    Sammy got up and shook himself. He looked at his mate. Her fur was saturated by the rain and stuck all over with rotting leaves and twigs. He could hardly glimpse a suggestion of white on her coat. She was filthy and he realized he must look much the same. ‘We have to change our habits,’ he said emphatically. ‘There’s only one way we can avoid capture indefinitely and that’s by fooling the patrols into thinking we’re pets.’ He had been coming to this conclusion in his own mind for a long while. Now he had finally accepted it, he felt much more optimistic.
    ‘How can we possibly . . .?’ Pinkie began.
    ‘Because we must,’ he answered. ‘We’re too vulnerable as we are. Look at me. How could I be mistaken for anything but a stray? We’re both dirty, unkempt and undernourished. We haven’t escaped from the city entirely, as we hoped. We’ve simply been brought to another, rather quieter part of it. So we have to revise our plans.’
    Pinkie listened attentively. Sammy could be so clever. The rain stopped altogether and the sun broke through the massed clouds. A patch of sunlight in the garden attracted them. They needed to dry off.
    ‘Come on,’ Sammy said. ‘I’ll explain when we get there. We can lie against the fence. We shouldn’t be disturbed.’
    They jumped from the shed roof. The morning was warming up. They made sure no people or other animals were nearby. Then they ran to the sunny patch and lay down gratefully where the sun’s rays could bathe them.
    ‘Now,’ Sammy began importantly, ‘the first thing we have to do is to improve our appearance. We must always look clean and beautifully groomed. We must be really meticulous about it. We want to look appealing to the human eye. Like Buster. We haven’t taken proper care of ourselves before. I was a pet once so I have some idea how to go about it. You never were so I shall have to teach you. We’ve been living rough and, as you’ve known nothing else, you’ve always been wild. I’ve become that way myself, but it’s going to be more difficult for you to change. And, Pinkie, you must, you know. Otherwise there’s a risk I’d be overlooked while you were taken.’
    Pinkie began to tremble again as Sammy’s words sank in. The prospect of such a separation was disturbing. ‘I do clean myself,’ she protested. ‘But – but . . .’
    ‘But you couldn’t pass for a pet,’ Sammy finished for her. ‘So we have a lot to do. We have to look like pets and we have to behave like them too. First we must have a base. A proper one. No more sleeping in the open or amongst plants.’
    ‘You mean somewhere like the hut in Quartermile Field?’ Pinkie queried. She was referring to her old home in the country where she had first encountered Sammy.
    ‘Maybe, but a little grander, I think. Would a pet live in a broken-down, abandoned place like that? No. You see,’ said Sammy, ‘in order to look like a pet you have to live like one.’
    Pinkie bridled at this. ‘Preposterous! I’ve never lived like a pet and wouldn’t