Four Ducks on a Pond Read Online Free Page A

Margie set off in the trap, Fionna driving rather cautiously, as she was a learner. Corrie had told me that all her caution was unnecessary, as she would always
take care to go properly for Fionna, whether Fionna was riding or driving her. Puddy was a different matter. It sometimes amused Corrie to test Puddy’s skill as a horsewoman, and she would
play up in a manner which I considered most unladylike. However, I think Puddy enjoyed these arguments quite as much as Corrie did, for she always won in the end. She didn’t know that Corrie
intended to let her win from the start.
    Kitten always slept in the afternoons, and I could hear Grandpop and John working together at the hen-house. The sound of their hammering must have carried miles across the countryside. Not that
it would disturb people, but those who couldn’t see what was being made would be wondering who was hammering what, and why. I have already told you that the people here have a great sense of
curiosity.
    I had several encounters that afternoon, two with field mice and one with a mole, before I caught a fat buck rabbit which I carried with me to one of my favourite eating-places – a
sheltered place behind our Standing Stone. This stone is at the top of the drive, near the house. Some say it is a Druid stone, others that it marks the pilgrim way to Iona. And it is also said
that treasure lies buried beneath it, but I don’t think this can be true, or the family would have been at it with a pick-axe long ago.
    I don’t wish to boast, but it was clever of me to kill a mole. I wish I could kill more. They play havoc with the fields, and Corrie is afraid of stumbling over the molehills, sure-footed
though she is.
    I found I could only eat the head and part of one leg of my rabbit, and I wished I had eaten less at breakfast. However, I neatly skinned the shoulders, then hid the remains behind a piece of
corrugated iron that was leaning up against the house. Once before, I had left almost a whole rabbit near the house, and Puddy had seen it and taken it and cooked if for Carla, which I considered
one of the few unkind things Puddy has ever done to me. I don’t think she quite understood that it is no easy task to catch and kill a rabbit as big as oneself. The fact that I often do so is
a small matter of prowess, which should not be underestimated.
    I was quite surprised to hear the beat of Corrie’s hooves trotting back along the road. My hunting must have taken longer than I had realised.
    Corrie turned in at the gate and made much of the slight rise in the drive. She gave her low whinny when she saw me, and I heard Fionna say, ‘Listen, she’s glad to be
home.’
    Oh dear me! If only I could tell them that it was me she was glad to see.
    Margie went into the house with some parcels, and I knew, too, that as it was Tuesday, she’d have bought the postal orders for the football pools. All the family did the pools, and often
talked of the wonderful things they would do when they won the seventy-five thousand pounds. I expect almost every cat in Britain has a family that talks the same way. But I’ll say for mine
that the first thing each of them was going to do was to share it out equally with the others, and, knowing them, it’s exactly what they would do. I’d better say now that you
mustn’t think that this book is going to end with one of them winning the pools and doing all the marvellous things they had planned. Ours is an ordinary family, and I’m not going to
introduce anything fancy into this story about them. If you want that sort of thing, you’d better get something else out of your library. Though I must confess it would be just wonderful if
it did happen before I reach the end of this story! So there I am, planning to win the pools too – just as silly as the rest of them.
    Puddy and Fionna unharnessed Corrie and gave her a quick rub-down with some hay – what they call a whisp. Grandpop and Puddy have long arguments over