Earwig by Brian Catling

Author:Brian Catling [Catling, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2019-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

SILVER

The beetle was unpacking his instruments on the kitchen table, having refused the Earwig’s more elegant temporary operating theatre in the living room. The kitchen’s austerity and simple harsh lighting were superior in his no-nonsense eyes. The proximity to flowing water sealed the decision. The reclining chair was carried with great huffing reluctance to a position between the table and the fridge.

‘Now, fetch the child,’ the doctor demanded.

But the child had no intention of being fetched. She and the cat had become inseparable. When the Earwig followed the doctor’s command with contempt in his craw and angrily loomed around the door of the child’s bedroom, demanding that she should go to the kitchen, nothing happened. Aalbert repeated his demand while stepping a little closer. The cat arched its small bristling back and as he extended his ready-to-grab hand. The little creature opened its jaws and spat long and hard at the tall man. He stopped in his tracks and laughed at its courageous nerve. He could have crushed it or torn it apart with his hands, or thrown it across the room, so insignificant was its size. Now Mia tried to hold it as it curled and became rampant on her breast. Aalbert overcame his amusement and was moving in to rectify the pest’s arrogance, when he saw something that stopped him in his tracks again. The black and pink interior of the cat’s mouth was completely without teeth.

He pushed his head closer to be sure. The hissing velvet trap was bare – only the tongue darted in the glistening cavity. Aalbert was pleased by this funny detail and he suddenly warmed to the humour of the erasable little man in the kitchen.

‘Come, child,” he said. “It is time to mend your mouth.’

She did not move.

‘We can lock your kitten in this room while your mouth is being repaired. You want that, don’t you?’

She held the cat tighter and glared at him, and he saw a resolve in her he had not witnessed since the incident at the lake.

‘Bring it with you then, but hurry. The doctor is impatient.’

Mia looked at him and saw that he meant it. She stroked the cat and carefully put it back in its cage. She latched the gate and carried it with her towards the kitchen. Aalbert followed, smirking.

Rostlink had lit his pipe, found the Earwig’s stashed bottle of brandy and poured himself a deep glassful. The child walked straight to the chair and placed the cat next to her on the table on the other side of the instruments. Rostlink frowned and was about to order the removal when Aalbert stepped between the seated doctor and the tabled cat.

‘You did this too, uh?”

‘Please move that thing away from my instruments. I don’t want it in my way.’

‘P’raps it wants some more.’

‘More what? What are you talking about?’

‘You did the cat’s teeth.’

‘What . . .?’

‘You did its teeth too, the whole mouthful. Just like the child’s.’

‘How dare you!’

‘A good clean job you did. No?’

‘I DON’T DO CATS.

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