‘I’ll climb. If the cat wants rescuing, I’m sure he’ll let me help him,’ Johnny said.
Fran frowned, then nodded. ‘Fair enough. Thank you.’
The ladder seemed relatively solid as Johnny began to scale his way up. Not convinced he would be able to reach the cat, even from the very top rung, Johnny wondered if he would somehow be able to coax the feline down far enough to get hold of it. He glanced down to check Fran had a decent hold on the ladder, was reassured by her firm grip and stance, and continued to climb.
With a combination of the dry, dusty feel of the rungs of the ladder and then the strong, rough bark of the oak itself, Johnny felt relatively confident as he came level with the first bough. From here he had a better view of the cat. If he was being honest, Johnny didn’t consider the cat to look at all traumatised by its current situation. If anything, he looked rather at home, lyingflat and with his tail curling and flexing as he observed Johnny’s progress with a look of disdain.
‘Fran thinks you need to be rescued, young man. So, do me a favour, would you? Climb down here so I can look like the hero, there’s a good cat.’
‘Is he OK?’ Fran called from below.
‘He’s fine. Just trying to work out how to reach him. Give me a minute.’
‘Can you get onto the branch, maybe reach him that way?’
‘If I want to slip and break my neck, then, yeah,’ Johnny said, under his breath. Fran was overestimating both his climbing ability and, quite frankly, his levels of bravery. A glance down to see how far below him she stood didn’t help, his throat drying at the thought of falling.
‘Can you call him, maybe he’ll come down a bit closer?’ Johnny yelled down.
Fran made a strange, inhaled squeaking noise. Johnny stifled a laugh, but Red perked up, ears pricked, giving his total focus on the source of the noise.
‘It’s my impression of a mouse,’ Fran called up. ‘Is it working?’
‘Think so. Keep it going.’
The squeaky noise came again, and the cat moved, slinking to the very edge of the branch before peering down. Fran squeaked even more loudly and after a brief pause, Red began to leap elegantly from branch to branch.
Johnny looked on as the cat negotiated his way effortlessly to the final junction between branch and trunk, before scaling down the rest of the tree to the ground. He could have sworn the cat gave him a look of derision as it swept past.
As she watched the cat descend, Fran grimaced. Perhaps Red hadn’t been as stuck as she’d assumed. He’d hightailed it away from her when he heard the backfiring engine and had scootedup into the tree in what appeared to Fran to be a total blind panic.
But he climbed from the tree with far more grace than Fran had been expecting, sauntering across to where she stood, braced against the ladder. As he rubbed against her ankles, Fran could hear the cat begin to purr and she reached down to stroke him between the ears.
‘For Christ’s sake, don’t let go.’
The ladder jiggled in the one hand Fran still had on it, and she reinstated her grip with both hands as Johnny began a clumsy descent. Fran was about to whisper to Red that his exit from the tree had been a whole lot more elegant than Johnny’s, when there was a dry crack, followed by a lot of movement and a rapid volley of swear words. The ladder went one way, the cat scarpered in another direction and before Fran had time to move away, or attempt to do anything to help Johnny, his tall frame was colliding with hers.
Despite both their best efforts to stay on their feet, Fran tripped on a tree root, Johnny flailed but couldn’t control his forwards momentum and they landed with a thump on the dusty ground beneath the oak’s wide canopy.
‘Oof,’ Fran said, using up what little air she still had in her lungs. Johnny sprawled across her, his lips way too close to her ear as he asked if she was hurt.
‘Don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘You?’
‘Nothing’s broken,’ he said. ‘Except for the ladder.’ Johnny drew in a breath as he shuffled his weight away from her but made no move to get up. ‘And possibly my pride.’
He turned to lie on his back beside her, and they stayed put, staring up through the shimmering canopy of the tree. Fran made a mental map of her body, deciding nothing was damaged further than a bit of potential bruising.
‘I really thought he was stuck,’ Fran said, after a while.
‘Yeah, well, he had us both fooled, didn’t he?’
‘If only I’d known I didn’t need a ladder at all.’
‘What?’ Johnny sounded horrified as he twisted up onto an elbow. With his gaze on her, Fran could see the twinkle of a smile in his eyes, the skin crinkling into crow’s feet as he said, ‘But without a ladder, I couldn’t have given you my best impression of apompier, could I?’
‘A what?’
‘Apompier. Fireman.’
