Geejay the Hero Read online

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Copyright Page

  Title page

  1. The Haunted House

  2. My early days

  3. The Corbys move in

  4. Lions!

  5. Inside No. 1

  6. A happy ending

  This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form (including any digital form) other than this in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Epub ISBN: 9781446403396

  Version 1.10

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  GEEJAY, THE HERO

  A YOUNG CORGI BOOK : 0 552 546097

  First publication in Great Britain

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Young Corgi edition published 1998

  Copyright © 1998 by Adèle Geras

  Illustrations copyright © 1998 by Tony Ross

  The right of Adèle Geras to be identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Condition of Sale

  Young Corgi Books are published by Transworld Publishers Ltd,

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, Ealing, London W5 5SA,

  in Australia by Transworld Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd,

  15–25 Helles Avenue, Moorebank, NSW 2170,

  and in New Zealand by Transworld Publishers (NZ) Ltd,

  3 William Pickering Drive, Albany, Auckland.

  GEEJAY

  THE HERO

  Adèle Geras

  Illustrated by Tony Ross

  1. The haunted house

  Once upon a time . . . that’s the way all the very best stories begin. Wendy says so. She loves stories more than anything because, she says, they are full of wonders and marvels, adventures and magic. They tell us about a world that is more exciting than the real world. They are full of heroes and heroines, witches and dragons, and they sometimes have ghosts in them. Wendy likes spooky stories best of all. She is eight years old, and she’s my favourite human. It’s her bed I sleep on, when I rest from my work of hunting and roaming.

  “Guess what?” Wendy whispered to me one day, when we were playing in the garden. “I think the house next door is haunted. Doesn’t it look haunted to you?”

  Wendy has a habit of seeing ghosts everywhere. The dressing gown on the back of her door was one, and so was the wind, making the curtains blow in at the windows. The haunted house, No.1 Cuckoo Square, stood on the corner of Peacock Street. It had been empty for a long time, and the paintwork was peeling. The windows were covered in spider-webs, and ivy grew all over the walls at the back. When Wendy told her mother what she had told me, her mother, Angela, said: “What a lot of nonsense! Of course it’s not haunted. You know perfectly well that ghosts are only in stories. It’s just a bit neglected, that’s all.”

  “You’re not to go inside,” said Nigel, Wendy’s father. “Even though it’s not haunted. Old houses can be very dangerous.”

  “What sort of dangerous?” Wendy wanted to know. She is as curious as any cat.

  “Loose floorboards sort of dangerous,” said Nigel. “Broken stairs sort of dangerous. Fall over and break your ankle sort of dangerous.”

  “Oh,” said Wendy. “How boring!”

  “Sorry I’m sure!” Nigel smiled at his daughter. “If I could lay on the odd headless horseman or chain-rattling spectre, I promise you I would.”

  We might have been forbidden to go into the house next door, but its garden was our special place. Wendy and I often crept through the overgrown shrubbery at the end of the long grass that used to be a lawn, and we used to go right up to the windows and peer into them to see if we could spot any spooks.

  “They’re friendly ghosts,” Wendy told me, as we looked at the house together. “They wouldn’t hurt us. They’d like to play, if only we could get in.”

  One day, Wendy invented the Sleeping Beauty game.

  “Come on, Geejay,” she said. “These thorn bushes, and tangled branches . . . they’re the Enchanted Wood. I’ll be the Prince. I have to cut my way through it, so that I can reach my Princess. She’s asleep up there, can you see? That’s her room, that little one, near the roof. You can be my horse. I’m leading you through the wood. It’s too overgrown for me to ride, you see.”

  I didn’t particularly like being a horse. I wanted to be the Prince. I thought I’d make a very good Prince, because I was brave and fearless, but Wendy was already slashing away at the bushes with an old broom handle she’d found behind the garage door. I followed her. I wanted to get inside No.1 for reasons of my own which had nothing to do with ghosts. Often, when humans leave a place, mice and little birds move in. Unfortunately, even I couldn’t find a crack in the door, and all the windows were tightly closed.

  “There’s no point playing this game any more,” Wendy said. “I’m going over to Lexie’s house.” Lexie was her friend, and lived at No.27 with Perkins, the oldest of the Cuckoo Square Cats.

  After she’d gone, I jumped up on to the sill to see if there was anything tasty running about inside. There wasn’t. The room was dusty, and strips of old wallpaper were peeling off the walls. A few broken chairs lay about in the corners, and the carpets were torn and moth-eaten. I decided to go into Cuckoo Square and find my friends, Perkins, Blossom and Callie, who I knew would be happy to see me.

  But things were about to change at No.1. A few days later, a notice saying “SOLD” appeared on the board outside the house, and Nigel told us: “A family called Corby have bought it.”

  “Have they got any children?” Wendy wanted to know.

  “Have they got any cats?” I said, miaowing loudly, but my family chose not to listen.

  “A son, I think,” said Angela. “It’ll be fun, won’t it, having new neighbours?”

  2. My early days

  I haven’t always lived in Cuckoo Square . . . oh, no. I don’t like to boast, but I have led a more adventurous life than my friends. Callie, it’s true, began her days in a Shelter, but as for Blossom and Perkins, they have lived quietly with their families ever since they were kittens. My early days were altogether different. I am by nature a prowler and a growler, a chaser and a racer, and once upon a time I knew danger, and occasional hungry nights. Before I arrived at No.2, I had another name, and I’d been a stray cat for many months. My first owner was called Ginger, and his hair was exactly the same colour as my coat. He lived on a barge on the river with his skinny wife, Milly. They used to call me Lenny.

  I often tell my friends stories . . . sagas of mouse-chasing and bird-watching; tales of moonlight meetings with foxes who didn’t realize that a cat with teeth and claws at the ready was more than a match for them.

  I was feared by many small animals, all up and down the river, and I suppose I would have ended my days there, but Ginger and Milly grew old and sick and went to live in a block of flats in the middle of town where no pets were allowed. They cried when they parted from me.

  “Oh, Lenny,” said Milly. “We’ll always remember you. And our friend Freddy says he’ll look after you as if you were his own child.”

  So they left me with Freddy. He was kind enough, but he never chatted to me. I was bored. I was lonely. I felt in my whiskers that there were better homes and pleasanter humans somewhere else, and I was right. I left the river, and lived as a stray for many weeks. One day, I found myself in Cuckoo Square, and I knew at once that it was a sort of Cat Paradise. Perkins was the first cat I met. When I caught sight of him, he was lying on a bench beside the railings.

  “Is there ro
om in this garden for a cat in need of company?” I asked.

  Perkins looked at me and said: “There is always a place here in Cuckoo Square for a fine cat like you. Tell me a little about your beginnings.”

  I settled myself comfortably and told him some of my adventures. Perhaps I did make them a little more exciting than they were in real life, but that is what story-telling is about.

  When Perkins had heard them, he said: “An adventurous life, to be sure! It comes from living on a river, no doubt. Are you familiar with what the Furry Ancestors have to say on the subject of rivers?”

  I had to admit that I was not.

  “They say,” Perkins went on. “‘A river is like the sea in many ways, but it is much longer and thinner and not as salty.’ You seem to be a cat of a daring and swashbuckling nature. Your eyes are forever scanning the distant horizon.”

  “I’m usually looking for something to chase,” I said.

  “Nevertheless,” said Perkins, “you are a wanderer. I’m delighted that your travels have brought you to Cuckoo Square.”

  It was Blossom who pointed out to me the house that has been my home for more than a year. As soon as Perkins introduced us, she said: “If I were you, I’d try the Saunders family. They live over there at No.2. The mother and father both work at the Library. They used to have a cat, many moons ago, when I was a mere kitten, but she has now gone to join the Furry Ancestors. I know that Wendy, their little girl, would be a good human for any cat. She comes to the Square almost every day to talk to us and stroke us.”

  “She has even”, said Callie, “brought us titbits to eat from time to time.”

  I took my new friends’ advice, and made my way to the Saunders’ house. It was quite late in the afternoon, and I was beginning to feel hungry. I sat down near the garage door and began to miaow, trying to sound as pathetic and plaintive as I could. This was not the sort of noise I usually made. Since my early kittenhood, I’d been perfecting a cry that strikes terror into the hearts of all small creatures: furry, flying and finny. After a few minutes, a girl came to the back door.

  “Mum,” she said. “Dad. Come and see. There’s a cat here, and he’s beautiful. I love him. Can we keep him? Please?” She came over and knelt down beside me. “You are so beautiful,” she said, picking me up and burying her face in my fur. “You are just like a lion, and I love you.”

  I liked her at once. She was obviously a child of great intelligence and could tell immediately that I was different from other cats.

  “How do we know he doesn’t belong to someone else?” the girl’s mother said. “We’ll have to ask all the neighbours if he’s theirs before we invite him to live with us.”

  Wendy looked so sad that I took matters into my own paws and slipped past her and her mother and went into the kitchen. Once I was in, I miaowed again, and when a tin of food was put in front of me, I finished it faster than you could twitch your whiskers or whisk your tail.

  “See?” Wendy said. “He’s starving, poor thing! I think he’s come from far, far away. I’ve never seen him before, and I know all the Cuckoo Square cats. I’m going to call him Ginger Jack.”

  “Hadn’t you better wait,” said her mother, “until we’re sure he doesn’t belong to anybody else? I’ll go round the Square after supper.”

  “I am sure,” said Wendy. “He’s ours. You’ll see.”

  She was quite right. Of course, I knew that no-one in the Square would claim me, so I thought about my new name, and decided I liked it. Ginger Jack had a good ring to it. It sounded brave and jaunty and it suited me. I began to purr and in my head I said goodbye to my past life, to the river and the lonely streets of the city and to my old name. I was a Cuckoo Square Cat now. A different kind of life had begun. The sun was shining on the cushions of the window seat, and they looked so soft and inviting that I settled myself on them for a sleep.

  3. The Corbys move in

  I didn’t stay Ginger Jack for very long. Angela and Nigel Saunders, Wendy’s parents, shortened it to Geejay almost at once, and that was what everyone called me, both in my house and in the Square. It was quicker and easier, and I liked it because it sounded dashing.

  After the “SOLD” sign appeared on the board outside No.1, all of us cats waited eagerly to see who would be moving in, and after a few days, they appeared.

  “There they are!” said Callie. “Aren’t they tall and skinny?”

  Perkins said: “The man and the woman are tall and skinny. The child is small and skinny. As the Furry Ancestors say: ‘Skinny kittens make skinny cats’.”

  The Corbys didn’t stop to admire the Square, but shut their front door very firmly behind them.

  Wendy saw the family arriving as well. She went into our garden to look over our hedge and see if she could catch sight of the little boy. I slipped between the slats of the fence, and into my favourite flower bed under a particularly leafy bush. I was enjoying my morning stretch, and scratching my claws along the trunk of a tree when Mrs Corby came running out of the house waving a broom around and shouting: “Shoo! shoo!” at me. I fled, of course, but not before I’d given her a good hiss.

  She turned to Wendy and said: “Was that your cat, little girl?”

  “Yes,” Wendy said. “I’m Wendy Saunders. We’re going to be your neighbours. Our cat is called Ginger Jack, but everyone calls him Geejay.”

  Wendy’s mother came out into our garden then, and she and Mrs Corby made pleasant-sounding human noises at each other.

  I thought everything was perhaps going to be all right, and then Mrs Corby announced: “I would much prefer it if your cat didn’t make free with our flower beds. My little boy is allergic to animals.”

  “I’ll try and keep him on this side of the fence,” said Angela, “but Geejay is a bit of a wanderer. He has a mind of his own.”

  Mrs Corby sniffed and disappeared into the house.

  Angela went indoors too, and then Wendy said: “Look, Geejay, there’s the boy, in the window of the lounge.” She started to wave, and shouted: “Open the window . . .” over the hedge.

  The boy opened the window and leaned out a little.

  “Hello,” said Wendy. “I’m Wendy. What’s your name?”

  “Nicky Corby,” said the boy. “Do you live next door to us?”

  “You live next door to us,” Wendy said, and giggled. “It’s a bit difficult talking like this. Why don’t you come down and play in my garden? Or I could come to your garden if you like.”

  “I can’t go in the garden. I get ill if I go in the garden. I’m allergic to pollen, and grass and things. I can’t help it. I start sneezing and my eyes run, so Mum says I have to stay indoors.”

  “Come and play in our house, then.”

  “I can’t,” Nicky said. “Because of that cat. I’m allergic to fur as well.”

  “Wow,” said Wendy. “Poor old you! But he’s not that cat. His name is Geejay.”

  “Will you come and play here?” Nicky asked. “Will you come to tea one day?”

  “You ask your mum and I’ll ask mine,” said Wendy. “Come on, Geejay, let’s go and see who’s in the Square. ‘Bye, Nicky. See you soon.”

  “See you,” said Nicky and waved, rather sadly, as we left.

  “The Corbys,” I announced to my friends after Wendy had gone home, “will not be having any pets. Their son is allergic to fur. I’ve been asked to stay out of their property.”

  “Goodness!” said Callie. “What will you do? You love roaming through everyone’s back gardens.”

  “Oh, I’ll find a way to stay hidden, never fear. It would take a great deal more than one skinny lady to keep me out of what I have always thought of as my territory.”

  “Quite right,” said Perkins. “The Furry Ancestors say: ‘Where the paw has trodden, the paw will always tread’.”

  None of us cats could understand how the Corbys could possibly live in a house like No.1, which seemed to be full of all sorts of people coming and going all the time, w
ith pots of paint and ladders and little portable radios which played loud music. Something that looked like a big metal box with no lid appeared outside the house.

  “It is called a skip,” said Perkins. “The humans are transforming their house, and the skip is to hold everything they throw away. For my part, I would wait until everything was ready before I moved in, but as the Furry Ancestors say: ‘Humans prepare a house for cats to enjoy’.”

  Wendy said: “They’re tidying it up, Geejay. I expect it won’t be haunted any more.”

  Vans drove up every day with sofas and chairs and tables, and we cats considered them carefully.

  “Those are hard chairs,” said Blossom. “I prefer squashy ones myself, full of soft cushions.”

  There were people in the garden as well, mowing the lawn, cutting the bushes and, as Wendy said, sadly: “Spoiling our enchanted wood. We won’t be able to play Sleeping Beauty any more.”

  Even in our garden, it became very hard to take a nap. All day long, men with lawnmowers and hedge-trimmers made humming and whizzing noises, and the wilderness disappeared. They attacked every bush and shrub with giant shears, and then they tore out all the undergrowth and took it away in a big truck. Wendy stood with Lexie in our garden and watched as a red-faced man snipped away at some leftover leaves.

  “I liked it better before,” she said. “It looks quite ordinary now.”

  4. Lions!

  The day after the Corbys moved in, two strange animals appeared outside No.1, sitting on either side of the front door.