To try out his new identity, ‘Peter Cat’ ventured out into his vast, prepossessing garden. When he laid his paws on the pink stone tiles in the patio, chilled air and dampness travelled up to his spine. He scampered around a parasol umbrella and curled himself around the pole. Following a butterfly, he hopped across onto the sunlit grass, which was swaying in the cool breeze. His white paws turned chocolate-brown and wet in the damp grass. Droplets of sweat were dripping down from head to toes. Drifting in the air, the fragrance of lavender dragged him over to the flowerbeds. Out of balance, he banged his head against the trunk of the orange tree.
While he was enjoying ‘to play pretend’ and feeling proud of his flawless act, his ‘cat’ eyes caught sight of an injured parrot crouching in a ditch whose chest was fluffed with a tiny, patch of rainbow-coloured feathers and its beak was golden yellow. Coo-cooing in pain, its legs were terribly bruised with a bluish-black bump. It looked like it suffered from a broken bone after a deadly fight with some hungry animals! Peter Cat immediately dashed towards the parrot and tried to mimic cats toying their prey before devouring them. Since the parrot was still conscious enough to fight for its life, it flapped its wings to heave itself to the top of the orange tree. Peter cat could not be stopped by just that.
Clumsily, he tried to pounce to the top of the garden fence but his body went splat onto its side with his clawless front paws ‘scratching’ up and down. Millions of tiny fuzz came flying out of the paws. Since he couldn’t get onto the fence, he pushed a chair next to the fence and climbed to the top from it. Balancing on the fence merely, Peter Cat felt a horrific pain from insanely sharp splinters piercing through the paws and the rest of the costume. A rip sound came from his haunches. His costume was torn and turned very tatty. He was yelping in agony but his desire for the parrot was so strong that it made him continue. He reached for the branch right above and wrapped around it with both arms and legs. Then, he leaped onto branches one after another and made it to where the parrot was (ten metre high above the ground). The parrot squealed in the air and leaped up high. It flapped its wings and glided down to the ground with a swoop…
As soon as Peter squinted down, he gulped in terror. His legs turned to jelly, so he flopped down on his buttock to calm himself down. After a while, he cried, “MUM! I AM STUCK IN A TREE! HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!” Hearing Peter’s scream, his napping mum shot out of bed with wide-open eyes; she peeked out from the window and saw Peter sticking on top of the orange tree! Immediately, she grabbed a pole ladder and dashed to him; she leaned the ladder against the tree and snapped, “Climb down carefully, Peter!” Peter’s hands tightly grasped the side rails of the ladder as his legs alone were too weak to carry him down to the ground.
With this tatty costume, Peter could have not played pretend ever again; surprisingly, Peter received a dog costume for his birthday the following week. This was only the beginning…
The following passage from The Cat by Ian McEwan
It was the oddest thing to climb out of your body, just step out of it and leave it sitting on the carpet like a shirt you had just taken off. And then Peter suddenly knew what he wanted to do, what he had to do. He floated towards William the Cat and hovered. The body stood open, like a door, and it looked so inviting, so welcoming. He dropped down and stepped inside. How fine it was to dress yourself as a cat. It was not squelchy, as he thought all insides must be. It was dry and warm. He lay on his back and slipped his arms into William's front legs. Then he wriggled his legs into William's back legs. His head fitted perfectly inside the cats head. Using his paws, Peter was able to zip himself up easily. He stood, and took a few steps. What a delight to walk on four soft white paws. He could see his whiskers springing out from the sides of his face, and he felt his tail curling behind him. His tread was light, and his fur was like the most comfortable of old woollen jumpers. As his pleasure in being a cat grew, a tingling action deep in his throat became so strong that he could hear himself, Peter was purring. He was Peter Cat.
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