A Warm Summer’s Evening 

by Baby, Wiltshire, UK 

I was practicing my tree climbing with my cousins, Belle and Beau when I spotted Dad going into a shed I had not noticed before. He pulled out some chairs and a big rattly thing on wheels. We decided to get down and watch to see what Dad was doing. Mum came into the garden and put things on the table. Belle got up there to investigate but it wasn’t anything interesting. Dad fiddled about with the big thing and it started making a funny noise, a bit like the wind on a windy day. Mum went indoors and came out with something on a plate. It smelt very inviting but she said we had to wait until it was cooked. Then she gave it to the big thing and it made all sorts of spitting noises and started to smell really good. It made me feel very hungry and we told Mum that we couldn’t wait, we wanted it NOW. She laughed and said it wouldn’t be long and went back indoors. When she came out again the big cats came too. We wondered if there would be enough for all of us if the big cats were going to get some as well.

The big ones sat on the chairs and watched as if they were in charge of the whole thing, which I thought was a bit much. It was us kittens who had noticed what was going on, not them, and now they expected a share. I told my mum, Heather, that it wasn’t fair but she just washed my face and told me to mind my manners. Aunt Honey didn’t want to know either so I tried talking to Baggins. He is the biggest of the daddy cats and I’m a bit scared of him sometimes, but he was very nice and just told me to wait and see, oh yes, and would I please get off his chair. He’s always very polite.

The smell of the food was driving us mad and we three small ones kept looking at Mum hopefully. At long last, just when my tummy was rumbling so loud I was sure everyone must hear it, Mum put something onto a plate and started to cut it up into small pieces. This was a good sign and all the big cats got off the chairs and started wrapping themselves round Mum’s legs. She put some of the food onto lots of plates and put them down on the ground for us. The big cats got theirs first, of course, and we were worried that there would not be enough plates to go round but Mum had saved a special, big plate for us. She put it down a little way away from the others so the big ones wouldn’t pinch our food and we dived into the lovely chicken on our plate. It tasted SO good. No one told us how good food tasted outdoors. It didn’t take us long to finish our plateful and we remembered our manners and said ‘thank you’ to Mum and Dad before we washed our faces and paws.

Mum and Dad had their food then and we hung around in case they needed help with the washing up. The big cats had settled down on the chairs again so we waited under the table. Well, you never know, someone might have dropped something! When all the food was gone, we all sat around listening to the birds singing and watching the sun go to bed. It was the purrfect end to our first barbecue.

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