So, here it ism, the final day of my writing challenge. This was jokingly suggested by Tnkerr on a comment on this post. “Maybe you could write about an entrepreneur who hits paydirt by inventing mouse flavoured cat food.”
‘By George, I have it’ cried Henry as he took a mouthful of the strange meaty concoction that had been stewing for the last fourteen hours on Kevin’s stove.
‘Have what?’ growled Kevin with disinterest.
‘Here, taste it and see’.
Henry hot hooved the spoon into Kevin’s reluctant mouth. Erratically, Kevin spluttered, and his face screwed itself up into an angry ball.
‘What the cluck was that?’ Kevin screeched.
‘It tastes just like mouse, doesn’t it?’ Henry chirped with pride.
‘How the hell should I know?’ Kevin said, turning his back on Henry before fiercely wiping his tongue with a wet brillo pad.
‘It’s cat food. For cats…Mouse flavoured cat food…’ Henry gleamed with pride as he stirred the vat, pivoting his smug shoulders with every turn of the large wooden spoon.
‘Why would you make cat food Henry? last time I checked, we were dogs!’ Kevin barked aggressively.
Three months later, Kevin found that he would be eating his words. Opening up his copy of that days mewspaper, he saw that the stupid dog from the kennel next door had only gone and become an instant millionaire with his mouse flavoured cat food.
The article ran:
“Prize Pooch in Pawsome Payout
In a heartwarming tail; Henry, a euntrapanuereal border collie from Basingstoke, had become the hero of cats from Persia to Siam this week when he unveiled his mouse flavoured cat food. Within minutes of the announcement, curiosity got the better of every cat in the neighbourhood, and they all flocked to the scene to get a taste of what promised to be the tastiest cat food ever made.
“It’s better than catnip” Casandra, a maine coon from Sunderland is quoted as meowing as she pushed the last tin off the shelves in her local supermarket this morning.
A spokesperson for Asda spoke with us this last night and explained that they have reordered and restocked several times. Still, clowders of cats are turning up to supermarkets all over the country with paws stuffed with money, clearing the shelves as fast as the tins can go out.
Henry’s mouse flavoured food was bought up by a leading pet food manufacturer for an undisclosed eight-figure sum within minutes of his announcement. Henry has been unavailable to comment since, and has been reportedly chasing his tail ever since.”
It was as if the postman was walking up the drive; Kevin instinctively reached for the dog-and-bone with sudden rapture. Realizing that he was there at the inception of this moment of marketing genius, he knew that he would have to get in on the action. Henry had barely had a chance to utter a woof before Kevin began roughly spluttering his demands down the phone line ‘fifty per cent or I tell them that you eat kittens’.
‘Who is this?’ replied Henry, sounding as though he had been napping.
‘You know who it is. Fifty per cent of your earnings or I tell every mewspaper and pet shop in the land that you ate a kitten’.
‘Oh, hi Kevin’ Henry answered. ‘It’s you…Did you see that my mouse flavoured cat food sold for millions?’
‘Yes, and I was there when you made it, so you had better pay me, or I will tell them that you ate a kitten’ Kevin growled aggressively.
‘I wouldn’t eat a kitten’ Henry said confused.’ I’m a vegetarian.’
With that, Kevin hung up.
Unperturbed by Henry’s confused logic, Kevin decided to employ a different tactic. The next morning he waited outside Henry’s kennel listening out for the growled snores that he knew Henry would probably be making around this time. Then, tucking himself behind he banged his paw hard on the wall before throwing a tennis ball down the hill. Seeing the ball, Henry zoomed straight out of the kennel and gave chase. The ball would not get away from him, and he simply must get it. Kevin watched with glee, resisting the natural urge to chase the ball too.
Once Henry was out of sight, Kevin snuck inside the kennel and began riffling through the mountain of junk inside the enclosure to look for the earnings from cat food sale. All he could find were dozens of squeaky soft toys and a chew toy stuffed with peanut butter. It had to be here he thought and began digging down.
‘Looking for something,’ Henry confidently said as his shadow filled the doorway of the kennel. ‘I want my cut of the cat food Henry. Fair is fair’ Kevin cowered meekly as Henry closed in the door blocking his exit. Kevin let out a whimper. Then, with three loud barks from Henry, the kennel suddenly became swamped with cats and kittens of all shapes and sizes. Many hissing and showing their claws. Henry slowly started backing away. ‘I would have cut you in from the start if you had just been a good boy’. As he stood back, the feline army swamped the kennel and began pulling Kevin outside.
The last that Henry ever saw of Kevin would be the French bulldog being carried down the street by hundreds of angry cats. Some dogs would tell stories of how Kevin had become a reformed character and worked helping homeless kittens, others said that he had taken a vow of silence and have moved to live in a monastery. Nobody really knew apart from the cats, and they would never tell.
Image by Ilona Ilyés from Pixabay