All at Sea with Truffles Read online

  “Come and look here, Truffles,” said Sheila, indicating that I should move forward. “It’s the sea. You’ve never seen the sea!” What’s she talking about? I thought. How can you see a see? Even a letter C - how exactly do you see a C in mid-air, as she seemed to be suggesting? Surely you can only see a C written down on paper, or perhaps there’s another way of looking at a C? I hesitated. “Come on, don’t be silly,” she said. So I walked forward until I was right up by the glass wall. OMG - my legs went all wobbly! All I could see was what looked like blue water, but it seemed far, far below us, with just lots and lots of empty sky above. Oh, I felt rather faint. I hate water (except to drink) and to see such a huge amount made me feel quite queasy and, oh dear, I have to admit it again, a bit frightened. Sheila picked me up and held me so that I could see over the glass wall. That made me feel even worse. We were surrounded by this unending sight of water - my worst nightmare! Those seagoing cats of old may have liked being surrounded by miles and miles of water, but I wasn’t nearly so keen! I’d known, of course, that cruise ships live on water, but I hadn’t realised there would be just so very much of it! I struggled and gave Sheila a sharp scratch, so she swiftly put me down on the decking again, where I felt considerably safer.

  I took a few deep breaths to calm down and Sheila sat on one of the chairs, put me on her knee and stroked me. After all her years of experience of caring for me she knows exactly how to settle me down if I’ve had a shock or upset, so after a few minutes I felt better. I would be okay. There was absolutely no need for me to go near the glass wall anyway, I reasoned. There was plenty of space away from the edge where I could sit and doze in the sun, which is my favourite pastime, as readers of my previous books will know. “We’ll put your litter tray out here, your water bowl here,” said Sheila, “and I can also store the sack of catlit in the corner where it won’t get wet if it should rain. Rain, I thought, well I hope not. We get enough of that in Cornwall - surely it won’t rain on a cruise ship!

  After a few minutes more, Sheila spending her time gazing out over the glass wall at the C while I tested out the litter tray, we returned inside. I decided to take a nap in my bed and let her unpack and put away all the stuff she had brought. By the looks of it, I thought, that will take several hours, so I will be able to catch up on all my lost sleep. Wrong! I got into my bed, curled around and prepared to go into sleep mode. Sheila smiled and said, “That’s good, Truffles, you have a nap and you won’t be getting in my way whilst I sort this lot out,” gesturing in the direction of the mound of luggage.

  She started unlocking the cases and laying out piles of her outer coverings on the sofa. I watched her out of one eye. Sleep wasn’t coming. My mind was buzzing with the events of the day. After what seemed an age, but was probably about three- quarters of an hour or so, the outer coverings had disappeared into the tall double cupboard. Yes, I DO know how you humans measure time. We cats are instinctive about time - mostly our tummies tell us. Mealtimes are the most important times in our lives, and so far my tummy clock has never let me down. I am always on parade near my dinner bowl when the golden eating hour comes around. I was missing my lunch crunch snack today, which I usually have at about one-thirty, but I wasn’t holding my breath. I thought Sheila had probably forgotten about it. Normally I would have given her a real piece of my mind or a scratch, but today was all topsy-turvy so I decided I would let her off. I wasn’t too bothered - to be honest I wasn’t that hungry anyway, what with all the excitement.

  Sheila shut her two largest cases again and pushed them underneath her bed out of sight. I could see that there was still the one with all her paw covers and paw - no, hand - bags in and the one on wheels left to deal with. Lucky, I thought, that there wasn’t any other human travelling with her - there would be no room whatsoever for all their outer coverings in here as well! She picked up the small black object with buttons on it from the table. I thought she was going to speak into it, but no, she didn’t - she pressed one of the buttons and suddenly the moving- picture screen on the wall leapt into life. I couldn’t see it very well as it was rather high for me, but I could hear a male human speaking. Sheila switched on the kettle, made herself one of those brown frothy drinks she likes and relaxed on the sofa. I walked over and lay down by her feet. “This is all about lifeboat drill, Truffles,” she said. “We’ll have to go to that soon before we leave port.” I wondered what lifeboat drill meant. I had heard that human dentists had drills, but I didn’t realise that ships had them as well. I didn’t even know they had teeth! What was a lifeboat? I remember Sheila telling me once that a cruise vessel should never be referred to as a ‘boat’; it is a ‘ship’. The boats hang on the sides of the ship. Apparently, the passengers want to be on the ship but do not want to have to go on the boats. Very odd. I dare say all would be revealed in due course at the said drill. People do not like dentists’ drills, I know, so I supposed they don’t like ships’ drills either, but Sheila said that they were something that perhaps some people found boring but were, in fact, very important indeed. As far as I could gather from whatshe was trying to explain, we were going to be told a lot of things that we should do but hoped we would never have to do. What kind of a carry-on is that? I wondered. Learning what we should do, could do or would do, but don’t want to do! You humans and your eccentricities never fail to puzzle me. I shook my head to try to clear it...

  There was a knock at the door. I retreated behind the bed again. Sheila opened the door and a smiling, smartly dressed young male human said, “Hello, madam, welcome back. We are very pleased to see you again on board.” He was our personal (purrsonal, in my case) stateroom steward. He was very charming and polite and I could see that Sheila was impressed. He came inside, introduced himself as Eduardo and said that he was looking forward to meeting me as, of course, he knew that I was travelling with Sheila. “Come on out, Truffles,” said Sheila, “and meet Eduardo.” I emerged from my hiding place and strolled up to him. “‘Ello, Trufools,” he said. “I look forward to looking after you on your cruise. I’ve never looked after a cat before!” He leant down and patted me on the head, and I gave him a rather come-hither purr - he certainly was very nice looking as human males go. I expect Sheila thought so, too. They spoke together for a few minutes and then Eduardo left, after telling Sheila to ring for him if there was anything we needed. “Well, he seems pleasant,” she said. “Now I really must finish putting my things away.”

  I watched as she sorted out all the paw covers and put them in the bottom of the big double cupboard and then continued to fill up the rest of the drawers with all her other many bits and pieces. She opened one of the cupboards underneath the drawers and inside it I could see several rows of little bottles of coloured drinks. I shivered - a cool blast of air had rushed out of the cupboard. She shut the door. Finally she pulled open the small door next to this cold cupboard, which revealed another heavy-looking inner door with buttons on its front. After pressing some of the buttons a few times, she opened the door and placed inside it some of the sparkly wrist and paw decorations she’d brought with her. “If you had a collar with diamonds on it, Truffles, instead of just diamanté, I’d put that in here for you as well,” she laughed as she closed the door. I wasn’t really sure what she meant by that. She had a couple of drawers of other similar-looking decorative things you human ladies wear to enhance yourselves, but it seemed they didn’t have to be locked up.

  Sheila went out onto the decking area (she has since informed me that it is called a balcony) again to look out at the C. I didn’t join her. I could hear her chatting to the neighbours. She had placed a cushion on the sofa for me, so I took advantage of it and did manage to have a quick nap. And delightful it was, too!

  Well, I only made it to about thirty of my anticipated forty winks, because Sheila was back again. It was apparently time for us to go to the lifeboat drill. She had showed me earlier two peculiar pieces of kit that we would have to wear around
our bodies should we ever decide to go into the boats that we didn’t want to go into in the first place. Hers was much larger than the one that had been put out for me - apparently, normally the small one would be used for a human infant. I didn’t fancy it in the least, but I wasn’t too bothered because, hey readers, Truffles never does anything that she doesn’t want to, and by the sound of it I certainly wouldn’t be wanting to get into one of the dreaded lifeboats!

  Sheila clipped my lead on again, turned off the picture machine on the wall, checked that the card that we needed to getback inlo the slaleroom was in her pockel, looked on lhe back of lhe door where some kind of no lice displayed where we had lo assemble for the drill, and off we went!

  Lifeboat drill and leaving port

  As we walked back along the passageway outside, there were other humans all going in the same direction, and they greeted us cordially as we joined the throng. When we arrived back at the elevators, however, I didn’t have to worry about having to ride in one, as Sheila dragged me down a flight of stairs... and then another flight, and then another one, and another - they seemed never-ending! This ship didn’t just have a lot of doors, it had a lot of stairs, too! I had never seen so many. At home we only have one flight, albeit with a bend in the middle, but there are only fourteen steps in total. I know this because I like sitting halfway up it at certain times of the day, when the sun decides to shine on the seventh step! On the ship, after two flights of these stairs we would arrive at another similar-looking area with elevators on it, where there were lines of staff directing us to continue going down. At last we reached Deck Five and then had to follow the crowd into a large area with many sofas and chairs in it. We had to wait until a nice, smiley human (It seemed to me that everyone working on this ship continually smiled!) took our names and checked them off his list, and then Sheila managed to get herself a seat. I sat on her knee. More smiles and comments came from the people sitting around us. They all seemed amazed to see me there. I basked in their attention. Sheila must have been getting fed up with explaining the same thing over and over again in answer to their questions: that Truffles, her literary cat, was gleaning information in order to write another of her books on a cat’s observations of human behaviour, this time holidaying on a cruise ship, which is greatly popular. The consensus of opinion was that they thought it was a good idea, as there didn’t seem to be many books around about modern-day cruising.

  The seating area was filling up and it seemed to me that I had never seen so many humans all together in one group. And yet I understood from Sheila that only a small section of all the passengers were meeting in this particular spot - all over the ship were equally large groups of people, all eager to hear about these peculiar lifeboat things. It was getting quite overwhelming to a small cat-sized person like me. The noise of all their constant chattering was resounding in my ears - which are much sharper than yours, remember - and so I slipped down behind Sheila’s feet and curled up, feeling much safer there.

  After a while, there was a hush in the crowd and a loud male human’s voice could be heard welcoming everybody before starting to talk about the mysterious lifeboat drill. I only listened to him droning on with half an ear, until suddenly he said something about the ship’s ‘whistle’. My attention was caught, because birds whistle and so it’s a word I know really well. “You might jump in a minute, Truffles,” Sheila said, leaning down and grasping me by the collar. I couldn’t imagine why she thought I would suddenly start jumping about! However, a moment later, yes I did! An unearthly loud whistle sounded, not once but seven times, followed by a long drawn-out wail that was deafening. I was ready to run, I can tell you! However, she pinned me to the floor so I couldn’t move. Fortunately, the awful noise stopped and everybody began chattering again until the voice resumed and a hush descended once more.

  In front of us, several ship staff people were pulling on the body kits, which they called lifejackets, like the ones we had found in the stateroom. They were waving their paws about, showing the assembled people the bits and pieces attached to them. Apparently, there was a light that came on if you were in the water and a whistle to blow to gain attention. Neither was of much use to me, because I don’t need extra light with my cat’s eyes and I certainly could not blow a whistle. Have you ever seen a cat blowing a whistle? It seemed that, if the occasion we didn’t want to know about did come about, and consequently we had to jump into the water around the ship, these lifejackets would be very useful. Well, readers, no way was I ever going to jump into any water! A normal cat just does not jump into water; a Turkish Van cat, I believe, is the only one that might. Neither does a cat ever do anything it doesn’t want to do, so no way would I be going over the side! I don’t think Sheila relished the idea much either. I heard her saying to the people next to her that if she ever had to - as the man’s voice had informed them - hold her paws in front of her chest and calmly step forward from a high deck down into the water, it would be a definite no-go! Someone would damn well have to push her! However, as the whole scenario was highly unlikely, neither she nor I was unduly worried. I believe because of the Elf and Safety people, all ship passengers have to be made aware of even the most improbable eventuality.

  Oh well, that was the end of the lecture and so everyone started to move. Probably some of those who had never been on a ship before, like me, and were of a slightly nervous disposition (though I am not) were even more so now! I looked around and noticed that the majority were still smiling and chattering, so I took heart and decided that none of it was worth worrying about. Why dwell on something that is never going to happen anyway? However, my tummy was doing the fretting now - it was complaining that it was pretty well empty, so I hoped that Sheila would soon give me something to eat! We arrived back at the place with the elevators and stairs and it was just heaving with people. There was no way we would ever get into the elevator, so we started up the stairs again. Sheila was walking much more slowly than when we had come down them earlier! I am used to climbing, of course, so I couldn’t understand why she was panting and puffing so much. For heaven’s sake, dear, I thought, you seriously need some exercise! “Now you know how useful the elevators are,” she gasped to me as we reached Deck Ten once more. After catching her breath we then made the long trek along the passageway to our home from home at the end of it!

  Once inside, all was calm and peaceful and I sat down and collected my thoughts. However, I then had another rude awakening with a sound I have never ever heard before. Sheila had gone into the ablution room for a few moments and then I heard a tremendous whooshing sound that reminded me of the times she used her water box at home, but the sound here was magnified and speeded up about a hundred times I should think! WHAT on earth was that? I thought. She came out chuckling. “I bet that frightened you,” she said. “Yes, it did,” I muttered under my breath. “Ships’ loos are very powerful,” she explained. “Everybody remarks on it. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt you as long as you don’t fall into it. I wouldn’t want to think you got yourself flushed down the loo!” She started laughing to herself again. I don’t know what she thought was so funny. I’m not a fool - I would most certainly keep my distance!

  “We’ll be leaving in a few minutes, Truffles,” said Sheila. “I’ll open my bottle of champers and I think I’ll sit on the balcony and have a glass and watch as we leave Southampton.” Well, I thought, she’s thinking of drinking, so hopefully it will only be a matter of time before she thinks of food, and then perhaps I’ll get lucky and she’ll give me my dinner. At home I just would not have tolerated her being late with my meal, but with all the goings-on today, I told myself again, I would just have to grin and bear it!

  I watched as she picked up the bottle. She was muttering to herself that she had seen other people open bottles like this, so knew how to do it, but hadn’t actually opened one herself before. This might be interesting then, I thought. “I’d better put a towel around it,” she said
, and fetched a small body-drying rag from the ablution room. (So that’s what they’re called, are they - towels? I must remember that, I told myself. I’m always looking to add to my vocabulary of human words!) She wrapped the towel around the neck of the bottle and prised off a top covering that looked like a miniature birdcage to me. Then she held the bottle at an angle and started to twist something slowly from its neck. Suddenly there was a tremendous bang and the ‘something’ flew out of the bottle and hit the stateroom door! It sounded like a gunshot! I used to hear these shots sometimes from the fields behind us where we once used to live. All of a sudden Sheila was holding the bottle and trying to pour some of its contents into a glass, but it was fizzing and frothing over - so the towel was coming in very useful! “Goodness,” she exclaimed, “the people next door will think I’ve murdered someone!”