The youngest kittens were in trouble

(Oops - I realise I did not let new readers know - this is the story the Cathedral cats told me for Christmas.  If you want to know more about them look at the posts for Christmas Day over the past few years.)

They were in very serious trouble. Bach had growled so hard they still sat there with their fur on end in fright.

"I told you not to put your paws anywhere near the tree."

They looked at him. It was a pretty tree. It had lovely round shiny things on it that were perfect kitten size play things. How were they to know it would fall over if they raced up and down the branches to grab the shiny things?

"If it had fallen on one of you then you could have been very badly hurt, even killed perhaps. Even Matins and Vespers never managed to make the tree fall over," Bach told them. Matins and Vespers were looking rather smug right now. Bach glared at the two older cats as well. In previous years he was sure they had pulled more than one ornament off a Christmas tree. 

The cats looked sadly at the lovely tree now lying on its side with all the pretty shiny things scattered around.

"How are we going to get the tree to stand up again?" Bach asked them. He knew such things were important to the humans, especially the choir boys.The other young cats had no idea. Nobody had any idea. All them went off with their tails and whiskers drooping. They liked the Christmas tree. They liked Christmas. It was quite a big tree. It was supposed to be standing in a wooden tub in the narthex. The choir boys always decorated it. They would add something new for each day of Christmas. Bach had to admit it did look good - until the kittens had knocked it over.

"What made you bring them over here?" he asked his long suffering wife. Cadenza sighed. Bach was right about the danger of course but he should have been there to help.

"You've forgotten? They had their first service this morning...a nice, short Matins. They actually behaved extremely well then. I was very pleased with them. Where were you by the way?"

"Helping Matins and Vespers clear out leaves from the gutter above the choir school. Someone thought it was funny to plug it so the water would over flow."

"Not one of ours I hope," Cadenza murmured.

"No, it was the choir boys. The Dean punished them all for something the cleaners did. They wanted to pay him back."

Cadenza let out a frustrated sound somewhere between a growl and a purr. The Dean was not a good listener.

Bach went back to thinking about raising the tree but could not work out how to do it. The choir boys would have to do it themselves. They might guess the kittens had done it of course. He would just have to hope that none of the shiny balls were broken but it had come down with a crash.

Eventually the rain lessened and Cadenza hurried the kittens back to where the Bishop's wife rubbed them down with a dry towel. Ouch! That was as bad as Cadenza's tongue! It was punishment enough after Bach growling as well. They did not feel like playing any of their usual games.

Bach went on sitting and staring at the tree and worrying. Cantori and Matins and Vespers all came to look again. They could think of nothing. Even Decani, who had gone back to his work in the library, could not work that problem out. He was not actually sure it mattered terribly much but he knew Bach was upset. He did not like Bach to be upset. He did not like any cat or human to be upset.

Tom, the organist, arrived early that evening. He had planned to spend some time working on a new carol. Mouse had come with him because he liked to spend time with the other cats. He found them all staring at the fallen tree. It had to be up before the early service. The human children would be very upset if the tree was not upright.

"We will get Tom to pick it up. He can do it," he told the other cats.

"How?" Bach asked. Humans were often very slow to understand what needed to be done and Tom had come in the side door as usual so had not seen the tree. Mouse thought about this. Then he carefully picked up one of the gold balls by the string it was attached to and went off to show Tom.

"Not now Mouse!" Tom told him when Mouse patted his leg. Mouse waited and waited. Tom went on playing the same fiddly bit over and over. Mouse sighed and went to find Bach.

"All of us take a ball and go and sit and wait for him to notice," Mouse told him. 

It might work. Bach found Cantori and Matins and Vespers and then Decani came to find out what was going on. He listened to what Mouse had to say and then went to find Brother Mark  the librarian as he came down from the library. Decani and Mouse thought it would take two humans to put the tree back in a way it would not fall over again.  Brother Mark would follow him. He always knew if Decani needed him to do something. The other cats were all coming down the aisle now. Each of them was very carefully carrying a gold ball by the string. They stopped and looked at Brother Mark and then Bach looked back at the narthex. Decani looked at them and then at Brother Mark.

"Ah, has the tree fallen over?" Brother Mark asked, "I thought I heard a crash earlier. I'll get Tom to help when he gets that bit right. " Bach let out a long purr of relief. The cats all turned around and went back to the narthex. They sat there waiting patiently.

A little later Tom and Brother Mark had the tree standing again. It wobbled until Brother Mark found the sand bags to hold it in place.

"No wonder it fell over. They should have been placed there from the start," he said, "I told the Dean we needed those bags. Where did he put them?"

Bach purred again with relief. There was a small dent in some of the shiny things but there did not appear to be any real damage to the tree...and perhaps the kittens were not quite as naughty as he had first thought.  

He padded slowly off to find Cadenza and tell her all was well. He looked at his youngest kittens. They were pretending to be asleep but he knew they were very wide awake and worried he might still angry. He thought of the Dean who had not listened to explanations when given to him and decided he needed to do something. He put a paw over the top of the kitten's banana box and looked down at them and then gave each of them a very gentle paw pat.

"Go to sleep. I was just worried you might have been hurt."

The kittens wriggled closer together and began to dream of shiny gold balls.