Time wore on and still Tumblebrutus remained stood in the dingy alleyway. The fog had long since cleared and the sun had risen high above the city. Sounds of traffic and people and noise reached the young tom's ears but he took no notice. Those things were no longer important, to him they no longer existed.
Since Macavity had vanished with Electra he hadn't moved a muscle or so much as twitched a whisker. He had only stood there, shaking, and stared at the place he had last seen his friend. On the ground and staining the lamppost he could still make out her blood. He had watched it slowly turn brown and caked and dry out, as if by looking at it he could somehow bring back the young kitten it belonged to. It was his only remaining link to her, the only proof that she had been there. If it hadn't been for that blood, she could have been at home, safe and sound. She might never have been in that alley at all. It was tempting to convince himself that she was safe, after all, the morning's events were so implausible, much easier to believe they had never taken place. But he knew that he needed to make himself accept what had happened. If he didn't he couldn't help Electra, if he didn't she would surely die. So Tumblebrutus continued to stare at the stained metal. It was the only proof he had.
Somewhere to his right Tumblebrutus heard a scratching sound, like claws on tarmac. His ear flicked as he listened to the noise, but his gaze remained fixed on the lamppost. The noise continued. It seemed to increase in volume and intensity with every passing second, until the young tom couldn't stand it any more. Why this particular noise got through to him when all else had failed to was beyond him, but Tumblebrutus felt compelled to find the origin of that strange sound. His ears twitched again and slowly he tore his eyes away from Electra's blood and looked to his right.
It was a rat. A large, fat rat. It had clearly been trying to squeeze under a garden fence and had got stuck. The scratching sound came from it's little claws scrabbling at the pavement as it tried to push it's bulky frame through a gap far too small for it to fit through.
Tumblebrutus snapped back to his senses. What a fool he had been standing around here! His instructions had been to go home and wait there for further information. Electra needed his help and if he went to pieces he was no use to her whatsoever. He had to get a grip! What was needed was a plan of action, Tumblebrutus decided.
First things first, he needed to catch something to eat, as they were supposed to have been out hunting. If he returned with nothing it would be unrealistic. His eyes focused on the rat. A perfect candidate. With one quick swipe the young tom finished off his fat prey and pulled it out from under the fence.
That accomplished, his next task was to work out what to say to the others. Where could he say Electra had gone? He considered several possibilities, but none of them were any good. They would never believe that she had wanted to stay behind by herself to do some extra hunting practice. Electra hated being out by herself. If he said she'd had an accident and had been taken to the vet's they would all immediately rush round to find her and check she was alright. And they would wonder why Tumblebrutus had left her when she was hurt. That was the main problem. He couldn't think of a situation where he would leave Electra by herself outside the Junkyard. It just wouldn't happen. So what on earth could he say? There was no realistic reason for Electra not coming home with him.
Unless,... An idea occurred to the confused tom. What if he claimed they had fallen out and she had stormed off. He could say he had tried to follow her, but she had managed to lose him and had run off. But no, that would never work. Everyone would go out searching for her and Tumblebrutus couldn't bring himself to worry them all like that. It wasn't fair.
They had to have fallen out though, otherwise they would be together. If he could think of something so they wouldn't send out search parties and worry about Electra's safety... Suddenly he had a brainwave. What if he claimed that they had argued and Electra had run off. He could say that he had followed her to make sure she was ok and had seen her run into Bustopher Jones. If he made up that she had been crying and Bustopher had taken her with him to look after her, no one would worry about her. They would all think she was perfectly safe and would just wait for her to come home when she had calmed down. It was perfect! No one would be too worried and Bustopher visited the Junkyard so infrequently that by the time people found out he was lying, he would hopefully have saved his friend.
With this plan in mind the young tom got to his feet and, picking up the rat, set off in the direction of home. Really, he thought as he walked, it was the only reasonable excuse. He wasn't good at lying, but all he had to do was stick to his story. Macavity hadn't said anything but Tumblebrutus got the feeling it wouldn't be good news for Electra if he mentioned this encounter to anyone or if anyone got suspicious. At this thought he quickened his pace, dodging across a road and almost being hit by a car he hadn't seen coming. Ignoring the near miss he pressed on. They had been due home hours ago and Jellylorum would probably have started worrying by now. The last thing he needed was people out searching for them and drawing more attention to the fact Electra was missing. He really needed to keep a low profile until someone came to fetch him or else he might struggle to get away from the Junkyard unobserved. He definitely couldn't afford to be the centre of attention.
It took him only about five minutes to reach the Junkyard gates, as the pair hadn't gone very far originally. With a dark sense of foreboding Tumblebrutus pushed the gates, which opened with a loud squeal of rusty metal grinding together. Under his breath Tumblebrutus cursed. Nice subtle entrance, nice and inconspicuous. Just what he didn't need.
Immediately a rather flustered, panicked-looking Jellylorum came rushing to meet him. She had clearly been waiting and watching out for the two young Jellicles returning home and by the looks of it had been expecting them back a while ago. She seemed in an advanced state of panic and had deep worry-lines etched into her usually calm face. Judging by the state she was in and the fact Munkustrap was following close behind her, Tumblebrutus guessed that she had already reported them both missing. He just counted himself lucky that she didn't seem to have managed to persuade Munkustrap to send out search parties yet. That would have complicated matters unnecessarily. As it was, all he had to do was convince Munkustrap and Jellylorum not to go searching for Electra. If they thought she would come back when she was ready and were calm about it, no one else was likely to start checking up on his story. He would be relatively safe.
As soon as she was within earshot Jellylorum called out: "Tumblebrutus! Where have you been? What took you so long? Where's Electra? What happened? Is she hurt? Is she ill? Did you have an accident? Why..."
Munkustrap quickly interrupted her, with a curious glance at Tumblebrutus. "Give him a chance to answer, Jell. If you keep asking him questions how is he supposed to answer any of them?", he turned to the other tom with a smile, "so what happened? Where is Electra and what took you so long?"
Tumblebrutus gulped and dropped the rat he was carrying. This was the moment he had been dreading. He would have to lie to his friends, to Electra's mother. It was horrible. He looked into their worried faces and found his mouth had gone dry. When he tried to speak no sound came out, just a croak which he quickly turned into a cough. Tumblebrutus attempted to swallow and started again. His voice sounded funny, but at least this time he managed to get words out. "S-she's... w-we... umm," he voice trailed off and he stared helplessly at Munkustrap.
Jellylorum shrieked, her voice going ridiculously high-pitched: "What's happened to Electra? Where is she?" She looked about to pass out and had to clutch at Munkustrap to steady herself.
Inwardly, Tumblebrutus groaned. Half the Jellicles currently in the Junkyard had turned to stare at them. Asparagus and Etcetera were sat closest to them on an old car tyre talking, Jennyanydots was telling Jemima off for playing on a high stack of rubbish, Rumpleteazer was polishing her pearls, Tantomile and Cassandra were sunning themselves on the car boot, Coricopat was stood behind them watching Rumpleteazer and Plato was eating a large rat. Or that's what they had been doing before Jellylorum's scream. Now they were all sat alert, staring at the three cats stood by the gate.
Asparagus was first to react. He leapt of the car tyre, closely followed by Etcetera. "What's wrong, Jell? Where's Electra?"
Tumblebrutus felt his heart sink. Now he had to explain where Electra was, not only to her mother, but also to her dad, her sister and half the junkyard. This was not how he had planned this at all. It was all going horribly wrong. Damage limitation, that's what was needed. Quickly, Tumblebrutus opened his mouth to tell the others everything was ok and not to panic.
Before he could say anything, however, Etcetera interrupted: "What's happened to Electra? Where is she? Something horrible's happened, hasn't it? Is she hurt? Wait...she's not dead, is she?" Etcetera let out a terrified wail and burst into hysterical tears. "She is, isn't she? Oh, Electra!" She flung herself on Munkustrap and began to sob and cry. Munkustrap looked shocked and horrified at the same time. Gingerly, he patted her head. "I'm sure she's fine, Cettie. Calm down!" This only made Etcetera sob even louder. To make matters worse Jemima joined in and began to cry as well. "Poor Electra!", she whimpered, tears flooding down her face.
"No, no, she's fine! Nothing's happened to Electra! She's fine!", Tumblebrutus cried, trying desperately to make himself heard over the racket, "Electra's not hurt and she's not dead! There's no need to panic!"
With a look of intense relief on his face Munkustrap turned quickly to Etcetera, who was still clutching at his fur and sobbing noisily. "Cettie, stop! Did you hear that? She's fine! CETTIE!", he almost had to yell, "STOP!" He shook the kitten a few times.
Etcetera hiccuped, sniffed several times and stopped crying. "She's fine?", she gulped, eyes still full of tears.
Tumblebrutus felt horrible. Etcetera was staring at him with huge, tear-filled eyes, her lip wobbling dangerously and he was about to lie to her. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak, hating himself for doing so. "Yes, she's alright. Nothing's happened to her. We had a fight about something stupid and she ran off." Jellylorum looked horrified and was clearly about to interrupt so the young tom quickly continued: "It's ok, I followed her to check she didn't get hurt. I couldn't catch up with her, but I saw her run into Bustopher. He took her with him. He's looking after her and she's perfectly safe."
The look of complete and utter relief on Jellylorum and Asparagus' faces was heartbreaking. Silently, Tumblebrutus cursed Macavity. How could he be this cruel and sadistic? He must have known this would happen! It was probably all part of the fun for him. At that moment, looking at Electra's family, Tumblebrutus found himself wishing the most horrible things imaginable on Macavity. He deserved it!
Munkustrap shook his head and fixed Tumblebrutus with a stern glare. "Tumble, I know it wasn't entirely your fault, but you can't just let Electra run off like that. Her safety was your responsibility. If she hadn't met Bustopher anything could have happened. You have to be more careful and more responsible than that. It just isn't good enough. Even if you had an argument, you still should have looked after her and made sure she wasn't hurt. If your attitude doesn't improve, I'm afraid I can't let you look after the kittens any more. I'm sorry."
Feeling crushed, the young tom nodded his head. "I know. I'm so sorry," he mumbled, "it won't happen again."
He clearly looked as dejected as he felt, because Asparagus walked over to him and put a comforting arm round his shoulders. "It's alright, Tumble. No one's cross with you and no one was hurt, so no harm done. Electra will be back soon. Just be more careful next time, ok?"
Tumblebrutus nodded miserably and made his way past the others back to his den, where he let himself fall onto the pile of blankets he used as a bed. Maybe if the others thought he was sleeping they would leave him alone - he needed to be alone when Macavity came looking for him. Tumblebrutus settled down, prepared for an agonizing wait.
