Roddy Doyle

- Eejit.

Jimmy Cat was enjoying breakfast. The sardines were a taste, though the juice had made a bit of a dribble on the floor. No matter, he'd lick it up when Mrs. Cat wasn't looking.

Jimmy was giving out about the other cat in the house, a patchy porker who was visiting Mr. and Mrs. Upstairs. Something about Mrs. Upstairs' sister's piles being worked on in a hospital in Sligo. Any rate, old baldy was in the house to stay, and he was, as Jimmy said, an eejit.

- Now, then, he's not so bad.

Mrs. Cat, taking the side of the guest.

- He's taken a dump in the pantry.
- Not his fault he ate all that leftover curry.
- Eejit.
- Now, now.

Jimmy didn't care. He didn't care if baldy heard him. He was in a foul mood, what with this and the sardine juice down his chin and Jimmy Junior getting his ear ripped the other night by some tough from Dunblane. Barrytown wasn't fit to live in with all this going on, foreign cats and all.

- I'm going out.
- Don't go looking for that Dunblane cat.

Fuck. How did she know?

- I know what you're thinking of. Leave it be. Wee Jimmy'll have to fight his own fights.

What the bloody hell was the world coming to? Now the woman was telling him not to meddle, to let the kid fight it out. That was completely backwards. It was supposed to be the ma giving out to the kiddies about not messing, staying out of fights, not encouraging them. It was getting so that Jimmy had no clue what a da was supposed to do any more.

- Alright, I'm going to Bertie's. He's some fish bones need seeing to.

Jimmy left, scanning the road for that Eejit dog Rover and making sure there was no dog poo in his path. Barrytown. What a dump. And now he was sharing it with a balding mog from Kinsale, who gobbled leftover curry and deposited the remains inside the house.

Jimmy hoped Bertie had something better than fish bones to take his mind off it all.