Once upon a time, there was a very naughty kitten named Tom. He lived in an old house with his mother, Tabitha Twitchit, and his two sisters. The house was very old, with thick walls, dark cupboards, and chimneys that went up, up, up like secret tunnels. Tom's mother told him to stay in the kitchen. But Tom had other plans.
When his mother wasn't looking, Tom jumped onto the fireplace and squeezed himself into the chimney. Up he climbed, paw over paw, through the sooty darkness. Black dust fell into his eyes and tickled his nose. Cobwebs stuck to his whiskers. It was dark and it smelled like old smoke and something else. Something that smelled like old, old rat.
Tom's paws slipped on the sooty bricks and he tumbled sideways into a hole in the wall. He found himself in a narrow passage between the walls of the house, a secret place that no kitten had ever seen before. It was very quiet. Then Tom heard something. A slow, heavy breathing, like someone very large and very wheezy, somewhere in the dark ahead.
Before Tom could turn back, two enormous rats jumped out of the shadows! The first was Samuel Whiskers, the biggest, fattest rat in the whole house. He had long grey whiskers and tiny greedy eyes. Behind him stood his wife, Anna Maria, a thin rat wearing a dirty apron and a cook's bonnet. She looked at Tom the way a cook looks at a plump chicken.
Samuel Whiskers grabbed Tom by the scruff of his neck. His voice was deep and slow and wheezy. "Anna Maria, look what has fallen down the chimney. A fat little kitten. Just perfect." Anna Maria clapped her paws together. "Wonderful! I shall make a roly-poly pudding! A kitten pudding, rolled up with butter and flour!" Tom squeaked in terror. "I'm not food! I'm Tom! Please let me go!"
The rats carried Tom to their hidden kitchen behind the walls. Anna Maria mixed flour and water into a sticky, gloppy dough. Samuel Whiskers fetched a big lump of butter and a heavy wooden rolling pin. Tom tried to wriggle free, but Samuel sat on him while Anna Maria tied his paws with kitchen string. "Hold still, dinner," wheezed Samuel.
And then the terrible rolling began. Anna Maria spread the sticky dough across the table and the rats rolled poor Tom up inside it, round and round, like a sausage in pastry. Butter squelched everywhere. Flour puffed into the air. "Cover his paws! Tuck in his tail!" ordered Anna Maria. "This kitten has too many bones," grumbled Samuel, "and far too much fur. The pudding will be hairy." "More butter!" snapped Anna Maria. "More butter fixes everything."
Tom was completely wrapped in dough. He looked like a big, lumpy sausage with a tail sticking out one end. He could barely breathe. His voice came out muffled and squidgy. "Mmmmff! Help! I've got flour up my nose! Mmmmff!" Samuel Whiskers tied the dough-roll with string, nice and tight. "There," he said. "Now we just need to boil it." In the corner, a big pot of water was already bubbling away.
Meanwhile, downstairs, Tabitha Twitchit was frantic. She had looked in every cupboard, under every bed, and behind every curtain. No Tom! She called and called. Then she noticed something. Soot marks on the fireplace. Little paw prints going up. And from somewhere deep inside the walls of the house, a faint, muffled sound: "Mmmmff! Mmmmff!" Tabitha's eyes went wide. "My Tom is in the walls!"
Tabitha ran to fetch the carpenter and his dog. They came with hammers and saws. BANG! CRACK! They smashed through the old plaster wall. The dog barked ferociously into the hole. Samuel Whiskers heard the terrible noise and panicked completely. "It's the dog! RUN, Anna Maria! Leave the pudding!" "But my butter!" wailed Anna Maria. "My beautiful roly-poly!" But the dog barked again, and both rats grabbed their little suitcases and scurried away through a crack in the floor.
The carpenter reached into the hole and pulled out something very strange. It was a big, lumpy roll of dough that wriggled and mewed. It was Tom! They carefully cut the string and peeled off the sticky pastry. Out came Tom, covered head to tail in butter, flour, and soot. He looked absolutely disgusting. He smelled like a bakery that had caught fire. "BLEUGH!" said Tom, spitting out bits of dough. "That butter was RANCID!"
They washed Tom with warm water and soap until every last bit of butter and flour was gone. Samuel Whiskers and Anna Maria moved to the barn next door, where they still steal food to this very day. As for Tom, he grew up to be a big, strong cat. He catches rats whenever he can. But there is one thing Tom will never, ever eat. If you put anything that looks like a pudding or a pastry roll in front of him, Tom hisses and runs away. And honestly, can you blame him?
