Big-eyed cat creature hanging from ropes sketch

You will not believe what the cat did on Tuesday. The wind came off the common so hard that the big top groaned like a ship's hull, and two of the guy ropes snapped their pegs clean out of the ground. Mr Ansell was bellowing for the men with the mallets, but nobody could get near the canvas. Pim had already gone up. He is the grey tabby who sleeps in the sawdust bucket by the wagons, the one with the enormous eyes that Mrs Harlow swears can see through canvas. He shinned up the loose rope hand over paw, tail streaming out behind him like a pennant, and hooked his back legs round the cross-tie as if he had been born in the rigging.

There he hung, swinging in the gusts with his little paws locked round the rope and his ears flat to his head. The rain came sideways. The lamps on the Ferris wheel went out one by one. Still he would not let go, and every time the canvas bellied up he simply tightened his grip and waited for it to settle. Old Dunne the strongman said afterwards that he had never seen anything hold on so stubbornly, and he has lifted a piano.

By dawn the wind had dropped and the tent stood firm. Pim was still up there, sulking and blinking down at us as though we were the ones who had been foolish. It took Mr Ansell a whole tin of sardines and a ladder to coax him down, and he came straight to my shoulder with his tail up, purring like a kettle.

Yesterday Mr Ansell signed him onto the books as a rigger, at a wage of one herring a week. He pressed a paw print in ink beside the signature, which Pim insisted on. So you see, you needn't worry about the trains any more. We have a cat who can hold the sky up on a rope.

Your loving sister, Jo