Cat's Ð (Eth) Factor

I've been so excited about the Singing Contest. I went and told my feline friends about it, because I know they all share my enthusiasm for music. Ro (my red coated pal) was very interested, but Scead and Wann, my grey and black friends weren't so keen at first. That disappointed me, as I know for a fact that they have excellent singing voices. Nevertheless, they all turned up last week at the Contest to see what I'd been telling them about. Because of the abundance of warm laps, entertainment and pie crumbs on the floor from the audience, they were thrilled to have been there. Result!

Then I had a brainwave. It came to me one night as I was curling up to sleep (it's funny how the best ideas come to you when you're tired): why don't we get together as local cats and practise singing? I think we all have a rare gift, and it would be a shame for it to go unnoticed. Unparalleled glory could await us if our gifts were recognised by the humans.

So I shared the idea with them - and to my surprise I found that they all were eager and willing to have a go. So we went to a secret place in the woods and - having agreed an anthem known and loved by us all - we practised. We soon found our various parts, each of them fitting with our own vocal register. After several days of practice, we all concluded that we'd reached a level of competence that would qualify us to enter the Ð Factor. But how on earth could we communicate this to Father Simon the Cowl?
Scead had a great idea. He said, "Let's sing to him tonight - we'll put on a special performance! That way he'll notice us." We thought that was a stroke of genius.

So - at the appointed hour we assembled outside Father Simon's window. The moon shone brightly in the trees, and the peace of the night afforded us an ideal backdrop to display our collective and individual talents. At the count of three, we opened our mouths and started our song. Ro started with the melody, and one by one, Scead, Wann and I lent our voices to the air in respective counter-tenor and baritone parts. Oh, the joy of raising our voices in song! The strains of our anthem overwhelmed us all with such sublime happiness as we sang in praise to our Creator and His works. The melody reached a point where it changed key to G sharp from D - a particularly moving part of the song - when the window opened suddenly. The next thing I remember was a gush of a vile-smelling liquid wetting my fur with an icy cold thrill. I don't know what it was, but it had a vaguely familiar aroma about it..

Needless to say, we all scarpered rather quickly, cleaned ourselves vigorously and decided that despite the sacredness of our anthem, perhaps human ears weren't so delicately tuned for our subtler melodic offerings.. but it hasn't put me off attending the next Ð Factor contest, though.