Biscuit Tin Kitten

The kitchen garden was edged with thyme and mint, and the bees hummed there all morning.

Elsie was a small grey kitten, and she was very curious. Today she wanted to know what was inside the old biscuit tin on the garden step.

She could smell something sweet. She could hear something rattle.

"Mew," said Elsie. "What is in there?"

She patted the lid. It did not move. She pulled with her claws. It did not move. She pushed with her nose, and the tin slid across the step and went clang, clang, clang.

A bee floated down and sat on the thyme beside her. She was a busy bee, and she was only there for the flowers.

"Zzz," said the bee. "Not my business."

Elsie sat and thought. Then a fat drop of rain landed on her ear. Plip! Another landed on the step. Plip, plip!

Elsie did not like rain. But she looked at the tin, and the rain pattered on it, and the lid made a tiny sound. Tick. Tick.

She leaned close. The lid had a little dent at one edge, right where the rain was pooling. The water was running in under the rim.

"Oh!" said Elsie.

She hooked one claw into the dent. She did not pull up. She pressed down on the other side, and the lid tipped like a see-saw. Pop!

The lid flew off and rolled away across the path, round and round.

Inside the tin sat a heap of old buttons. Red ones, blue ones, one shiny gold one. They were not biscuits at all.

Elsie sniffed them. The sweet smell was only the tin itself, where biscuits had once lived.

She tapped the gold button. It spun like a tiny moon.

Rain pattered on the tin. Plip, plip, plip. The bee hummed under a mint leaf. And Elsie curled up beside the buttons, watching the gold one spin slower, and slower, and slower, until it lay still.