Flakey and Whiskers: A Rescue from the Heavens
“Mum, which one do you fancy—one with ham, cheese, or maybe a cottage cheese one?”
“Mum, I want the cheese one!”
“Right then, sweetheart, just a tick—Mum’ll get it.”
The baker at the train station slipped the pastry into a clear bag. Outside, the frost bit, and the evening was tipping into night. Mum and her little boy trudged through the snowy park, where caps of snow creaked on the branches, and the air was crisp, quiet, and glittering.
“Muuuuum…”
“What now?”
“It’s gross! I want the ham one now!”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Michael! I just asked you! You’re spoiled rotten!” the woman huffed, throwing her hands up.
With a grumble, the boy yanked his hand free and tossed the unwanted pastry. It arced through the air and landed under a sprawling spruce, its branches weighed down by ice. The blizzard’s whisper seemed to sigh with melancholy.
But that flakey pastry had a story. A long, hardworking, proper one.
It all began in summer, in the golden fields outside Cambridge. Under a hazy blue sky, a tiny seed swelled in a sun-warmed stalk of wheat. Then came the harvest, the combine, the flour mill, the sacks piled high, the journey to the bakery on Lime Street—where dough was rolled by hand, where a flour-dusted baker with rough fingers stuffed it generously with cheese and herbs, folding it layer by layer.
The pastry emerged from the oven golden, buttery, fragrant—soaked through with care. But… no such luck. A child’s whim cut its journey short, and now it lay in the snow, freezing into a sad, stiff lump. So much effort, so much warmth—all for nothing?
Whiskers was a street cat. Not a basement-dweller, not a sofa-loaf, but a creature of open skies and drifting snow. Grey, moderately fluffy, with bright emerald eyes, he was the local legend—four years on the streets! A veteran. He camped out near the third-floor flats, where the old ladies spoiled him with daily offerings.
A house cat? Not Whiskers. He’d tried once. Once. A family on the fourth floor took him in. But he knocked over vases, rattled about at night, chased shadows. Couldn’t stand being cooped up. His soul was wild.
Then came the horror. A man stalked into the courtyard with a beast of a dog—huge, shaggy, mad-eyed. And for fun, it seemed, he set it loose on Whiskers. A chase through snowdrifts, over cars, across icy pavements. Whiskers barely made it. He scrambled up a tree—up, up, up, heart hammering.
But down? That was a problem. The branch under his paws was thin, and fear froze him stiff. He yowled for the old dears below. Day one: they fretted, waving catnip and phoning the RSPCA. “Get him down, he’s stuck!”
“He’ll come down,” came the reply. “Or he won’t.”
Day two. A blizzard. The courtyard emptied. Whiskers licked snow. Gnawed twigs from hunger. Night stretched like eternity, ice crusting his fur. Day three—he stopped crying. Just sat there. Silent. Exhausted. Cold in his bones, paws gone numb, heart stuttering. He was fading.
Then, on the fourth day, the inevitable: his grip failed. Whiskers tumbled like an autumn leaf, spinning, scattering snowflakes, and landed hard in a drift. Shivering, unable to rise… This was it?
Then—smell. Bright as sunlight through fog. Food.
He peeled his eyes open. Right in front of him, half-buried—there it was. The pastry. Still warm inside, frozen at the edges, but rich, buttery, real. Bitten by childish teeth, but good enough.
Whiskers lunged. Sank his teeth in, tore, chewed, barely believing his luck. He ate like he’d never eaten before. That little lump of dough and cheese, from field to pavement, had become—salvation. A second chance. A miracle.
He staggered up. Shook himself. The wind howled, but warmth trickled back into his limbs. With a flick of his tail, he bolted for the flats. The one with the old ladies.
“Whiskers! Bloody hell, he’s alive!” Aunt Nell shrieked, bursting onto the step.
“Whiskers! We rang, we begged, we waited! Those RSPCA layabouts never came! And the daft git fell on his own!”
The old ladies swarmed him like he was the sun itself. One flung the door open, another whisked out a heated blanket. And Whiskers? He slunk inside. This time, he didn’t wreak havoc. Just curled in a corner. Warm. Digesting his stolen feast.
And far away, in the bakery’s cosy glow, another batch of pastries slid into the oven. Maybe one of them, someday, would save a life too.
The end is just the beginning. Especially if you’re a cat. And especially if you’ve just met your flakey guardian angel.
