Sophie and Whiskers: A Rescue from the Skies
“Mikey, which sort of pastry would you like—the beef one, the cheese, or maybe the custard?”
“Mum, I want the cheese one!”
“Alright, love, I’ll get it for you now.”
The baker at the train station tucked the flaky pastry into a clear paper bag. Outside, the evening was bitter, the frost sharp in the air as night crept in. Mum and her little boy crossed the snowy park, where the branches groaned under their white blankets, and the quiet air carried a crisp, glittering stillness.
“Mum…”
“What now?”
“It’s rubbish! I want the beef one instead!”
“Oh, Mikey! I just asked you! You’re spoiled rotten!” the woman sighed, throwing up her hands.
In a flash of temper, the boy tugged his hand free and tossed the unwanted pastry. It spun through the air before landing beneath a sprawling pine, its branches twisted in ice. A mournful finality hung in the whispering wind.
But this pastry had a story. A long, hardworking, honest one.
It began in summer, out in the golden fields near York. A tiny seed swelled in the ripening wheat under the wide sky. Then came the harvest, the combine, the flour mill, the sacks carried to the little bakery on Lime Street. There, the dough was rolled by hand, the baker’s work-worn fingers pressing generous layers of cheese and herbs between folds of buttery pastry.
The pastry emerged from the oven warm, glistening, its scent rich with care. But fate had other plans. A child’s whim cut its journey short, leaving it to freeze in the snow, its warmth fading into nothing. So much labour, so much love—all for nothing?
Whiskers was a street cat. Not one for basements or flats, he belonged to the sky and the snow. Grey, moderately fluffy, with emerald eyes, he was the local elder—four winters on these streets! A proper veteran. He lived near the third block, where the old ladies brought him scraps each day.
A house cat, he could never be. He’d tried once. A family from the fourth floor took him in, but Whiskers knocked over vases, dashed after shadows, clattered about at night. He wasn’t made for walls. His soul was wild.
Then came the horror. A bloke with a monstrous dog stormed the courtyard, the brute’s eyes mad with excitement. The man, grinning, set the beast on Whiskers. A chase through drifts, over cars, across icy pavements. Whiskers made it. He shot up a tree—higher, further, until his heart hammered in his throat.
But down? He couldn’t. The branch beneath him was slender, fear turning his limbs to lead. He yowled for the old ladies. The first day, they fretted below, waving valerian, ringing the fire brigade: “Get him down, he’s stuck!”
“He’ll come down!” came the reply. “Or fall.”
The second day. A blizzard. People vanished. Whiskers ate snow, gnawed twigs from hunger. Night stretched forever. Ice crusted his fur, stiffening him into a frozen lump. By the third day, he stopped crying. Just sat there, hollow, silent. Cold in his bones, paws gone numb, his heartbeat faint. He was forgetting himself.
Then, on the fourth day, the inevitable: his claws uncurled. Like an autumn leaf, Whiskers tumbled down, spinning through the snowfall, landing deep in a drift. He shuddered, tried to rise—but couldn’t. His mouth opened. No sound came. The end?
Then—it hit him. A smell. Sharp as sunlight in the dark. Food.
He forced his eyes open. Right there, in the snow—the pastry. Still warm inside, frost outside, but rich, savoury, real. Marked by a child’s bite, but enough.
Whiskers threw himself at it. Teeth sinking, tearing, devouring—he ate like a starved thing. That little parcel of dough, butter, and cheese, from field to bin, had become his salvation. A second chance. A gift from the heavens.
He sprang up, shook himself. The storm still howled, but warmth stirred in his limbs. Tail high, he trotted back to the flats—the ones where the old ladies lived.
“Whiskers! Good Lord, he’s alive!” Auntie Nell cried, rushing onto the step.
“Whiskers! We rang and begged and waited! The fire brigade never came! But the daft thing fell on his own!”
The old ladies fussed over him like he was the sun itself. Someone opened the door, someone brought a warm blanket. And Whiskers? He went inside. This time, no chaos. He curled up in a corner. Savoured his pastry. Lived.
And somewhere, in that warm bakery, another batch of pastries slid into the oven just then. One of them, perhaps, was already meant to save another life.
The end is only the beginning. Especially if you’re a cat. And especially if you’ve met a pastry.
