Pip padded along the damp plank path beside the barn, his straw hat flopping over one ear. The air smelled like clover and warm dust, and from the shed came the soft clink of pails and the sleepy murmur of the fold getting ready for sunset feeding.
He had one job in mind, and he meant to do it properly. On the seed-sorting table inside the barn, the tiny sunflower seeds had to be measured out before the hens and geese were fed. Pip wanted to help with that work. He wanted Mina and Bran and everyone else to see that he could belong at the big jobs, not just watch from the side.
But when he reached the doorway and peered in, he stopped so fast his toes curled in his boots.
The barn cats were there first. Not just near the table, not just brushing past it. They were stretched out right across the warm seed-sorting table, little gray and ginger shapes piled in a sleepy heap, with paws tucked in and tails curled like commas. One cat’s ear twitched. Another’s whiskers fluttered with dream-breaths.
The sunflower seeds waited in their little scoop bowls by the table edge, but there was no clear space to begin. Pip looked at the cats, then at the seeds, then at the doorway where the light was already turning gold. He could not start the measuring the way he had planned. Now he had to figure out how to get the cats off the table without waking them up or upsetting them, before sunset feeding came any closer.
What happens next?
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