Master Tom and the Totem Pole

Master Tom was a straggly, stringy kitten who [?] in the alley.

He [?] the rubbish which other people put out at night, [?] the mice who played on the road and, quite frankly, was not too fussy. This meant he was a little smelly, a little plump in all the wrong places and rather dirty.

He was [?] around amongst the dustbin liners one evening when he stopped in his tracks and [?] down heavily.

There, in front of him was a large, long piece of wood with faces painted all over it. It looked quite scary and Master Tom [?] back a few paces (into a rotting banana actually which meant he [?] back further than he had meant!).

He looked very carefully at the large, long piece of wood and crept closer to it. He could [?] a noise - a kind of shuffling, shunting noise coming from inside.

He plucked up enough courage to get close enough to [?] his ear to the piece of wood. The sounds were getting stronger...

"TOTEM!!!" - the word was [?] out as loud as Master Tom had ever heard.

Before he could spring away he felt his ears being [?] by a thousand teeth. His left paw was grabbed too and all the time...

"TOTEM!!! TOTEM!!! TOTEM!!!" was ringing through his brain.

As he was being [?], painfully bit by bit through the holes in the wood which formed the mouths and eyes of the painted faces he just caught a glimpse...a tiny, horrifying glimpse...of hundreds of pointy, mousey faces, all screaming...

"TOTEM!!! TOTEM!!! TOTEM!!!"

As Master Tom's stringy, straggly body was [?] into the wood he managed to whisper:

"Why? Why Totem?"

The voices came back, by now as if they were very far away:

"Tom
'Orrible
Tom
Eats
Marvellous Mice...now

"Tom
'Orrible
Tom
[?] by
Marvellous Mice!!"

Master Tom sighed his last sigh and the sound of crunching and munching from inside the totem pole went on for the rest of the night!