A Kitten Called Tiger

“Look, Tiger.” Ava put her hand through the cat flap and wiggled it about. Now that the kitten had had all his vaccinations, he was allowed to go outside. Ava couldn’t wait. She really wanted to see Tiger out in the garden for the first time. She was sure he was going to love having more space to explore.

Jess had been right about the kitten being trouble. Tiger already went everywhere in the house – and that meant everywhere. He seemed to be able to squeeze into the smallest space and scramble up the tallest piece of furniture. He’d even managed to jump from the bookcase in Ava’s bedroom to the top of her bedroom door. Then he’d sat there, looking a bit confused, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was meant to do next. Dad had lifted him down but Ava had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before he tried again. Tiger just seemed to love being high up.

Ava let the cat flap bang shut again and looked at Tiger. He didn’t seem to be getting it. He stared back at her. He wasn’t sure if this was some new sort of game. Ava was good at playing with him – she would roll a ball around for ages, or bounce his cat-dancer toy up and down. But now all she seemed to want to do was bang at this strange hole in the door.

Suddenly his ears pricked up and his whiskers twitched. He had caught a whiff of fresh air floating through the cat flap. The scent of outside, where he hadn’t been allowed to go. He’d tried to get out, of course, hovering behind people as they went into the garden and sneaking after them, but they always caught him. He’d even got as far as the back step once, when Lucy nearly fell over and Mum was paying attention to her instead of watching the door. But then Mum had scooped him up while he was still staring out at the open stretch of grass.

“Come on, Tiger! You can go out,” Ava told him, lifting the flap right up. “It’s your own special door. Charlie and Max have one just like it, so they can get out while Megan’s at work.”

Tiger crept up to the cat flap and then jumped back as he saw Lucy peering through it from the garden.

“When’s he coming out?” she demanded.

“He was about to!” Ava said. “You scared him!”

Lucy stomped away and Tiger poked his nose through the flap, looking out at the garden. It smelled so good, and he could hear birds scratching and fluttering in the bushes by the back door. He twitched his tail and hopped suddenly through the flap – so suddenly that Ava squeaked in surprise, and had to scramble up and open the door to follow him.

“He’s out,” she called to Mum, who was pushing Bel on the swing. “Look at him!”

Tiger prowled along the patio, stopping every few steps to sniff at a leaf or watch an ant scurrying between his paws. Then he walked into a patch of bright autumn sunlight, feeling its warm glow on his fur. He sat down for a moment, closing his eyes and letting the warmth soak in. Then he lay down and rolled over, his paws in the air. He blinked lazily as a bee buzzed past but couldn’t be bothered to leap up and chase it.

Mum laughed. “He looks blissed out.”

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Ava said, sitting down next to Tiger. “And now you can go out whenever you like,” she told him.

“Not for too long this first time, though,” Mum said. “Remember what it said in the cat care book. We need to take him back inside for his tea, so he learns that it’s a good thing to come back home. We don’t want him to wander off and get lost. And we’ll need to keep the cat flap locked when we’re not around, at least to start with.”

Ava nodded. “I don’t think he’s big enough to get out of the garden yet, though. Megan’s walls are too high and there’s no holes underneath, because she doesn’t want Charlie and Max escaping. And there’s the wall between our garden and the alleyway on the other side. Tiger’s not big enough to jump on to that.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be long,” Mum murmured. “He’s such a good climber.”

“I know.” Ava sighed.

“This is really nice, Gran.” Ava nibbled a piece of popcorn and snuggled up next to Grandma Shirley. “We should do this more often!”

“Definitely,” her gran agreed. “We just have to persuade your mum and dad. It’s very special for them to have a day out together.”

“Shh!” Lucy glared at them. “Don’t talk!”

Ava and Gran exchanged a look. Because Lucy was the littlest, she seemed to think she had to be extra bossy.

“Where’s Tiger?” Bel asked, in a whisper. “I wanted him to sit on me while we watch the film.”

Ava smiled at her. “Do you want me to go and get him? He’s in his basket.”

“Please!” Bel whispered back. Gran was smiling, too – she loved Tiger. She’d told Ava she thought he was the cleverest kitten she’d ever seen.

Ava hurried into the kitchen but there was no stripey kitten in the basket. She looked around the room – she even checked the top of the door, just in case. Tiger seemed to find pawholds where she couldn’t even imagine them. He must have gone upstairs, she thought, or perhaps he was out in the garden. Now he’d been allowed out for a few weeks, they left the cat flap unlocked in the daytime so he could go out by himself. She opened the back door and leaned out, calling, “Tiger! Tiger!”

She’d expected that he would leap out of the bushes by the back door. He loved lurking in there, watching the birds hopping about in the branches.

“Tiger!” Ava called again. But there was no answering mew, only Charlie and Max barking in the garden next door. Barking a lot, actually, Ava thought, wondering what was the matter. Megan worked on Saturdays, in one of the department stores in town, so the dogs were on their own.

“Hey, Charlie! Hey, Max,” she called over the wall. “Shh… What’s wrong?”

It was as if the dogs didn’t even hear her. They just kept on barking.

Ava bit her lip, suddenly worried. She dashed back indoors and up the stairs, checking all the bedrooms to see if Tiger was curled up on someone’s bed. But he wasn’t. Ava leaned out of Lucy and Bel’s bedroom window, trying to look down into Megan’s garden but the wall was in the way. She could only see the back end of the garden and she knew the dogs were nearer the house – she’d heard them close to the back door.

Ava dug her nails into her palms, trying to stop herself panicking. She didn’t know that Tiger was in next-door’s garden. How could he be? He wasn’t big enough to get over that huge wall and there were no gaps that he could have squeezed through. It couldn’t be Tiger that Charlie and Max were barking at.

Ava wasn’t completely sure, though. Not sure enough.

Tiger had been right down at the bottom of the garden, stalking a blackbird. It had been cheeky enough to flutter down on to the grass right in front of him. The kitten had been so surprised he almost fell over his own paws but as soon as he realized what was happening, he sank into a hunting crouch. He had seen birds hopping about in the bushes before but never one so close up. He inched forwards, hardly breathing, creeping nearer and nearer. Then, all of a sudden, the bird spotted him and shot into the air with a frantic beating of wings. Tiger dived after it but the bird was too fast. It was gone before he landed, up into the scrubby lilac that grew against the wall.

Tiger scrambled after the bird, and it squawked furiously at him and fluttered away over the wall.

He looked up as it flew off, with his ears laid back. He had been so close. Tiger clambered the rest of the way up the lilac, on to the wall, but the bird had disappeared. Then he gazed around curiously. He had never climbed on to the top of the wall before. He was high up enough to see all along the garden – and into next-door’s garden. A whole new place to explore!

He paced along the bricks, wondering if there were any other cats down there. A huge white cat had appeared in his own garden a couple of days before and hissed at him as though he wasn’t meant to be there. He had been furious and scared all at the same time. But then Bel and Ava had come outside and started shouting, and the white cat had dashed away.

The new garden seemed quite still, so he sprang down on to the grass and began to wander about, sniffing curiously at the plants. He was just investigating the tiny pond next to the patio when there was a sudden bang, followed by an ear-splitting series of barks.

Charlie and Max came shooting out of their dog flap, barking so loudly that Tiger just froze. He stood perched at the edge of the pond, trembling in fright.

Tiger had seen the dogs before, out of the window – he’d even heard Charlie and Max when he was in his own garden. But he hadn’t known they lived here! He hadn’t realized that this garden belonged to them.

Terrified, Tiger ran at last, racing towards the gate.