Charlie The Kitten Who Saved A Life

CHAPTER TEN

Tabitha, please don’t cry. Or you, Nancy. I did warn you, didn’t I, about the scary parts? Honestly, nobody would believe the pair of you are my sisters, you’ve got such nervous dispositions, for the siblings of a local hero. Do you want to go home? No? You’re too excited about the rest of the story? Well, in that case I’d better get on with it!

Can you imagine how I felt, my friends, limping along the pavement in that strange place, with every bone in my body hurting and blood dripping down my face, knowing I was probably going to be finished off at any moment? If I hadn’t been so angry, I’d have gone in the opposite direction, trust me. But I hobbled on, round the corner where I’d seen my attackers go, and into an alleyway that eventually came out in a small yard. There were big tall buildings around the yard, but it didn’t look like anyone lived there – everything was closed up and some of the windows were broken. There was one lamppost, right in the far corner and, as I approached, I saw him sitting there – the big one-eared tortie – and he was on his own. I had the advantage of being in the shadows, but on the other hand he was twice my size and presumably had two working eyes against my one.

I flattened myself against the wall of a building and crept slowly closer. He was engrossed in washing himself, and didn’t even look up once before I finally made my move. I’d like to say I pounced, but although I’m proud of the fact that I took him by surprise, I have to admit it was more a case of flopping myself at him, with what little strength I had left. I’d timed it so that I got him while he was engaged in cleaning his private parts, so I was able to knock him off balance without too much trouble. He made a grunt of surprise as he toppled backwards, and I immediately threw myself on top of him and, yowling my fury straight in his ear, I took a very satisfying bite out of his neck.

‘Ouch! What in the name of bloody catnip?’ he squawked, in his peculiar Cat accent. ‘Get off me! Who the dog’s backside are you? Boys! Where are you! I’m being attacked!’

He squirmed, trying to get to his paws, but I aimed a swipe for his face and followed it up with another bite. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for him to throw me off. He was skinny, but muscular as well as being big, and I hadn’t hurt him anywhere near as much as I’d been hurt. I put my head down and hissed, waiting for him to start on me again, but just as he was aiming his claws at me, he suddenly blinked in surprise and growled: ‘Well, by my tail and whiskers! If it ain’t the little Cowardy Cat, come back for more.’

‘Take that back,’ I hissed, forcing myself to sound really brave. ‘I’m not a Cowardy Cat. It was four or five of you against one.’ Out of the corner of my good eye, I saw some dark shapes moving towards us in the shadows. ‘And if your boys are coming back to do the same thing again, then they’ll probably succeed in finishing me off. If you think that’s a fair fight, then I don’t know what kind of hovel you were all brought up in …’

‘Talk posh, don’t you, Sunshine?’ He lowered his paw. ‘All right, boys!’ he called. ‘It’s only the little Cowardy—’ He stopped, looked me up and down, and then went on: ‘The little brave tabby from earlier on. No, leave him alone, Black. We’ve already done him enough damage, and it took a lot of guts for him to come after me. He doesn’t look very old but he’s a good fighter.’

And do you know what? He lay back down again, deliberately, in the submissive position in front of me. I could hardly believe my one eye. The other cats hung back, waiting, and when he got to his paws again he came up and rubbed himself against me.

‘Sorry about earlier,’ he said gruffly. ‘But for the love of catnip, what’s a posh lad like you doing around these parts?’

‘I got lost,’ I said. Now the danger seemed to be over and I was apparently still alive, I was starting to shake from head to tail. ‘My humans are staying somewhere around here, but I don’t know where.’

‘Your humans?’ he repeated, looking at me as if I’d spoken in Dog or Cow or something. ‘You have your own pet humans?’

I might be a bit slow, but it was actually only then that the truth dawned on me. These guys were the real deal – the alley cats we’ve all been warned to stay away from, the ones our mothers told us scary stories about before we could even walk. Ferals. The very word strikes fear into the heart of a cosseted domestic cat. Yes, I’m not surprised you’ve all frozen in terror.

‘Um, yes,’ I squawked, starting to back away.

‘And is it true that they let you live in their houses?’ he asked, staring at me now with wide eyes. ‘And feed you, and give you funny names? Don’t run away, I’m not going to hurt you anymore. I want to know all about it. Gather round, boys. This young tabby lives with humans! Have they given you a funny name? What is it?’

‘Charlie,’ I meowed quietly. They all stared at me in stunned silence.

‘Charlie,’ the tortie repeated. ‘Blimey whiskers. It makes you sound … like a human.’

‘So what’s your name?’ I asked timidly.

‘Name?’ he retorted. ‘We don’t have names! Why would we want fancy names?’

‘So you could call to each other?’ I suggested.

‘Oh, that! We just call each other what we are. Like: he’s black. He’s tail-less. And him over there, he’s stinky.’

‘Oh, I see.’ As far as I was concerned, they were all pretty stinky. But I didn’t think it’d be wise to mention that, at this point. ‘So what are you?’

‘Big, of course,’ he said, stretching himself up to his full height. ‘That’s why I’m in charge.’

‘Right.’ And I couldn’t help it. Despite everything, I couldn’t ignore my upbringing, you see. It was only polite to say, rubbing my face against his: ‘Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Big.’

‘You too, um, Charlie,’ he said, seeming to have difficulty with the pronunciation. ‘And if you’re lost, I suppose you’d better stick with us. At least till you find your pet humans again, eh? You won’t last long in this area without us to protect you.’

Well, that’d certainly be an improvement on having them beating the poo out of me.

‘Right, OK, thank you. You live around here, do you?’ I added, as we didn’t appear to be hurrying off home anywhere.

‘Born and bred in this yard,’ Big said proudly. ‘All the boys were. The whole of this area – the yard and the alleyways off it – is our territory. Humans don’t like us, of course, apart from the odd one or two who seem to feel sorry for us and bring us food occasionally.’

‘So you have to hunt every day, I suppose?’ I stared around me. There didn’t seem to be any bushes or trees or even grass around. ‘Just mice and rats, is it?’

‘And fish, if we can get it,’ said Black, who’d been creeping closer to get in on the conversation.

‘Yeah, the humans go out in their boats every morning and come back with loads of them,’ Big explained. ‘We take it in turns to creep up and try to nick a fish or two without them seeing us. Most of them shout at us or kick us if they catch us at it, but sometimes there’s a tame human who actually gives us a fish.’

‘Not often, though,’ Stinky complained. ‘You’d think they’d share, wouldn’t you – I can’t see why they need so many fish just for themselves.’

‘Greedy,’ said Big. ‘That’s their trouble.’

I yawned. It was fascinating, now everyone had calmed down, to hear about the ferals’ lifestyle, but I’m sure you’ll agree I’d had a tiring day one way or another, and it must have been the middle of the night by now. I looked around me, puzzled.

‘Where are your beds?’

‘Beds?’ They all stared at me. ‘Are you being funny?’

‘No. Sorry, why?’

‘We sleep here, in the yard, Charlie. In corners, behind walls, in doorways, or down one of the alleyways. Sometimes in summer we sleep on the roof tops,’ Big said. ‘I’ll find you a little place near me, when it’s sleep time.’

‘Isn’t it sleep time yet, then?’ I asked, stifling another yawn. I’d always thought any time was sleep time for cats!

‘No, it’s scavenging time, for catnip’s sake,’ he said, looking exasperated. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

Evidently not. I didn’t even know what scavenging was, but I wasn’t about to admit it.

‘It’s how we get most of our food nowadays,’ Tail-less kindly explained, seeing my blank look. ‘Humans make it easy for us, they’re so lazy and untidy. They feed in the street, don’t finish their food, and throw what’s left over in bins. But sometimes they just drop it on the ground instead. And also the bins get full up, and overflow, so there’s always plenty for us. The best places are outside their eating houses. Cafés, they call them,’ he added, as if I didn’t know. ‘And the ones they call fish and chip shops – they’re the best. And takeaways.’

The others were all meowing agreement.

‘Come on, then, let’s go,’ Stinky urged. ‘I’m starving.’

So was I, now he came to mention it.

‘You’d better come with us,’ said Big. ‘Seems like you need an education.’

And with that, he led the way back out of the yard. I watched them moving off for a minute. I was so tired, and so sore from my wounds, that getting an education wasn’t exactly uppermost in my mind. But what else could I do? As he’d pointed out, it seemed I’d be in danger around here if I didn’t stick with them.

‘Why can’t we go in the morning?’ I called out, in one last attempt to get time for a nap.

They all turned round and stared at me again. I was getting used to it.

‘In the morning?’ squawked Black. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘We can’t scavenge humans’ waste food during the daytime,’ Big explained patiently, as if I was a particularly dim little kitten. ‘That’s when the seagulls are out in force.’

‘Oh. Yes, I’ve seen some of them around. They’re not very nice, are they?’

‘Not very nice!’ Tail-less mimicked. ‘What an understatement, eh, boys? They’re thieving, spiteful, vicious hoodlums, that’s what they are,’ he added in a hiss. ‘We hate them, and they hate us. They’ve been known to kill cats, you know.’

That’s rich coming from you lot! I wanted to meow, knowing how close they’d come to killing this particular cat themselves. But I thought better of it, since I’d apparently now been adopted as their slightly odd posh friend.

‘I can well believe it,’ I said instead, limping after them. ‘One of them bit my human kitten’s finger.’

‘It probably deserved it,’ Big said dismissively. ‘But that’s not the point. We don’t go anywhere near the bins when they’re awake, right? We wait till the eating houses are closed for the night, then we go and get as many scraps as we can before the gulls wake up.’

‘It’s bad enough risking life and paw when the fishing boats come in,’ Stinky told me. ‘The gulls follow the boats back in from the sea – loads of them, all swarming together and shouting their heads off. If we want to try sneaking a fish when they’re unloaded, we have to be very quick and very crafty.’

‘One of us makes a run for the fish, while the others watch out for gulls and try to protect him,’ Big explained.

It sounded so dangerous, I wondered why they bothered, instead of just hunting for easy prey like mice. But then I remembered how delicious a mouthful of lovely fresh fish tasted, and my mouth started to water. I was weak with hunger. I’d have to take my lessons from these boys, whether I liked it or not.

By now we were approaching the area where all the shops were. I stayed close to the ferals, unsure what the procedure was.

‘Stay in that doorway, and watch me,’ Big said.

He stalked towards a rubbish bin outside the shop next to the one where I was waiting, and with a quick glance around him, leapt up onto the top of the bin, grabbed something in his mouth and ran back to me. It was all done in the flash of a cat’s eye.

‘Here you go,’ he said, dropping his trophy at my paws. ‘Help yourself. I’m going back for more.’

I sniffed the lump of food. Fish! Yes – just what I needed. I took a hungry bite and my appetite diminished straight away. What kind of fish was this? The outside was hard and crunchy! I spat it out, and tore at what was left of it with my teeth to investigate further. The inside looked nice enough – good white fish meat, a bit bland, but I had to be grateful for small mercies.

‘What on earth is it?’ I asked Big when he returned with another lump from the bin. ‘It’s all crunchy and horrible on the outside!’

‘Bit ungrateful, aren’t you?’ he remarked. ‘Is it true what they say about domestic cats – you’re so pampered, you can afford to be fussy eaters?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, immediately feeling ashamed. ‘You’re right. I’ve been used to the lovely food my humans hunt for me in the supermarkets. I suppose I am spoilt.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said easily. ‘You’ll have to eat whatever you can get now, like us, or you’ll starve. This is the type of fish humans buy from fish and chip shops. For some reason they like it covered in this stuff. Batter, they call it. Ruins the taste, doesn’t it, but the fish meat inside is OK, until it starts to go off, anyway. That’s why we only take what’s at the top of the bin.’ He took a bite of the second lump of food he’d brought back. ‘Want to try some of this?’

‘What is it?’ I asked doubtfully. It looked like mouse meat wrapped in bread.

‘They call it a burger. Don’t your humans eat them? I thought they all did. Round here, they even walk along the street eating them. Crazy! Then they wonder why the seagulls attack them!’

‘I think they do have them at home sometimes,’ I said. Just thinking about Laura cooking the dinners for my family made me feel sad all over again. ‘But I’ve never tried one.’

‘Help yourself. I’ll see what else I can find. Then we’ll move on to catch the others up at the Chinese takeaway. That’ll be an experience for you!’

I nibbled at the burger, discarding the bread, and then felt bad for being fussy. The meat part wasn’t bad, but it was smothered in something yellow and spicy that made me want to throw up. Then Big came back again, this time with a mouthful of chips. I knew all about them – I’d occasionally stolen one or two from my humans’ dinner plates when they hadn’t eaten them all. But these were different: greasy and slimy. I forced one down and hoped I wasn’t going to have an upset stomach.

‘If this is the sort of food humans eat around here,’ I commented, ‘they must have very strange tastes.’

‘Well, let’s face it,’ he said. ‘Humans are just plain weird. I’ve given up trying to work them out. I can’t understand what you see in them.’

And so the night went on. Exhausted, aching and starting to feel sick, I was forced to sample things I thought no self-respecting cat would ever let pass their whiskers. Now that my hunger had been eased, I really didn’t want to try balls of pig meat smeared with a bright red spicy sauce, or prawns that had been ruined by being covered in that awful batter stuff. But I didn’t want to offend Big and his friends, who were teaching me how to scavenge and might just as happily have left me to starve.

‘You’ll get a taste for these things in due course,’ Tail-less tried to comfort me as I retched on a piece of funny-tasting red sausage wrapped in stale bread.

But I wasn’t sure I ever could. When they finally led me back to their yard, Big showed me his sleeping place in a mossy crevice of a brick wall – and taking pity on me, offered to share it with me. Then I lay awake for ages, watching the dawn break, thinking about Julian and Laura, and whether they’d gone to the hospital to find Caroline and Grace. And whether Caroline’s wounds hurt as much as mine did. And … whether they all missed me. But eventually I mewed myself quietly to sleep, curled up against Big’s bony back, and dreamt I was back here in Little Broomford, chasing stupid pigeons in the Big House grounds. Oh, if only that dream would come true!