The Missing Kitten

“Dad! Look!” Scarlett was so excited, she couldn’t keep still – she was dancing from foot to foot, pointing madly at the notice.

“What?” Her dad hurried up, peering into the window. “Oh! I can see why you’re so excited. ‘Ready now’, hmmm?” He read the advert through thoughtfully, and then got his phone out.

“Are you going to call them?” Scarlett squeaked excitedly.

“No. I’m going to put the number into my phone, get some bread and milk, and go home and talk it over with your mother. Can you imagine what she’d say if we went out for shopping and came home with a kitten?”

Scarlett sighed. “I suppose you’re right. It would be funny though.” She giggled. “‘Hi, Mum, here’s the milk…’ And we take a kitten out of the bag!”

“It might have been here a while, this notice,” Dad pointed out. “The kittens might all have gone. Don’t get your hopes up, OK?”

Scarlett nodded. But as they paid for the shopping, she took a deep breath and smiled at the lady behind the counter. She hated talking to people she didn’t know, but this was important. “Excuse me, but you see the notice in the window about the kittens? Has it been up for long – I mean, do you know if they still have any left?”

The lady beamed at her. “After a kitten, are you? Julie Mallins will be pleased. She only put the notice up earlier this week, and I know she’s still looking for homes for them all.”

“Really?” Scarlett was dancing around again, she just couldn’t help it. “Oh Dad, can we go home and talk to Mum about it now, please?”

“All right, all right!” Dad grinned, raising his eyebrows at the lady.

Scarlett ran all the way home – in fact, she went twice as far as Dad did, because he wouldn’t run too, so she kept having to turn round and run all the way back to him to tell him to hurry up. When she raced in through the front of the cottage, she was completely out of breath.

“Mum! Mum!” she gasped, running from the living room to the kitchen and back to the bottom of the stairs.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Her mum backed out of the understairs cupboard, where she’d been putting coats and wellies away. “Scarlett, you’re scarlet!” It was an old family joke.

“Ha ha. Mum, there’s someone in the village who’s got a litter of kittens they want to give away!”

“Really?”

“There was a notice up in the village shop.” Dad came in, holding out his phone. “I’ve got the number, what do you think?”

Scarlett bit her lip to stop herself shrieking “please, please, please”. Her mum was very firm about not whining, and she really didn’t want to get on the wrong side of her right now.

“Well, I suppose we could ask to go and look at them…” her mum said, rather doubtfully. “I’m just a bit worried that the house is all upside down right now while we’re still unpacking. Wouldn’t that be stressful for a kitten?”

Scarlett’s face fell. Mum was right. “Maybe we could wait?” she whispered. “Maybe we could just choose a kitten and ask them to keep it for us a bit longer?” She really wanted to have a kitten now, but she didn’t want their new pet to start out scared by all the boxes everywhere.

Dad hugged her. “Well, let’s see what Julie says – that’s the owner,” he explained to Mum. “She might not think it’s a problem. To be honest, we’ve done most of the unpacking in the kitchen already. We could keep it in there for the time being – I think you have to keep new kittens in one room to start off with anyway.”

Mum nodded. “I’d forgotten that. We used to have a cat when I was little,” she told Scarlett, “but it’s ever such a long time ago. We’ll all have to learn how to look after a cat together.”

“What?” Jackson put his head round the kitchen door. “Are we getting one? What’s happening?”

“Scarlett found a notice about a litter of kittens needing homes,” Dad told him. “We should have known – if there were kittens around, Scarlett was bound to find them! Shall I call this lady then?”

Mum nodded, and Scarlett flung her arms around her. She held her breath and listened as Dad made the phone call.

“Hi, is that Julie? We saw your advert about the kittens… Mmm… We wondered if we’d be able to come and see them? Uh-huh. Well, now’s great, if that’s really OK with you. Fantastic. Kendall’s Lane. Oh, off the main road? See you in about ten minutes then.”

Scarlett gasped. Ten minutes! Ten minutes till they saw their kitten!

“Here they are.”

Julie turned out to be a really sweet lady, who’d adopted Goldie, the kittens’ mum, after finding her eating scraps of bread under her bird table, because she was a stray, and so terribly hungry.

“It took weeks to even get her to come inside,” Julie told Scarlett, as she led them through to the kitchen. “But she’s settling down now. I think she knew she needed to let someone look after her, so she could have her kittens somewhere nice and warm.”

“How old are the kittens?” Scarlett’s mum asked as Julie opened the kitchen door.

“Ten weeks – the vet said they should be fine to go to new homes,” Scarlett heard Julie say. But she wasn’t really concentrating. Instead, she was staring at the basket in the corner, where a beautiful brownish tabby cat was curled up, with four kittens mounded around and on top of her.

“Goodness, she looks tired,” Mum murmured.

“Yes, I think she is, poor thing. She’s been a really good mum, but she was so thin to start with, apart from her huge tummy full of kittens. I was worried that she wouldn’t be able to feed them, but she’s done very well. They’re all practically weaned now – they love their food!”

Woken by the voices, one of the kittens popped his head up, his big gingery ears twitching with interest.

“Oh, look at him!” Scarlett whispered. “His ears are too big for him!”

Julie nodded. “I know, he’s cute, isn’t he? He’s got massive paws too; I think he’s going to be a really big cat.”

The kitten gently biffed the brother or sister next to him with the side of his chin, and the rest of the kittens popped up in a line, staring at Scarlett and Jackson.

The other three were black and white, very pretty, without the massive ears. They had enormous whiskers instead – great big white moustaches of them.

“I like the ginger one,” Jackson said. “That one’s a boy, right?”

Julie nodded. “Yes, and the three black and white ones are all girls.”

“I like him too,” Scarlett agreed. “Will they let us stroke them? Is that OK?”

“They’re usually very friendly. Especially Ginger.”

“Oh, is that what he’s called?” Scarlett tried not to sound disappointed. She would have liked to choose a name together for their kitten – Ginger was what all ginger cats were called!

“Oh no. I’ve tried not to give them names – I’m hoping to find homes for them all, and if I name them I’ll just want to keep them. But it’s hard not to think of him as Ginger.”

The ginger kitten was standing up now, arching his back and stretching as he climbed out of the basket. He looked sideways at Scarlett with his big blue eyes, to check that she was admiring how handsome he was as he stretched. She was watching him eagerly, and she gave a little sigh of delight as he stepped towards her, gently rubbing himself against her arm.

“Oh, he’s got boots!” Scarlett looked over at Jackson and her mum and dad. “Look, he’s got furry white boots on!”

Mum laughed. “He does look like he has,” she agreed. “Those are very cute.”

“I know lots of cats have white paws, but I’ve never seen one where the white goes that far up before.” Scarlett stroked the ginger kitten lovingly, and his black and white sisters followed him out of the basket, looking for some attention too. Their mother stared watchfully after them, then seemed to decide that Scarlett and the others weren’t dangerous to her babies. She gave a massive yawn, and curled up for a sleep.

The girl kittens let Scarlett’s mum and dad pet them, then they set off chasing after a feathery cat toy, racing round the kitchen and patting it ahead of them with their paws. The ginger kitten watched them, but he didn’t join in. Instead he placed a hopeful paw on Scarlett’s knee, and she looked back at him, just as hopefully. Did he want to be picked up?

“He’s very cuddly,” Julie said quietly. “He’s a real people cat. Try and put him on your lap.”

Scarlett gently wrapped her hands around his gingery middle. Even though he was the biggest of the kittens, he still felt tiny – so light, as though there was nothing to him.

The kitten gave a pleased little squeak, and padded his fat white paws up and down her jeans as though he was testing how comfy she was. Scarlett found herself smoothing her jeans, wanting him to think she was nice to sit on. He padded all the way round in a circle a couple of times, and then wobbled and flopped down, stretching his front paws out, and flexing his claws gently in and out of the denim fabric of her jeans.

“That tickles!” Scarlett giggled, stroking him under his little white chin.

The kitten purred delightedly. That was the best place, the spot he was always itchy. He pointed his chin to the ceiling and purred louder, telling her to keep going.

Jackson joined in, stroking one finger gently down the kitten’s back. “His fur’s really soft. And look at his paws! They’re bright pink underneath!” The kitten was enjoying the stroking so much that he’d collapsed into a happy heap on his side, purring like a steam train.

Scarlett looked down at his paws and laughed – they really were pink. A sort of pinkish-apricot colour, and so soft and smooth-looking.

“They’ll probably get a bit darker once he starts going outside,” Julie explained. “They’ve only been indoors so far. He’d need to stay in for a bit longer if you decide to take him.” She looked at Scarlett’s mum and dad.

Scarlett and Jackson got up, then both turned to look at them too, and their mum laughed. She turned to Julie, and asked hopefully, “I don’t suppose you could lend us some cat litter, could you? The shop in the village would have cat food…”

“You mean we can take him now?” Scarlett gasped.

Her mum shrugged. “Why not?”