The Missing Kitten

“I’ll keep Bootle inside until after you’ve gone,” Dad said at breakfast the following morning. “If I don’t open the cat flap for an hour or so, and I pay him lots of attention, I’m sure he’ll stay put.”

“I hope so,” said Mum anxiously. “We don’t want him to wander too far. If he starts going out in the lane and along the footpaths, he could easily get lost.” She glanced up at the clock. “I’d better get going. Have a lovely day, all of you. Scarlett, do you want to invite that nice girl from your class round after school one day? What was she called? Izzy? I can call her mum. She could come tomorrow, perhaps.”

Dad nodded. “I can pick you all up from school.”

Scarlett smiled. Dad had been so pleased when she’d come home the day before and said she’d actually had a good day at school. She would really like Izzy to come over.

“I’ll ask her,” she agreed, tickling Bootle behind the ears. He was sitting on her lap, hoping for bits of toast. He particularly liked toast with Marmite, so Scarlett made sure she always had Marmite on at least one piece now. She tore off a little corner, and passed it down to him, watching him crunch it up and lick at his whiskers for crumbs.

“Do you really think Bootle will be all right?” she asked Dad anxiously. “I don’t want him to be lonely.”

A cautious paw reached up on to the table, aiming for more toast, and Dad snorted. “He’ll be fine. He knows how to look after himself very well. Don’t you?” he added, scratching Bootle under his little white chin. “Yes, you’re very lovely. Even if you are trying to steal yourself a second breakfast.”

Bootle drooped his whiskers, and stared at Dad, his blue eyes round and solemn.

Scarlett giggled. Bootle made it look as though he was starving to death and even Dad was almost convinced. He glanced down at his own plate of toast, and then shook his head firmly.

“That kitten is a shameless liar,” he told Scarlett.

Bootle prowled up and down the hallway, his tail twitching crossly. Scarlett had left him behind again, and now his cat flap was closed. He didn’t understand what was happening. Why did she have to keep going away?

“Hey! Bootle! Cat crunchies!” Scarlett’s dad came out of the kitchen with a foil packet, and Bootle turned round hopefully. He loved those crunchies, especially the fishy-flavoured ones. “Good boy. Yes, Scarlett said some of these might cheer you up.”

Bootle laid his ears back as he heard Scarlett’s name, and stopped licking the crunchies up out of Dad’s hand. Scarlett! Was she about to come back? He looked at Dad hopefully.

“Oh dear. You really do miss her, don’t you?” Dad eyed him worriedly. “She’ll be back later, Bootle, I promise. Come on, yummy fish things.”

Bootle ate the rest of the crunchies, but rather slowly. He liked them, but he would have liked them much more if Scarlett had fed them to him. She had a game where she held them in front of his nose, one at a time, and he stretched up to reach. They didn’t taste the same out of Dad’s hand.

“Good boy, Bootle.” Dad picked him up gently, took him into the office, and put him down on an old armchair. “Why don’t you have a sleep?”

Bootle walked round and round the seat of the chair, stamping his paws into the cushions, till eventually he slumped down and stared gloomily at the door. He didn’t feel like sleeping, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

Bootle sat in front of the cat flap, staring at it hopefully, and uttering plaintive little mews. It was still locked. He knew because he’d tried it, over and over, scrabbling at the door with his claws. But it just wouldn’t open.

“Do you need to go out?” Dad asked, coming into the kitchen, and looking at him, concerned. He crouched down next to Bootle, who gave his knee a hopeful nudge. “I suppose it can’t hurt, it’s more than an hour since Jackson and Scarlett left for school.” Dad turned the catch on the cat flap and pushed it, showing Bootle that it was open. “Off you go.”

Bootle mewed gratefully, and wriggled through the cat flap, trotting purposefully out into the back garden, and straight round to the front of the house, just as he’d done the day before. Next, he was squeezing under the gate, and out into the lane. This time he didn’t run as fast. He knew that he’d been shut in the house a long time, and he wouldn’t be able to chase Scarlett the way he had the day before.

So he padded down the path, sniffing thoughtfully here and there. It was difficult to follow the traces of Scarlett and Jackson – the cottage smelled of them too, much more than the path, which made it confusing. But he was pretty sure they’d gone this way. Bootle bounded happily along, hoping that they would be in the field again, perhaps sitting down, waiting for him.

But no one was there. Bootle walked up and down the edge of the huge field, staring anxiously into the green stalks. Was Scarlett in there? She might be, but he couldn’t smell her, or hear her. He slipped in between two rows of wheat, pushing his way through the green stalks, and mewing.

Then his ears twitched. There was a scuffling noise ahead of him, and a small bird fluttered out of the wheat, making Bootle leap back in surprise. He’d seen birds in the garden, but never up close. He hissed at it crossly, but the bird was already half-hopping, half-flying away. Bootle followed it sadly out of the wheat stalks. He didn’t think Scarlett was here.

Glancing around the narrow path at the edge of the field, he tried to remember what Scarlett had been doing when he ran after her yesterday. They had been walking along here, away from him, as though they were making for the hedge at the end of the field.

Determinedly, Bootle padded along, hopping over the ruts and big clumps of grass, and keeping a hopeful eye out for Scarlett. At the corner of the field there was a gap in the hedge, and then a short muddy lane, leading out on to a road with a pavement. Bootle had never really seen a road, and he jumped back, his whiskers bristling, as a car roared past. He had been in a car when he left his mum to come to Scarlett’s house, and then when he’d had to go to the vet for his vaccinations, but both times he had been in a basket. From kitten height, the cars going along the road were enormous, and terrifyingly noisy.

He crept into the muddy lane, eyeing the opening out on to the pavement. His ears were laid nervously back, but at the same time Bootle breathed out the faintest little purr. The cars weren’t the only noise he could hear. There was shouting, and laughter – the sort of noises Scarlett and Jackson made. He wasn’t sure it was them, but it was worth looking. The sounds were coming from very close by. If he was brave enough to go out on to the pavement, close to those cars, he was sure he could find the place.

Bootle dashed out, scurrying along low to the ground, and pressing as far into the hedge as he could go. Every time a car went past – which wasn’t very often, thankfully – he buried himself under the prickly, twiggy bits at the bottom of the hedge, and peered out, his blue eyes round and fearful.

The school was only a couple of hundred metres along the main road through the village, and on the same side as the lane. Bootle squirmed under the metal fence at the side of the playground, and scuttled behind a wooden bench, where he sat, curled up as small as he could, and watched the children racing around the tarmac square.

It was very noisy. He had thought Scarlett and Jackson were loud, but there were so many children here. And they were all wearing the same red cardigans and grey skirts, or shorts. He couldn’t see Scarlett at all.

He shrank back behind the bench as a loud bell shrilled, and the children streamed back into the building on the far side of the playground. Then his ears pricked up, and he darted forward. That was Scarlett! Racing past him, with another girl. He mewed hopefully at her, but she’d already disappeared inside the white building.

The door was still open.

Bootle padded out into the empty playground, and hurried over to the door. The noise of the children still echoed around the corridor, and he shivered a little. But if he wanted to find Scarlett, this was where he needed to be. He pattered along the chilly concrete floor, peeping in at the doors when he found an open one. The first classroom he looked into was full of children who were smaller than Scarlett, he thought. A little boy stared at him, and pointed, his eyes widening delightedly. Bootle whisked out of the door as fast as he could. He had a feeling that he wasn’t meant to be in here, and he didn’t want to be caught before he’d found Scarlett.

The next couple of doors were shut, but then he found one ajar, and looked round it. These children were more the right size. He sidled round the door, and then he saw her, facing away from him, but at the nearest table. The children were all looking away from the door, towards something at the other end of the classroom, so it was easy for Bootle to race across the carpet and hide under the table – right next to Scarlett’s feet. He purred quietly to himself. He had done it! He’d found her!

Very gently, he rubbed the side of his head against Scarlett’s sock.

Scarlett gave a tiny squeak, and Izzy stared at her. “What’s the matter?”

“Something under the table…” Scarlett whispered, her eyes horrified. It was furry. What if it was one of those enormous furry spiders? There were definitely more spiders in the country. She’d found a huge one in the loo at the weekend. Very slowly, she peered under the table, and Izzy looked too.

“A cat!”

“Bootle!”

Mrs Mason looked round sharply, and Izzy and Scarlett tried to look at the board and pretend there wasn’t anything under their table.

Bootle purred louder, and patted at Scarlett’s leg with a velvety paw.

“What’s he doing here?” Izzy whispered, as soon as Mrs Mason had turned back to the board.

“He must have followed us again.” Scarlett was grinning. She couldn’t help it. She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to sort this out, but she loved it that Bootle wanted to be with her so much that he followed her all the way to school.

Bootle scrambled up on to her lap, and sat there, purring, and nudging at her school cardigan.

Sarah and Millie saw a small ginger head sticking up over the edge of the table, and gasped. Scarlett put a finger to her lips, and stared at them beseechingly. “Don’t tell!” she whispered.

Sarah and Millie shook their heads, to say of course they wouldn’t. But Mrs Mason had seen them anyway.

“Scarlett, what’s going on?” She came over to their table. “Oh, it’s a kitten. What’s he doing here?”

“He followed me from home,” said Scarlett. “I’m sorry, Mrs Mason. He was under the table, I didn’t even know he was here till a minute ago.” She sighed, a very tiny sigh. She’d hoped to keep Bootle a secret for a bit longer.

Mrs Mason smiled. “Well, he’s very sweet, but I’m afraid he can’t stay in the classroom. You’d better take him up to the office, and get Mrs Lucy to call home. Is there someone at home who can come and get him?”

Scarlett nodded. “My dad.” She stood up, with Bootle snuggled against her, and the rest of the class whispered and aahed admiringly, reaching out to stroke him, as she went out of the classroom.

“You’re such a star for finding me!” Scarlett whispered, and Bootle purred.