The Perfect Kitten

“I’d have been so cross with her,” Sky said when Abi told her about it later on.

“I was a bit – but Ruby’s only little and she was really upset when Mum explained what she’d done wrong.” Abi shook her head. “It’s so tricky! I never thought we opened the front door that much. But we do, loads. And in the summer we leave the back door to the garden open all the time. Or we did.”

Sky made a face. “Are you thinking an indoor cat’s going to be too much trouble?”

“No way! We’ll just have to be careful. Flower’s so gorgeous. She’s still a bit shy sometimes, but we’ve only had her for a few days. I think she likes us.”

“Of course she likes you,” Sky said encouragingly. “Or she should do. It sounds like you’re being perfect indoor cat owners.”

They were trying, anyway – but it was a lot more work than anyone had expected, even after all they’d done to get ready. After Flower had climbed the curtains for the third time, Mum and Chris decided she needed something of her own to climb. So on Saturday they went to the pet shop to choose her a cat tree – a sort of special climbing frame for a cat with scratching posts, a box to hide in and a little hammock to sleep in.

Flower loved it and the hammock was her new favourite sleeping place, much better than her basket. She lolled about in it with her paws in the air and her chin hanging over the edge so she could see what was going on.

Abi wasn’t sure if Flower was so nosy because of her deafness or if all cats were like that, but the little kitten hated to miss anything. She had to climb and sniff and probably scratch everything that came in the house. She loved Abi and Ruby’s room because it was full of toys and blankets and things to explore and snuggle under. Sometimes she slept on Abi’s bed, but Mum always came and got her before she and Chris went to bed. Mum wasn’t sure that Flower would be able to make it down the stairs when she needed the litter tray.

Halfway through Flower’s second week with the family, Ruby brought home a junk model from school. Junk modelling was her favourite thing about Reception but Mum had made a rule – one model in, one model out. Otherwise Abi and Ruby’s room would be completely full of cereal packets stuck to toilet-roll tubes.

The new model was a cat – actually it was Flower, or so Ruby said. Abi couldn’t quite see it, only that there were some soggy bits of white tissue paper stuck on.

“Flower knows it’s her,” Ruby said proudly, setting it down on the floor in front of the kitten and watching as she sniffed it and then tried to climb inside the tissue box that was her body.

“You know what,” Abi said thoughtfully, “there was something like that on one of the websites I was looking at about indoor cats.”

Chris looked at her in surprise. “What, making junk models for them to shred? Ruby, if you don’t want her to eat it, I’d go and put it somewhere high up in your bedroom.”

“Not to claw at. To get food out of.” Abi frowned, trying to remember. “It said that outdoor cats spend ages tracking and hunting, and even if they never actually catch anything it’s good for indoor cats to have something like that too. That you should make their food into a puzzle. There was a picture that looked just like one of Ruby’s models. It was all loo rolls stuck together, and there were cat biscuits hidden inside it. Like the biscuits Flower sometimes has for her tea now.”

“That’s a great idea.” Chris reached out to the back of the kitchen door, where there was a cloth bag hung on a hook. “There you go. We were saving these for Ruby to take into school. Loads of loo rolls.”

“Can I help?” Ruby asked, cuddling her junk cat protectively while Flower pranced around her ankles, purring with excitement.

The pyramid of loo roll tubes was so huge it took ages for all the glue to dry. Abi and Ruby had made it very carefully. They cut extra holes in some of the tubes and blocked other ones off half way with milk-bottle tops so that it was like a kitten intelligence test. When it was finally dry enough to let Flower anywhere near, it became her new favourite toy.

She was asleep in her hammock when Abi gently shook the box of special dry kitten food close by and then tapped her fingers on the box. Flower’s eyes snapped open, bright blue against her white fur, and her ears twitched. Even though she couldn’t hear, Flower still used her ears for signalling. They twitched a lot.

She hopped down the levels of her cat tree and hurried into the kitchen to her food bowl, which was empty. She sniffed at it, confused, and then turned round to stare accusingly at Abi. They had shaken the food box at her – Abi had touched her hand to her mouth too, the way she always did when there was going to be food. But there wasn’t any.

Abi was tapping her fingers on the floor though, and Flower could still smell cat biscuits. She sniffed curiously at the pile of cardboard tubes that Abi and Ruby had set down in front of them. That was where the smell was coming from, she was almost sure. She peered in. Yes, there was definitely a cat biscuit inside, but the tube was just a little too narrow to get her head in. She mewed and Ruby reached for the biscuit.

“No, don’t get it for her,” Abi said. “She needs to work it out.”

With a confused little hiss, Flower stretched up, so she could reach in with one small paw. She scrabbled about a bit and then hooked out the biscuit, sending it bouncing on to the floor. Then she gobbled it up triumphantly.

“You see!” Abi yelped, high-fiving Ruby. “I told you she’d do it!”

“She’s finding more,” Ruby said, giggling as Flower nearly tipped over the pyramid by standing right up on her hind legs to claw out a biscuit from the top. “She likes it!”

The cat tree and the food-hunting pyramid were meant to help keep Flower busy inside, so she didn’t feel stressed because she couldn’t go outdoors. They worked – but not completely. The kitten still loved to sit on the back of the sofa and watch the comings and goings in the street. She was fascinated by cars driving up and down the road – Abi could see her following them, turning her head as they sped by.

She still wanted to see what was going on every time they went to the front door too. She couldn’t hear the bell but Abi thought she could maybe feel it – their doorbell was quite loud and sharp. Flower always seemed to come running when it rang, unless she was upstairs.

Abi and Ruby had to pick her up every time the door was answered or she’d be trying to slip round Mum or Chris’s feet. Flower would wriggle eagerly in their arms, her whiskers twitching as she sniffed all those outdoor smells.

After the bin men, there were a couple of other near misses where Flower was just so wriggly that Abi couldn’t hold on to her. Chris had to shut the door quite suddenly on the postman to stop the little kitten dashing out.

That night at dinner he told Mum and Abi and Ruby that he was thinking of building Flower a catio – a cat patio out in the garden with wire sides and a roof so she could sunbathe and explore outdoors.

Abi giggled and looked down at Flower, who was sitting on her lap, hoping Abi would drop bits of sausage. “I bet she’ll still try and get out of the front door.”

“Of course she will.” Chris rolled his eyes. “But it’s better than nothing. She obviously really likes the idea of being outside.”

A couple of days after her near escape past the postman, Flower was dozing in her hammock, softly flexing her tiny claws in and out as she dreamed. She blinked and squeaked to herself, and half woke up as she felt Chris’s heavy footsteps going past the living room, where the cat tree was. She popped her head out, watching him walk into the kitchen, and wondered what he was doing. It didn’t feel as if it was food time, but it might be…

She wriggled out of her hammock and hopped down on to the floor, meaning to follow Chris. Then she noticed the shopping bags that he’d left in the hallway. They were just by the living-room door – one big bag full of books and a couple of empty ones. They looked interesting.

She sniffed at them – so many smells! Food smells and people smells and others she had no idea about… Flower scrabbled her way up the side of the largest bag, trying to investigate – and then she realized that she could get inside. The bag of books smelled strange, but the plasticky stuff they were covered in was good for her claws. She flexed them in and out happily.

Then the footsteps thumped back and the bags swayed and lifted. There was a rush of cool air.

Flower didn’t know it, but she was outside at last.