A Kitten Called Tiger

“Ava! Come on, wake up. Look at this!” Mum held up her phone in front of Ava’s nose and Ava squinted at the photo on the screen sleepily. Then she sat bolt upright in bed and grabbed

the phone. Ever since her parents had agreed to getting a kitten, Ava had been scanning the local animal shelter’s website and checking the noticeboard in the supermarket. But no one seemed to have any kittens in need of homes – until now.

“Oh! They’re gorgeous! Mum, are they real? I mean, are they for sale? Can we go and see them?” The photo showed a litter of kittens snuggled up in a cardboard box – it wasn’t a very big one but they’d obviously all decided it was the best place to sleep ever. Ava was almost sure there were four but it was quite hard to count them…

“Yes, they’re real and, yes, we can go and see them. Rosie, the lady who owns them, put their picture on Facebook and she said she’s free this weekend if people want to visit. I’ve sent her a message to see if we can go round today. Your auntie Jade sent me their picture – Rosie’s a friend of hers. Auntie Jade said she thought of you as soon as she saw them!”

“They’re so little and fluffy…” Ava cooed, stroking the phone screen with her finger. Then she sighed as the picture disappeared. “Oops! Sorry, Mum, I’m still half asleep. I just wanted to stroke them!”

Mum smiled as she took back the phone. “I love the ginger and white one – but the stripey kitten’s gorgeous, too. I think we might have a really hard time choosing. Oh, look! Rosie’s messaged me back, asking if we can come round at about ten o’clock. Ooooh, I don’t know, Ava, what do you think? It’s a bit early for a Saturday, isn’t it?”

Mum laughed as Ava leaped out of bed, flinging off the duvet. “You think we can, then? We’ve got to get Lucy and Bel up, remember. And your dad’s still asleep.”

“We’ve only got two hours!” Ava squeaked. “Wake him up now, Mum! And tell Lucy and Bel we’re going to see some kittens. They’ll be out of bed the fastest you’ve ever seen, I promise!”

“Hurry up,” Ava groaned. “There’s the house, look, number twenty-two. Lucy, you don’t need to bring your toy cat, we’re going to see real kittens…”

“They will like my toy cat,” her sister said firmly, gathering up her toy cat and her handbag and all the cat’s clothes, and clambering down from her car seat. Lucy was only just three – Mum and Dad had said they’d think about getting a family pet once she was old enough to understand that a kitten wasn’t another toy for her to play with. Ava had been looking forward to Lucy’s birthday more than her own.

Ava’s middle sister, five-year-old Bel, had run on ahead and was trying to undo the latch of the garden gate.

She was just as excited as Ava was. Neither of them had been able to eat any breakfast, and they’d watched Dad and Lucy ploughing through their Weetabix with disbelief.

“OK.” Dad locked the car and led Lucy over to the gate. “Let’s go!”

Bel finally managed to unlatch the gate and the front door opened as they walked up the path. A lady in a stripey T-shirt waved at them. “I saw you coming. I’m Rosie.” She scooped up a silvery tabby cat who was trying to escape round her legs. “And this is Moppet. She’s the kittens’ mum.”

“She’s beautiful,” Ava’s mum said.

“She really is,” Rosie agreed. “Come on in. Moppet’s too young to have kittens, to be honest. She was a stray. She kept coming into the garden and in the end I adopted her. I didn’t know I was getting five cats instead of one!”

“Oh, wow…” Ava sighed. It sounded like a dream come true to her.

“Anyway, come and see the kittens. They’re in the kitchen.”

Ava could feel her heart thumping with excitement as they walked through the hallway. The kitchen door was closed and Rosie opened it carefully, obviously trying not to bump into any kittens on the other side.

“Oh! Oh! A kitten!” Bel squealed as a little furry face popped round the edge of the door.

The kitten disappeared at once and Mum shushed Bel gently. “Sweetheart, remember what we talked about.

You’ve got to be quiet round the kittens. If you shout, you’ll scare them.”

Bel nodded but Ava could tell that she was so excited she wasn’t really listening. Ava swallowed hard as Rosie opened the door all the way. There seemed to be a bubble of nervousness stuck in the top of her throat. She had been daydreaming about this moment for so long!

The kittens seemed to have taken over Rosie’s kitchen. There were cat toys everywhere, a cosy basket sat next to the radiator, and a huge kitten climbing frame made of scratching posts and carpeted hidey-holes was squashed up next to the kitchen table. As they all went in, a small ginger kitten looked up from licking the butter off a piece of toast.

Rosie put Moppet down and sighed. “That was my breakfast,” she told the kitten, lifting it off the table. “You’ve had yours.” She looked round at Ava and her family. “They’re lovely but they get everywhere.” Then she frowned. “Hang on. How many kittens can you see?”

Ava laughed. Now that she could actually see the kittens, the strange feeling inside her had disappeared. “Three,” she told Rosie. “The one who was licking your toast…”

“There’s another ginger one over there on the climbing frame,” Bel said.

“And there’s a tabby kitten by the door,” Ava added, peering round the table to see properly. The tabby kitten was playing with a fluffy rabbit that was nearly as big as it was, rolling over and over on the floor.

“There ought to be four,” Rosie said, scanning the kitchen. “We’re missing one. There’s another tabby kitten – and honestly, it’s always him!”

Ava crouched down to check under the table but there was only the ginger kitten, still licking his buttery whiskers. Then, as she stood up, Ava spotted the tip of a stripey tail on top of the bookcase. “Is that him?” she asked Rosie, pointing. “Behind those photographs?”

“How did he get up there?” Dad laughed. “That’s a huge jump for such a small cat.”

Rosie shook her head, smiling. “I didn’t think any of them could get up there. But I suppose if he went from the climbing frame to the table, to the edge of the sink and then scrabbled up the curtain… This whole kitchen is like a playground for kittens. But he’s definitely the most adventurous!”

“Hello,” Ava whispered to the kitten as he eyed her round the side of the photo frame. “Are you stuck?” The kitten looked so funny with his head sticking out one end of the frame and his tail the other. He mewed at her and edged a little further out from behind the photo. But there wasn’t much room and he nudged into a vase that was standing behind him, making it wobble dangerously.

“Oh!” Ava said worriedly. “Come on, kitten. You’re going to get squished in a minute.” She reached up to lift him out from behind the photo frame and then looked uncertainly at Rosie. Was it OK to pick the kitten up?

Rosie nodded at her. “Can you reach? Just lift him down from there.”

Ava slipped both hands round the kitten’s middle, hoping she wasn’t scaring him. But she thought he actually looked quite grateful to be rescued. He didn’t wriggle at all and she snuggled him against her cardigan, loving the feel of his warm fur and his squidgy kitten tummy.

“Oh, he’s very handsome!” Mum said, coming over to look. “So stripey!”

“He’s the stripiest cat I’ve ever seen,” Ava agreed, looking down at the kitten. He was a beautiful golden brown colour, with black stripes running down his sides and fat black rings all along his tail. Ava had seen tabby cats before, of course, but never one with such perfect stripes.

“He’s what’s called a mackerel tabby,” Rosie said. “Like the fish – they have stripes, too.”

“He looks more like a tiger,” Mum said. “The way his stripes match on both sides.”

Ava giggled as the kitten scrabbled his way up her cardigan and climbed on to her shoulder. She knew he was probably just trying to get up high, so that he could see what was going on with all these strange people in his kitchen but it felt like he belonged with her somehow.

“Mum,” she whispered. “Do you think… Could we have this one?”

Lucy stood up to see. She’d been trying to get the ginger kittens to look at her toy cat but they weren’t very interested. “What’s his name?” she asked Rosie.

“Oh, well, I tried not to name them, because I knew they’d be going to new owners,” Rosie explained. “But in my head I’ve been calling him Adventure Kitten.”

“He sounds like a superhero!” Ava said.

“I think he’s called Tiger,” Lucy said, nodding her head. “Let’s take him home now.”

“Oh, Lucy, we haven’t decided yet,” Mum said, but she was smiling. “And don’t forget, we need to go and buy a cat carrier and a basket and, oh, lots of things! Although he is lovely…”

“And Tiger would be a great name,” Dad said. “Bel? Ava? What do you think?”

Bel reached up to stroke the kitten’s tiny paws and smiled. “Even his paws are stripey.”

Ava nodded, just a little, so as not to shake the kitten around too much. “It’s perfect! He looks just like a tiger and he’s as brave as one, too.”