Alfie And George

Chapter Thirty

I woke with a start. I was still lying under a bush; obviously I’d fallen asleep at some point, but it was still dark. Tiger slept beside me, looking so peaceful I almost forgot the turmoil we were in. I stretched out and took a look around. Still no sign of Dustbin, or any other cats for that matter. I paced around a bit, to loosen my legs up and also for want of something to do. I was just about to lie down next to Tiger again, when to my surprise I saw big Tomasz walking down our street. What was he doing? Had he found George? I barely dared to hope. I ran out onto the street to intercept him, and as soon as he saw me he scooped me up in his arms.

‘Alfie, is the middle of the night,’ he said as he sat on the garden wall, still cradling me. I miaowed — I knew that. But what was he doing here? ‘I have been thinking a lot. Seeing how lost you are without George makes me see how lost I am without my family — my wife and kittens. Alfie, I am coming to look for George tonight, while everyone else sleeps, but I feel so useless.’ I nestled into his neck; I felt the same. ‘Alfie, I’m sorry, but as worried about George as we all are, I know what I need to do. Tomorrow I am going to fly to Poland to get my family back. I hope we find George by then but if not I have to go. I hope you understand.’

Tomasz was such a big, solid man but he sounded so sad. I did understand. After all, part of my grand plan had been to get him to go to Poland. I thought of the miserable irony of my life: Tash had opened herself up to Max and Tomasz was going to get his family, yet here I was having lost my kitten. There was no triumph, only pain, and I tried to ignore the horrible feeling that I would rather have George back than any of this. It was selfish of me, wasn’t it? I was suddenly realising that my kitten was more important to me than anyone, and his happiness and safety came above all else. I loved my humans, and I wanted their happiness, but not at the expense of George. I nestled into Tomasz again; I wanted to feel a bit of warmth because suddenly my fur was freezing, and so was my heart.

After a while, Tomasz left to go and look for George. Poor Tomasz, he felt guilty at leaving us before George was found, so he was sacrificing his sleep to have one last look, but I had a terrible, sinking feeling it was fruitless. I was beginning to give up all hope. How could I continue to put one paw in front of the other? How could I eat, sleep, ever be happy again? I was pretty sure that unless George came back, I couldn’t.

The next morning Tiger woke up and stretched; we had spent the entire night outside and I had been unable to get back to sleep. The sun was beginning to come up and as I saw Tomasz coming back again. I looked, hopefully, to see if he had George, but his arms were empty. As he came up to our front door, I looked at Tiger, who nodded. I was going to go inside to see if there was any news. He rang the doorbell and I stood at his feet as Jonathan, wearing his dressing gown and with hair messier than I’d ever seen it before, opened the door. His skin was pale and I guessed he hadn’t slept much either. Wordlessly, he stepped aside and let Tomasz and me in.

‘No luck?’ he said, as they made their way into the kitchen. He began to fiddle with the coffee machine.

‘I walked around for hours. No sign. But, Jon, I need to say something. I have decided that I am going to Poland today. I book a flight, I leave the restaurants with the managers.’

‘Mate, you’re going to get your family back!’ I saw a faint glimmer of a smile on Jonathan’s lips.

‘I feel so bad leaving when George is missing but I need to tell Franceska and the boys how important they are to me.’

‘Yes, Tom, you do and you know we’ll find George. I just feel it. So you go and I’ll text with any news, but first you need coffee, you look like death warmed up.’

‘Then looking at you is like looking in a mirror,’ Tomasz joked.

‘Who knew how painful this could be. And for poor Alfie too. You know, we will find him,’ Jonathan said again, but I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince — me, Tomasz or himself.

I watched the house come alive but there was a flatness to everyone. Even little Summer wasn’t her usual self, she must sense that something was wrong. Children can be quite perceptive, I had learnt, though not quite as perceptive as cats. Claire wore her emotions on her face and I knew she had been crying. She kept hugging me and saying how sorry she was. Jonathan kept giving us both worried glances as he filled Claire in on Tomasz’s revelation.

‘I’m so glad he’s come to his senses,’ Claire said. ‘But honestly I wish it hadn’t taken losing George to do it.’

‘No, darling, nothing is worth losing George for,’ Jonathan agreed.

I had some water and tried to eat, although it felt as if the food would choke me. Spotting George’s bowl sitting empty in the cupboard was almost more than my heart could bear. I cleaned myself up a bit and listened to Claire and Jonathan trying to come up with a plan.

‘We’ve looked around, we’ve put posters up and we have Vic and Heather on the case. I think our best bet might be to sit tight here and hope the phone rings,’ Jonathan suggested.

‘I agree. Tomasz has been looking all night, we searched everywhere all day yesterday, and Vic and Heather even spoke to the police. If we stay close to home we might hear news or maybe, just maybe, George will come home.’

Oh, how I envied their optimism. Though I felt a little angry with them — they seemed to think they could sit around and do nothing. There was no way I could that. I had to be out there, doing something. Even if it was fruitless.

I left the house and made my way round to the front of the house to see Tiger looking uncertainly at something.

‘What is it?’ I said, rushing up to her.

‘Your friend is coming,’ she said, sounding nervous,‘and he has someone with him.’ I squinted as I saw Dustbin approaching from a distance. My heart swelled with hope but the cat with him wasn’t George, it was a big black cat. Tiger and I both sat upright, waiting for them to approach.

‘Alfie, can we talk somewhere a bit more private?’ Dustbin asked, gesturing to his companion. I wordlessly led them under our bush, where we’d be hidden.‘Right, first things first. This is Mr B. And Mr B, this is Alfie and Tiger.’ We all nodded our hellos. ‘Mr B is the best in the business, an expert at finding stuff. In fact, he helped me when your Snowball was lost.’

‘I remember it well,’ said Mr B.‘Pretty white cat, got herself into a bit of a scrape. Anyway, the thing is, Dustbin told me about the lamppost cats, and I’ve spent a bit of time looking into it, and I think we’ve got the answer.’

‘Really?’ I couldn’t breathe. They had found George?

‘Look, it’s been a bit of a job, but we got lucky, or we think we have. It seems that someone’s going round picking up cats off the street when they aren’t expecting it.’

‘You mean there really is a cat snatcher?’ Tiger looked terrified.

‘Yes. We don’t know who it is or why they’re doing it, but after extensive work we have found the house we think the cats have been taken to. Think is the operative word here — we can’t be one hundred per cent sure. But after doing some surveillance around this area we heard reports of unsocial levels of cat noise.’ Mr B sounded very professional, I thought. Once again I was indebted to Dustbin.

‘George is there?’ I asked.

‘We don’t know, Alfie. We know where the house is, it’s not far from here, but getting in isn’t going to be easy. The front has a high gate, which we can’t see over — it’s too tall to get up there. Attached to it is a wire fence which leads around a garden. We could see in but the curtains were all drawn and the house was in darkness. However, we were able to verify that indeed there were a large number of cats there.’

‘How?’ Tiger asked.

‘Good question,’ Mr B replied. ‘There’s a lot of noise, although be reassured we didn’t necessarily hear cats in distress, just cat chatter, and more than would be normal for a domestic house. Then there’s a shelter at the back which is packed full of tins of cat food and big bags of biscuits.’ I shuddered, I didn’t like cat food from tins myself.‘The house is also being guarded by some kind of creature right next to the wire fence. With the high gate, the drawn curtains on every window, the cat food and these guards, the evidence points to the fact that the person living there is hiding something — or rather, is hiding lots of cats.’

‘I guess it makes sense.’ I felt doubtful but we had nothing else.

‘Alfie, we can’t be certain, but if George is there then we need to find out soon. We need a plan,’ Dustbin said. I felt a tiny bit of hope swell inside me. This was the first bit of news since George had gone missing and I needed to be strong now, for my boy.

They needed a plan. Well, they had come to the right place.