Alfie The Holiday Cat. Alfie In The Snow. A Friend Called Alfie

‘We just want to be allowed to see each other,’ Aleksy said, his voice wobbly. He was still my sensitive boy and he seemed younger than ever as he held onto Connie’s hand.

‘Yeah, mate, but running away on Christmas Eve, it’s madness. What if your mum, dad and Tommy woke up and found you weren’t there? And you, Connie, your mum is alone, she’d be absolutely terrified. Honestly, I could bang your heads together. It was irresponsible and stupid and you could have ruined Christmas. Right, come inside before I get frostbite.’

If I could have spoken, I would have said exactly the same, I thought proudly.

As both Connie and Aleksy slunk into the house after Jonathan, I went to see Dustbin.

‘Great job tonight,’ I said. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘You did well, Alfie. Try to get some sleep though, big day tomorrow.’

‘Everyone is coming here, why don’t you pop over?’ I said. I didn’t like the idea of Dustbin being alone on Christmas Day, although I knew he wouldn’t mind. He liked being alone.

‘Nah, big rodent day, they think they deserve to get more food at Christmas, so can’t risk taking any time off,’ he said. I grinned and raised my whiskers.

‘You work too hard.’

‘You and me both.’ He wasn’t wrong. ‘See you, Alfie.’

‘Happy Christmas, Dustbin,’ I said.

‘And to you. I know it’s going to be hard for you, missing Tiger, but keep the courage, Alfie, and I’ll see you soon.’

I watched as he seemed to disappear into the night.

Aleksy and Connie were sitting on the sofa looking very guilty. Jonathan was pacing up and down, delivering a lecture about how irresponsible they were. He seemed to be enjoying it, and actually was doing a pretty good job. I gave Aleksy my best disapproving look.

‘How come you came to the shed?’ Aleksy asked.

‘Alfie made us.’ They all turned to look at me. I examined my paw closely; honestly, sometimes humans weren’t the smartest.

‘But how did he know?’ Connie asked.

‘I told him,’ Aleksy said. They all glanced over at me again. My paw was suddenly very interesting. ‘I had to confide in someone but I didn’t think that he understood it.’ He turned to Connie in confusion.

‘He’s a cat,’ she said.

‘Yes, we do know that,’ Jonathan snapped. ‘He probably just heard a noise from the shed and thought I should investigate it.’ Their suspicious glances were increasing.

‘But he’s a cat,’ Connie said again. ‘He can’t have known we were there.’

‘He’s more than a cat,’ Aleksy said and I felt proud. At least he noticed. ‘But maybe he did just hear something, but that other time—’ Aleksy quickly clamped his hand over his mouth.

‘What other time?’ Jonathan narrowed his eyes. We all stayed quiet. ‘Anyway, back to the matter at hand,’ he said. ‘I know you think your mum’s being unreasonable and unfair,’ he went on. ‘But Connie, she’s had a bit of a hard time. I lived in Singapore and I lost my job, and had to come back here. I know it wasn’t a divorce, actually it was worse than that.’

‘Meow.’ OK, maybe not that good of a job.

‘Oh right, maybe not worse, but anyway it was a huge adjustment and I had a very hard time processing what happened to me. I probably was depressed and not very nice to anyone, actually including Alfie.’

‘Meow.’ He certainly wasn’t very nice. He kept throwing me out of the house in actual fact.

‘I definitely was depressed. Anyway, when people are depressed they sometimes act in a way which might not seem rational.’ Like throwing charming cats out of your house, I thought. ‘Connie, you are the casualty of this, I can see that, but you know you and your mum need each other and you’re a team. I know it’s a lot for you to have gone through too, and you are the kid, but she needs your support. Don’t get me wrong, I’m on your side here.’

Really? It didn’t sound like it.

‘But you know, you have school and your new friends, and your mum, well I think she’s a bit lost at the moment. So as much as it’s not your responsibility, you need to try to understand, honestly it will make life better for both of you. And then she might come round to Aleksy, you know.’

I take it back, it wasn’t that bad after all.

‘Jonathan, we are sorry,’ Aleksy said. ‘I just didn’t know what to do, and it seemed a good idea.’

‘It was a terrible idea. Aleksy, tell everyone you are sorry and that you will never do anything so irresponsible again. Making people worry isn’t the way to solve anything.’

I purred my agreement, I had thought it a good idea once but not any more.

Claire, wearing a coat and some boots over her nightwear, came in, her arm around a crying Sylvie.

‘Your father is on his way too, Aleksy,’ Claire said. ‘Your mum couldn’t leave Tommy on his own so she’ll save her shouting for when you get home. She really wasn’t happy with you.’

‘I’m sorry, Mum.’ Connie burst into tears and flung herself at Sylvie.

‘Oh Connie, to think you had to run away. What have I done?’ They were both sobbing, arms around each other, as Tomasz arrived.

‘So, Aleksy, you want to tell me what happened?’ Tomasz said. He looked as if he had been woken up, thrown on the first clothes he could find, his hair was dishevelled and he didn’t even have that much of it.

‘We were stupid. But you know we just wanted to be able to see each other. We weren’t going to do anything bad, but we wanted you to know how serious we were and the only thing I could think of was running away, but the first time we tried—’

‘You mean you tried before?’ Claire screeched.

‘Oh.’ Aleksy clearly regretted mentioning it again; when would he learn? ‘Yes, we did, but then I got downstairs and Alfie and Dustbin started making such a noise that I thought they would wake you up – so we had to abort it and then we realised that London was dangerous and so we weren’tgoing to run away because that was silly.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve heard anything like this before,’ Tomasz said. He looked a little lost.

‘So then we thought we’d just pretend. And yes, we realise now it was very bad to make you wake up on Christmas morning with us gone, but we were desperate.’ He had tears in his eyes, which I knew he would push back. Aleksy felt he was too grown-up to cry. In truth, no one was ever too grown-up to cry.

‘And you were going to sleep in the shed all night?’ Tomasz continued. Sylvie was listening, but she was also still hugging Connie.

‘Well, actually I don’t think we would have in the end, because it was very cold.’

‘Worst runaways ever,’ Jonathan said, and Claire swiped him as that wasn’t very helpful. ‘Honestly, it was just like the nativity scene,’ he continued, rubbing his arm. ‘Mary and Joseph wrapped in old blankets in a shed.’

‘It wasn’t quite like that, Jon.’ Claire rolled her eyes.

‘I am sorry,’ Sylvie said. ‘To all of you and to Aleksy and Connie. If I’d known how miserable I was making you, but then…I’m struggling, Con, darling. I miss having your father help me with parenting and I feel a bit lost in London, like I don’t know anyone, and well I shouldn’t stop you from having a life. I still think you’re too young for a boyfriend but if you’re willing to abide by rules then I guess wecan figure it out. I don’t want you to feel that you want to get away from me, I love you.’

‘I will, I’ll do anything,’ Connie said, her eyes full of hope.

‘Me too,’ Aleksy said. ‘Even if we aren’t alone ever, we don’t care.’ He sounded so excited.

‘But you will be punished,’ Tomasz said, unsurely.

Jonathan patted him on the back.‘Hey, how about we let it go for now? It was stupid but I think they’ve learnt their lesson and it is technically Christmas Day.’ I went to rub Jonathan’s leg; he was right. ‘We’ll put him on washing-up duty or something tomorrow,’ he laughed.

‘And I know Frankie will just be relieved to have her boy home,’ Claire added.

‘OK. So maybe no punishment, I don’t know what to do in this situation but we better get home and let Claire and Jonathan go to sleep.’

‘Yes the kids will be up early and we’ve got a big lunch to prepare. Sylvie, Connie, please will you join us?’

‘Oh, no, we couldn’t. Sorry, but we just couldn’t.’ Sylvie said, almost pushing Connie out of the house.

‘Please?’ Aleksy asked.

‘No, we have plans, I’m sorry,’ she added and they were gone.

‘That was strange. Just as I thought she was being reasonable?’ Jonathan said.

‘I think perhaps she’s too embarrassed to see everyone at once,’ Claire said. I agreed with her. ‘You know she’s sort of fallen out with all of us, and she probably thinks she needs to build bridges but Christmas Day, us all en masse, it might be a bit much.’

I thought that Claire was spot on. The thing was that a broken heart was a terrible thing, and Sylvie definitely had one of those. As did I. However, I seemed to be coping better, more rationally, than she did, which was darn lucky for my family.

‘You see, I’m no good at this stuff, I never even thought of that.’ Poor Tomasz looked perplexed. ‘Right, young man, come on, let’s get you home.’

Aleksy was smiling, he was allowed to see Connie. Tomasz, Claire and Jonathan seemed pleased with the outcome, and I was too. It was a Christmas miracle after all and it seemed I had saved our Christmas.

Chapter Thirty-Three

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The excitement of Christmas Day was something I would never tire of, despite being incredibly worn out. But we had rallied, when woken by the kids at‘silly o’clock’, as Jonathan called it. George was excited by the prospect of his wrapping paper and so was encouraging the children to rip open their presents, hopping around them as they did so. As he blew a stray piece off his head, I looked on affectionately. Happy Christmas.

Everyone was fizzing around, a bit like the drink that Claire and Jonathan had. Although it was champagne, it had orange juice in it which made it suitable for breakfast apparently, although not for children or cats it seemed.

The presents were soon opened. Toby was so happy he was beside himself, and Jonathan who had to help him with some very complicated Lego, was beside himself but not with happiness as he struggled. He kept scratching his head and looking pleadingly at Claire. Summer had added even more dolls to her collection and apparently Santa was the cleverest person in the world, as he had got everything right. George was in wrapping-paper heaven although we did have to untangle him at one point when he got himself stuck with Sellotape, but everyone was cheerful. Including me. Because seeing everyone I loved having such a nice time warmed my heart. I knew how lucky we all were: we were warm, fed, loved and it made me sad for anyone who wasn’t as lucky as us. But I couldn’t dwell on that today, I had a kitten to unwrap from the tinsel he’d liberated from the windowsill.

I hoped Tiger could see us, she would have enjoyed this scene, and although I missed her with every piece of fur on my body, I couldn’t help but smile as I heard her voice wishing us, ‘Happy Christmas.’ It was a happy Christmas, but a sad one too. But then life was all about balances and contrasts in feelings after all.

‘Right, I’ve showered and now I better start cooking,’ Claire said. She was wearing a bright red jumper with a Christmas tree on it. Jonathan was supposed to wear a matching one but he claimed to have lost it. I knew that it was hidden as I heard him say it was ‘ridiculous’ and that he wouldn’t ‘be seen dead wearing it’. Which was a phrase I didn’t understand. But anyway, Claire looked quite Christmassy as she tied on an apron. I was not only excited for lunch but also the knowledge that my other families would be here soon.

‘Do you want a hand?’ Jonathan asked, looking pleadingly at her as he studied the Lego instructions. Jonathan didn’t like cooking but it was clearly easier than putting a Lego spaceship together.

‘No, you carry on with Toby.’ Claire grinned.

‘Yay!’ Toby said, and then stared very intently at Jonathan, who was still scratching his head.

‘Mummy, can you help me with my car?’ Summer asked. She’d been given a pink car which spun around when operated with a remote control. She wasn’t the best driver, though, my tail had already been run over and George had had a few close calls.

‘Darling, I have to start cooking. Toby, can you help her for a moment?’

Toby looked thoughtful, as if weighing up the Lego or his sister.

‘OK, but only for a minute,’ he said, as suddenly and without warning the Christmas tree lights went off.

‘Oh no, they must have fused,’ Jonathan said, jumping up and trying the living room lights. But they didn’t come on either. ‘Strange, I wonder if it’s tripped?’ he said, going to the hallway where the fuse box was. ‘No, it’s not tripped,’ he said, sounding confused just as the phone rang.

‘Oh my goodness. The power in the whole of Edgar Road is out,’ Claire screamed, as she lowered the phone from her ear.

‘What do you mean?’ Jonathan asked.

‘No power. None at all. How am I supposed to cook Christmas lunch?’ She looked at the handset, which she was still holding. ‘Sorry, Pol, I’m just in shock, I’ll call you back,’ she said, hanging up.

‘What are we going to do?’ Jonathan said. We all stood in the semi-darkness in horror. What was Christmas without food? For me, that was the best bit. I was so looking forward to my Christmas dinner. George looked horrified, Toby concerned and Summer played with her dolls as if nothing was wrong.

As panic continued all around me, I tried to calm myself and think. I had saved Christmas once already this year and now I needed to do it again. And I was still sleep-deprived from a long, long day yesterday, an early morning today and not even any turkey to show for it. No, we couldn’t have that. As they say, a cat’s work is never done.

I listened as Summer suggested they eat sandwiches for lunch and Toby chocolate coins– although he had already put a fair few of those away, as far as I could tell. He even offered to share round his selection box. Which was all well and good, but what about us cats? We didn’t eat chocolate and as for sandwiches, unless they had pilchards in them, or some other kind of fish, I simply wasn’t interested. No, I wanted my traditional Christmas lunch and by the look of horror on Jonathan’s face, so did he. And what about all the people who were having lunch with us? What about the rest of the street? This was a disaster.

The phone rang again and Claire snatched it up. After a few moments she replaced the receiver.

‘That was Marcus. Apparently there’s a fault and it’s down as an emergency but they don’t expect it to be fixed until tonight at the earliest,’ she explained.

‘Oh no, Christmas is ruined,’ Jonathan moaned.

‘Shush, of course it’s not. We just need to think,’ Claire said sensibly but she had panic in her eyes too.

Of course, as soon as it went quiet, it came to me. They said the fault was with Edgar Road, so Tomasz and Franceska’s road might be fine and their restaurant was closed today, so we could all decamp to their place with our food, cook and eat it there. Brilliant and simple. Now, how to convey that? I looked at them, licked my lips. I mewed and then ran to the front door.

‘Now what?’ Jonathan said as he glared at me. OK, so that wasn’t clear. I took George aside and told him my idea.

‘Such a good idea,’ my boy said. ‘But how are we going to tell them?’ I thought and thought.

On the table by the front door were leaflets for take-aways that Claire and Jonathan sometimes had; would that give them a clue? I jumped on the console table and knocked them to the floor.

‘What the hell is he doing?’ Jonathan asked.

‘Yowl,’ I said. This wasn’t easy. Then I saw it. Aleksy had left his backpack here in his rush to get home last night, and Claire had put it by the front door. This had to work, I thought as George and I climbed on it, mewing loudly.

Claire and Jonathan looked at each other.

‘I’ll call Tomasz,’ Jonathan said. Finally. ‘Oh of course, the restaurant is closed today and they probably haven’t lost power!’ He sounded jubilant, as if it was his idea.

I was feeling a little smug, as George nuzzled me.

‘I miss Tiger mum, but I am lucky to have the cleverest dad in the world,’ he said and I couldn’t be any happier at that moment, or sadder, because I really missed Tiger mum as well.

It was all organised. Well, in a very disorganised way. While Franceska stayed to organise the restaurant, Tomasz drove over with the boys to pick up the food that needed cooking to take back. Jonathan and Matt went along the street inviting any of the neighbours who were stuck to come and join us. I went with them and was delighted when Tiger’s family agreed to come. They were fretting about being without power, and on top of missing Tiger, I was glad they would be with us.

Marcus and Harold were on board, although Marcus was going to drive his dad there, as it was too far for him to walk, and he offered to take anyone else who needed a lift. I wondered if that meant me? The busybody Goodwins also agreed to come and Jonathan didn’t even complain about that, in the interest of it being the day of goodwill to all men – and cats. And in that vein, I invited Salmon who said he would love to come with us, as it was the only way to guarantee any Christmas dinner. There was no sign of my other friends, though, and I could only hope that they would be alright.

‘This reminds me of the Blitz spirit,’ Vic Goodwin said, as he and his wife, in matching Christmas jumpers, started to gather their food to contribute.

‘I’m far too young to remember that,’ Jonathan replied.

‘Well, so am I,’ Vic said, and we were all uncertain how he knew if that was the case. But Vic did say something useful, he said they should all get torches to take with them in case we all had to come back to houses still without light, so they rounded up all they had to ensure that every family who needed one had one.

Luckily many of the families had either gone away or had somewhere else to go, but there were a fair few of us as we organised getting everyone to the restaurant. Jonathan and Matt led the way and Polly, Claire and the children got ready to bring up the rear, along with me and George.

‘I wish Hana was coming,’ George said, and I realised there was still something left to do. No one had gone to see Sylvie, probably because she had told them that they already had plans, but I didn’t believe her.

I stood on the doorstep and meowed loudly.

‘Oh goodness, look, Claire, we didn’t think about Sylvie,’ Polly said. Everyone stood at the front gate, but George sat beside me at the front door.

‘Last night she was really adamant that she had plans but we thought she might be too embarrassed to face us all.’ Claire had told Matt and Polly what had happened with Aleksy last night, so they were up to speed with the situation.

‘But she probably hasn’t, has she?’ Polly said, as she opened the gate. ‘Look, it’s Christmas and if Connie and Sylvie are on their own, we need to persuade them to come with us. No one should spend Christmas in the dark, for goodness sake.’

‘Of course,’ Claire said, uncertainly, as they unlatched the gate and came to join me at the door. Henry reached up and rang the doorbell as we all huddled like a group of carol singers on the doorstep. After a while we heard footsteps and the door opened. Connie, looking very sweet in a jumperwith a reindeer on it, stood before us. She looked a little relieved to see us.

‘Hi, is your mum in? Oh, and Happy Christmas,’ Polly said before pushing past her into the house. We all followed. Sylvie was in the kitchen, where George ran up to Hana and they nuzzled like the old friends they were.

Claire seemed a little taken aback.‘How are they friends? She never goes out?’ she said. No one answered.

‘Hello, and Happy Christmas,’ Sylvie said but she was a little red-faced.

‘Look, I know you said you had plans but it doesn’t look like it, and you can’t spend Christmas with no power. We and a few of the neighbours are taking our food and drink to Tomasz and Franceska’s restaurant where we are going to have a lovely, if slightly unconventional Christmas lunch together,’ Polly said.

‘That sounds like fun,’ Connie said, hopefully.

‘We can’t, I just can’t.’ Sylvie burst into tears.

‘Connie, take the children to see your tree in the living room,’ Polly commanded, and Connie, although looking shocked, did as she was told.

‘Right, now what’s this about?’ Polly said.

‘Apart from the fact that my daughter ran away last night because I’m a terrible mum, I’ve been horrible to all of you who have done nothing but be nice to me, my ex-husband is spending Christmas with his pregnant girlfriend, who he has moved into my house in Japan, what else could there be?’ she sobbed.

Put like that, it didn’t sound good.

‘Listen, your ex, I can’t do anything about. But you and your daughter seem to have built bridges by the looks of it,’ Polly said. Sylvie nodded. ‘And you are not a terrible mum, you were trying hard to protect your daughter, we all understand that, but she doesn’t need protecting from Aleksy, by the way, he’s about as harmful as a houseplant.’

‘Well, I’m not sure I’d compare him to a houseplant,’ Claire said.

‘First thing that came into my mind. You know I mean a flower…he’s as dangerous as a delicate flower.’ I really had no idea where they were going with this. ‘Anyway, that’s beside the point.’ Even Polly looked as if she’d forgotten what the point was.

‘No, the point is that we are all fine, we understand, you’ve had a terrible time and it really hasn’t been easy. We all still want your friendship and want you to have ours, and today of all days we can’t let you two be alone, in the dark,’ Claire said, and we were back on track. ‘So, come with us today and you can start building those bridges.’

‘But Franceska must hate me. I was so horrible to her, and her son,’ Sylvie said. Her eyes were full of tears. ‘It’d be so insensitive of me to swan into her restaurant, when I’ve no right.’

‘Oh, Frankie couldn’t hate you. All you have to do is apologise and it’ll be forgotten. I mean, she’s about as good at holding grudges as …’ Polly narrowed her eyes as if she was thinking.

‘A houseplant?’ Claire suggested. They all laughed. ‘Honestly, Sylvie, she’ll be so happy you’ve come and you know whose Christmas you will really make?’

‘Connie and Aleksy’s,’ Polly finished as if there was any doubt. And mine, and George’s, I silently added.

‘OK, give me five minutes to clean myself up and put some make-up on.’ Sylvie smiled. ‘I really am so sorry for behaving so badly and I really do hope you can forgive me.’

‘Already done,’ Polly said as she went to give Connie the good news.

‘I am so glad that everyone’s happy again,’ Hana said. ‘And George says it’s down to you, Alfie.’

‘Not entirely,’ I started modestly.

‘It really is down to us,’ George countered, immodestly. ‘But now, your family are coming with us, and you will be here on your own. In the dark.’ He raised his whiskers, hopefully.

‘Hana, come with us,’ I said.

‘But I’ve never been out and it’s been snowing and I didn’t know what snow was until Connie told me last night.’

‘Yes, your paws will be cold and it might be a bit slippery but only like a polished floor,’ I pointed out. ‘Listen, Hana, you have to come with us, you need to start going outside. Honestly, you’ll like it, trust me.’ I hoped I was right.

‘But I’m scared,’ Hana said.

‘But I’ll be right by your side and nothing will happen to you,’ George said.

‘Come on, your family need to know that you are still a family and that includes you,’ I stated, nudging her with my nose towards the front door. ‘Not to mention the food we’re about to eat, no self-respecting cat would pass up this opportunity,’ I pointed out.

‘Hana?’ Sylvie asked as they came to the front door to see Hana sitting by it.

‘She should come with us.’ Claire looked worriedly at the three of us and I nudged Hana again. She couldn’t have been any closer to the door.

‘But she doesn’t go out,’ Sylvie said.

‘Meow,’ Hana said. It seemed she was learning.

‘Maybe she wants to come with us,’ Connie said.

‘She definitely does. I can tell, I know a lot about cats,’ Toby said.

‘Me too, and yes she absolutely does,’ Summer, not to be outdone, added.

‘Right, well you’ll have to carry her then, Con, darling, I don’t want her to get cold paws,’ Sylvie said, uncertainly, as Connie scooped her up. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind but, as I blinked at George and he blinked back, it would have to do for now.

‘I am so full I don’t think I can move,’ I said later, as we all rested after our meal.

‘Me either, Dad,’ George said.

‘Being outside is quite nice,’ Hana said, although she was currently inside.

‘Right, well I better get back to work,’ Dustbin said. ‘Those pesky rodents will have taken advantage of my absence.’

‘Can I help you?’ Salmon, who was on his best behaviour, asked.

‘Nah, no offence but you don’t look like the sort of cat who gets his paws dirty,’ Dustbin replied, but without malice. Salmon wasn’t, he could probably talk the rodents to death, but that was it. Like cat, like owner, in that respect.

Although in fairness the Goodwins had been on pretty good form. Seeing them play charades was a sight to behold. Although not as good as Harold, who guessed every single one incorrectly and then accused the person acting the charade of being wrong. All the adults were laughing so much they were nearly crying.

It had turned out to be a wonderful Christmas Day. The food was delicious– and there was plenty of it as everyone had pooled their resources. The children had a table set up on their own and were behaving beautifully. The younger ones had brought some of their new toys with them. The older ones were supervising, well Tommy was but Aleksy and Connie were staring at each other with dopey expressions on their faces. Tommy despaired, but no amount of teasing would stop them. I even noticed they were holding hands under the table whenever they could. Ah, young love.

As I’d weaved in between everyone’s legs I felt a warmth in the atmosphere that I relished. The adults were all behaving pretty well. Sylvie had apologised to Franceska, and cried a bit, and Franceska, who was just too lovely, had hugged her and told her that they should forget it. She told her shewould never let Aleksy take advantage of Connie or hurt her, and Sylvie had said she did believe her, but that after her husband had hurt her she was so scared of her daughter going through anything like that. It all made sense in a way, because of course heartbreak wasn’t rational. I knew that better than most. Sylvie was back to being the woman we’d first met when she moved here and somehow Claire had manoeuvred it so she and Marcus were sitting next to each other at lunch. I had hope they might fall in love, but I didn’t think either of them looked as if they’d be jumping into anything anytime soon. Harold was on good form, though he and Vic Goodwin had a slight disagreement about the reason for the rise in crime, which Jonathan had to diffuse. But other than that, everyone was getting on well.

I’d felt choked when the Barkers raised a toast to Tiger, and I nuzzled close to George who shook, when they talked about how much they missed her. We both went over to them and rubbed their legs to let them know we felt the same, which they seemed to appreciate. However, I was alarmed when they said they were going to the shelter in the new year to adopt a cat, but an older cat, as the house didn’t feel right without one.

Replace Tiger? How could they?

‘We’re never going to be able to replace Tiger,’ Mrs Barker said. Phew. ‘We had her from a kitten and as we never had children she was our child. We miss her so much but we have a good, warm and kind home and I know Tiger would want us to help a cat who needed a home.’

They were right, she would. She would have been proud of them, and I would just have to get used to seeing another cat come out of that cat flap. And, as hard as it would be, I would welcome them with open paws. Again, it’s what Tiger would have wanted.

It was getting late when Marcus, who hadn’t had a drink, drove his dad and the Barkers back to Edgar Road. The clearing-up had been shared by everyone – although Franceska had tried to get them to leave it, the Goodwins insisted and they loved bossing everyone about and giving them jobs to do. I went out to the yard to say goodbye to Dustbin who was busy working.

‘It’s been a grand Christmas,’ he said.

‘It has. I wish Tiger was here but, apart from that, it’s worked out wonderfully,’ I replied, with a sad grin. ‘And of course I am still tired from the incident last night.’ I was pleased and a little surprised that no one had talked about that today, but that was Christmas for you, it wasn’t a time to speak of anything bad.

‘She’d be proud of all you’ve done,’ he said, and I really hoped she would.

‘Mewwwww!’ We turned to see Hana tentatively putting her paws outside, with George encouraging her. The snow was slushy now and not deep but she still found it cold. Well, of course it was cold.

‘You did it,’ George cheered. ‘You’ve officially stepped outside now!’

‘Well, so I have. What a Christmas,’ Hana said. ‘But is it always this cold?’

‘No, one day soon it will be warmer and I will insist you try coming out more often,’ George said. ‘So we can hang out.’

‘I’d really like that.’ She waved her tail before jumping back inside.

‘Incoming,’ Dustbin shouted and dived to catch a mouse behind one of the bins.

‘Happy Christmas, Tiger, wherever you may be,’ I whispered, staring up at the brightest star in the sky, and then I turned to go home.

Chapter Thirty-Four

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Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. It’s also the hardest for a lot of people. Among the trees, the happiness, the presents, the food and the excitement , it’s a good time to remember that it’s not all plain sailing for a lot of people – and cats. That was my Christmas message this year, and I told George that. As we said a silent prayer for Tiger, as we rubbed our full bellies, as we yowled together at how much we missed her, as we watched our children enjoy their gifts, it was a very mixed kind of Christmas for us this year. And we were the lucky ones. I drummed that into George until he told me he got it and please would I ‘just stop lecturing me’. Teenage George was back at times. Although perhaps I had laboured the point a bit.

It was all over for another year. As Jonathan said, it took months to prepare for Christmas and then it was all over in a flash. But although that was true, Claire pointed out that for that flash it was worth it. And this year certainly had been. Everyone pulling together like that, friendships forged, upsets mended, and even the busybody Goodwins involved, that was what life should be about. I was saving that lecture for the new year though.

The power came back on when we got home on Christmas night, and as the children almost fell asleep the minute we walked through the door, along with George, we tucked them all up and then Claire, Jonathan and I sat in the living room, enjoying the peace and the twinkle of the Christmas tree lights. I fell asleep at some point on the sofa and woke there in the early hours before I wearily made it up to my bed. It had been a bittersweet Christmas, but then life was going to be bittersweet for a long time to come, I knew.

It was now New Year’s Eve and we were having a party at our house to say goodbye to another year and hello to the new one. Claire had been planning this party for months and even Jonathan was keen. All the children were having a sleepover with us, and Polly and Matt and Franceska and Tomasz would be there. Connie was coming with Sylvie, Harold was going to walk down from his house with Marcus, and even the Barkers had said they would pop in for a sherry early on, though they wouldn’t stay up until midnight. The Goodwins were coming, but they said they had to keep watch because it was a known fact that lots of crime was committed on New Year’s Eve. Jonathan offered them a pair of binoculars and said they could station themselves by our curtains. They were happy to agree to this, but were bringing their own binoculars; they didn’t trust Jonathan’s would be good enough. In actual fact he was joking, he didn’t own any, but luckily they never discovered that. Jonathan had invited a couple of people from his work who didn’t have plans and Claire had asked some of the women from her book group and their partners. It was going to be quite a gathering. And a party was possibly just what I needed, to say goodbye to what had been a good but also a terrible year and welcome a new one, which I hoped would be better.

George appeared fully groomed and looking smart.

‘Hey son,’ I said, giving him a nuzzle.

‘Hi Dad, I’ve just been at Hana’s.’ There was no stopping those two, although as far as I could tell they were just friends. Now Sylvie and Connie were back as part of our family, George was in and out of the house more frequently when he saw one of them, and they didn’t mind. Connie had even suggested to her mum that they have a cat flap fitted into the side door, so that George could visit and keep Hana company. We were so excited about this prospect. And I thought that it would be lovely for both of us, especially George, to have another home to add to our collection. You could never have too many, after all. However, they were still not sure that Hana should go out, and neither was she, but George was working on it. It was his New Year’s resolution.

‘How was she?’

‘Yeah, good. She’s not coming tonight – she said she’s had so much excitement that she needs a quiet night in. I think I understand. Hana is a very quiet cat, who’s used to being calm. I think us Londoners are a bit of a revelation to her.’

‘Of course,’ I replied, seriously. It was possibly true, Hana was used to a calmer life than we were. I couldn’t remember what a quiet life was, to be frank.

‘It’s been a hard year, well the end has, hasn’t it?’ he said.

‘Yes, son, and you have been coping so well. I don’t know how you’ve done it but I am very proud of you.’ I meant every word.

‘I think it’s just that thing, really, knowing how Tiger mum would like me to live my life. I hear her talking to me all the time and I also know …’

‘What, son?’

‘I know she would want you to be happy. At the moment you’re not but you need to be. She would want you to make the most of every minute and not wallow. And you say that you carry those you love around with you in your heart and she’s in mine.’

‘Mine too.’ I felt so emotional. My kitten was so wise.

‘Well then, we will both be alright. But, Dad?’

‘Yes, son?’

‘I don’t want you to get another cat girlfriend, if you don’t mind. I think it’s best you stay single and just be my dad.’

‘OK son, that’s a deal.’ I was sure I didn’t want another girlfriend either. I’d been lucky enough to love twice in my life and that was quite enough.

‘Good, because I don’t want a new mum.’

‘You won’t ever have a new mum, you’ll always have Tiger mum, even if I did get a girlfriend, but I won’t. I’m too busy looking after you lot.’ I raised my whiskers.

Wasn’t that the truth?

The party was in full swing. Music blared out and it was lucky the neighbours were here so they couldn’t complain about the noise. I wandered around, taking it all in, enjoying myself the way I had promised George I would.

The Goodwins were stationed behind the curtains, with their top-of-the-range binoculars and alcohol-free drink. Nothing was happening but they had their eyes trained just in case. The Barkers were sipping sherry on the sofa, and chatting to Harold who had a beer and was waving his stick around, enthusiastically, as he spoke. He was happy and not angry at all any more. Polly and Matt were dancing with some of Claire’s friends – badly, I might add. Tomasz and Jonathan were chatting to Marcus; there was lots of laughing and back-slapping going on. Sylvie had insisted on helping Claire in the kitchen and they were filling plates with food and also topping up drinks, and Franceska was of course in the thick of that. They were laughing and joking as they did so, and everyone seemed at ease with each other once again.

I went to check on the children upstairs. Tommy was supervising games night with the younger ones, who were all too excited to go to sleep. Toby and Henry were playing Hungry Hippos, Martha and Summer were playing with some cards, but apparently neither of them knew the rules, which made Tommy exasperated but he kept sneaking his iPad out, in between barking instructions and breaking up squabbles. They were all happy though, as they snuck up some food, and some fizzy pop which Claire never normally let them have. They’d have sugar rushes for hours, I was sure. And George was with them, being fussed, getting in the way, being cute. Aleksy and Connie, who were supposed to be helping to supervise, were on the landing, holding hands and chatting. When Tommy asked them to help him they kept saying, ‘In a minute.’

‘Alfie, I am never having a girlfriend,’ Tommy said to me as he broke up a minor altercation when Summer was found to have stuffed some of the cards down her dress. ‘If it turns me into a soppy guy like my brother, I’d rather not.’

‘Meow.’ You’ll change your mind when it’s time, I thought. Although I couldn’t imagine Tommy ever being soppy.

I split the evening between upstairs and downstairs, before Franceska went to get Aleksy, Tommy and Connie for the midnight countdown. Thankfully the younger children had worn themselves out by then. Toby, George and Henry were fast asleep in one room and Martha and Summer were in bunk beds in Summer’s room. I went with the adults.

‘Right everyone, it’s countdown time,’ Jonathan shouted. ‘Ten, nine, eight, seven.’ Everyone joined in. ‘Six, five, four, three, two, one. HAPPY NEW YEAR!’ the room shouted with loud cheers. People in couples kissed. Marcus hugged his father, then Sylvie hugged Harold, and Marcus grabbed Sylvie in a big hug and kissed her cheek. She blushed and I noticed. As, I saw, did Claire.

Connie and Aleksy snuck off and I looked around and saw they were sharing their first kiss– I assumed it was their first – under the mistletoe in the hallway. So much for them being chaperoned at all times. But, I was pleased, it made me feel warm for them, for everyone.

Old friends hugged, and new ones, and then they started singing this unfathomable song called‘Auld Lang Syne’, which I didn’t understand, although I did catch a bit about old acquaintances and I think it meant don’t forget them or something. Surely they could have made it clearer though, as people sang it every year and no one really understood the words as far as I could tell. In fact, most people didn’t seem to even know them.

Satisfied that everyone was happy, having fun, and no one needed my help, I went outside to get some air.

The cold air wrapped itself around me. The snow had settled into a thin blanket and the air was cold and crisp. The sky was clear as I looked at the moon, something Tiger and I used to do together. We loved watching the moon and it was one of her favourites tonight, round and clear. I wondered if wherever she was she could see it. I felt his presence before I saw him, as George appeared.

‘What are you doing up?’ I asked, as I nuzzled him.

‘I heard Tommy say it was New Year now, and so I wanted to come and wish you a Happy New Year.’

‘Thanks, son, and Happy New Year to you too.’

‘Promise me, you’ll be happy, Dad.’

‘I promise.’ Just then a star appeared to wink at us. It was the brightest star I’d ever seen.

‘Wow, there’s Tiger mum, just like she said,’ George said.

‘She’s with us. Happy New Year, Tiger,’ I said into the wind.

‘Dad, make your resolutions now,’ George said.

‘What do you know about resolutions?’ I asked.

‘Claire is going to drink less, Jonathan moan less, and Summer be more amazing than she is. Oh, and Toby is going to keep away from girls.’

‘OK, here goes. Firstly, I will take excellent care of you. You are growing up to be such a fine young cat. And my second is that I will never stop missing Tiger, or loving her. My third resolution is that I will never stop with my plans to bring people together or keep them together. People and cats of course. Finally, I resolve to live every day to the full. How about you, George?’

‘I think I might just try not to set myself on fire again.’

We laughed and I told him what a good resolution that would be. I watched him hop back into the house before I followed him. As I left my footprints in the snow, I felt happiness and sadness, love and loneliness, the contradictions of life. And in the opening minutes of a new year, I gave a thought to all of those I loved, past, present and future.

6. A FRIEND CALLED ALFIE

Chapter One

There was something about the Devon air, which felt so different from Edgar Road, where we lived most of the time in London. As the sea breeze whipped through my fur; it soothed and chilled me at the same time. It had been a very stressful time lately, and for my kitten George– who would probably argue that he was no longer a kitten but a proper cat – so we were enjoying a well-deserved holiday and a much-needed change of scene.

We were on a two week holiday at my human family’s holiday home, Seabreeze Cottage, in Lynstow, Devon. The human family consisted of Claire, Jonathan, and their children Toby and Summer. Not forgetting our cat family; my cat son, George, and Gilbert, who lived full time at Seabreeze Cottage – Gilbert had been there before us and had become one of our closest friends. Although we didn’t get to see him as often as we’d like, we always had fun whenever we were together. Gilbert was more independent than George and me, having fended for himself for years before we met him. If I’m honest, George and me are pampered cats, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It hasn’t always been that way, there was a time when I was homeless for a while, and I had to fend for myself. My first human owner, Margaret, died when I was a young cat, leaving me heartbroken and alone. I became a doorstep cat – a cat with different homes and owners – which comes with many benefits, I can assure you, but more of that later. Thankfully, after some time on the streets, I found my way to Edgar Road, where I met my current human families. George came to live with my main human family as a kitten, having never had to fend for himself. He’s a lot more spoilt than me, but he’s kind-hearted, and I love him more than all the pilchards in the world.

We’ve had a rough year, my George and I. My girlfriend – the cat who George thought of as his mum – Tiger, had fallen ill and passed away before Christmas. We’re still grieving her if I’m honest. I don’t think you ever stop missing those you love, and I have loved and lost a lot in my life. But as a doorstep cat, with multiple humans in my life – Claire and Jonathan and their children Toby and Summer, Polly and Matt and their children Henry and Martha, Franceska and Tomasz and their children Aleksy and Tommy. You’ll met my other humans soon enough.

Although this year was unfortunate in many ways, one thing we learnt was that life carries on regardless of the sadness you hold in your heart, and we had to carry on with it.

‘I know, why don’t we go to the sand dunes?’ George suggested.

‘Last one there’s a dog,’ Gilbert, who had joined us on the beach, shouted, taking off, we followed him, hot on his paws. I was breathless as I made it just a fraction later than George and Gilbert.

‘Don’t call me a dog,’ I warned, narrowing my eyes and they both laughed.

‘I’m going to slide down on my bottom,’ George said, the carefree sound of his voice made me so happy. He wriggled onto his bottom and tried to slide down the sand, the problem was that sand isn’t very slippery, it’s grainy, and it sticks to fur like glue. I went to try to give George a gentle push with my paw, but I tripped over his tail and landed with a bump almost on top of him.

‘Yowl,’ I cried.

‘Dad,’ he chastised as we both started rolling down, and although it was a little bit scary, we got to the bottom in one piece.

‘That was so much fun, Dad,’ George said, reminding me that maybe he was growing up fast, but he was still a kitten, my kitten, in so many ways. ‘Can we do it again?’

‘Let me catch my breath,’ I pleaded, I certainly wasn’t a kitten in any way anymore, but I would do anything for my boy.

‘Come on, George,’ Gilbert shouted from the top. ‘Let Alfie recover. I’ll roll down with you, it did look like fun after all.’

We spent the rest of the evening playing, rolling and enjoying the beach, finding some much-needed peace. It became another evening for us to feel lucky about.

It wasn’t just George and me who needed a break in Devon, my human family did too. Jonathan had recently got a promotion at work, which is a good thing, but it meant he would have to work longer hours, and harder than he had before. Claire had told him to go for the job, but she was also worried about what it would mean for us as a family. She had to be supportive, however, because we all knew that Jonathan was only doing it for us, to provide more pilchards for George and me – yum – good schools for the children (whatever that meant) and Claire was even getting a new car. So this much-needed holiday had brought us all together in a way that reminded us that we were a loving family. Not without our problems, of course, but there is no such thing as a problem-less family, another thing I had learned the hard way. And when I heard Jonathan and Claire talking at night when the children wereasleep, I knew they were both slightly nervous about how the new job would be and how they were going to cope with not having Jonathan around so much. I tried not to worry about them, but it wasn’t easy – I worried about everyone I loved.

During the holiday, Claire, Jonathan and the children had enjoyed picnics on the beach, walks, and bike rides. George had tried to go join them in the bike basket, but he kept falling onto the handlebars of Toby’s bike, so Claire had banned him. While they had their human adventures, we had our own feline ones. Gilbert was quite an active cat, he often took us on what he would call country walks. They were more like runs, through fields – the first time we came here we were cornered by a herd of sheepand barely got out with one of our lives intact. He and George climbed trees while I stayed safely on the ground, and of course, we visited the beach, but mainly in the evenings when we had it to ourselves. After losing Tiger, I didn’t realise how much I needed a change of scene. Claire said Devon was like a tonic, and she wasn’t wrong – I felt as if I could breathe properly for the first time since I lost her.

In the evenings at the cottage, Claire cooked, Jonathan relaxed, the children, worn out by the activities slept well. Sometimes the neighbours came round, or someone would babysit for us while Claire and Jonathan went to the local pub. We were quite friendly with some of the other families in the village, Seabreeze had become a home from home. Even the next door neighbour, Andrea, who once tried to run us out of the village, was our friend now. It’s a long story which culminated in Seabreeze Cottage almost being set on fire, but luckily Gilbert and I foiled the plan and saved the day. It’s what I did. As I said it’s a very long story but Andrea, who had been deserted by her husband, now had a new man friend called Fred, who was very jolly, and everyone agreed he made Andrea a lot more likeable. It’s a shame the same couldn’t be said for her cat, Chanel. Chanel was George’s first crush, she was a mean, unfriendly cat, and George’s devotion to her had been quite alarming. Luckily he had moved on now and saw her for the scowling cat she was. Despite the family being friends of ours now, Chanel still hissed at us whenever she saw us. Not everyone is kind, unfortunately, and not everyone wants to be a good friend. I am, George is, my humans are, but Chanel certainly isn’t. Thankfully George has learnt to give her a wide berth, and her hiss is definitely worse than her bite – not that we ever get close enough to test that theory.

‘Right, it’s getting late, we should be getting home before Claire worries,’ I said, worn out from rolling and covered in sand.

‘OK, but we can come and play this again, can’t we?’ George asked.

‘If you’re good,’ Gilbert replied, giving me a blink.

‘I might need a day or two to recover,’ I said. ‘I’m not as young as you, George.’

‘No, but you’re not old either,’ he replied quickly. Gilbert and I exchanged a glance. Since losing Tiger, George was worried about losing me too. It was only natural but I wasn’t going anywhere. There were plenty of lives left in this cat yet.

‘Oh there you are boys,’ Claire said, when we walked into the kitchen, having done our best to get the sand off us and failed, as usual. When we went back to London from Seabreeze, the sand had a habit of coming back with us.

‘Meow,’ I said in greeting before the three of us headed over to our food bowls to eat our supper.

‘Right, well Jonathan and I are about to settle down to watch a film if you want to join us?’ she said. I loved how Claire always spoke and treated us as if we were humans. We were cleverer than most humans, but I appreciated the gesture anyway.

‘Meow,’ I said. Snuggling up on the sofa in front of a film sounded the perfect way to end the day.

We ate, cleaned up and headed into the small TV room. Gilbert took his spot on his favourite chair while George and I curled up in the middle of the sofa– the comfiest place.

‘Blimey, Claire, there’s barely any room for us, these cats take up all our space,’ Jonathan said as he squeezed himself into the small space we’d left for him.

‘But, darling, we wouldn’t have it any other way,’ Claire replied, kissing him on the cheek and trying to move us. George and I pretended to be asleep, so in the end, she had no choice but to sit on the floor in front of her husband.

Chapter Two

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‘Back to Edgar Road, tomorrow, son,’ I said, trying to hide my sadness that our holiday in Lynstow was coming to an end. I loved being here; I enjoyed the change of scene, especially getting to see Gilbert, I loved how relaxed my family seemed, not to mention the beach. I even quite liked sand now. Actually no, I tolerated sand but I struggle with the way it sticks to my fur like glue and makes grooming such hard work. But then I loved watching the sunset, and the soothing sound of the waves gently lapping the shore, so perhaps I’ll just have to put up with sand.

‘I know, Dad, and I’m glad to be going back, to see our friends and especially Hana, but I’ll miss it here, and I’ll miss Gilbert of course.’

‘Me too, but we’ll be back before you know it.’ All our families from London had pledged to come to holiday here together at some point and being here with all of them was one of my favourite times ever. Having everyone I love under one roof made me feel like the luckiest cat alive. Sure the cottage would be quite crowded, noisy and chaotic, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

‘But,’ George paused, looking a little upset. ‘This will be the first time we go back to Edgar Road and not see Tiger mum.’ His voice cracked, I could feel his pain. I nuzzled him, reassuringly.

‘I know, son,’ I said. Gilbert looked over at me and gave me a reassuring blink. ‘It’ll be strange not going back and telling her all about our holiday, but we can still tell her.’

The memory brought back the pain I felt every time I would walk past Tiger’s house, like I was being stabbed in the heart. There were times I would wait for her by the cat flap, even though I knew she’d never come out of it again – the sorrow hadn’t abated. It was hard, but as the grown-up, it was my duty to step up and help him through his grief.

I learnt that you can’t protect your children from loss; you can’t keep all the bad in the world away from them. However, you can do your best to help them cope with bumps in the road, it’s all any parent can do. Becoming a parent makes you realise how much capacity you have for love, but it also shows you your limitations. No matter how hard you try, you can’t control what the world will send your way.

The night was drawing in on our final holiday evening, and I thought about all those I had loved and lost. The pain doesn’t get any easier, but you do get used to it a bit more, I guess.

‘George, do you remember the first time we had to go past her house knowing she wasn’t there?’

‘Yes, I do, it was horrible in so many ways.’

‘What about the second time, when she wasn’t there at Christmas?’

‘It was difficult.’

‘I know, but what I want you to know is that it gets a little easier each time,’ I said with the authority of someone who knew this to be true.

‘But doesn’t that mean we don’t love her anymore?’ he asked.

‘No, it means we love her just as much as ever, but we also accept that we have to get used to her not being there,’ I tried to explain.

‘You know.’ Gilbert spoke for the first time in ages. ‘Missing someone is natural. George, I miss you when you’re not here in Lynstow, but I have to get on with life, and sometimes when I miss you, I just think of something you said, or when you made me laugh, and I feel better. I almost feel you here with me.’

I felt choked with emotion at Gilbert’s words.

‘I think of Tiger mum all the time.’

‘Look, George,’ I said, hopping on my paws excitedly as the stars began to appear in the sky. ‘Look at that bright star. What do you see?’

‘It’s her, I just know it,’ George said, sounding happier. ‘I can tell her all about how we’ve had a lovely holiday now.’ I nodded as he proceeded to do so. Gilbert and I looked on, giving him a bit of space to talk to his mum in the sky. I tried not to get caught up in the unfairness of it all. I still hadn’t accepted why she had to be taken from us, but I also knew that overcoming my own issues was part of process too, but something I felt I had to keep hidden from George. No yowling for this cat, at least not until I was alone.

‘You know we are lucky,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady, as George finished speaking.

‘We are,’ Gilbert said.

Gilbert came to live in Seabreeze Cottage after running away from his home. I learnt that not every human was kind to their pets and I felt so sorry for him when I first heard his story, but at least now he had us, and he loved his life here. We tried to get him to come and live in London with us, but he said he wouldn’t be able to live away from the sea. I could almost understand that, but I loved London too. I loved the traffic and the bustle, and of course, London was where my other friends and families lived too.

‘We’re lucky that we get to spend time here, together,’ George said. ‘And I’m lucky to have such good families and friends. Not to mention how blessed I am to be such a handsome and charming cat who everyone loves.’ George winked with his right eye.

‘Chip off the old block that one,’ Gilbert said, with a grin.

I had no idea what he meant.

Packing up the cottage was always a bit of a frantic time. Not for George and me– we did very little but watch on as Jonathan moaned about how much stuff Claire had brought. He would grumble ‘how on earth am I supposed to fit it in the car’ although he always did. George and I would sit on the lawn and watch him huffing and puffing and saying words that no child or cat should hear, sweat rolling down his face in the sun as he tried to get all the suitcases into the boot of the car. While he was doing that, Claire would be tidying the place. Although there was a caretaker at Seabreeze who cleaned the place and fed Gilbert, Claire wouldn’t dream of her thinking shewas above cleaning her own house. So she whipped through the house from top to bottom while the children got to play with their friends for the last time.

Gilbert had made himself scarce. We said goodbye to him that morning as we had a last walk before our long journey home. He didn’t actually like to see us go, he said it made him sad, so he would always disappear just before we were setting off. He was a softy at times, despite the fact that he was a survivor cat, who proved to be made of sterner stuff than many. I would miss him. But I knew we’d see him again soon. Andas I felt sad I remembered how lucky I was to have so many friends and such good ones at that.

Once the house was emptied of our stuff, Claire, as usual, had to check the house again before she was satisfied we hadn’t left anything behind. Jonathan would surely moan about the traffic they were bound to hit if we didn’t get moving soon. They rounded up the children who were tearful at having to say goodbye to their summer holiday. Claire jollied them along by reminding them they were going to see their friends at home soon, and George and I were put into our car carrier, which I didn’t love to be honest. Although George and me were in it together, and there was a soft blanket for us to lie on, I wasn’t a fan of feeling caged. It made me a bit anxious, not that I’d let on to George. It was a shame, I thought, as I hid my feelings that Jonathan didn’t do the same.

‘Claire, if we don’t get going soon I’m going to be driving for hours and hours longer than necessary,’ he snapped.

‘OK, keep your hair on, we’re ready. Toby, strap yourself in,’ she commanded as she strapped Summer into her car seat. Toby was old enough to do it himself. Finally, after going back to check the house one last time, Claire got into the car.

‘Right, can I leave now?’ Jonathan asked, sounding tetchy.

‘Yes, is everyone alright?’

‘I’m hungry,’ Summer said, and the long journey home began.

It was nightfall by the time we reached Edgar Road. Jonathan was right, the traffic had been terrible, but Claire managed to entertain him by asking him crossword clues. I learnt that if Jonathan felt clever he was happy, so I think Claire only asked him clues she knew he’d know the answer to. She was quite intelligent, my Claire. The children were given snacks, and finally, they fell asleep, which meant the journey was long but peaceful. Even George slept gently beside me. I was desperate to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. As Claire got the children intothe house and Jonathan took the luggage out, letting George and me out first, I breathed the London air, so different from Devon but so familiar.

‘Welcome home, son,’ I said as George and I stretched. Before we went into the house, I allowed myself a quick glance towards where Tiger used to live. No, it wasn’t easier yet, but I hoped that it would before too long as I swallowed back a yowl.

When Tiger was alive the first thing I would have done after a holiday was to have gone to see her, and tell her how glad I was to be home. But I couldn’t do that now, I couldn’t tell her how much I’d missed her, and it pained me to have to turn away from her house, knowing she was no longer there.

I blinked away a tear, ushered my son inside the house and stepped into the warmth of home. Once in the kitchen, I prepared to settle him down for the night, it had been a long and tiring journey. Frankly I just wanted to forget everything and sleep, hoping tomorrow I would wake up feeling better, or at least ready for a new day.

Chapter Three

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The week after getting back from Devon, I developed post-holiday blues. Jonathan had to go straight back to work to start his new job. Overnight the relaxed– well for Jonathan anyway – holiday Jonathan was replaced by an even more stressed out one than usual. Claire had to get the children ready to start school again – buying uniforms, shoes and bags and organising clubs; it was a flurry of activity for everyone. But I felt flat, and although I got to see my other humans and cat friends, I still couldn’t quite shake the gloom.

It didn’t help that London was greyer than Devon and I was feeling more than a little bit down in the dumps. I kept telling George that our grief over Tiger would get easier, but it wasn’t feeling that way at the moment. Seeing our cat friends on Edgar Road – Rocky, Elvis, Nellie, and even the sour-faced Salmon – couldn’t cheer me up. My paws felt heavy as I walked, although I knew I needed to snap out of it, I had no idea how. Being a cat wasn’t always as easy as people thought.

I did, thankfully, have a bit of time to myself to try to let out my sadness, which I could only do alone. George was next door with his best friend Hana, a lovely cat who moved here from Japan last year. Hana was about the same age as George, and she was‘Mikeneko’ which means she had a coat of three colours, in English, we would say Tortoiseshell. She was beautiful and sweet, one of the calmest cats I’d ever met – quite the opposite to my boy. I did wonder if George and Hana were more than friends, after all the boy was growing up. George could act a bit like a teenager when I asked him about Hana – he would shut me down pretty quickly, and say they were just good friends. His reluctance just made me want to know more …

However, they did adore each other regardless of their relationship status, and they saw one another most days. Hana had been a house cat in Japan and didn’t go out, something that both horrified and fascinated me. Since being in London, we had managed to get her out a bit, but she preferred being indoors. It was her choice, and I understood that it took all sorts of cats to make the world go round.

Hana lived next door to us with Sylvie and her teenage daughter Connie. Connie was the girlfriend of my first human child friend, Aleksy, who I had known almost from the first day I arrived at Edgar Road. I couldn’t believe he was a teenager now, my child friends were growing up fast. Aleksy and Connie had a sweet relationship, a lot of hand-holding and blushes. However, they were both clever children, and so I personally thought they were a good match.

Also, Sylvie was now seeing one of our other friends, Marcus, which made her happy. I had to admit she was a bit unstable when she first moved here, and she had me a little worried. She’d been through a horrible divorce, so it was understandable. She was lonely and missing her home in Japan. I knew how hard starting over could be, after all, I had done it. But lately, she smiled a lot. Also, she always gave us fresh fish when we visited which obviously helped. We all met Marcusthrough his father, Harold, who happens to be one of George’s best human friends. George and I saved his life last year when he was ill, and since then he’s become part of our family.

We know so many people, I know, it’s hard to keep track of them all, but that is what a doorstep cat does, and I’m very good at it if I do say so myself.

Perhaps the reason I was feeling glum was because I was feeling a bit left out. Everyone was in love, or at least it seemed that way, apart from me, who had lost the only two cat women I had ever loved. Snowball, my first love moved away with her family a few years back, and you all know about Tiger. Goodness, I really was feeling sorry for myself.

I didn’t usually wallow in self-indulgence, but today I was letting myself feel my feelings. So I curled up on Jonathan’s favourite cashmere blanket, which I am absolutely not allowed anywhere near, under any circumstances, and had a little therapeutic cat nap.

George woke me, bounding up to me excitedly and then sitting on my tail. He was a little bit clumsy sometimes, my boy.

‘Hey,’ I said, stretching my paws out and yawning.

‘Claire just came home with Toby, Summer, Henry and Martha and said that Polly was coming round in a bit with a surprise for us all.’ His eyes were wide with excitement. ‘I think that includes us, Dad.’

Since Jonathan had secured his big promotion, Claire had given up her part-time job so she could spend more time with the children. Polly worked irregular hours sometimes and Matt was quite busy, so Claire said she was a bit like their part-time nanny. Claire also looked after Harold, George’s old man friend who lived at the end of Edgar Road, Marcus’ father. She did his shopping and dropped in on him regularly making sure he ate a good lunch. Marcus lived with him and took care of him, but he had to work, and of course he also had Sylvie, so Claire helped out there a lot. She loved looking after people – and cats – and she was very good at it. Mind you, I think she learnt a lot of her skills from me.

‘A surprise, you say?’ I narrowed my eyes. ‘Do you think it’s food?’

‘I don’t know, but Claire said that Polly had sworn her to secrecy, the children are excited, and I’m hoping that it might be something for all of us, we should go downstairs so we don’t miss it.’ George hopped around excitedly, catching my tail yet again.

‘Yowl! George, you need to be more careful,’ I gently chastised. I knew he wouldn’t be, he never was. ‘Did you have a nice afternoon?’ I asked, thinking I may get to find out a little more about his feelings for Hana. ‘With Hana,’ I added.

‘Yes, I’ll tell you about it later, but come on, let’s go now otherwise we’ll never find out what this surprise is.

‘What on earth is that?’ George asked as eyes wide we stared at something wriggling in Polly’s arms.

‘I have never seen anything like it,’ I said. It was tiny. Smaller than George had been as a kitten. We all peered in, the thing was a light brown colour, with a dark brown snout and dark brown tips to his ears.

‘It’s a puppy!’ Martha shouted, going to her mum and trying to reach for it. George and I exchanged a glance. Surely not? They wouldn’t … Polly bent down.

‘Yes, it’s a puppy, but he’s very little, so we need to be gentle, and we also need to make sure that we don’t scare him by being too loud.’ The children crowded around.

‘Whose puppy is it?’ Summer asked, suspiciously.

‘Well, Summer, he is going to live with us at our house,’ Polly said. ‘But when I’m at work, he’ll be here with Claire, and with you guys when you get back from school, so in a way, he’s all of ours.’

‘A bit like Alfie and George?’ Toby asked. He was a bright boy.

‘Exactly.’

‘What’s his name?’ Henry asked.

‘We don’t have one yet, love,’ his mum replied. ‘So this afternoon we should all think of a name for him. He’s a pug by the way.’

‘Yay.’ The children all started throwing out suggestions and George and I backed away into the kitchen.

‘Puppy,’ Summer shouted.

‘Nah that’s boring,’ Henry replied.

‘Flower,’ Martha suggested.

‘But he’s a boy,’ Toby pointed out.

‘Spiderman,’ Henry shouted.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Summer replied.

George and I left them to it.

‘Is this what I think it is?’ George asked, sounding horrified.

‘What do you think it is?’ I asked.

‘A dog, they got a dog.’

‘I’m afraid it seems as if they have. Although it’s quite a strange-looking dog. And small, but it’ll probably grow a bit like you did.’ I couldn’t believe Polly would betray us like this. Who on earth got a dog when there were two perfectly good cats around?

‘And they said this dog will be at our house a lot,’ George said. ‘This cannot be happening. It’s the worst thing in the world.’ He put his head in his paws. I have to admit I felt like doing the same, but I had a feeling that this puppy was here to stay, and therefore, I had quite a lot of sorting out to do.

I’ve never been a dog fan, Tiger and I used to tease dogs on leads by getting them to chase us and sit just out of reach so they couldn’t get us – it was just so much fun. Although I have been chased by a dog or two in my time, I have never let one catch me. I always outsmart them. But I digress. The problem is that I think of dogs as being like cats but without the brains, which is why they don’t get to be independent the way we cats are. Perhaps my prejudice wasn’t a good thing to pass onto George. Because by the sounds of it, this puppy was going to be at our house a lot and I knew that we needed to be friends with it, I mean him. We couldn’t be mean, that wasn’t what we did. And the humans seemed to like him, so we had to too. It might not be easy, but we would have to do our best.

‘George, I might not be a fan of dogs, but I have to be honest with you, I haven’t actually spent any quality time with one.’

‘What? Never?’

‘Nope, and I don’t actually personally know any dogs,’ I explained.

‘So why do you say they are all terrible?’ George asked, eyes wide.

‘Um, good question. Sometimes we judge things before we really know them, I may have done that with dogs.’ I was desperate to limit any damage before George traumatised the very tiny dog. ‘I think it’s just a cat and dog thing, we are different from them, and that’s OK. This puppy, he’sa baby, we need to give him a chance.’ I wasn’t sure if I was making any sense, but this was a new side of me. I was being forced to turn my long-held convictions on their head. That wasn’t going to be easy.

‘So you mean this dog might be OK?’ He didn’t sound convinced, but then neither was I.

‘He might be, in fact, I’m sure he will be. Remember how we try to get everyone to be friends, well in this case that includes the puppy dog, I’m afraid.’ I had a feeling I wasn’t doing the best job ever. But this was a new situation for me.

‘Um, so I shouldn’t hiss at him? Or try to scratch him.’

‘No, George.’ Something occurred to me. ‘The thing is that he’s clearly a baby and he’s come to live with Polly and family, the way you came to live with us as a tiny kitten and that was quite frightening in the early days wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, and when Toby came to live with us he was frightened too wasn’t he?’ George had many faults, but he was a very perceptive lad. Toby was adopted by Claire and Jonathan a few years back. Now it seemed as if he had always been here with us, but it had been hard for him at first.

‘This dog might be feeling frightened and we must be superior cats to make sure he’s alright.’ I had always tried to impart that kindness was the most important thing we could do for one another.

‘Alright, Dad, in this case, I will do so but also if he does turn out to be the way you say dogs can be I can’t guarantee that I’ll be nice to him forever.’

‘That sounds reasonable and fair, George,’ I said. I hoped this puppy might prove me wrong about dogs. I’m not sure I felt that optimistic, though. But even I, faced with one of my long-held views, was questioning myself.

Claire came into the kitchen, clutching the puppy to her chest. He was tiny and had quite short legs. Even though I wasn’t sure how big he would grow to be, I desperately hoped he wouldn’t grow too big. Big dogs definitely scared me if they got too close.

‘Alfie, George, come and meet our new friend,’ she said, gently, moving towards us and kneeling down.

George and I exchanged glances as we tentatively moved nearer. I had never seen a dog like this up close before. He was calmer now and, as we peered at him, the little dog put his tongue out and licked his nose. Then he seemed to focus on us, with his big eyes, but it was hard to tell what he was thinking. Just then he gave a little wag of his short tail which sort of stuck to his bottom.

‘Oh goodness, he already likes you!’ Claire exclaimed. ‘Welcome to the family, and Alfie, George, it’s time for you to formally meet Pickles. The children voted and this name, which was Polly’s idea, actually won.’

Really? Just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Pickles? What kind of name was that? Even for a dog.

Chapter Four

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It was Monday, our first day alone with Pickles the pug. We’d locked eyes with him a lot, but not one of the children let him out of their sight. They really did seem to adore him, which put George’s nose out of joint a bit. Being usurped by a dog was pretty low.

Claire had given us a bit of a lecture this morning, because Pickles was coming to our house and would be left alone with us while Claire took the children to school. She wasn’t ready to take him on the school run, but said she would be doing so when he was a bit bigger. What this had to do with us, I had no idea, but we listened. Or I did, George was cleaning his paws and sulking.

She went on to share that our new‘friend’ Pickles was two months old. He was supposed to go to a family, but something happened, and they couldn’t have him at the last minute. Someone Polly worked with asked her if she knew anyone who wanted an adorable pug puppy, and Polly knew Matt had always wanted one. I was still comingto terms with the fact the children had been asking for a puppy (how dare they?), as it would also mean they had a pet who lived with them. I suppose, we visited often but didn’t live there, so Polly and Matt decided we all had a share in a puppy. Hmm.

Not one to keep things succinct, Claire told us that Pickles was allowed outside, because he had been to the vet. Apparently, he’d had the right injections, but he mustn’t go out on his own because he was a dog, not a cat. Not that we needed reminding of that. So, she was asking us to stay in with Pickles until she got back from the school run, rather than go into the garden or for our usual early morning walk. Torture for a doorstep cat. Finally, she finished talking just as the doorbell went and we opened it to find Polly, Henry and Martha stood on our doorstep. Henry was holding Pickles.

Polly rushed off as she was running late, the children all crowded around Pickles in the hallway, fussing him. George looked at me.

‘Is he going to take all the attention off me forever?’ George sounded horrified.

‘Of course not, he’s a novelty right now but what do I always tell you? There’s enough love to go round.’

‘Um, maybe, but I am so much cuter than him.’ George stomped his paw.

‘Of course you are, George.’

George was so used to being the centre of attention, and now there was a new pet on the block. This might not be as straightforward as I thought. Actually, I never thought it would be straightforward, but this was threatening to be more of a nightmare than I imagined.

‘Hello,’ I said, unsure if he would be able to understand me when George, Pickles and I were finally alone.

‘Are you my new friends?’ Pickles asked.

‘Yes, I suppose we are your new friends,’ I replied. He sounded young, and if I was honest, when he looked at me with his big eyes, he was quite adorable. But George was still sulking, I’m not sure he agreed.

‘I’m happy to meet you both,’ Pickles said. ‘It’s scary living with a new family, but everyone seems so nice,’ he mouthed, as he ran around in a circle. Why can’t puppies stay still?

‘What are you doing?’ George asked, scowling in Pickles’ direction.

‘I’m trying to catch my tail,’ Pickles replied.

He might get smarter as he got older, I thought, and tried to convey this to George through my glare.

‘So are you settling in well?’ I asked. It still felt a bit awkward, although it was easier to talk to him now he was no longer running in circles.

‘Yes, I cried a bit last night because I felt lonely. Henry convinced Polly that I could sleep on his bed, so I snuggled up to him, and that wasn’t quite so bad.’

‘You like to talk,’ George pointed out.

‘Be nice,’ I whispered to George.

‘Welcome to Edgar Road,’ George said, not exactly sounding welcoming.

‘And we both arrived here on our own at different points. So you know, if you feel a bit down, you can talk to us,’ I said, more kindly.

‘Thank you, I think I’m going to like it here,’ Pickles said. Then he sat down and smiled at us with his wrinkly face.

‘Dad, can I go out?’ George asked.

‘We’re supposed to be looking after Pickles,’ I pointed out.

‘But I told Hana I’d go and see her this morning.’ Although Hana didn’t go out much, she had a cat flap, so George visited her regularly, as did I sometimes. I didn’t want to force him to stay and help me with Pickles as he’d probably end up resenting me for it, so I thought I’d be best off letting him go. Although, I would have liked to go out …

‘OK, I can take care of Pickles, but you need to get used to him because he’s going to be here a lot,’ I whispered to George, as we moved towards the back door.

‘Fine, and I will be nice, but now I would rather be with my actual friend.’ George sounded a bit surly; he was still a little put out at how the children ignored him as soon as Pickles arrived on the scene. It was jealousy, something that siblings often suffered from. Goodness, get me I was already thinking of him as if he was part of the family, which was very magnanimous of me if I did say so myself.

‘But give Pickles a chance, George, after all he might be a bit like a brother to you now.’

‘Well perhaps, seeing as you are so keen to adopt the puppy, you might tell him not to eat your food,’ George snapped before he disappeared out of the cat flap. I turned to see Pickles, nose deep in my breakfast.

‘Pickles, that food is not for you, it’s for cats,’ I said, trying not to sound angry. I had been saving that, though, so now I’d be hungry later.

‘I thought it tasted a bit funny. Never mind, can we go and play now?’

Oh goodness, I thought, here I was yet again in the role of reluctant parent. Why did this keep happening to me?

I was so pleased to see Claire when she came home that I ran straight into her legs and gave them a welcoming rub. I was also happy to see that she had Sylvie with her.

Pickles had been very busy, exploring the house; he had tried to get into every cupboard, thankfully he didn’t succeed. Finally he found some food that the kids had dropped under the kitchen table, which he ate despite me telling him not to before he ran into a door. He was clearly in the learning stage of life, and only at the very beginning. After he’d eaten, he then ran up and down the kitchen forno apparent reason before jumping into the dog bed that Claire had put in the corner for him.

‘Are you alright?’ I had asked. He was breathing quite heavily and making a snorting, or snuffling noise.

‘I have had so much fun with you this morning, Alfie, but I’m tired now so I might just close my eyes.’ As he had drifted off to sleep, I thought about joining him, I was so exhausted.

‘Oh my goodness he’s so cute,’ Sylvie said, picking him out of his bed and giving him a cuddle. I kind of understood how George felt, as I became invisible.

‘Isn’t he? The kids love him, and Polly is besotted. I think she wanted a third child, but Matt put his foot down, so Pickles has taken that place.’

‘Makes sense. I’ve always been more of a cat person myself, but he is adorable. Look at that little face.’ As Pickles wiggled into Sylvie’s arms, Claire gave me a head scratch.

‘Where’s George?’ she asked me.

‘Meow,’ I replied.

‘He’s at ours,’ Sylvie replied, ‘he came in just before I bumped into you.’

‘Right, shall I put the kettle on?’ Claire said.

‘Please, I’d love a coffee, but then I’m not sure I can bear to pull myself away from Pickles to drink it.’

‘Honestly, everyone adores him. But then we have to make sure Alfie and George don’t feel left out,’ Claire said. Ah, so someone had noticed us after all. I purred with pleasure.

‘Claire, you treat those cats as if they’re your children sometimes.’

‘They are.’ Claire shrugged and I purred in agreement.

‘So how are things with Marcus?’ Claire asked, and I settled down to listen to the latest news.

‘Good, we’re taking it slowly, what with all we’ve both been through, but it’s nice having him live so near, and he’s such a good man. Also, he grounds me, stops me from my you know, my darker thoughts, I guess.’

‘I heard a whisper that Harold thinks you are wonderful,’ Claire said with a laugh.

‘From Harold, that is a huge compliment,’ Sylvie laughed. Harold could be very grumpy but a bit like a chocolate, despite the hard exterior he had a soft centre.

‘And speaking of Harold, I have to go and see him in a bit, shall I take you, Pickles?’ Claire asked.

‘Woof,’ Pickles replied, and I knew that although he had no idea who Harold was, he very much wanted to go and I would be able to have a luxurious rest on my own.

Chapter Five

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After a frankly exhausting time with Pickles the pug, I went out to see if any of my friends were about. I hoped to bump into George who seemed to be giving the house a wide berth. I needed to talk to him because Pickles needed us, both of us, and I needed George to see that. I also could have used the help, having been run ragged by the puppy. And it was only day one.

I understood George had mixed feelings. Not only had I always told him to avoid dogs, but he was now supposed to accept someone into his life, his family, that he was unsure of.

I padded over to the area where we cats often hang out, sort of our recreation ground on Edgar Road. Nellie was there, lying near a bush, and Elvis was nearby playing with some leaves. I joined them.

‘Hey, Alfie,’ they both greeted me.

‘Have you seen George?’ I asked.

‘He came by earlier and said that he was going to see Harold.’

‘Right, and did he tell you about the puppy?’ I asked.

‘Yes, and I got the impression he’s not too impressed,’ Nellie said. ‘He said that dogs are dumb and he shouldn’t have to be nice to it.’

‘Pickles, not it,’ I said. ‘Goodness, this might be worse than I thought. I was afraid that this might happen, but Pickles is just a baby, and it looks like he’s a full member of the family now. They’re not going to give him back after all. And I wouldn’t want that to happen to any pet.’

‘A dog, in a cat’s world,’ Elvis mused.

‘What am I going to do? I’ve always been against dogs, but now I am babysitting one! Anyway, I like him, and I need to find a way to get George to do the same.’

‘Your life is always getting complicated, isn’t it?’ Nellie pointed out. She was right, it was. And now there was Pickles.

‘The lad is still hurting about Tiger, and now there’s yet another change in his life.’ Elvis could be a very wise cat when the mood took him.

‘I know, so I can’t be too demanding, but I think I need to get him to at least tolerate Pickles sooner rather than later. He’s going to be at our house a lot, and I don’t want George to go out every time he comes.’ I felt a shudder run through my fur at the thought of me having to babysit the dog alone. I didn’t want Pickles to come between us. ‘And when he’s a bit older we can probably go out and leave him. Or maybe Claire will take him with her more, dogs tend to go out with humans a lot, so it’s just in the short term. Hopefully.’ The idea that I could sell this to George cheered me.

‘Exactly, Alfie, this dog is now part of the family, so maybe you should just get George to think of him as his little brother and teach him what he knows,’ Nellie said.

‘What?’ I was confused.

‘Well, if they brought another kitten in he might be a bit jealous at first, but then you’d say he was a big brother and he had to teach the kitten to cat, so why don’t you give him that role with Pickles?’

‘You know, Nellie, you might have something there. I’ll tell him he’s a big brother now with responsibility, and if he teaches Pickles all he knows—’ I paused and tried not to think of all the scrapes George got himself in ‘—then he might accept him more readily. You guys are amazing,thank you. And where’s Rocky?’

‘Oh he was tired, so he went off for a nap. That cat likes its sleep.’

‘What cat doesn’t?’ I replied.

George appeared shortly afterwards, saving me from having to go and find him.

‘How was Harold?’ I asked. Harold and George shared a love of digestive biscuits, among other things. Harold dunked them in strong tea, until they were soggy and then fed them to George.

‘He was fine, good actually. It’s nice and quiet at his house. Not like ours,’ George replied in that stroppy way of his when he was sulking. ‘Although Claire took Pickles to see him earlier and even he said the dog was sweet.’ He stomped his paw.

‘George, I know you’re not happy about Pickles, but I need you to help me,’ I started, carefully.

‘Help you do what?’ George asked, sounding surly.

‘George, when you came to live with me, I was your dad straight away, and you were so tiny, there was so much for me to teach you.’

‘So?’ Gosh this boy could act like a teenager at times.

‘Well, you had me, and our cat friends, and Tiger mum to help you learn as you grew, so that made you very lucky.’

‘S’pose.’

‘Right, but Pickles, well he doesn’t have anyone to guide him, apart from us. And I know it’s different because he’s a dog but he doesn’t have any other dog friends. He probably misses his mum very much, he’s just a baby.’

‘I guess so. But what can I do about it?’

‘You can be a big brother to him, like Aleksy, Henry and Toby all are. It’s a very important, responsible role.’

‘It is?’

‘Of course, you’ve seen how much our human big brothers take care of the little ones, and it’s a role that I think you are ready for.’

I noticed that Elvis and Nellie were listening and trying not to grin. We all knew the way to get George to agree to anything was flattery.

‘In fact,’ I continued, ‘you would probably make the best big brother ever.’

No,’ George said. Which surprised me.

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘He doesn’t live with me so he can’t be my brother.’ He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

‘What about a cousin then?’ Nellie suggested. ‘I’m like an aunt to you, George, so how about you be a big cousin to Pickles.’

‘That’s a great idea, Nellie.’ I nuzzled her in gratitude.

‘But what do I have to do as a big cousin?’ George asked.

‘You can teach him things,’ Elvis said.

‘Yes,’ Nellie added. ‘You are a cat, and he’s a dog, but there’s still plenty you can show him.’

‘You mean that I can teach him things that I can do?’ George at least sounded interested now.

‘That’s right, George. You can also show him how to be kind, how to be caring, all the important lessons that we taught you,’ I added.

‘And what about you? You can’t be his dad because you’re my dad,’ he said, and I heard jealousy rearing up in his voice.

‘If you’re like a cousin to him then maybe I can be a bit like an uncle to him. Does that sound OK with you? Because you are my son, my number one and you always will be, understood?’

‘Yes, you’re right, we need to be nice to Pickles. He can be my friend, after all.’ George hopped around, and even I was surprised by the sudden change in attitude.

‘Oh George, that’s so great, and you’ll grow to love him, I’m sure you will.’ I crossed my paws he would anyway.

‘After all, I have a very big heart,’ George said.

‘You do,’ Nellie agreed, in the motherly way of hers.

‘The biggest,’ Elvis added, he was a wise cat, when he felt like it, as he licked his paw.

‘And I am proud of you every single day,’ I added, as emotion overwhelmed me.

‘A bit like how I was friends with Hana when she moved from Japan and was lonely, I can try to be the same with Pickles. But Hana’s my best friend, so I won’t like Pickles as much as I like her.’

‘That’s OK.’ I sensed the need for baby steps.

‘You’re right, Dad. Pickles is a silly puppy, who doesn’t know anything, right?’

‘I’m not sure about the silly part but yes,’ I agreed. Actually, he was silly, but I was trying to get George to bond with him, not tease him.

‘So, I need to teach him everything I know,’ George added.

‘Exactly,’ I agreed.

‘I will do what you asked, and I will start tomorrow morning. I’m going to teach Pickles catting.’

‘Eh?’ Nellie said.

‘It makes sense. Pickles is a dog, and everyone knows they’re not as good as cats, so I will increase his chances by teaching him to be like me.’

Nellie, Elvis and I blinked at each other. It wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but seeing as I had somehow led him to this place I couldn’t argue. I didn’t have a paw to stand on after all.

‘It’s more about teaching him things you know,’ I reiterated.

‘And I know how to be a cat. So that is what I will teach him. I’m going to teach Pickles how to be a cat, and I just can’t wait to get started.’

Chapter Six

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The education of Pickles would have to wait because we had headed next door to Sylvie’s for a Japanese night. The night started out badly when Jonathan was late, because of his new job, which led to an angry hushed exchange at our house between him and Claire. I knew it was because he wanted to change out of his suit, but Claire said he didn’t have time, and that he should haveleft work earlier. I could see both points, Jonathan was working hard, which he had warned us he would have to, but the reality wasn’t as easy as the theory, it seemed.

Sylvie served up some wonderful Japanese food, including raw fish– sashimi – for me, Hana and George before the humans were seated. It was delicious. When Sylvie hosted Japanese night, as many of our families who could make it usually attended. Tonight Polly and Matt couldn’t be there, and Tomasz was working, so it was just Claire and Jonathan, Franceska, her children, Aleksy and Tommy, along with Harold, Sylvie, Marcus and Connie. And us cats of course. Our children were being looked after by our babysitter, Rosie, who lived on our street and helped out for us all from time to time.

‘Who’s hungry?’ Sylvie asked, ushering everyone to sit around their large dining table where the colourful food was laid out waiting for the humans. I wanted to bound over and get stuck in, but I had to show Hana and George manners, so I held back, although my mouth was literally watering from the taster I’d enjoyed beforehand. Harold made a huge fuss of George as usual as he slowly made his way over to the feast.

‘Have you got any bread? Any English food?’ Harold asked, once seated. He insisted on coming to Japanese night, but he refused to eat the food. Perhaps there was some hope of an extra portion?

‘I’ll get you some, Harold,’ Connie offered. ‘Would you like a sandwich?’ she asked, sweetly.

‘If you insist and a nice bit of ham wouldn’t go amiss,’ he mumbled.

‘Anything for you, Harold,’ Sylvie said. She was so calm and patient these days, which with Harold you had to be.

‘Wine?’ Marcus asked, filling up glasses with a warm smile.

‘Yes please,’ Tommy asked, and giggled. Out of the two boys he was the most likely to get into trouble.

‘Tommy, you are far too young,’ Franceska chastised, ruffling his hair in her maternal fashion.

‘As are you, Connie, before you get any ideas,’ Sylvie added but it was all in good humour. Tommy was nearly thirteen, and Connie and Aleksy almost fifteen, growing up so fast. When I first met Tommy, he was still in a pushchair. Goodness, that made me feel old.

‘So how’s the puppy settling in?’ Marcus asked.

‘Ah, he’s gorgeous,’ Claire said. ‘So sweet and so much fun.’

‘But not as gorgeous as our George,’ Harold said, and I purred in agreement.

‘I can’t wait to meet him,’ Connie added. Claire had organised a sort of ‘welcome to the family’ party for him at the weekend, which of course annoyed George. His whiskers had definitely been put out of joint.

‘I know, I haven’t even seen him yet,’ Jonathan added. ‘Working long hours means I barely see my own family let alone the new puppy.’ He sounded sad, and I did worry about him. He and Claire said it would only be like this while he settled into his new job, and I just hoped it wouldn’t take too long for things to change.

‘But the weekend will be lovely, having us all together,’ Claire reiterated. ‘Harold, you’re definitely coming, aren’t you?’

‘As long as we get some normal food,’ he blustered.

‘Luckily we don’t get easily offended,’ Marcus laughed. But we were all used to Harold’s ways, and we loved him for it.

‘Then after lunch, we can watch the footie together, Harold,’ Jonathan said.

‘Now, you’re talking.’ He grinned.

‘Can we do anything?’ Sylvie asked.

‘No, all under control, just bring yourselves,’ Claire beamed.

‘And Tomasz has promised he will definitely be here,’ Franceska said. Tomasz could work too hard at the restaurant as well, but he was much better lately now he had a full team of staff in place.

‘I’ll probably be the one to play most with the puppy,’ Tommy said.

‘How come?’ his mum asked.

‘Because I’m the odd one out now. Connie and Aleksy spend the whole time holding hands and making gooey noises, and the other children are still really young kids, so I am in the middle. I’ll train the puppy, I might get him to do some tricks. Even teach him to dance.’

Good luck with that, I thought, as I headed over to experience our feast.

I sat back and cleaned myself up, hoping that a morsel might make its way in my direction. George and Hana were occupied, their little heads almost touching, and paws entwined. I was just glad they had each other.

‘George told me all about the puppy,’ Hana said, as I joined them. ‘He sounds interesting,’ she said carefully.

‘Pickles, he’s quite exhausting but quite sweet, Hana. I’m sure you’ll meet him soon,’ I said.

‘I would like to meet him, I’ve never met a dog before, but I’m a little nervous,’ she said. She’d lived a very sheltered life in Japan.

‘Don’t worry, Hana I will be right by your side when you do,’ George said, puffing his chest out.

‘Oh George, you are the best,’ she replied.

‘Then I’m excited to meet him,’ she finished, with a grin. I smiled, because these two were like chalk and cheese. George, a bundle of energy who barely ever stood still and Hana, so calm, even the way she moved was sleek and graceful. George had all the grace of a dog. Oh goodness, now with Pickles in our lives, I really ought to stop thinking that way.

I left my boy happily playing with Hana, and I went back to see the humans. I jumped onto Aleksy’s lap and let him fuss over me. He also gave me some of his leftovers, which I received gratefully.

‘Does Alfie like the puppy?’ Aleksy asked.

‘You know Alfie, he’s kind to everyone,’ Claire said, echoing my thoughts.

‘But you know, cats don’t always like dogs,’ Jonathan pointed out.

‘Alfie and George seem to have taken to him, and he already adores them. He follows them around everywhere.’

‘Alfie, you need to come to our house soon, Dustbin has been really busy, but he’d like to see you,’ Tommy said. Franceska, Tomasz, Aleksy and Tommy lived a few streets away from Edgar Road, and I visited them often, I even stayed there sometimes, but I hadn’t been over since before the holiday. With everything going on, I just hadn’t had a minute. Dustbin worked for the restaurant, he kept the rodents at bay, and we were great friends. He was a feral cat with one of the biggest hearts I knew. He’d helped me get out of a few scrapes over the years, and I missed spending time with him. I wondered if it would be safe to leave George and Pickles alone the following day. It might give George a sense of responsibility and also allow him and Pickles to bond a bit. That way we all win, George would get to be a big brother, or cousin rather, and I got time off. Perfect, it was another good plan.

‘Tomorrow we have careers day,’ Aleksy said.

‘What’s that?’ Jonathan asked.

‘It’s a day of learning about different jobs that we might want to do, so we can begin to think about it,’ Connie explained.

‘God, you are so young, I had no idea what I wanted to do until about ten years ago,’ Marcus said.

‘I’m not sure I’ve decided yet,’ Jonathan joked.

‘Not helpful,’ Claire chastised.

‘What do you do?’ Tommy asked Marcus.

‘I had my own business, but I sold it, so now I work for a business advisory company, where we help companies find ways to grow. I actually quite like it,’ Marcus explained. Tommy made a face.

‘And I work in investments in the City,’ Jonathan added.

‘I’m going to be a fireman,’ Tommy announced. ‘I like to save people, and I like fires.’ No one really wanted to comment on that, and stayed quiet.

‘I think I’d like to work in restaurants,’ Aleksy said.

‘Ah, you just want to suck up to mum and dad,’ Tommy shot.

‘No I do not, I think the business side would be interesting. I like hospitality, and I like the fact that we make people happy with our food.’

‘Ah,kochanie, we would love for you to work with us one day, but it has to be what you want to do.’Kochanie was a Polish term of affection, Franceska used it a lot.

‘What about you, Connie?’

‘I’d like to be a solicitor, I think. Once I’m qualified, I can travel if I want to, or stay here.’

‘Her father’s a solicitor,’ Sylvie said; her voice filled with sadness and her eyes clouded over. It was a ‘Sylvie moment’, and it could go either way.

‘Maybe it’s in the blood then,’ Marcus quickly cut in, diffusing the situation. He was good at that. She was still bitter about her ex-husband and rightfully so, he went off with a younger woman and they recently had a baby. Connie’s father still lived in Japan, which was very hard for her,as she only got to speak to him on Skype occasionally. Marcus, though, was a top bloke. He knew how to handle the situation, and I was grateful that Sylvie had welcomed him into their lives.

‘It might be in my blood, I think it is,’ Connie finished. ‘Now I have to work hard and get the grades I need to study law at a good university.’

‘Right, let’s help with the clearing up,’ Franceska suggested and as chairs began scraping along the floor, and plates clanked together, all felt right once again.

George and I sat on the back doorstep of our house and watched the stars.

‘So tomorrow I’m in charge of the dog?’ George said, puffing his chest out importantly.

‘You and Pickles can spend some time alone, so you can share your wisdom with him,’ I said. ‘Remember, the most important thing, you need to be kind to Pickles.’

‘I will be, but does Pickles have to do everything I say?’

‘I think that sounds a bit more like you’re going to boss him around, rather than teach him.’

‘OK, but he’s the youngest. If he does something wrong, I can tell him to stop? I’m the boss because I’m the oldest.’

‘You absolutely can do that, as long as you tell him nicely.’

‘So I am in charge then.’

There was no point in arguing further. We enjoyed the night air for a bit longer, before we headed inside. I tucked George in where he slept on the end of Toby’s bed on his own blanket. It was so sweet, the bond they shared. At times like this, as I saw my family and my friends, I counted my blessings. Tomorrow I would see my other friend, which would make me very happy indeed. I just hoped and prayed that George and Pickles would be alright together. And that the house was still standing when I got home.

Chapter Seven

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The following morning, I took my time strolling to Franceska and Tomasz’ place. Autumn was in the air, and leaves were turning brown on the trees, ready to shed. It was one of my favourite times because I loved playing with leaves. It was a sunny but chilly day, and I intended to enjoy the time alone. Since becoming a parent, I had come to value alone time. Now thatGeorge was older and went off on his own, I veered from worrying about him to enjoying a bit of peace. However, since being joined by Pickles, I was reminded of when George was a tiny kitten, and I had barely any time to myself. As I enjoyed my walk, I passed a lot of legs on the pavement, people rushing around, busily, no one seemed as chilled as I was. I dodged some pushchair wheels and nearly got stepped on a couple of times, but I was an expert in dodging humans. I even saw a couple of dogs, on leads, and I tried to smile at them, but they didn’t seem to be that keen to smile back. Maybe my new relationship with the dog world would take time.

When I arrived, I scooted around the back of the restaurant through the alley I knew well, and headed to the dustbin area where I knew I would find my friend, Dustbin. He was aptly named. Even if he was a bit scruffy looking, and could be a little fragrant at times, I adored him. As did George.

‘Dustbin,’ I said, and then stopped. Next to him was a scruffy-looking female cat, who I had never seen before.

‘Ah Alfie,’ he greeted me. ‘What a nice surprise.’

‘Who is this?’ I asked as the cat, who on closer inspection was a ginger cat with very green eyes, gave me the once-over.

‘This is Ally, she lives in the next alley. We met when she strayed into my yard while you were away, and then she offered to help with the rodents, so we’ve been hanging out ever since.’

If cats could blush, I am pretty sure that Dustbin might have done so. In fact, I swear his whiskers turned a bit pink. Dustbin, although happy to be friends, was more of a loner cat so this was definitely a turn up for the paws. I was proud of him, and I was pleased for him if it was what I thought it was anyway.

‘Nice to meet you,’ Ally said. She looked a little shy suddenly, which for a big feral cat wasn’t that usual.

‘You too,’ I replied, as we looked at each other. ‘So you’re new around here?’

‘Not really. I live a few roads away, but then I was exploring one day and came across this place, met Dustbin, and we just got talking.’

‘So do you have a family or do you live outside like Dustbin?’

‘I’m a street cat,’ Ally explained. ‘I’ve never lived with a family myself. Dustbin told me so much about you and I thought that you sound nice and I’ve met the family who lives here, so I am very happy to meet you.’

‘Good to meet you too,’ I said.

‘Right, Alfie, I’ve got things to do. I’ll leave you two to it. See you later, Dustbin.’

‘See you later, Ally,’ Dustbin said, not quite meeting her eyes.

‘Bye,’ I said as she swished her tail as she strutted away. ‘Well, well well,’ I teased when Dustbin and I were alone.

‘Stop it, Alfie, I mean I know you always told me how nice female company was, but I’m a loner cat as you know. Then I met Ally and well, I can’t explain it, I just like hanging out with her.’

‘That is so great, and there’s nothing wrong with it. You like spending time with me as well,’ I pointed out.

‘Yeah but it’s different with Ally, I can’t explain it, and I’m probably far too old to be feeling like this, but I look forward to spending all my time with her, and I never want to be apart from her. Even now I kind of miss her.’ He sounded so young and unsure as he explained this.

‘Sorry, Dustbin, but you’re in love, it’s clear to see.’ I did a little hop, I loved to see my friends happy.

‘Don’t know about that, but she’s alright,’ he replied gruffly. I could see through his facade, he was different, had a bit more of a spring in his step, and he definitely seemed happier.

‘Right, well then, why don’t you and I find a nice sunny spot to chill out in, and you can tell me all about alright Ally.’

‘She’s a very good mouser,’ he said, sounding impressed and then he continued to talk about her.

It was both wonderful and slightly weird to see Dustbin this way. Only because he had never been one for other cats or people. Although he had grown fond of George and me, it was more because I didn’t give him much choice in the matter. When we first met he wasn’t that keen on being friends really. So to see him talking about Ally with his eyes lighting up and his voice almost bashful, it was definitely unexpected. Of course, I was happy for him. I’d been in love twice after all, so although it hurt when it was over, it was wonderful while I had it. Claire always went on about some bloke who said ‘it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,’ or something like that, and I totally agreed with that. Because love and loss go hand in hand, but they also both mean you are alive, your heart still beating. Listen to me; Dustbin had made me get all nostalgic and gooey. What was the world coming to?

‘If you ever need any advice about women, you know where to come,’ I offered as I stretched my paws out and got ready to leave. I needed to get back and make sure that Pickles and George were alright. Although part of me didn’t want to go there at all, terrified of what I might find.

‘Thanks, Alfie, but you know, it’ll be, you know, fine. I mean it’s nothing to worry about.’ He was still feigning nonchalance, but I saw how he really felt. We said our goodbyes, and I smiled all the way home.

The smile disappeared from my face as soon as I got through the cat flap. Claire was chasing Pickles. Arms outstretched she was running around after him but every time she got close he seemed to dodge her. Her face was getting redder and redder.

‘Pickles, drop, bad puppy,’ she said. George was sitting by idly licking his paws. What had he done? When Claire caught Pickles, she picked him up and took one of Jonathan’s favourite slippers – Italian and expensive – out of his mouth. Oh no, Jonathan would be furious.

‘Oh thank goodness you’re back, Alfie,’ Claire said. She looked a little frazzled. ‘These two have been running me ragged. Firstly, Pickles managed to get stuck under the sofa, and I have no idea how that happened, then he chewed a chair leg. All I did was visit Harold to take him his lunchand came back to find that George and Pickles were nowhere to be seen. I panicked and then found them in the garden, they’d got through the cat flap. Then finally he stole Jonathan’s favourite slipper, and he’s going to be so cross. How can a puppy be so much work? I’m going to collect the children. Please make sure that nothing happens when I’m gone.’ She barely took a breath before she left the house and stalked off.

‘Who wants to tell me what’s going on?’ I asked when alone with George and Pickles.

‘It was so much fun,’ Pickles said.

‘I was teaching him what I knew,’ George said. ‘Just like you said. So, I showed him the warm spot under the sofa, how was I supposed to know he wouldn’t be able to get out? And I can’t take responsibility for the chair leg, I did tell him that cats don’t chew things, but he’s not that quick to learn. He also licks everything which I think is weird.’

‘And the garden?’

‘I needed to go out, you know, for obvious reasons and he followed me through the cat flap. So you see, none of this is really my fault.’

The joys of parenting.

‘Right, listen up, both of you,’ I started in my sternest voice. ‘Pickles, George is right, we don’t chew things, so please can you try to keep your chewing to your toys.’ I walked over to his nice soft bed, full of toys that he could chew.

‘OK.’ he said, but as George said, he was young and I wasn’t sure if he understood or if I would have to tell him lots more times.

‘Secondly, if George goes out, then I don’t see why you can’t go with him as long as you both promise to stay in the garden.’

‘I promise I won’t let him leave the garden,’ George said.

‘Besides I need to learn to climb the tree,’ Pickles said,

‘Seriously?’ I turned to George, who tried not to smile. I swished my tail. George was definitely having a bit of fun with Pickles. Someday soon, Pickles would learn for himself that he can’t climb trees, I was pretty sure he couldn’t anyway.

‘So, on the whole, did I do good, Dad?’ George asked.

‘Not bad for your first day,’ I conceded, but I wasn’t entirely convinced. Claire clearly wasn’t anyway, but I needed to encourage George and Pickles’ relationship in whatever way I could.

‘And me, was I good?’ Pickles asked. I chose to pretend that I hadn’t heard. It was easier.

Thankfully before any more trouble could occur, the door opened, and Claire and the four children rushed in. They all headed for the kitchen and made a fuss of all of us, which was nice for George, before demanding snacks.

‘We’re going to put Pickles on the lead and take him to the park,’ Summer announced bossily. She was wearing her school uniform, her fair hair in a ponytail was bobbing behind her.

‘I’m so going to hold the lead,’ Henry said. He was the biggest of our younger children, very tall for his age, and he looked a little like his father with his light brown hair and nose sprinkled with freckles.

‘But I want to,’ Martha asked. Martha was usually the most laid-back of the children, apart from when it came to Pickles it seemed. She was such a pretty child with dark hair and big dark eyes. Polly, her mum, used to be a model and she often said that Martha took after her.

‘And me,’ Summer shouted.

‘But what about me?’ Toby said. Toby was the same age as Henry but was smaller. He had sandy blond hair and serious blue eyes. He was so gentle which with bossy Summer as a sister was a very good thing.

‘Listen.’ Claire had her best parenting voice on. ‘We will all take turns looking after Pickles. I will have to take him across the roads because I’m the grown-up, and the rest of the time you will have equal time holding the lead, I’ll use the stopwatch.’

None of them argued with that. If only Pickles and George were so easy to control.

I was tired by the time everyone had left for the park. I lay down on the sofa, and George joined me. We snuggled up together, which was lovely, and rare these days. George was usually too busy or pleaded to be too old for a cuddle with his old dad. He told me all about his day with Pickles.

‘He’s quite funny really, but then so naughty, and also a bit too easy to tease, so I’m sorry, but when I told him to stop chewing, he really didn’t listen. And he tried to eat my food, which he doesn’t even like. When I pointed out that you already told him it was cat food, he claimed heforgot. I think it might be harder than I first thought for him to be like me.’

‘Keep trying,’ I said, deciding not to tell him that I didn’t necessarily want Pickles to be like George, but to humour him for now. ‘And you’ll never guess what I found out today.’

‘What?’ George’s ears pricked up, he loved gossip.

‘Dustbin has got a girlfriend,’ I said.

‘No way! Oh my goodness, Dustbin who said love was soppy and he didn’t have time for all that, as he had too many mice to catch?’

‘Exactly. But I think he’s met a kindred spirit. Ally, from a nearby street actually, and she sees off the rodents with him.’

‘She sounds like the perfect match for him.’

I nodded, and purred, my boy was pretty perceptive. Now, if only he could teach Pickles that quality, we’d all be alright.

‘I like that Dustbin is happy. Can we visit him soon, and maybe I’ll get to meet Ally from the alley too.’

‘Of course, I’ll take you one day soon, when we don’t have to puppy-sit. I wonder if his relationship with Ally the same as yours and Hana’s.’ I was trying to dig, of course, I was.

‘I am getting to like Pickles a little bit. Especially watching him try to climb trees, it was so funny, he kept trying to grip his front claws, but they slid down, and he ended up on his bottom. The best thing was that he kept trying, which I suppose either shows great character or extreme stupidity, I’m not sure which.’ So he wasn’t giving me anything, as usual.

‘Let’s go for great character, it’s nicer,’ I replied, although I wasn’t sure that was the right answer either.

‘And then when Claire found us in the garden, she was a bit cross, so she took him inside, and he fell asleep straight away, you should have heard how loudly he snores. He sounds like a train.’

‘But you like him?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I like him. A bit anyway.’

This was progress. We snuggled up together, and both fell asleep.

Chapter Eight

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‘Oh for goodness’ sake, George, can you stop trying to trip me up,’ Claire snapped, as George followed her around, hanging around her legs too closely and hoping to get some scraps of food she was carrying. But Claire, preparing for the family get-together was stressed enough, without George adding to it.

‘George,’ I hissed. Trying to get him to come over. He bounded over to me.

‘What?’ he asked, looking at me innocently.

‘You know better than to annoy Claire when she’s stressed.’

‘But the food smells so good.’

‘And if we keep out of her way, we’ll get something nice, but for now, we need to let her get on with it.’

‘Claire, how much food do we really need?’ Jonathan asked, coming into the kitchen.

‘I don’t want anyone to go hungry,’ Claire replied.

‘You know it’s a good job I got a promotion; otherwise there’s no way we could afford all this,’ Jonathan moaned.

‘Oh shut up and go and get the drinks ready. Oh, and can you give the cats some food, to keep them out of my way.’

‘Meow!’I objected, I wasn’t in her way, it was all George. But I grinned at George, we were getting food, his annoying ways had worked in both our favour.

Family days were utterly precious, and my heart was full as the doorbell kept going, heralding the arrival of the people we loved.

Polly, Matt, the children and guest of honour Pickles arrived first. The children all crowded round Pickles, which I could tell annoyed George, although he had played with Summer and Toby that morning. Before I had much time to be fussed over by Matt, the door went again and in came, Tomasz, Franceska, Aleksy and Tommy. They made a huge fuss of George and me, which placated George. Tomasz picked Georgia up and cuddled him, Aleksy did the same to me. Franceska gave us both a stroke and Tommy took George out of Tomasz’s arms and ticked his head the way he loved. Before they even got past the hallway, the door went again. Sylvie and Connie came in, Connie make a beeline for Aleksy and Sylvie raising her eyebrows, but not objecting as they went off to the living room hand in hand.

‘Marcus has just gone to get Harold, so they’ll be here any minute. But I have to warn you, Harold said he didn’t sleep so well, so he’s a little moody today.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure George will cheer him up.’ George preened at that. He was the only one who could cheer Harold up after all, and I was so glad for anything that made him feel good about himself.

‘Watch what we taught Pickles,’ Henry said, to all of us. We watched. ‘Right, sit,’ Henry commanded. Pickles wagged his tail but didn’t sit. ‘SIT,’ Henry shouted. Pickles didn’t move,

‘You’re not doing it right, do it like this,’ Martha said. ‘Pickles, sit down,’ she commanded in her sweet voice, with a smile. Pickles barked.

‘I can do it,’ Toby said. ‘Pickles sit,’ he shouted. Pickles walked to the other side of the hall.

‘PICKLES, SIT RIGHT NOW!’ Summer shrieked. Pickles sat down, but then so did we all.

‘Well Summer wins the training prize I guess,’ Polly said.

‘No, she’s just the scariest,’ Claire said. ‘Summer, the secret to good puppy training is not to shout at him, he’s a baby, and you could scare him.’ She’d certainly scared me after all. Just as all hell threatened to break loose as Summer didn’t take criticism well, we were once again saved by the doorbell, and Marcus and Harold appeared. George, taking no chances, leapt into Harold’s arms, taking him by surprise.

‘Come in, and let’s get this party started,’ Claire said excitedly as everyone filed to different rooms in the house in a way which showed how used to being here everyone was. Like a proper family.

‘I’m happy to be here but to be honest, it’s getting colder than I like,’ Harold blustered. He loved to have something to complain about. It was September, and it wasn’t as hot as summer but it was hardly cold yet.

‘I can put the heating on for you,’ Claire offered, giving Harold a hug.

‘No, I can’t be doing with that central heating, it kills people,’ Harold said.

Really? Did it?

‘I don’t think it does, Dad,’ Marcus said, steering him to a chair. George was still attached to him. Those two, I thought, fondly.

‘Mark my words, in a few years’ time everyone will be talking about it. It’ll come out that it’s causing that global warming and the ozone layer and the lack of polar bears.’ George licked Harold’s face, he thought he was the cleverest man in the world.

I did sometimes wonder where Harold got his complaints from, and by the looks on the faces of my humans, they did too. Thankfully they all loved him very much.

I was in heaven as I moved from room to room to check on my loved ones. The women were in the kitchen, drinking wine, eating and chatting. The men were all in the living room, with drinks, plates of food and George who hadn’t left Harold’s side sitting together on the chair he was settled in. I had a suspicion they were sharing food, but I was too happy to tell him off. As long as he was having a good time, I would have to accept it. The children, along with Pickles, were upstairs joined by Tommy, who protested he was too old to hang out with the younger ones but actually secretly enjoyed making up games for them to play. What he’d done was to set up an obstacle course for Pickles on the upstairs landing. There was a toy horse jump, a tunnel that Summer used to love when she was little, a hoop which one of them had to hold for him to jump through and a stool for him to climb on and off. Pickles seemed very confused by this and kept getting it wrong.

‘No, Pickles, you don’t sit down in the tunnel,’ Summer who was the bossiest of all the children chided. Even her words didn’t work this time. The problem was that Polly had taught them that if they wanted Pickles to do something, they had to offer a treat as a reward, but they were giving him treats before he did anything. All the treats had gone, and Pickles was none the wiser in how to do an assault course.

‘I know,’ Tommy said. ‘I’ll go and get George, he can show Pickles how it’s done.’

I raised my whiskers, George, hopefully, would be pleased to be given such a role. I waited until Tommy came back upstairs, George wriggling in his arms. He didn’t seem that happy, actually.

‘Right, George, please can you show Pickles how to do an obstacle course,’ Tommy begged. George came to where I was and sat with his back to the children. Oh dear.

‘What’s wrong?’ I whispered.

‘They ignore me, and now they want me to show the dumb puppy how to do something so basic,’ he hissed back.

‘George, they love you, they pretty much ignored me too, but Pickles is new to them. Perhaps show them how fantastic you are and it might help Pickles too,’ I coaxed, gently.

‘I am fantastic, aren’t I?’

‘You are, son.’

‘Meow,’ George said loudly and he went to join the children. As they cheered him, I saw him preen, and I was happy how easy it was for us all to be friends, or almost friends in any case.

Connie and Aleksy sat on the stairs holding hands and whispering to each other, but the important thing is that they didn’t sneak off into one of the bedrooms, so I didn’t have to worry too much. I jumped onto Aleksy’s lap.

‘Hey, Alfie,’ Aleksy gave me a nice head scratch.

‘I tried to bring Hana, but she didn’t want to come, I think she just wanted some peace and quiet,’ Connie said. I didn’t blame her for staying away, this was not for the faint-hearted, although she normally came with us, she didn’t always. Suddenly Pickles knocked into George, and sent him flying, with caused George to yowl and land on his tail. Then George, showing his balance, fell off the stool and landed on Pickles, who cried out, but seemed unhurt, and the children all shrieked with laughter. George really did seem to be taking Pickles under his wing and he tried to show him calmly exactly how an obstacle course was done.

‘Wow, Pickles actually does follow George,’ Toby said. ‘He’s almost doing it right now!’

George basked in all the praise.

‘Right, children, can you come and eat please.’ Claire’s voice floated up the stairs. Everyone carried on doing what they were doing. ‘NOW,’ she shouted, and we all traipsed downstairs, the children a little reluctantly, I was far keener.

George and I had a bowl of fat pilchards awaiting us, and Pickles tried to muscle in.

‘Not for you,’ Matt said, scooping him up, thankfully. I was a very tolerant cat, but no one came between me and my pilchards. Pickles let out a cry. ‘No, Pickles, you need to eat only puppy food, mate, I’m afraid. You don’t want to get fat do you?’

Pickles looked as if he would very much like to get fat.

After eating, the children went out into the garden, Pickles was fast asleep in his bed, and George and I were satisfyingly full after our lovely meal. Harold was asleep in the living room, snoring contentedly. I felt my heart swell with love for all my friends and I wished it could always be like this.

Chapter Nine

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I went through my mental checklist alone in the garden before Pickles would inevitably break through the cat flap again. It was October already, time was passing, and winter was creeping ever closer. I did prefer the warm weather, not least because I had an old leg injury, which flared up more in the winter. Anyway, I wasn’t going to dwell on that. I was going to make the best of things, which is what this cat always did.

My chaperoning skills were going to be essential today because George hadn’t been able to visit Hana for a couple of days. Knowing how happy they made each other, I knew he needed to do that. After Claire dropped the children at school, she’d be home most of today, so it wasn’t as if I would be in sole charge of Pickles, thankfully.

Marcus took Harold to somewhere called a‘Senior Centre’, a place where he could socialise with other old people, most of whom he claimed not to like, so I really had no idea why he went. But with a day to herself, Claire would clean the house, do the laundry, tidy all the children’s rooms, and change all the bedding – it was quite exhausting to watch. When she’d finished that she would then sit down with a well-deserved cup of coffee and her book – and hopefully me, before going to pick the children up from school. It wasn’t easy being a housewife, which I believe is her official job title. It was hard to see how anyone could have an outside job, and look after a house and children once you’d seen Claire in action.

Claire used to love working, she’d had a good job in marketing, but after she had Summer, she lost a bit of her ambition. Then when Toby came to live with us, she felt the children were her priority. It turned out she loved being a mum more than anything, and she was lucky, with Jonathan’s job and the fact she was very sensible with money, she was able to devote herself to doing what she loved. Also, I was unsure how we would cope if Claire and Jonathan both worked as we all needed a lot of taking care of. Not to mention what would happen to Pickles after all. I like to think it was seeing me taking care of those I cared about that made Claire realise it was what she wanted to do. And we were both quite good at it.

Back to my checklist. All my humans were doing well at the moment, I thought, as I ran through them one by one. The children were happy and not arguing with each other, and of course, having Pickles had perked them up the way George had when he first came to live with us. Aleksy and Connie were happy and perhaps the most sensible teenagers the world had ever seen. And the adults were not causing me problems for once. We were all happy and harmonious on Edgar Road, including my extended families in the neighbourhood of course. Even Pickles.

Then there were the cats. Luckily my lovely friends were all fine; having lost Tiger I did fret about the other cats a bit, but they all seemed in good health. Dustbin’s new girlfriend was definitely an interesting turn up for the books. George was coping; even though he still missed Tiger, but we were dealing with that. It would take a lot of time to heal. It became more important to me to understand what was actually going on with Hana and him. It wasn’t just out of noisiness, but concern. Or that’s my story, and I am sticking to it.

Life was calm, and I just crossed my paws that the turmoil of last year was long behind us. Not that having Pickles was particularly calm, but you know what I mean.

The cat flap bashed, and George sprang through it, followed at a more leisurely pace by Pickles.

‘Hello, Alfie,’ he said, as he stood on the grass then he bent down to lick it. He was actually very cute, even his wrinkly face seemed adorable to me now.

‘Pickles, how are you?’ I asked.

‘I am very well. I was a bit sick this morning, but Polly said it was because I wasn’t supposed to eat the children’s breakfast – Henry fed me some off his plate, so he’s in a bit of trouble but how am I to know?’

‘It’s hard, I agree. Pickles, the general rule of thumb is that if it’s in your food bowl, then it’s yours. If it’s not, then it isn’t,’ I explained.

‘No, that seems far too hard to remember.’ His wrinkled face wrinkled even more. ‘I think I’ll just have to take my chances.’

‘See what I mean?’ George hissed. ‘Pickles, show my dad how you climb trees.’

‘Yes, yes, I will.’ We watched as Pickles approached a tree in the garden, and started trying to climb its trunk. It was fruitless, his front legs slid off the bark as soon as he moved them. Then he decided he’d try to jump, but he couldn’t jump very high yet, and landed with a bump. Yet again I had to intervene.

‘Maybe tree climbing isn’t going to be your thing. After all, I’m not keen either,’ I said. George was studying his paws intently.

‘But if I can’t climb a tree then I’ll never be a cat.’

‘Pickles, you’re a puppy who will grow up to be a dog, not a cat,’ I said gently.

‘But cats are best, George said so, so if I do everything he teaches me, I can grow up to be a cat.’ Pickles turned to look at me, his eyes full of hope. What on earth could I say? I turned to look at George.

‘I really need to go and see Hana,’ he said as he ran off.

‘How about we go inside, and I’ll teach you how to have a lovely rest,’ I suggested.

‘Do cats do that?’ he asked.

‘Of course, it’s one of the things we do best.’ With no idea what we were getting into with Pickles, I ushered him back through the cat flap and into the house. Thankfully, our sofa was low enough for Pickles to jump on, so I led him there, jumped up and gestured for him to do the same. He wriggled around a bit on the sofa cushion, his little paws padding up and down. Then he chose a spot and licked a cushion before sitting on it. I didn’t really understand dog behaviour, but then I had no experience. Give me a human or a cat any day.

‘So, lie down, and then we can both close our eyes and have a rest. That’s very good cat behaviour.’ I felt guilty for using George’s naughty plan, but then I was quite tired, I’d already done quite a lot of thinking today.

‘OK.’ He lay down, resting his head on his paws and before long he was snoring quite loudly. When I was sure he was asleep, I thought I could steal a few minutes away.

I left through the cat flap, went as fast as I could next door and round to the back of Sylvie’s house. At the back were patio doors. I couldn’t go in, because there was no way George could know I was there, he would kill me. But it wasn’t actually spying, I was only doing what a good parent would do.

I positioned myself in a bush near the doors, and I craned my neck and glanced through. Hana was lying on the floor in a sunny spot, and George was sitting next to her. I could see they were chatting, but of course, I couldn’t hear or see what they were talking about.

This brought back memories. When my first girlfriend Snowball moved in here I used to spend hours by the back door trying to get her attention. She accused me of stalking her once. But in the end, I did get her attention. OK, so it might have involved a near death experience, the fire brigade and a ruined flowerbed but that’s another story.

I tried to move a little closer, trying to balance on the bush to lift me a bit. However, my paw slipped, and I ended up falling through the middle, onto some soft soil. I got up, brushed my fur off, and feeling a little silly I snuck another look. Although George and Hana definitely seemed close, it was still inconclusive. I went home, none the wiser.

I got home, thankfully before Pickles woke up. I snuggled next to him, so he would wake and think I’d been there all along. I was so tired I almost fell asleep when a wet nose touched my cheek. I stretched, wishing that I had another forty winks.

‘That was a nice rest, but now I want to play,’ Pickles said.

‘What do you want to play?’ I asked. This was bringing back memories, memories of George as a tiny kitten, always wanting to do something.

‘I don’t know, the only games I know are the ones George taught me.’ He looked thoughtful.

‘Did he teach you to play hide and seek?’ I asked.

‘No, can we play that?’ He started wagging his tail and wiggling his bottom simultaneously.

‘Yes, what happens is that I count to a certain number—’

‘What’s count?’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll teach you one day. Anyway,’ I continued, ‘I count and you hide somewhere, and then I come and find you.’

‘Wowee that sounds like fun.’ Pickles was so excited he forgot where he was and fell off the sofa, landing on his back.

‘Are you alright?’ I asked; puppy-sitting was hard work.

‘Yes, fine.’ He bounced up. ‘Right I’m going to be the best hider ever.’

I lay down and pretended to count for as long as I thought I could get away with. George had always loved hide and seek, and it was my favourite game because it gave me a few moments of peace while I counted. Top parenting tip for you.

Finally, I had to go and find Pickles. I padded through the hall and then into the kitchen. He was sat on the floor with his head in a cereal box. Although I could see his body, it wasn’t a bad hiding place, actually.

‘Found you,’ I said, approaching.

‘Hmmph.’ A vague sound came from the box.

‘You can take the box off now, I’ve found you,’ I said, edging closer to try to hear him.

‘I’m stuck,’ he replied, his voice still muffled. The next thing I knew he was running round in circles, cereal crumbs falling onto his fur and the floor before he bumped into a cupboard door. ‘Ow,’ he cried.

I sighed. I wasn’t sure what to do. I was a cat, after all, and I had paws, which meant I wasn’t sure how I could get the box off.

‘Calm down, Pickles. Right, lie down, and I’ll see if I can grab the box,’ I commanded. He lay down, still wiggling. He did look funny. I tried to grip the box with my paws but they just slid off. Pickles was really quite stuck. I began to panic. I was the worst puppy-sitter ever. George had got into quite a few scrapes as a kitten: stuck in bags, boxes, and various cupboards, but I could deal with cat scrapes. Puppy scrapes were a whole different ball game.

‘I can’t live in this box forever,’ Pickles said, sadly, and I redoubled my efforts, but it really wasn’t budging. Thankfully I heard the door open and in walked Claire. I sat up and looked at her, my eyes full of guilt.

‘What on earth?’ Claire pulled the box off Pickles and picked him up. He was covered in cereal.

‘Meow,’ I said, it wasn’t my fault.

‘Oh goodness, I better clean this mess up. I guess puppies can be hard to look after,’ Claire said, gently, holding Pickles in one arm and petting me with the other, to show she wasn’t angry.

‘Meow,’ I agreed, relieved.

‘Right, well, Pickles, stay in there, while I get this cleared up.’ She brushed the cereal from his fur and set him down in his bed. I went over to him.

‘Not the best hiding place after all, then, Pickles,’ I said.

‘Oh, I wasn’t hiding. I was going to find somewhere to hide then I spotted the cereal box on the floor.’ Why was it on the floor? I wondered. One of the children I guessed.

‘So, what were you doing?’

‘I wanted to have a snack, so I got the box on its side and then I went in to get my snack, and I somehow got stuck.’

Of course he did.

‘But it was quite delicious,’ he finished. ‘But next time I’ll have to find an easier way to get it.’

Claire took Pickles with her while she cleaned the house, saying it was the only way she could keep him out of trouble. I wasn’t sorry, as I went out and bumped into George who was coming from Hana’s house.

‘Hi, son,’ I said, happy to see him. ‘What have you been up to?’ As if I didn’t know.

‘Just talking to Hana. What about you?’

I told him about Pickles and the cereal.

‘When I was young I didn’t do stuff like that,’ George tutted.

‘Well, you nearly drowned, got stuck in lots of cupboards, were catnapped, and that’s just for starters,’ I pointed out, although technically the catnapping was my fault.

I had come up with a plan to solve a little scrape my human owner was in by pretending to lose George, and hiding him in Tiger’s shed. But he ended up being catnapped, and it was the worst time of my entire life until I found him. The plan did work eventually, it did bring us all together, but I learned a big lesson and would never put my kitten in the slightest risk ever again.

‘OK, fair enough, but now I’m a big cat, things have changed,’ he said. ‘Shall we go for a walk?’

‘Yes, come on, then.’ We started off towards the end of the street.

‘You know about me being a big cat,’ George said as we strolled.

‘Yes?’ I asked. Clearly, he wanted to talk to me about something.

‘What is my job?’

‘What do you mean your job?’ I asked.

‘My job, you know Hana was telling me how Connie and Aleksy were talking all the time about what they were going to do when they were grown-ups. Well, I’m pretty much a grown-up now, and I don’t have a job.’

‘We’re cats, George, I don’t have a job either.’

‘But you do, I mean you don’t have an office like Jonathan, but like Claire, you take care of all of us, that’s your job the way it is hers, so what’s mine?’

‘Being a big cousin to Pickles is a job of sorts then,’ I explained.

‘Yeah, maybe it’s a bit of a job, but it’s not my cat calling. I need to find my purpose in life.’

‘Your purpose in life?’

‘You take care of people and Dustbin has a job taking care of the rodents, so I need to find my life purpose.’ He was getting frustrated.

‘I guess you have a point.’ I wasn’t sure that George needed a job, after all, I had kind of stumbled into my role. And I had no training for it, not to mention that the pay was terrible apart from the odd pilchard. But he sounded so serious about this, I had to give him my support.

‘Yes, I might be a cat, but I’m not an ordinary cat, so therefore I need to find my purpose. What I am supposed to do to make the world a better place.’

‘Wow, well when you put it like that, George, I guess, like me, your vocation will be to do the same as me.’

‘I thought that but I need to find my own path in life, I can’t just jump onto yours.’

‘George, what on earth are you talking about?’ I was bewildered.

‘It’s what Aleksy said. He is going to get a job working in a different restaurant and learn the hard way before joining the family business because otherwise, it will be too easy for him. Nepotism it’s called. Hana told me, she’s very clever. So I need to find my own job rather than take the easy route by following you.’

‘George, you are a very clever cat, although you’ll always be my kitten, so you can do whatever it is you put your mind to, but if you want any advice, you know where I am.’ I crossed my paws that he would give me a bit of time before asking for my advice because I had no idea what to tell him. I was still trying to get my head around the concept of nepotism, which I’d never even heard of.

‘Thanks, Dad, but as Aleksy told Connie and Hana, sometimes when you are growing up, you need to do things yourself for yourself. It’s how you build character. So that’s what I am going to do. I am going to make you proud of me.’

I couldn’t argue with that.

‘I’m so proud of you already, George,’ I said, feeling emotional. My boy was growing up so fast, like Aleksy, who was also my boy and all of the children. I could see why Polly was so keen to get Pickles, keeping a baby in the family. Although after this morning I was pretty sure there had tobe easier ways.

‘I am going to be an amazing career cat, just as soon as I figure out what I am going to do with my life,’ he announced, and I couldn’t reply because I felt both choked up with pride and also a little amused. There weren’t exactly a million jobs for cats, after all. But then if anyone couldfind something to do, it was George. I would help him in any way I could because that was what a parent did. And that was a job in itself, after all.

Chapter Ten

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Polly had a few days off work, so we didn’t get to see Pickles as much as before, although he did pop in quite a lot so Polly could drink coffee and chat with Claire. But with the humans around, he wasn’t able to get into too much trouble, because they stopped him the minute he started. George and I could only sit and watch Pickles well and truly under control. Or as under control as he could be.

‘I’m thinking of sending Pickles to puppy training,’ Polly said as she had coffee with Claire.

‘But he’s not that bad,’ Claire said. ‘And he’s still so little.’

‘He doesn’t do what he’s told,’ Polly pointed out. Ever, I added.

‘No, but he’s housetrained which is the main thing, and he’s still a baby. Besides, you’re so busy that I might end up having to take him and I’m not sure I fancy it!’ Claire pointed out. ‘I can barely train my own family.’ They both laughed. I narrowed my eyes, I was very well trained thank you very much, although Claire couldn’t take the credit for that. In fact, it was me who trained my humans rather than vice versa.

‘No, I’ve found a weekend class, and I think Matt can take him. After all, Matt was the one who pushed for him to come and live with us.’

‘I’m not sure Matt is the best person to train him, Pol,’ Claire said. I agreed. Matt was lovely but so soft, no one did what they were told when he was in charge.

‘It might be good for both of them then. I thought I might get him to take Henry and Martha, they can have bonding time as well.’

‘Actually, that’s not a bad idea, it could be their thing. Jonathan is so busy at the moment, I’m worried the kids aren’t getting enough time with him. So this Saturday we’re going to have a fun day out in London together. I know Jonathan’s not keen, he’s so tired, but I’ve told himif he does Saturday with us then we’ll have a pyjama and film day on Sunday.’

‘So, he’s still working ridiculously hard?’

‘I really have to bite my tongue and not nag him. I mean we both discussed the fact that the job was going to change things before he took the promotion, but I guess the theory and the practice are two different things. I miss him, that’s it really, I miss spending time with him.’

‘But in the long run, it’ll be worth it?’ Polly asked.

‘It’s not just the money, I mean that’s really good, and it means I can be there for the kids, but we also need to try to figure out how we can do this without ruining our family.’

‘And you will figure it out. Now Matt and I are both working we have to make time for us, so that’s the first thing. You two need time as a couple, and you are always looking after my children, so perhaps we can reciprocate? You just need to be organised and, Claire, that is your strong point after all.’ Polly leant over and grabbed Claire’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

‘You know you’re right. I think instead of worrying I should see what we can do. If Jonathan and I have a night out that would be a start.’

I felt my heart sink a little, I thought everything was alright in our world, and to be honest, Claire was handling it well, but it did set off a little warning bell in my mind. I would have to keep an eye on this.

‘Right, well Matt and I can have the kids, perhaps they can have a sleepover, so you guys can have the night to yourself.’

‘Now you’re talking.’ Claire smiled as did I. With friends like ours, nothing seemed to be insurmountable. ‘Right, I’m going to see Harold, fancy a walk down with me?’

‘Sure, but I won’t stop after saying hello, as I have to walk Pickles.’

They set off with Pickles on the lead and George decided that he wanted to go after them.

‘That’s fine, are you worried about Pickles?’ I asked.

‘Someone needs to keep an eye on him, and Harold prefers cats to dogs so I should be there to make it easier for him,’ he said, sounding very responsible.

‘Good thinking.’ I could tell that George was still a little jealous of Pickles and Harold was his friend, he didn’t want to risk losing him to Pickles. I knew that wouldn’t happen, Harold doted on George, but I didn’t say anything. George had to figure that one out for himself.

I was left alone in the house, and again, that was a nice moment for me. I thought that I’d go and hang out with neighbourhood cats later, but for now, I could take some time for myself. As I went to find Jonathan’s cashmere blanket, I was pretty pleased with myself.

It was a little chilly as I made my way to the recreation ground later, to see if any of the cats were around. Rocky was there, sitting in his usual spot, along with Nellie. There was no sign of Elvis.

‘Hey guys,’ I said as I joined them.

‘Alfie, lovely to see you,’ Rocky said.

‘And you too. So what’s new?’ I asked, but before they could reply, I spotted Salmon looming towards us. Salmon lived opposite us with the Goodwins, leaders of the Edgar Road neighbourhood watch. They were busybodies, as was their cat. We’ll never be best friends but we’re civil.

‘Hi, Salmon,’ I said. Salmon liked to lord it over us when there was news or gossip on the street.

‘Hello. What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Nothing much,’ I replied. ‘Is there anything you know that we don’t?’ I preempted him.

‘No, it’s been really quiet at the moment. Which is good because I can report there are no criminals on the street.’

‘That is good,’ Nellie said, she sounded a little sarcastic.

‘But don’t worry, we are keeping our eyes open just in case,’ Salmon said, self-importantly. I didn’t want to upset him, although he was a little silly.

‘We’re lucky to have you, Salmon,’ I said, kindly, as Nellie and Rocky shot me a look. Before we could continue, George ran up to us with Elvis at his heels.

‘Goodness me you can run,’ Elvis said, he sounded a little out of breath.

‘What’s the emergency?’ Nellie asked. George ground to a halt but couldn’t speak. I looked upon him with concern while he calmed down.

‘It’s bad, Dad,’ he said, his eyes full of concern, when he recovered.

‘Oh no, what’s happened?’ I felt panic in my fur.

‘Harold. When we got there, he said he wasn’t feeling too good. So Claire phoned the doctors, but he started breathing funny, and they said he might need an ambulance, so Polly called for one. When it came, they examined him and said they thought it might be his heart, so they took him to hospital. Claire went in the ambulance with him, as they wouldn’t let me go with them, but Polly was still there.’ He lay down, exhausted. I nuzzled him.

‘Oh George, I’m so sorry, but Harold is going to the best place. Remember before when he went to the hospital, he came back right as rain,’ I pointed out, going to comfort George.

‘But he looked so scared, and I wanted to go with him because I know that would make him feel better, but they wouldn’t let me. They said cats weren’t allowed to go in ambulances,’ he huffed.

My poor boy was so distressed.‘But I know he wanted me with him, Dad, because he told me how I was his best friend in the world,’ George cried.

‘Right, George, let’s find Polly and stick with her, because it’s the best way for us to hear any news as soon as she gets it.’

‘I think she’s at her house, she said she’d go there to make phone calls,’ George said, still clearly in a state.

‘Come on, son, we’ll go there. Guys, we’ll come back and let you know as soon as there’s any news,’ I offered.

‘Let us know if we can do anything,’ Rocky shouted after us as we left them to go to Polly’s.

Inside the house, Polly was on the phone. She hung up and saw us.

‘Ah, boys, are you alright?’ she said.

‘Yowl,’ George cried, no he wasn’t.

‘I know it was frightening. Claire is at the hospital with Harold now, and there’s no news yet, but she’ll let us know. I phoned Marcus, who is going straight there, and I’ve also let Matt know. Unfortunately, all we can do now is wait.’ I loved how Polly also spoke to us as if we were humans, it meant we always knew what was going on. Pickles was asleep in his bed, snoring gently, which was probably for the best for now, because I wasn’t sure how patient George would be with him.

George placed himself at Polly’s feet, there was no way he was going to leave her side for now. I gave him a little space. I knew George. If I fussed too much, it would annoy him. I said a prayer in my head that Harold would be alright. George had suffered enough loss in his short life so far, and I didn’t want this for him. If I could have done anything to protect him, I would have done so, but for now, I was utterly helpless.

It was a very long, difficult afternoon. Every time the phone rang, George jumped up, and when there was no news, he put his head in his paws and fretted.

‘What is an ambulance?’ Pickles asked me when he woke up, and I herded him away from George.

‘When you were little, you went to the vet to have injections,’ I started to explain. ‘And the hospital is where humans go for things like that.’ I knew it was better to keep it simple.

‘So, the old man …’

‘Harold is his name, Pickles. He’s George’s best friend, and he isn’t well, so it’s best to give George some space.’

‘I can try,’ Pickles said. ‘But I don’t really understand.’

‘Of course not, it’s a lot for a puppy like you to take in, don’t worry.’ I didn’t know if I had the energy to reassure everyone right now, but clearly I would have to because there was no one else to do so.

‘OK, Alfie, if you say don’t worry then I won’t worry. Can I go and play with my ball now?’

‘Good idea.’

Thankfully the children had been teaching Pickles the joy of playing with a tennis ball, which is something that cats see as being beneath them. Pickles would wait for them to throw it and chase it, bringing it back to them over and over again. Which kind of highlighted the difference between dogs and cats, but if it made him happy… I went with him, in order to give George the space he needed, and I batted the ball with my paw, so he could chase it. It was a little tiresome but I was trying hard not to complain as I batted it yet again.

There was still no news of Harold when Polly had to go to pick up the children. She took Pickles, on his lead, but poor George still didn’t know what to do with himself. He was so distressed.

‘Do you want to go and see Hana?’ I suggested.

‘That’s a good idea. Hana might know something, or Sylvie might be there …’

‘And if I get any news I will come right round straight away, I absolutely promise,’ I said.

‘You’re right, Dad, at least it’ll be better than sitting here just worrying.’

‘And you know Hana might be worried too, I mean she’s almost related to Harold now as well,’ I pointed out.

‘Oh, poor Hana, I was too busy worrying about myself, but she might need me. Oh, how could I not have realised that.’ He sped off out of the house and yet again I was alone.

I paced up and down until Polly came home, the children all bounded in, and when she had settled them with snacks and drinks, she picked me up.

‘No news, sorry, mate,’ she said, stroking my fur. I didn’t know whether to go to George or wait with Polly, but in the end, I decided to wait. Because if George had any news he’d come and find me, and if I got news first I could go and find him, which meant we had all bases covered. All wecould do was wait.

Polly had bathed and put the children in pyjamas, settling them on the sofa when Matt got home from work, and shortly after Claire arrived with Jonathan.

‘What a day,’ Claire said as she kissed the children.

‘How’s Harold?’ Matt asked.

‘He’s going to be alright, but he’s got a bit of recovery time ahead of him. It’s his heart, not a heart attack, thank goodness, but it’s got some blockage or something, so they’re keeping him in to do tests and take it from there. Marcus was really upset when he arrived, luckily Sylviecame straight afterwards, which reminds me I need to go to hers and wait for Connie to come home, she called her and she’s upset too. Jon, will you be OK putting the kids to bed?’

‘Of course, darling.’ He gave her a hug. ‘Don’t worry. See what Connie wants, she might want to stay at hers rather than come to us.’

‘Which makes sense, look, we’re all here to help out, let’s just keep in touch,’ Polly said.

Everyone scattered and I went with Claire to find George.

Claire let herself in with the spare key, and found Connie at the kitchen table, in tears. Hana was on her lap, George at her feet. I rushed to George and nuzzled him as we listened to Claire explain to Connie what she knew.

‘But can I see him?’ Connie asked. After all, Harold was like a surrogate granddad to her. He was a gruff old man but very loving to Sylvie and Connie.

‘Sorry, love,’ Claire said. ‘They’re doing tests right now, but your mum will be back soon, and I think even Marcus will be kicked out, so your mum said to tell you that you can visit him tomorrow.’

‘Meow?’ George asked hopefully, but I didn’t think he could. Cats didn’t go to hospitals, I was pretty sure.

‘I guess I’ll wait then. I’ve got homework to do, Claire, I better go and do it in my room.’

‘I’ll wait here, until your mum gets home then. Can I get you something to eat, love?’

‘No, thanks, I had a sandwich earlier, but really I don’t have an appetite.’

Hana followed Connie upstairs, George hot on her paws. I climbed into Claire’s lap.

‘He’ll be alright, Alfie,’ Claire said, as she stroked me, but her voice was not full of conviction. ‘I’m sure he’ll be back to his cantankerous ways before we know it.’ Harold could be quite grumpy, but George seemed to love that about him. And since we’d all become friends, we were used to him.

He had to get better. George couldn’t lose someone else he loved, not so close to losing Tiger. And for that matter, neither could I.

Chapter Eleven

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It was a bad night for us all. George barely slept, he padded from Toby’s room to my bed and back again a number of times. Marcus phoned late last night when he got back from the hospital to say that Harold was comfortable and that the doctors didn’t feel that there was any immediate danger. It was more a case of keeping him calm, regulating his heart, while they got to the bottom of things. All we could do was stay calm and keep our paws crossed, although poor George kept worrying and as he kept waking me, I hoped they found out what was wrong with him sooner rather than later. Otherwise, none of us were going to get any sleep. I also tried to reassure him,but as George pointed out, I wasn’t a doctor, so my words didn’t soothe him.

All the adults discussed the situation at length and were all saying how the next few days would be chaotic, but of course, we were used to chaos. From what I could tell, until they had the test results, all my humans would be on edge, as well as us. Most importantly, they wanted to protect the children until they knew the situation, which I couldn’t do with George as he knew too much. The younger ones didn’t really understand, so my focus was to keep Pickles out of trouble and support George.

That morning, as Claire took the children off to school, Pickles was once again in our care. George wanted, and needed, to go to Hana’s so I was on puppy-sitting duty. Even though I didn’t exactly have the energy, I wondered if it would be safe to try to play hide and seek again. I just had to hope he didn’t get stuck in a cereal packet again. Thankfully George had shown him the best (safest) hiding places, under Summer’s bed was the best, which Pickles seemed to like, and there was no danger involved. For now, while everyone worried about Harold, I helped out by taking care of Pickles.

‘Alfie, can I have something to eat?’ Pickles asked. Now I was a cat who liked their food, pilchards especially, but this puppy wanted to eat all the time. His stomach was bottomless, and he did have a rather large bottom.

‘Pickles, you’ve had your breakfast so there’s nothing until lunchtime,’ I told him, sounding like a parent. ‘You need to do something other than eat.’ I tried to be stern, but when he looked at me with those big, hopeful eyes, it was difficult not to melt and give him all the food in the house. Until he licked my ear, which I really didn’t like.

‘Can I have some of your food?’ he asked, wiggling his bottom hopefully.

‘You don’t like it, and besides, George and I ate all our breakfast today,’ I said. Ever since Pickles entered our lives, we had quickly learnt not to leave food in our bowls.

‘Right, so are you saying that I can’t have anything to eat?’ This puppy really did labour the point.

‘Let’s go to the garden,’ I suggested thinking it might get rid of some of his energy. We headed out the cat flap. The wind whipped through our fur the moment we stepped outside.

‘It’s chilly,’ Pickles said, shivering.

‘Shall we play hide and seek?’ I suggested.

‘Oh yes please, yes please.’

‘Great, you hide, and I’ll count to twenty.’

‘No, Alfie, twenty isn’t enough time for me to hide, count to five.’

Bless, he still hadn’t got the hang of numbers. I did wonder if he’d get smarter as he got older, but George didn’t think he would. I was still optimistic, that was the kind of cat I was. I decided to just turn my back while he hid, after all in the garden there weren’t many places. Within a matter of seconds,I turned around and felt a quick flutter of panic when I couldn’t see him anywhere. I moved down the small lawn towards the shed, which looked as if it was shut so he couldn’t be in there. I saw a big pile of leaves, and a tail wagging from one edge. I actually felt quite proud, it was his besthiding place yet.

‘Pickles, I’ve found you,’ I shouted and then laughed as leaves scattered everywhere and he emerged.

‘Shall we go inside?’ I said, feeling increasingly chilled in my fur.

‘Only if we can keep playing.’ He ran ahead and into the house.

I lay down and had forty winks, which I think was enough time for Pickles to hide and then I got up, stretched, and set off upstairs. I looked under Summer’s bed, but he wasn’t there. So much for George’s lesson. I went into Toby’s room, but there was no sign of him there. Same with Claire and Jonathan’s and I checked the bathroom too. I started to panic, but then I heard a gentle bark. Pickles’ bark wasn’t aggressive or scary, and I quite liked it. I followed the sound and found myself back in Toby’s room. Then I saw Pickles. He had somehow got up onto the top bunk of Toby’s bed. Oh no, I’m sure that George hadn’t taught him to go there. And also how did he get up there?

‘How did you get up there?’ I asked. Toby had a ladder to the top bunk, the ladder rungs were quite thick, more like steps really, but still, although George and I could get up easily, I wasn’t sure how that puppy had managed it with his short legs.

‘I climbed up,’ he announced proudly. ‘I went slowly, and it seems that my legs growed so it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible either.’

‘Maybe you are getting better at climbing,’ I mused, although I worried that he could have fallen and hurt himself and that would have been my fault, so I didn’t want to encourage him. After all, I was the adult, and I was supposed to be in charge.

‘Yes, I really am. But I don’t know how to get down,’ he said. I looked and thought about it. I climbed up to join him. I didn’t like to go up there, although I had done a couple of times, because heights weren’t my favourite things, and this was higher than I found comfortable. ‘How about you watch me get down and try to copy,’ I suggested as I carefully reached the rungs and made my way down. I hoped the old adage would be right, if you can get up, then you can get down again. But my problem was the down bit. I tried to remain calm, hoping my legs didn’t tremble and give me away, but I didn’t like it at all.

Pickles came to the edge of the bed and stretched out a paw which didn’t reach the next rung down. He squealed, shot back and landed on his tail.

‘Ouch,’ he squealed. ‘I am not coming down, no way, that’s too scary.’ I sighed and tried to work out what to do. What were my options? I could go up again, but I wasn’t big enough to carry him down, which is the only thing I could think of. In fact, he would be more likely to carry me these days.

‘I thought George taught you to hide under beds?’ I asked.

‘Yes, he did but then I thought I would use my own ideas and try up here. I just didn’t think about how to get down again.’

‘Perhaps in future, you might not want to use your own ideas,’ I said, as I sat down to think. After drawing several blanks, I realised, the only way to get Pickles down was with the help of an adult.

‘You’ll have to wait there until Claire comes home,’ I said.

‘Will you stay with me because I’m scared,’ he said. My heart went out to him as his voice shook, and he appeared sad. He was still so young, and we all got in scrapes after all. I’d had my fair share over the years.

‘Of course, I will.’ I felt bad for him, I knew what it was like to be scared, it wasn’t pretty. ‘I’ll be right here,’ I reassured.

‘No, Alfie, can you wait with me up here?’

I had no choice as I climbed up the ladder again while we waited for Claire to come home. Pickles kept nestling closer to me, until he was practically on top of me. He might be a baby, but he was quite heavy as I tried to liberate my tail from underneath him.

‘I won’t have to be here forever, will I?’ he asked, in a smaller voice than normal.

‘No, Pickles, Claire will be back soon, and she’ll get you down, don’t worry,’ I reassured him as we settled down to wait, silently wishing we were back in the pile of leaves.

‘Stay there, I’ll be right back I promise,’ I said as soon as I heard the front door open after what felt like hours later.

‘But don’t be too long,’ he called after me as I made the treacherous journey down the bunk bed steps again.

‘Right, Alfie, I’ll make your lunch. Where’s George? Where’s Pickles?’ Claire asked as I greeted her. I brushed myself against Claire’s legs, yowled a lot and got her to follow me upstairs. When she saw Pickles on the bed, her face was a picture.

‘How on earth did you get up there?’ she asked. She looked at me with a puzzled expression. I blinked at her.

‘Woof,’ he replied. Thankfully, she climbed straight up and lifted him down, and I hoped that he had learnt another lesson, another thing to avoid. Looking after Pickles was turning my grey fur even greyer.

Over lunch, which Pickles devoured greedily, Claire phoned Jonathan and told him that there was still no news about Harold, but the doctors had thankfully ruled out anything life-threatening. It was a relief, and Claire cried, as she spoke. I went and sat with her. But I knew that I needed to tell George because he needed this update more than anyone.

I cleaned myself up to go out.

‘Where are you going?’ Pickles asked.

‘To find George,’ I replied.

‘Can I come with you?’ he asked.

‘No, Pickles, you need to stay with Claire, after all, you’re not allowed out of the garden on your own.’

‘But I wouldn’t be on my own, I’d be with you.’

‘I mean without a human adult,’ I clarified.

‘There are far too many rules for me to keep track of,’ Pickles huffed.

I was out of the cat flap and by the back gate before I realised that Pickles had defied me by following me.

‘Pickles, you need to go back.’

‘I’m coming with you. I want to see George,’ he whined.

‘But Claire will worry if she can’t find you and we really don’t need any more stress,’ I tried to reason, but reasoning with a puppy, it’s not easy.

‘We’ll be back before she even notices,’ he persisted.

I was faced with a dilemma. I needed to find George, to give him the news, and I didn’t want to take Pickles, but if I went home, then I would have to try to sneak out again without him noticing, which I wasn’t sure I could. I had made a promise to George that as soon as there was news I would deliver it, come what may. Or should I say, come what Pickles?

I hoped I wasn’t going to regret this, and I decided I would just go for it. I slid under the gate with ease and stood on the other side. Within seconds Pickles appeared. I groaned, this wasn’t what I had in mind. Maybe, just maybe I could get back before anyone noticed? I crossed my paws and carried on. After all, we were just popping next door. What could go wrong?

‘See, I am just like a cat,’ he said with a grin on his very dog-like face.

‘Oh God, this isn’t going to end well,’ I sighed as I made my way to Hana’s house. I slid through the cat flap and Pickles followed me, although it took him a bit longer, as it was a slightly different set-up to what he was used to. We found Hana and George in the living room.

‘What on earth is that?’ Hana asked as Pickles bounded in, wagging his bottom.

‘That is Pickles. What is he doing here?’ George replied.

‘Hey, guys, do you want to play ball?’ Pickles asked. Hana and George exchanged withering looks.

‘Sorry, George, Claire just spoke to Jonathan about Harold. He is out of danger, stable but they just need to do some more tests, but the good news is that they have ruled out anything serious.’

‘Oh that is good news. Why is your face like that?’ Hana asked, still studying Pickles.

‘It just is,’ George replied. ‘So when will Harold be home?’ George asked.

‘I don’t know, it might be a while yet, but the important thing to remember is that it isn’t serious, or life-threatening.’

‘Thanks for telling me, Dad. Although I still don’t know why he’s here.’

‘He followed me and I thought giving you the news about Harold was more important than trying to get him to do what I told him.’

‘What now, though?’

‘I better get him home before Claire notices that we’ve gone. Are you going to stay here, or come with us?’ I asked.

‘I’ll come,’ George sighed. ‘Someone needs to keep that puppy in line. I’ll come back later, Hana,’ he said. They nuzzled, and we set off.

We were just outside our house when I heard George yowl.

‘Pickles, no,’ he shouted, his eyes frozen in horror. It was as if everything went into slow motion; Pickles had run into the road and was spinning round in circles, but a car was approaching.

‘Pickles, get back here,’ I shouted.

‘Why?’ he asked, not remotely in any kind of hurry to do as he was told, yet again. Panic filled my body, and before I even had time to think or knew what I was doing, I launched myself into the road, in front of him. I lay down and put my paws over my head and hoped for the best. A horn blasted, brakes screeched, and it all went quiet. I didn’t feel anything hurting, I wasn’t sure I could feel anything at all. Was this it? Had I gone too far this time? How could I have done this to my George? I felt my fur shaking in the wind, and my legs started shaking underneath me. I was still alive, and I didn’t seem to have any pain.

‘Dad,’ George said, bounding over and breaking the silence, he sounded worried. I opened my eyes and blinked at my son. I was fine, the car had stopped inches from me. Pickles was standing still for once, although he didn’t seem to understand what was going on. The driver rushed out of her car and leant down to pick me up.

‘Are you alright?’ she asked, panic lacing her voice.

‘Meow.’ My voice shook, but by some miracle I was. I was fine. As was Pickles. My impulsive behaviour had turned out OK. Thank goodness. I felt relieved, even if I was a bit shaken up.

Our front gate sprang open, and Claire appeared.

‘What on earth is going on?’ she shouted.

‘The puppy ran into the road, and the cat seemed to throw itself in front of it,’ the lady explained, she was shaking but holding onto me tight. ‘I wasn’t going fast so thankfully I could stop in time, but I was practically touching him.’ The driver burst into tears.

‘Oh, goodness, I’m so sorry, I don’t know how he got out. Pickles you do not go out without me. How many times do I have to tell you?’ Claire had tears in her eyes now. ‘Alfie, are you OK?’

‘Meow.’ I was almost fine.

‘Alfie, you shouldn’t have let Pickles come out, what were you thinking?’ Sorry, sorry, are you alright?’ She turned to the woman.

‘Just a bit shaken up but I’m so relieved no one got hurt.’

Claire took us and the quivering lady into the house and sat her down in the kitchen. Claire made her a cup of tea, to help her calm down. Pickles, finally noticing he was in trouble, crawled straight into his bed.

George and I sat down, trying to calm ourselves. We were all trying to calm ourselves actually.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ the lady, who told Claire she was called Sally, said. ‘A cat throwing itself into the road to save the dog! I mean I know humans do that but cats?’ She was genuinely confused.

‘I’m guessing you’ve never met a cat like Alfie before,’ Claire replied.

Chapter Twelve

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_13]

It was the end of a very stressful week. After the incident with the car, Claire told me off quite a lot. George also told me off for risking myself when he needed me. I know he had a point, but I tried to explain that I knew what I was doing and if I had been hit it would have been only a gentle bump. In reality, I knew nothing of the sort, and I felt guilty for putting him through it. I should have thought first and acted second. The trouble was that it was instinct rather than a thought out move, and because of that, I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t do it again if faced with the same situation.

George and I both tried to hammer home to Pickles the seriousness of the situation.

‘Pickles, can’t you see how bad it was?’ George said exasperated.

‘Not sure,’ Pickles replied.

‘Listen to me,’ I said, with my best stern parent voice. ‘You could have been badly hurt, Pickles, and I could have been badly hurt. The point is that it was very bad, and you simply cannot do it again.’

‘Alright, I think I get it, you are basically saying I shouldn’t go into the road on my own?’

‘We’re saying you never go into a road on your own but also you shouldn’t go out on your own,’ I reiterated for what felt like the millionth time.

‘I think I’ve got it, but you know I can’t be sure,’ Pickles replied. George stomped off, I despaired and Pickles licked his nose. He was never going to get it.

In hindsight I should have taken Pickles home, got Claire’s attention and then gone to see George. But I was so keen for him to know Harold was alright, I made a mistake. I hold my paws up to it, I really do. No cat is perfect, after all.

And Claire was more cross with herself, but it was hard with everything going on. She was taking care of the house, the children, Pickles and also visiting Harold every day. What with Jonathan not coming home until late at night, she was on her own a lot. So I took the lectures with good grace as I knew what she was going through.

Harold’s illness had definitely disrupted our calm almost more than Pickles. Marcus was worried, in fact, it was unclear who was the most upset, him or George. However, Marcus could go and see Harold, whereas George was getting increasingly annoyed about the fact that he couldn’t. It turned out that Harold would be in hospital for quite a while longer by the sounds of things. They weren’t going to operate but they had to try different medication and that could take some time to get right. There were lots of technical terms being bandied about, but I’m a cat, so I had no idea what most of itmeant. The adults kept reassuring us (and themselves it seemed) that it was all going to be fine, and they all went to visit him, reporting back. I, in turn, tried to reassure George.

The good news was that Harold was complaining about the food, about the company– a bunch of ill old men he called them, and the nurses who were incompetent, and the doctors even worse. He seemed to think they were trying to kill him. Jonathan said it was a good sign, the fact he was well enough to moan suggested he was recovering. Despite my attempts at reassurance, George still fretted – he loved Harold.

‘I miss Harold,’ George said to me as we ate our breakfast. ‘I feel as if it’s been such a long time since I’ve seen him and he’s one of my best friends.’

‘I know, but the important thing is that he’s doing well. How about I take you out today to cheer you up. We could go and see Dustbin?’ I watched George’s mind whirring as he thought about my offer. He was tempted, I could see, but he was also still a little angry with me about the car incident. ‘No Pickles, I promise,’ I added, the pilchard on the cake.

‘OK, it’s been ages since I saw Dustbin,’ he said. ‘But you have to guarantee that the dog does not follow us.’

‘Great, you might get to meet Ally as well. So, George, let’s go now before Polly arrives with Pickles. That way, there is no way he can try to follow us.’

‘Good thinking, Dad. And it’ll be nice, just the two of us again. I love it when it’s the two of us.’

‘Aye, son, I’ve missed that.’ I felt quite emotional, as we headed out.

It was a clear day, cold but dry, as we headed towards the restaurant. I hoped we might get to see Franceska too, with the whole Pickles arrival I had been at home far more than usual and hadn’t been out to see anyone as much. And although she had been to ours, since Harold having gone into hospital, I missed her. The adults had drawn up a roster of visiting Harold. Marcus went every evening, and in the afternoon when he could juggle work, Sylvie joined him in the evenings, taking Connie sometimes. Claire would go in the afternoon before the school run. Franceska would take over from her, while she went to get the children. Jonathan, Matt, Tomasz and Polly would all pop in after work just to show their faces.

Harold said he had the most visitors out of everyone, according to Claire. He was proud of this fact. Everyone wanted him to know he was loved, so although not everyone visited him every day, they visited a fair bit. Which only served to annoy George even more, as he felt he was the only one who didn’t get to see Harold. Apart from the children and me. They didn’t go because Claire said it would be too disruptive to the other patients, goodness, imagine if George or Pickles were allowed to visit in that case!

We set off. I did feel a little guilty about abandoning Pickles, but I had done a fair bit of puppy-sitting lately, and I seemed to get told off for every little thing he did wrong. Not only for the car business, but also when he dug up some flowers in Claire’s garden, chewed one of Toby’s trainers, buried one of Summer’s dolls in the garden, ate something he shouldn’t. The list went on, and I felt a little bit offended that it was all my fault. After all, puppy sitting was much harder than even I imagined. Harder even than when George was a kitten if my memory serves. I think I had earned an hour or two off. In reality, I’d probably earned a two week holiday, but that wasn’t going to happen.

‘You know I do like Pickles a bit,’ George said magnanimously. ‘But I also miss it being just us.’

‘I do too, things change so much, don’t they, maybe we should make sure we make time for each other,’ I suggested.

‘Yes, but I better warn you,’ George said as we trod the familiar path to Dustbin, ‘I am going to be very busy soon because I am close to finding my job.’

I raised my whiskers in surprise.‘Really? What is it?’

‘Oh that I don’t exactly know, but you have to trust me when I say that I am going to be very good at it.’

‘I do trust you.’ I really didn’t. I worried about him, especially when I had no idea what he was going to be doing. Although to be fair, I wasn’t sure he did either.

‘Good, because you need to be able to give me some space to follow my dreams.’

‘Eh?’I was confused, and had no idea what he was talking about.

‘Thanks, Dad.’

‘You’re welcome, son.’

Thankfully our difficult conversation came to an end as we reached the restaurant.

We bumped into Franceska and Tomasz, as we padded through to the back of the restaurant.

‘Ah, we haven’t seen you here for a long time,’ Tomasz said, fussing us both as he usually did.

‘Alfie, George, I will get you some treats,’ Franceska said. I rubbed against her legs in thanks.

‘I have to go now, but it was nice to see you,’ Tomasz said, before he took off, swinging his car keys. We waited by the back door of the restaurant for Franceska to bring out some sardines which we both enjoyed very much. After polishing them off, we made our way to the bins to find our friend.

‘Hello, what a nice surprise,’ Dustbin said. I had to say I needed a bit of a double take. He looked a bit different. His fur was neater and shinier, and he was smiling in a way I hadn’t seen before. Ally appeared from behind him. Ah, now that made sense. He was making more of an effort with his appearance now he was in love. That was sweet.

‘Oh it’s like a girl Dustbin,’ George said before he could stop himself. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean … Well, I did mean … I mean …’

‘I think George was going to say that you and Dustbin are obviously similar in some ways, your job mainly, but he didn’t mean any offence by it,’ I explained.

‘None taken. Nice to meet you, George, I’ve heard all about you. And Alfie, lovely to see you again.’

‘Wow, it’s really nice to meet you too,’ George said. ‘Are you as good at hunting as Dustbin?’

‘I am,’ Ally said.

‘She really is,’ Dustbin added proudly.

‘Show me, show me!’ George begged. George bounded after Ally, I hoped his career wouldn’t take him in the direction of her and Dustbin, I didn’t really have the stomach for that, but then I knew I would have to support him if that was what he decided.

‘I heard them talking about Harold, how’s the lad coping?’ Dustbin asked when we were alone.

‘It’s hard for him, you know, but Harold is on the mend. He just seems to be so upset that he can’t visit him.’

‘Of course, after everything he’s been through … but even I know cats aren’t allowed in hospitals, so he’s just going to have to be patient – excuse the pun – poor thing.’

‘You know George isn’t known for his patience, Dustbin. Anyway, how are you and Ally?’

‘Yeah, good. I like her.’

For Dustbin, a cat of few words, and certainly fewer emotional outbursts, this was like a huge admission.

‘Then I’m happy for you.’ I grinned. ‘They say love makes the world go round after all.’

‘Stop with all that soppy stuff,’ he grumbled, but I could see that he was smiling underneath it all. We had a lovely time in the yard. After Ally finished showing George her hunting skills, we all found a rare sunny patch to sit in and have a catch-up. As winter had officially announced its arrival we knew we were lucky to find it.

‘I just want to be able to find my purpose in life,’ George reiterated.

‘Not catching rodents then?’ Ally asked.

‘No, I don’t feel that it’s best suited to my aptitude,’ George said. I had no idea where he was getting this from, but I guessed it was Aleksy and Connie. ‘You see, in order to find my cat calling I need to get the sense it’s one hundred per cent right for me.’

‘I can see that,’ Dustbin said, humouring him. ‘And to start with, what do you think your best skill is?’

I watched George as he thought about it, whiskers raised, seriously. He looked about him, and then at me.

‘I think my best skill is making people happy,’ he said. Well, he did do that, that was true.

‘In that case, you need to find a job where you make people happy,’ Ally said.

‘But what job involves that?’ I asked.

‘That’s what we need to find out,’ Dustbin said.

‘No, I know it.’ George suddenly sprang up. ‘I know it. Thanks, Dustbin, Ally, you’ve really helped.’

‘What is it?’ I asked, being caught up in his excitement but also confused.

‘I can’t tell you that it’ll take a bit of working out, but trust me, I think I have finally found my purpose in life.’

Should I be worried that he wouldn’t share it with me? Probably, but I would just have to wait and see. And hope that it was nothing that could get him into trouble. What was I even saying? Of course, it would be something which got him into trouble. And probably get me into trouble too.

As soon as we slid through the cat flap, Pickles appeared and waddled up to us. In the few weeks he’d been here, he had got a bit bigger. Or wider, although he still could get through the cat flap, but I wasn’t sure he would be able to for much longer. That might make life easier.

‘Where have you been?’ Pickles demanded.

‘Urgent cat business,’ George replied, self-importantly. I glared at him.

‘Pickles, we needed to go out and see some friends of ours, but we tried to be as quick as we could,’ I said trying to placate him.

‘But I wanted to come,’ he whined.

‘You can’t go everywhere with us,’ I said gently. ‘Remember what happened yesterday?’

‘No,’ he replied.

‘You nearly got run over, and you nearly got Dad run over. It’s dangerous out there, especially with your lack of road sense,’ George huffed. He sounded angry, but this didn’t seem to resonate with Pickles.

‘Why?’ he asked. Oh goodness, I remembered the why phase with George, it was an endless round of ‘why?’ questions and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through it again.

‘Because,’ George said, ‘you are not a cat.’

‘But you said if I did what you told me then I would be able to be a cat,’ Pickles said. I tried not to put my head in my paws and weep.

‘Yes, but it takes a very long time to be like me, years in fact,’ George continued.

‘George, shush,’ I commanded, having to step in here. ‘Pickles, you are very lucky to have George to teach you how to be a cat. But, there are some things you can’t do, because of your own safety and one of those things is going out without a human.’

‘Why?’

‘When you go out, you have to have a lead on, well when you’re not in the garden, right?’ I explained.

‘Yes.’

‘George and I don’t have leads on, cats don’t and before you say why you need to know it’s the fundamental difference between dogs and cats. Now, you can come and play with us in the garden, but when we go out, if we go out, you can’t come with us.’

‘It’s not fair,’ Pickles reiterated.

‘Life isn’t always fair,’ George said, sounding wise. ‘But, Pickles, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, but it’s dangerous out there, beyond the garden gate, you need to remember that.’

I gave George a surprised look, I was surprised but pleased at how nice he was being.

‘OK, but will you play with me now?’ he asked.

‘Dad will, I have to go out,’ George said, and before I could question him about it, he was gone, and I was left with the puppy yet again.

I led Pickles to the garden, after a bit of a wiggle through the cat flap. I was tired after my morning’s exertions, and I would have liked to have a quick cat nap, but it wasn’t to be, as I had a puppy to entertain. We found some balls, which Pickles buried and then dug up. I tried not to look as he made a little bit of a mess of the garden. I’d probably be in trouble again, but I didn’t have the energy to prevent it. I lay down and tried to watch Pickles, but I found it hard to keep my eyes open, and at some point, I must have dropped off.

‘What on earth? Pickles, Alfie.’ Claire’s voice, which was full of anger, yet again, woke me and I jumped up. Pickles was sat at Claire’s feet, looking very innocent. I stretched and went over.

‘What have you done?’ Claire shouted, again, pointing at the flowerbeds, which I had to admit were a bit of a mess. Of course, it was my fault, I should have been watching him, as I looked at the flowers, which Claire loved too much, scattered all over the lawn. Oh god, I was supposed to be theresponsible adult here.

‘Meow,’ I apologised and hung my head. I felt a little bit guilty, but I was still also tired.

‘Pickles, you have to stop digging up my flowers.’ Claire picked him up, turned and glared at me. ‘And, Alfie, you should have stopped him from doing so.’ She took him inside. As the door closed behind them I thought about following them, but then I lay down again, thinking I also could just snatch another forty winks. It would beat being told off again, after all, I’d been told off enough lately.

Chapter Thirteen

[Ęŕđňčíęŕ: img_14]

‘Do I have to go?’ Jonathan asked as he took off his tie and jacket and tried to sit down on the sofa. Claire tried to stop him from sitting down and she didn’t look best pleased.

‘Jonathan, I know you’re tired, but we haven’t spent any time together this week, and I’ve been looking forward to this,’ Claire snapped. ‘Besides, Polly is coming to babysit for us, and it would be embarrassing to tell her that date night is off because my husband doesn’t want to spend time with me.’ I felt bad for her; Claire was wearing a lovely dress, she had spent quite a lot of time on her hair, and was wearing make-up. She’d been so excited as she tucked the children up in bed, and then gone to get ready. I went over to Jonathan and gave his leg a gentle scratch.

‘Ow!’ he shouted, glaring at me. ‘You’re ganging up on me now!’ I did feel a bit guilty, but he needed to make an effort with his wife. I wanted to tell him I understood tiredness, after all, I’d fallen asleep when I should have been looking after Pickles. But of course, I couldn’t.

‘I made so much effort,’ Claire added.

‘Sorry, darling,’ he said as the penny dropped. I did stand on his foot a couple of times to help him. ‘You look gorgeous,’ he finally said as he wrapped his arms around her. ‘I’ll get changed very quickly, and we will go and have a lovely dinner,’ he promised.

‘Thank you. I know you’re tired, love, but what with the house and visiting Harold, the kids, I feel as if I haven’t spent any time with you and I also could really do with getting out of the house.’

‘I know and I’m sorry. I guess our lives are so different now with you doing all the house stuff, I don’t think enough about your day …’

‘And I don’t always appreciate how hard you’re working either. Let’s make a pact to work at us, as much as I work on the family, and you work in the office,’ Claire said, nuzzling into her husband.

‘I love you.’ He kissed her. ‘Right give me five minutes to freshen up, and then we’ll have the best dinner ever.’ He grinned.

‘Alfie, thanks for your support.’ Claire picked me up and cuddled me as Jonathan went to get changed. It seemed I was forgiven now, too.

Polly rushed in and immediately gave me a squeeze. It would be nice to spend a bit of time with her, just the two of us, which was rare. When Claire and Jonathan left, Polly and me snuggled up on the sofa together, and settled down for the evening.

When Polly’s phone rang, interrupting our peace, I jumped up.

‘Hey, Matt,’ Polly said. I climbed on Polly’s lap and tried to listen.

‘I just spoke to Marcus, Harold had a relapse, he’s not reacting to the drugs as they hoped, and so he’s quite poorly. Marcus is with him tonight, and Sylvie will phone you with any news, but he sounded pretty devastated.’

‘Oh no, I thought he was on the mend. Please tell me that he’s not critical. Should I get Claire and Jon home?’

‘No, honey, he’s not critical, but he’s not too good either. I just wanted to let you know. And I told Marcus we’d go to the hospital tomorrow if that’s OK?’

‘Of course, and if he calls again find out if we can take anything with us.’

After Polly hung up, she stroked me, and I wondered how I would break the news to George. He was asleep with Toby, so I thought I would wait until the morning and tell him then. I didn’t know how George would react, and I wasn’t sure it was fair for me to sugar-coat the news, so I had to find a gentle way of telling him the truth without scaring him.

The following day, I was awake early, fretting about how I would tell George that Harold was still poorly. I kept reassuring myself that he was going to be fine. I just hoped he was.

‘Morning, Dad.’ George joined me in the kitchen.

‘Oh hi, son, did you sleep well?’ I asked.

‘Yes, thanks, you’re up early.’

‘I know, George, listen I heard Polly talking to Matt last night, and it turns out that Harold might be in hospital a bit longer than we thought. He’s alright, not serious, apparently, but he needs to get his medicine right before he can come home, so it might be a while.’

‘But I haven’t seen him for ages, Dad, and he’s my friend.’ George stamped his paw in anger.

‘I am so sorry, George, but at least we’re getting to hear all about what is happening. And Marcus is going to see him again this morning, and Polly and Matt will be there later, Sylvie will be going at some point so I am sure we will hear all about it.’

‘But I want to see him.’

As everyone got ready for the day, the doorbell went. I followed Claire to the door, Marcus was stood on the doorstep.

‘Hi, Marcus, so sorry to hear that Harold’s still not too good,’ Claire said.

‘It was pretty scary, but he’s in good hands and out of danger. They just need to adjust his medication, I honestly think he’ll be fine, but I’m going to see him now, before work. I’ve got special dispensation because of the scare last night. Anyway, I just wondered if you would be able to pop in sometime today with clean pyjamas for him, I know you’ve got a key and Sylvie’s working.’

‘It’s absolutely fine, I’ll go as soon as visiting hours start if that’s OK?’

‘Yes please, I’m so grateful. I better go now.’ Marcus gave Claire a quick hug and turned to go. I turned to speak to George, but he had already followed Marcus out the front door. I thought about getting out of the cat flap and going to follow him, but then I realised that he probably neededsome time alone to cool off. It was hard being a parent. Before I could give the situation more thought, the door went again, Polly piled in with the children, followed by a bouncy Pickles.

‘I just saw George, he looked as if he was going somewhere in a hurry,’ Polly said, but before I could dwell on her words, Pickles bundled into me.

‘Oi, be careful,’ I said. ‘You’ll soon squash me as flat as a pancake.’ Pickles was growing at an alarming rate it seemed, in width anyway.

‘Oh and Claire, I know our puppy is greedy, but the vet said he’s weighing a bit much for his age so he’s on a diet and we need to make sure he gets more exercise.’

‘Got it, I’ll make sure there’s no food left out. No cat food or human food,’ she said, shooting me a look. Great, if Pickles was on a diet, did that mean I was too? ‘I’m going to see Harold later, taking him some bits and pieces, so I’ll call and let you know how he is.’

‘Thanks, Claire. See you later, kids.’ With a flourish, Polly was gone.

As Claire got the children ready to go to school, she turned to us.

‘Right, Pickles, I’m going to take you with us, you need the exercise,’ she said, clipping his lead on. ‘Coming, Alfie?’ I tilted my head to suggest I would. George and I often did the school run with her, we loved seeing where the children went, and the school wasn’t too far away.

‘Meow.’ Don’t mind if I do.

We walked together, the children taking turns with Pickles’ lead, apart from when we crossed roads, because Claire took charge of everyone, she clearly wasn’t taking any chances after the other day, not that she ever did. Toby picked me up and carried me across the roads. I didn’t want to point out that I was capable and I could cross roads unaided in front of Pickles, so I let Toby carry me. When we got to the school gates, the children rushed in, greeting the teacher who was the playground monitor for the day, and then waving behind to us.