Oliver The Cat Who Saved Christmas

CHAPTER FOUR

Hello again. You’re awake early, aren’t you? Couldn’t sleep? Huh, I remember feeling like that sometimes when I was a younger cat – on nice bright mornings like this, when there were birds to chase and flies to jump around after. Now, there aren’t enough hours in the day for all the catnaps I need.

Oh, it’s because you’re excited to hear the rest of my story, is it? Well, I warn you, it might take a long while and you’ll probably get fed up before the end of it and want to be off dancing around in the sunshine again. What it is to be young!

All right, where did I get up to yesterday? Ah yes – Martin and Sarah’s house. I slept well there, that first night. Sarah made me up a lovely comfy bed in Sooty’s old basket, with soft blankets and some kind of furry toy from one of the children to keep me company. Of course, you know what it’s like, don’t you? I didn’t often sleep there after the first night. No matter how comfy a bed is, we cats like to find different places to sleep. There was an armchair in their lounge with a big thick velvety cushion on, that I was particularly fond of.

Anyway, let me tell you about the children. They were two small females, called Grace and Rose. Grace was bigger than Rose. She giggled a lot and moved around very quickly. She got so excited when Sarah introduced me to her, I thought she was going to run up the curtains. Rose was different – quiet and not so happy looking. I could see why. She had a damaged front paw. It was wrapped up in a kind of hard case that looked like a bandage, and she had to wear something they called a sling, like a harness round her neck, to keep it in place. I felt sorry for her and gave her some extra licks and rubs, but although one minute she was smiling as if she was pleased to meet me, she suddenly burst into tears and started saying ‘Sooty! Sooty!’ over and over while she cried. I didn’t like to think I’d upset her. I ran off and hid under a chair.

‘Don’t worry, Oliver,’ Sarah said kindly, bending down under the chair to talk to me. ‘It’s not your fault. Rose is still upset about losing her other cat.’

Well, after a little while she did stop crying, and the two girls played with me nicely indoors with a ball and an empty cardboard box. Yes, I know you might think I was a bit old for that kind of stuff, but we cats never grow out of the cardboard box thing. It’s just so much fun, I never get tired of it! While we were playing, I could hear Martin and Sarah talking quietly in the kitchen. They probably thought none of us could hear, but perhaps they forgot what sharp ears we cats have.

‘I hope we’re doing the right thing,’ Sarah said, sounding worried. ‘She hasn’t cried that much since the day it happened.’

‘Then it probably is the right thing. She’s been bottling up her feelings.’

‘I know. She’s hardly spoken since it happened, has she? I keep trying to encourage her to talk about the accident, but she won’t.’

‘In her mind, the two things are linked. She ran into the road after Sooty…’

‘Well, Martin, let’s face it, they are linked! But she can’t accept that it wasn’t her fault.’

There was a silence for a while, apart from the sound of saucepans and things being moved around. Apparently they were preparing Sunday Lunch. That was something I knew about, from all those busy times in the pub. It made me feel a bit homesick.

‘I just hope it’ll cheer her up, having Oliver here,’ Sarah suddenly went on. ‘She’s refused to go out and play with the other children all through half-term, and Grace hasn’t wanted to go out without her. So they’ve both been stuck at home for the whole holiday. It’s a good thing they’re going back to school tomorrow really. It might take her mind off it.’

‘Poor love, she can’t really forget about the accident at all until the cast comes off her arm. And they’re both obviously missing poor old Sooty.’

‘Yes.’ I heard Sarah’s sigh, all the way from the next room. ‘Brownies would have helped cheer her up – she normally loves going to Brownies.’

‘But they can’t hold their meetings, can they, while the hall’s out of action.’

‘Exactly. I don’t know what’s going to happen there. And it’s not just Brownies, of course. The Cubs’ meetings are there too and, well, everything that goes on in the village! The senior citizens’ club, the WI, the nursery and the pre-school…’

‘You’re right. It’s going to be a long time before the hall’s fit for purpose. All those pensioners will miss their meetings, for sure. And the parents who work. How will they manage without the nursery?’ He paused. ‘And there was I, worrying about missing my dominoes matches in the pub.’

‘Typical!’ Sarah gave a little laugh. ‘I don’t know how everyone’s going to manage, Martin. But I feel like I ought to try and do something to help. Christmas isn’t that far off, and unless we can find another venue, everything’s going to have to be cancelled. All the children’s parties, the pensioners’ dinner – everything! Perhaps I’ll have a word with Brown Owl and see if she’s got any ideas. That’d be a start.’

They went quiet, then, and although I was still enjoying sitting in the box, peeping over the top of it and making Grace shriek with laughter, all I really wanted to do, after hearing all that, was to sit on Rose’s lap and try to cheer her up. I was sad about Sooty, too, and it made me shiver inside to think about what must have happened to him. I was beginning to realise I wasn’t the only one, cat or human, with problems. My two new foster families were helping me, and I only wished I could help them in return.

When I woke up on my nice comfy armchair the next morning, I could hear Grace chatting in the kitchen and Sarah talking about breakfast and lunch boxes and something called a PE kit. I did my stretching and yawning, gave myself a good wash, and by the time I’d strolled into the kitchen the children had been sent upstairs to finish getting ready for school. Martin was talking quietly to Sarah, saying he hoped Rose was going to be OK at school, and that he’d see them all later.

‘Aha, look who’s come in for his breakfast,’ he said, spotting me walking round and round the empty food dish on the floor. I gave a couple of loud meows to show how ready I was to be fed, and he laughed and bent down to stroke me. Even though I’d decided now that I liked him, I still shrank away from his touch. I couldn’t help it, it was such a deep instinct in me. Then I felt bad about it, because he was feeding me and giving me a nice warm house to stay in, after all, and I hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings. So I rubbed myself against his back paws a few times to make up for it.

‘All right, boy! Grub’s coming,’ he said, getting a tin of something out of the cupboard and opening it up. Salmon! I purred my head off in gratitude and fell on the food hungrily.

Sarah was watching me. ‘I’ll have to stock up on tinned cat food,’ she told Martin. ‘We can’t keep on giving him things like that.’

What a shame. But still, hopefully she’d buy nice cat food.

After Martin said goodbye and went off in the car to drive to his work, wherever that was, Sarah and the children put their coats and shoes on to walk to the school bus-stop. Grace was complaining that she was nine and a half now, and Rose was nearly eight, and they were both big enough to walk round to the bus-stop on their own, but Sarah gave her a frown and said ‘Shush, Grace. I want to come with you this morning.’

Even I, with my little cat’s brain, understood that it was because of Rose being upset, and having the broken paw, that she wanted to go with them. I think Grace understood too then, because she didn’t say anything else. Rose hadn’t said a single word since breakfast. She looked pale and sad and forgot to say goodbye to me. I wanted to go with them, but Sarah closed the door on me, calling out that she wouldn’t be long. Luckily, I’d already clocked that there was a cat flap in the kitchen door because of Sooty, and it wasn’t locked, so I jumped out, found my way round the side of the house and followed them down the street.

‘Oh no!’ Grace said when she noticed me. ‘Will he get lost, Mummy?’

‘I don’t think so. He only lived just down the road from here before, you know. In the pub.’

Just down the road? I could hardly believe my ears. I’d been completely lost in that wood, imagining myself miles and miles from home, and yet after being carried for only a little way in Daniel’s rucksack I was now just down the road from my pub? I felt a quiver of excitement go through me. Sure enough, as we made our way down the road I was beginning to recognise places. There was the village shop. There was the house where the noisy big black dog lived. I ran past that one quickly! And there was the village green, with the children’s swings and the benches where people sat and chatted when it was warmer weather. And there … oh my goodness. I stopped, staring at my pub – the only proper home I’d ever known – and I felt a terrible howl of anguish rising up in my little chest. Sarah and the children had walked on, and I ran to catch them up, crying as I went.

‘What’s the matter with Oliver, Mummy?’ Grace asked, and Sarah turned back to look from me to the blackened, ruined buildings over the road. She gazed for a minute at the sky where the pub roof used to be, the gaping empty holes where the windows were, the remains of curtains flapping in the breeze, and bits of black, burnt furniture left half in and half out of doorways. She turned and looked at the village hall next door, which looked like a giant animal had sat on it and made the top cave in, and then she shook her head, bent down to stroke me and said to the children:

‘He’s crying because his home’s burnt down.’

‘Poor Oliver,’ said Grace. Then she looked up. ‘Mummy,’ she said in a hurried, anxious little voice. ‘That boy in front of us is Michael Potts in my class, and he’s not very nice.’

Sure enough, there was a young male human, a bit bigger than Grace, staring at us from further down the road.

‘Has your sister got another cat?’ he called out to Grace. ‘Is she going to kill that one too?’ And he laughed in a horrible, rude way. I don’t know why he thought it was funny, but it certainly wasn’t. I was so furious to think that it might start Rose crying again, I didn’t even stop to consider the fact that he was a strange male. I ran straight up to him, hissing and spitting with anger, my fur up on end, my ears flat to my head and my tail huge with threat. I had my claws out and would have jumped up his legs and scratched him if Sarah hadn’t come running after me.

‘Hey, hey, that’s enough, Oliver!’ she said, but she wasn’t being cross with me. She sounded quite pleased in a funny way.

‘That cat’s dangerous,’ the nasty boy said. He’d backed away from me and was looking at me with big frightened eyes. ‘You ought to keep him indoors.’

‘Cats go wherever they want,’ Sarah said calmly. ‘That’s why sometimes, sadly, they get hit by cars on the road. I’m sure you heard that’s what happened to our Sooty.’

She was giving him a hard stare that made him open his eyes even wider.

‘Y … yes, I know,’ he said in a scaredy-cat squeak.

‘So I presume you also heard that Rose ran into the road to try to save him?’ she went on. ‘She did it without thinking, but she was too late. She got hurt herself. She was a very brave little girl.’

The boy just stood there, looking at the ground, shifting from paw to paw, and Sarah took hold of both the girls and said, ‘Come on, children, or you’ll be late for the bus,’ and they walked on.

Me? I tried to give the boy the same sort of stare Sarah had used on him. All cats know that’s supposed to be a hostile signal. But by now my bravery had fizzled out a bit and I don’t think it worked very well.

‘Stupid ginger cat!’ he hissed at me as soon as Sarah was out of earshot.

Ginger-and-white, actually. I was proud of my white bits.

It was all too much for me. I watched until they’d all turned the corner, and then I went back the way we’d come. This time I couldn’t even bear to look when I passed the pub.