Oliver The Cat Who Saved Christmas. Charlie The Kitten Who Saved A Life

‘Charlie, it’s me!’ the bigger cat meowed, just as I was about to make a run for it.

‘Oh, hello, Ollie!’ I felt a bit embarrassed, then, for behaving like a scaredy-cat. But he came up to me and rubbed his face against mine.

‘It’s brave of you, isn’t it, being out in the village on your own at this time of night?’

I was still a little kitten to Oliver, you see. He’s always been protective of me.

‘It’s such a nice night for hunting,’ I explained. ‘I was chasing a mouse, and I got carried away.’

‘Well, let’s go back up the lane together. How are you – I haven’t seen you for a few days.’

‘I know. To be honest, so much has been happening at home, with my humans, I’ve been so worried … I hardly know where to start.’

‘What’s wrong? Are they in trouble?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t work it out – you know how complicated humans are. They’re all really stressed and cross with each other—’

‘Well, you’ve been saying that since the new kitten – Jessica – arrived, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, but it’s got even worse lately. It’s Caroline I’m most worried about. She seems so unhappy, a lot of the time. I know Julian and Laura are worried about her too. You don’t think she’s got that horrible illness again, do you, Ollie?’

‘I certainly hope not. It was so good to see her getting better, I’d hate to think of her being ill again. Is that what Julian and Laura think, then?’

‘They seem to, yes. Julian took her somewhere today to see aconsultant, and he looked very worried when they came back. I wish I knew what I could do to make her better.’

‘It’s really hard to know how to help humans, sometimes,’ Oliver said seriously. And he should know. As you’re all aware, he’s famous for having helped everyone in the whole village, back before I was born. ‘You need to listen carefully to their conversations and try to pick up clues.’

‘All they do is argue, these days,’ I said sadly. ‘And a lot of the rows are about the holiday.’

‘Oh yes, you told me about that. It means they’re going away somewhere, right? And have they decided yet what’s happening to you? Not the cattery, I hope?’ he added with a shudder.

‘No. They say they’re taking me with them. I’m a bit nervous about it, though, as I don’t really understand where we’re going, or why. Nobody seems to be looking forward to it. But at least I’ll be with Caroline. I’m sure she’ll look after me. I only wish I could make her happy.’

‘Try taking a nice fat mouse back for her tonight?’ Oliver suggested.

‘Laura would go mad. She keeps telling me off about things like that. She seems to think they’re dirty.’

‘Yes, it’s odd how humans aren’t always pleased with our gifts. But surely Caroline would be grateful, at least?’

‘I could try it,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But I think she might just prefer a cuddle, to be honest.’

‘That’s the best thing,’ Ollie agreed. ‘Humans always like cuddling us. They think they’re doing it for our sakes, but of course, it’s really the other way around. They’re very needy creatures, you know, Charlie. Very fragile, emotionally. It’s a good thing we cats are so well-balanced or we’d never be able to cope with them.’

I said goodbye to Ollie at the gates of my house and went wearily in to bed, our conversation still playing on my mind. After such a late night, I’d have appreciated a lie-in in the morning, but it wasn’t to be. Julian and Laura were up, dressed, and rushing around the house like cats being chased by foxes. They were folding clothes, picking up things and putting them in bags, calling to Caroline to get herself ready. I felt quite left out of it all, and was rather grumpy about having had to remind them three times about my breakfast. Then I noticed they’d left one suitcase open in their bedroom, with some nice soft clothes of Laura’s right on top. Well, it was as good a place as any to settle down for a nap and try to catch upon my sleep. I made a nice little nest for myself in a soft cardigan and pulled a dress over the top of me, and was just dozing off when Julian marched into the room again calling out to Laura:

‘Is this case finished? Can I close it up now?’, before slinging the lid of the suitcase down on top of me.

‘Help! Let me out!’ I meowed in panic – and the lid was opened again and the dress lifted off me.

‘Charlie!’ Julian said, and I wasn’t sure from his tone of voice whether he was cross or amused. ‘What on earth are you doing in there?’ He lifted me out onto the floor, just as Laura came into the room behind him. ‘Charlie was having a nap in the suitcase!’ he told her.

‘Well, I hope he hasn’t creased my new dress,’ she said.

I noticed Julian having a quick look at the dress, frowning and glancing at me before he closed the lid in a hurry and fastened up the case.

‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ he said. And then, to my absolute horror, he went outside to the garage and came back in with the dreaded Carrying Basket.

‘But I thought you said I wasn’t going to the cattery!’ I yelled.

They’d lied! How could they do this to me? I made a dash for the cat flap but even more horror – it was locked! There was no escape!

‘Sorry, Charlie,’ Laura said, picking me up and giving me a stroke. ‘But you’ll have to spend the journey in your basket. It’ll be fine. There you go.’

I tried to struggle, kicking my legs out so I couldn’t fit through the opening, but Laura pushed me in and clipped the metal door shut.

I cried mournfully as she carried me outside in the basket and loaded me into the car. I was put on the floor, just under where baby Jessica was sitting in her funny little seat. From the gaps in the top of my basket I could just see her back paws in their little pink socks. Caroline got into the other side of the back seat and bent down to talk to me.

‘Shush, Charlie, you’re all right, don’t cry. We’re going on a long journey so perhaps you’ll have a little sleep.’

It was only then that I realised I wasn’t going to the cattery after all but being taken on the holiday. I was so relieved, I did actually stop crying for a while – which is more than I can say for Jessica.

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CHAPTER THREE

I hate being in a car. I don’t suppose I’m the only one, am I? No, I didn’t think so! For one thing, I’ve already learnt that it normally means we’re going to the vet. Then there’s the horrible noise cars make and the way they seem to quiver, as they go along, like a cat about to pounce on its prey. Even though I’d stopped crying, I couldn’t help myself from letting out little whimpers of fear. Caroline kept talking to me, but eventually she was getting drowned out by the noise of Jessica’s screaming.

‘Can’t I have Charlie sitting on my lap?’ she called above the din to Laura.

‘No. He might jump off and try to sit on top of Jessica.’

‘I won’t!’ I mewed.

‘He won’t,’ Caroline said. ‘Oh, please let him. He’s frightened. I’ll hold onto him.’

‘No, it’s not safe,’ Julian said. ‘Anyway, it’s the law – cats have to be in a carrier on car journeys. And if we had to stop suddenly he could get hurt.’

‘Not fair,’ I heard Caroline mutter to herself. ‘Poor Charlie.’

So I closed my eyes, told myself sternly to stop being a scaredy-cat, and tried to settle down and catch up on the sleep I’d missed the previous night. It was getting hot in the car with the sunshine coming through the windows and I felt cramped and uncomfortable in my basket. As we all know, even in extreme circumstances, sleep has to take priority. But have you ever tried to get to sleep with a human kitten wailing its head off just above you?

‘Shush, Jessica,’ Laura kept saying, turning round in her seat and trying to reach one of the baby’s paws to stroke. ‘All right, baby, all right.’

‘What’s the matter with her?’ Caroline asked irritably.

‘She’s probably tired.’

‘So why doesn’t she just go to sleep?’

Good question.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps she’s feeling unsettled because normally she’d be having a sleep in her cot or in the pram now. Babies don’t like things being different.’

‘Pity we didn’t stay at home, then,’ Caroline whispered in my direction.

‘Why don’t you talk to her, Caroline?’ Laura suggested.

‘What about?’

‘Well, just try to calm her down. Give her hand a little stroke. Make sure she’s got her dummy and her blankie.’

‘Oh, great! Now I’m being used as achildminder! Is this how it’s going to be on this holiday? Because if it is, I’m going out every day!’

‘Caroline, don’t talk to Laura like that,’ Julian said. ‘Please just give Jessica her dummy like you’ve been asked. Then perhaps we’ll all get some peace.’

It took a while, but eventually Jessica’s wailing died away and all I could hear was the funny sucking noise she made when that dummy thing was in her mouth. I often wondered what it tasted like and why, when she spent half the day sucking away at it, it never got any smaller. I quite fancied having a go with it, but they never left it anywhere where I could get it. Still, at least it was keeping her quiet. Caroline was quiet, too, apart from a faint tinny sort of noise, which I recognised as coming from the things she puts in her ears, connected to Julian’s little screen thing he sometimes lets her play with. It often made her nod her head and tap her feet. Humans are weird, aren’t they? If they’re not putting bits and pieces in their mouths they’re putting them in their ears. I don’t know why they can’t just leave themselves alone.

I finally managed to doze off, but a little bit later I woke up with a start. The car was standing still. Were we there, at the holiday? Could I come out of the basket now? I meowed loudly, just in case they were all going to get out and forget about me.

‘It’s OK, Charlie,’ Caroline said. ‘We’re just having our picnic.’

Picnic? What on earth was a picnic? It’s amazing how many words there must be in the Human language. Almost every day I hear another new one. I definitely think they have more words than we have in Cat, hard though that is to believe, but then again, they only speak with their voices, whereas of course we use our whole bodies as well. How else are they supposed to communicate all the signals we give with our tails? Humans don’t evenhave tails! Or whiskers! And their ears don’t even twitch. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

I peered up through the top of my basket and could see Caroline in the back seat eating a sandwich. Well, it looked exactly like a sandwich but apparentlypicnic was a new name for it.

‘Can I have some?’ I meowed to her.

‘Aw, Charlie’s hungry,’ she said. ‘Can I give him some cheese? Can he come out and sit on my lapnow?’

‘All right, if you’ve finished eating,’ Julian agreed. ‘Just while we’ve stopped. He’ll have to go back when we go to use the conveniences though.’Conveniences. Yet another new word. Where were they going to use them, and what was convenient about them?‘Are all the windows closed?’ he added.

‘Yes. And there are some cat treats in the bag,’ Laura said. ‘Give him some of those, and I’ve got some milk in a container here.’

That was more like it. Caroline undid the basket and lifted me out. Jessica’s little seat was empty – she was on Laura’s lap in the front, being fed. From the window I could see lots and lots of other cars, all lined up in rows, like they were having a meeting. I crunched up all my cat treats and lapped the milk out of the dish Laura had poured it into. I was feeling better now and ready for a run around. Also …

‘I need a wee!’ I meowed to Caroline.

‘I’ve just thought,’ she told Laura, as if she’d understood me. ‘He’s going to need a wee now he’s had that milk.’

‘Damn, I didn’t think of that,’ Julian said.

‘I did,’ Laura said calmly. ‘I’ve got a portable litter tray. It’s in the boot.’

So despite my complaints I was first put back into the basket‘for safety’ while Julian opened the car door and went round to the boot – which some of you probably know, isn’t a boot at all but part of the car. (When they have so many words to choose from, why do they use the name of a shoe to describe the back of a car?) And then, when he came back and the door was closed again, I was taken backout of the basket and pushed inside thisthing they’d put on the back seat next to Caroline. I can only describe it as a cardboard box, with some of my toilet litter scattered inside, as if that was going to help! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Were they joking? Did they seriously imagine any self-respecting cat was going to usethat– in the car, with all of them watching? I’d rather die! And … well, by the time we finally arrived at the holiday, with my bladder bursting, the baby yelling again, Caroline moaning about being bored and Julian snapping at her, you know what? I was thinking of giving up one of my nine lives voluntarily, if only I could be back at home in Little Broomford, playing in the grounds with Oliver or lying in my nice comfy bed!

‘It’s all right, Charlie,’ Caroline was soothing me as she carried me, in my basket, into the strange place they were calling the Holiday Cottage. ‘I’ll let you out in a minute.’

While of course it was true I didn’t like being in the basket, I was more concerned now about relieving myself before I burst, so I was grateful to see Laura was following her, carrying, among other things, my proper litter tray from home, the one I remembered using when I was very little, and then again after I came home from having thatoperation at the vet’s. No grown-up cat likes using a litter tray if they have the option of a proper toilet in a flowerbed outside, of course, but the circumstances were now urgent. As soon as they’d shut the door and let me out of the basket, I zoomed across the room into my tray. And only then did I feel comfortable enough to take in my surroundings. Caroline had already gone off to explore the cottage, so I bounded after her so we could look around together. It didn’t take long.

‘It’stiny,’ Caroline complained as we went back downstairs.

Julian laughed.‘You only think that because you’ve always lived in a big house. This is quite a decent size by normal standards.’

‘There are only two bedrooms!’

‘How many do you think we need?’ Laura said. ‘Daddy’s right – we’re very spoilt, at home. Your dad has worked hard all his life to afford the lovely home we have. But this cottage is so pretty, don’t you think? It’s obviously very old, but it’s nice and cosy. And just look at the view from this window!’ She put her paws around Julian. ‘Well done, darling. It’s a lovely choice.’

Caroline went to join them looking out of the window, and gasped,‘Oh! The sea is rightthere! It almost looks like we could jump into it from here!’

I leapt up onto the windowsill to see what was so exciting– and nearly fell off again with fright. Have any of you ever seen the sea? No? Well, I don’t know how to begin to describe it to you. Try to picture that huge pond we’ve got in the grounds of the Big House. You know, Oliver, where you once told me that according to Cat legend, an ancient Siamese called Old Chalky fell in one day while being chased by a fox, and lost his ninth life. Now, imagine that pond being the size of the whole of Little Broomford. And not only that, it moves! It goes backwards and forwards, up and down, looking like it’s going to come and get you. Needless to say, my first instinct was to run, but I fought the urge, because only a scaredy-cat leaves his human family to face danger on their own. So despite the trembling of my heart, I faced up to that horrible, threatening, moving thing beyond the window, arching my back and growling at it as fiercely as I could. Not that it took any notice – it just kept on coming.

Caroline and Laura were both laughing. How could they find this so amusing?

‘Charlie, you funny little cat, it’s the sea!’ Caroline said, picking me up and, to my horror, holding me right against the window. ‘It won’t hurt you!’

‘He’s never seen it before, and cats don’t like water,’ Laura said. ‘Put him down, he’s struggling.’

I was. I couldn’t understand why none of them seemed bothered about the fact that there was only this thin bit of glass between us and disaster.

‘This is another reason why we must make sure he doesn’t get out of the cottage,’ Julian warned.

‘Oh, don’t worry!’ I meowed as I ran off to find out where my bed had been put. ‘I’m not getting any closer to thatsea thing than I can help, thank you very much!’

Thankfully, the kitchen, where they’d put my bed, felt nice and safe. Its window, as I discovered when I plucked up the courage to jump up and investigate, looked out over the garden instead of the sea. The garden looked very small. I could see a wall going all the way round it, not a particularly high wall, so there was definitely a danger that we could be prone to illegal visits from strange cats who didn’t realise this was now my territory. I puzzled for a while over how I was supposed to defend the garden if I wasn’t going to be allowed outside. I doubted whether growling from the windowsill was going to have any more effect on a feline interloper than it did on the sea. This was a worry, but I’d have to face it when it happened. Meanwhile I was pleased to see my dinner had been dished up and was waiting for me in my bowl, and after eating this and having a good wash, I felt a bit more settled. I joined the family back in the living room, averting my eyes from the big window. The sea still hadn’t come through into the room, so perhaps it had given up. I jumped up on Caroline’s lap and she stroked me nicely while she watched TV, and needless to say I eventually dozed off.

When I woke up, I was lying in one of the armchairs– Caroline must have put me there when she got up – and nobody was around.

‘Hello?’ I meowed as I stood up and stretched myself. ‘Where are you all?’

No response. I wandered out of the lounge and upstairs, but both bedrooms were empty too. There was a funny kind of cot that looked more like a cage next to the bed in the bigger bedroom, but Jessica wasn’t in it. Nobody was in the little bathroom either and I finally realised they’d all actuallygone out and left me! I meowed with indignation. I mean to say, I’m obviously used to being on my own at home, quite often all day. But to be left in this strange place, with a huge sea probably on the point of breaking through the windows, and marauding local cats plotting to surround the property – this was a different matter! I trotted around the cottage for a while, crying to myself in frustration, not daring to look outside, and then, suddenly, to my relief, I heard the front door opening and the sounds of my family returning. I was even pleased to hear baby Jessica’s shrieking as they pushed her pram into the porch. At least it meant I wasn’talone in this place anymore.

‘Make sure the front door is closed behind us before you open the inside one!’ Julian was saying.

‘There’s not enough room for us all in this silly little porch,’ Caroline retorted. ‘Can’t you leave the pram outside?’

‘No, we can’t,’ Laura said. ‘I don’t want it getting wet if it rains, or damp from the sea spray overnight.’

‘No, of course not,’ Caroline muttered, her tone of voice a bit odd. ‘Can’t have Jessica getting damp.’

‘I told you this was a bad idea,’ Julian said crossly. I walked up to the glass door that separated the porch from the lounge and stared at them through the glass. They were all trying to cram into that tiny space, elbowing each other and almost falling on top of Jessica’s pram. What on earthwere they playing at? ‘I told you we should have shut Charlie in the kitchen. That’s what we’ll have to do in future, so we can open the doors without having to worry about him getting out. This is ridiculous.’

‘I don’t think hewants to get out, Daddy. Look, he’s just sitting there watching us,’ Caroline said, squashing herself against the other side of the glass door as Julian struggled to close the outside one.

‘We don’t want to take that chance, do we?’ Laura pointed out.

‘But it was really hot in the kitchen! Poor Charlie will beboiled in there, without any windows open!’

Boiled? I didn’t like the sound of that! Just another worry to add to the list, although personally, I couldn’t think of anything nicer than being really hot.

Finally, the outside door was closed and Caroline opened the glass one, almost falling in on top of me.

‘Well, we’re certainly not doingthat again,’ Laura said as she wheeled the little pram inside, and even Caroline didn’t argue this time.

‘We went for a walk along the seafront, Charlie!’ she said, throwing herself down on the floor next to me. ‘There’s a really nice beach. We’re going down there tomorrow. Daddy said it was too late today – for some reason,’ she added quietly, pushing her eyebrows up to the top of her head.

‘You know why, Caroline,’ Julian said sharply. ‘We need to settle Jessica down for the night. It’ll probably take a while, being in the travel cot and in a strange place.’

‘Yes, so everyone else has to suffer,’ she muttered.

‘Caroline,’ Laura said in a warning voice. ‘Don’t start. It’s been a long day, we’re all tired, and—’

‘No we’re not!I’m not! It’s not even late! I’d have liked to have a walk on the beach, and a paddle in the sea, but no, we have to come back because ofJessica. Jessica needs her sleep, Jessica needs her nappy changed, Jessica needs everyone running around after her like she’s the one in charge of this family!’

‘That’s enough,’ Julian said. But he said it in a quiet, sad voice instead of a cross one, and when I looked up at Caroline I saw a little drip of a tear running down her cheek. I rubbed my head against her legs and she curled around me where she sat on the floor, hiding her face against my fur.

‘I still love you,’ I purred at her.

I’d have liked to ask her a few questions, like: What is a beach? What is a paddle? How can you walk on the seafront, if the sea is moving water? And: How did you stop the sea from getting at you? Wasn’t it dangerous? But even if I could have got her to understand me, now didn’t seem like a good time to try.

Laura carried Jessica upstairs and shut the door of their bedroom, and Julian went into the kitchen to make coffee. Then he turned the TV back on and sat in silence with Caroline, watching pictures of water on it. The water looked very deep and dark, almost worse than the sea outside our window. And then, suddenly, lots of little fish swam into the picture. That was a lot more interesting. I jumped off Caroline’s lap and strolled a little closer to the TV. I knew the fish were just pictures – not that I could see the point of it, the whole TV thing is too weird to take on board, if you ask me. But still, they were a definite attraction. I jumped onto the shelf where the TV sat, and put a paw out to the screen, patting a nice bright orange fish that looked like it ought to be tasty. Of course, it just felt hard and cold. But I liked watching the fish anyway, so I stayed on the shelf, aiming my paw out every now and then, to pretend to myself that I was trying to catch them.

Caroline was laughing at me. At least she’d cheered up a bit. Even Julian chuckled as he said, ‘Charlie, they’re not real! You silly little cat.’

‘I know! I’m just playing!’ I retorted, somewhat offended. I had a swipe at another, bigger one.

‘That’s a catfish!’ Caroline said, laughing again.

It didn’t look anything like a cat to me. Ridiculous name for a fish. But it was nice to hear her laugh, so I had another swipe – unfortunately, just as Laura came back into the lounge.

‘Charlie, get down from there!’ she said. ‘Julian, don’t let him do that. He’ll scratch the TV. It’s not ours, you know.’

I jumped down, chastised again, and slunk under Caroline’s legs, but not before I’d caught sight of her face. She wasn’t laughing anymore; she was scowling. And even Julian’s mouth was turned down at the corners. I wondered if this was how a holiday was supposed to be – everyone snapping at each other and being moody. If so, I was tempted to agree with Caroline that it wasn’t going to be much fun, and perhaps we should have stayed at home.

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CHAPTER FOUR

When I woke up the next morning, it took me a while to remember where I was. The sun was shining brightly through the little kitchen window and it was hot in there already. I could hear footsteps upstairs– the floor creaked when anyone walked on it – and Jessica was complaining as usual. I wondered what her problem was. She had an easy life, if you asked me. If she’d been a cat kitten, she’d have been weaned, toilet trained and be learning to hunt by now, but it seems human kittens need babying forever. I got up and had a good stretch. I was hungry, and as nobody had come downstairs yet I had to yowl at the top of my voice to get their attention. Caroline came bounding down from her bedroom, still in her pyjamas.

‘Charlie needs feeding, Dad! Shall I give him his breakfast?’

‘Yes please, Caroline,’ Julian called back. ‘We’ll be down in a minute.’

‘We’re going to the beach today, Charlie,’ she told me as she dished up my food. She gave my head a little stroke as she put down my bowl. ‘Daddy and Laura have promised. I hope you’ll be all right here on your own.’

I couldn’t stop eating to reply to her, and in any case what was I supposed to say? Now I was getting used to the cottage, I wouldn’t have minded being left alone so much if I’d had the run of the place. I’d be out in that garden for a start, sniffing out all the best places in the flowerbeds for my toilet, investigating any smells of mice, voles, rabbits and – always to be avoided of course – foxes. Chasing birds, climbing trees, playing in the bushes, to say nothing of facing any possible opposition from local cats, while I was establishing my position as territory holder. But no, I wasapparently going to be a prisoner in this kitchen all day with just a litter tray for company. The only good thing about it was the fact that I couldn’t see the monstrous sea from in here. I was pleasantly surprised to find that we’d all survived the night without it getting into the cottage but from what I’d seen yesterday, it was unlikely to give up trying.

‘I’m sorry we can’t take you with us, Charlie,’ Caroline was saying as she poured herself a glass of milk. ‘But I don’t think you’d like it anyway. And I don’t suppose we’ll be staying long, because of Jessicaobviously.’

In that case I was grateful to Jessica for once. I couldn’t think what I was going to do all day, apart from sleeping, which I supposed wasn’t such a bad idea.

Everyone was soon downstairs having their breakfasts, so after I’d finished eating and washing, I shot upstairs quickly. I had this idea that if I hid under one of the beds, they might not find me when it was time to leave, and wouldn’t be able to shut me in the kitchen. The big bedroom was nice and sunny so I trotted in there. There was a lovely clean-sheet smell coming from Jessica’s strange new cot. I walked round it, sniffing appreciatively, then jumped up on the big bed next to it and looked down insideS. There was a nice fluffy white blanket in there, and a pink toy rabbit with silky ears. It all looked very cosy and tempting. It couldn’t hurt for me to have a little lie down in there, could it, while the baby wasn’t using it? I jumped down into it from the bed. The sheet was soft, and still warm from Jessica. I purred happily to myself as I started turning round and round to make a nice little nest for myself out of the blanket, finally snuggling down with my nose tucked up under my tail. With a bit of luck, they wouldn’t think to look for me in here and I could spend the day in comfort while they were out. I closed my eyes, still purring, and started to drift off into a dream …

‘CHARLIE!’

The shriek was so loud and high-pitched, I nearly jumped out of my fur. Laura was standing next to the cot, staring down at me, a look of horror on her face.

‘What’s the matter? Where is he?’ I heard Julian shouting as he came up the stairs.

‘In the baby’scot, for God’s sake! Look at him!’ She sounded close to tears. ‘You bad boy!’ she snapped at me. ‘Get out!’

‘Sorry,’ I meowed, getting up and stretching.

‘I said get out!’ she said again, reaching down and picking me up quite roughly. ‘Take him downstairs and shut him in the kitchen,’ she said to Julian, handing me over as if I was something disgusting she couldn’t bear the sight of. ‘I can’t have this, Julian – I’m going to have to strip the cot now and wash everything.’

‘Really?’ he said. ‘But surely—’

‘He was curled up on her sheet! In her blanket! With his head on her rabbit! There’ll be cat’s hairs and … and germs, and goodness knows what … on it all.’

‘He’s quite clean, Laura,’ Julian said gently. He gave me a little stroke as he said it, and I responded with a grateful meow. Of course I was clean! I’d only just washed myself that morning, hadn’t I! ‘It used to beyou tellingme cats were clean animals, remember? When I wouldn’t let Oliver get anywhere near Caroline, while she was ill?’

‘That was different,’ she said, although she didn’t explain why. She started taking the sheet and blanket out of the cot, inspecting them as if I might have put muddy paw prints on them.

‘Just give them a shake outside,’ Julian said. ‘It’ll only be a few hairs, if anything. He’s only been up here a few minutes.’

‘They’re going in the wash,’ she retorted, walking ahead of him out of the room. ‘And in future, keep this bedroom door shut, please.’

My world was shrinking. Pretty soon the only place I was going to be allowed to go was my own bed. I could see it coming!

The time passed slowly after they went out. For a while I sat by the washing machine, watching Jessica’s sheet, fluffy blanket and pink toy rabbit going round and round, but that quickly got boring. I jumped up onto the windowsill and looked out at the garden. It was frustrating not to be able to tell the birds to clear off. I growled at them from behind the window but I could tell they were laughing at me because I couldn’t get out. There was the usual chattering mob of starlings, a pair of nice ripe blackbirds and a fluttering of finches, but every now and then the whole congregation was scattered by a huge ugly intruder who flew in abruptly, landed amongst them and strutted through thecrowd as if he owned the place.Seagulls. I’d seen them before, of course, flying high in the sky over Little Broomford, wheeling and diving and calling out rudely to each other. Older cats had told me these seagulls were usually making their way to the coast, or sometimes coming inland for a while to take shelter from a storm. But none seemed to live permanently around our parts so I’d never before seen them at such close quarters and, to be honest, the first time one landed in the cottage garden I was glad therewas a window between us. I’d had no idea they were so big. His feet were huge, and his beak looked like it could swallow a little cat with one bite. I watched him waddle into the crowd of smaller birds, dispersing them just with a glare from his beady eyes, and found myself backing away slightly on my windowsill even though I knew I was safe.

‘Don’t be such a scaredy-cat, Charlie,’ I told myself sternly. ‘It’s just a bird! Since when have you been frightened of anything with feathers? You’ve eaten bigger things than him for breakfast!’

That wasn’t strictly true. He would’ve been big enough for breakfast, lunch and dinner for several cats. But I couldn’t imagine trying to catch him anyway. His walk was even more ungainly than a stupid fat pigeon’s, but when he took off in flight it was with such a sudden ferocious flapping of his huge wings that all the other birds went rushing for cover, and he was instantly airborne, swooping aloft in the currents, calling back mockingly at those who were still on the ground. I’ve sometimes chased ducks as they take off from beside that big pond in my grounds. They’re always good for a laugh. When they take off after swimming on the water, they skim the surface quite gracefully, but on land it’s completely different. They have to take such a long, waddling run to get up into the air, it feels like I could bring one down with just a swipe of my paw. But this seagull wasn’t likethat. There was something arrogant about him that made me quiver from head to tail. I didn’t like him. But however much I shouted at him from the window, I had a feeling he’d be back.

I was glad to hear the family coming home at long last. Caroline came straight into the kitchen to see me.

‘Have you been lonely, Charlie boy?’ she crooned, squatting down to hug me.

‘Yes!’ I purred into her ear. ‘And there was this big seagull in the garden—’

‘We had to give up on our picnic and bring it home,’ she said, ignoring me. ‘The seagulls were dive-bombing us on the beach, trying to steal our sandwiches! Laura was going frantic about Jessica getting her fingers bitten.’

I sat up, instantly alert. So I was right! Seagulls were bullies, aggressive yobs, just as I’d suspected. Trying to steal sandwiches from humans, indeed! Who did they think they were? Next time I saw one in the garden I’d … I’d … well, I’d growl and hiss at him from the window, that was for sure.

‘I won’t be taking her on that beach again, I can tell you that,’ Laura was saying as she came into the kitchen with Jessica in her arms. ‘The poor little mite was terrified.’

‘You were,’ Caroline said, half under her breath. ‘Jessica didn’t even notice.’

‘Caroline, put the kettle on, would you, please? And go and brush the sand off your shorts before you sit down in the lounge. I hope you left your shoes in the porch?’

‘Yes.’ Caroline went to the tap to fill the kettle. ‘Just a few stupid seagulls,’ she muttered to me. ‘You’d have seen them off, Charlie, wouldn’t you?’

I was flattered by her confidence in me. But I wasn’t so sure she was right.

A little later I was sunning myself on my windowsill, where Caroline had kindly put a cushion for me to sit, when there was a knock on the front door.

‘Who on earth can that be?’ Laura said. And then, as Julian opened the door, ‘Careful, darling, close the porch door first. Charlie hasn’t been shut in the kitchen.’

‘OK.’ I heard Julian respond. And then, ‘Oh, hello Mrs Grimshaw.’

‘Hello, love,’ came a stranger’s voice. ‘And call me Annie, please. Everyone does.’

I jumped down from my perch and padded into the lounge to investigate.

‘So this is your kitty cat you were telling me about,’ the woman said as soon as she saw me. ‘Hello, little puss. Nice puss!’

I swished my tail at her. For one thing I really object to being calledPuss. I’m sure you all agree, it’s so patronising. If someone wants to say hello to you, why don’t they find out your name first? Also, I didn’t know yet whether she was friend or foe. She was short and plump, with a red face and a very loud voice that made her sound like she was shouting.

‘Charlie. His name’s Charlie,’ Caroline said, and I blinked my thanks at her.

‘Charlie. Right.’ The woman nodded. ‘Nice markings in his coat, hasn’t he?’

‘That’s because I’m a tabby, you silly female,’ I meowed. Didn’t she know anything?

‘He’s a tabby,’ Caroline said. ‘His father was a tabby, his mother was grey, so some of the kittens were like him and the others were—’

‘I see,’ the woman said, without waiting for Caroline to finish. ‘So, how are you all settling down?’

‘Good, thank you, er, Annie,’ Julian said. ‘The cottage is lovely.’

I could see Caroline was looking as puzzled as I was about this loud voiced, red-faced person who was ignorant about cats. Julian must have noticed because he turned to her now and said,‘Annie owns this cottage, Caroline. She lives next door. I picked up the key from her yesterday when we arrived.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Caroline said politely.

‘Itis lovely here,’ Laura agreed. ‘Such a beautiful beach. We were surprised it wasn’t more crowded.’

Annie’s face went even redder.

‘Tell me about it!’ she boomed. ‘We’re not getting the usual number of visitors in Mudditon this year. The season looks to be a dead loss. To be fair, it’s not been too bad for me, as I get a lot of repeat bookings for the cottage, you see. But the hotels and the bed-and-breakfasts have suffered, and so have all the shops and the caf?s.’ She shook her head. ‘Everyone’s having a bad time of it.’

‘Why?’ Julian said. ‘I mean, I know it’s a quiet little place but I thought it was usually very popular in the summer.’

‘It is, usually. Busting at the seams this time of year, until all this panic about the seagulls.’

I saw Julian and Laura exchange a look.

‘We had seagulls coming after our sandwiches on the beach earlier,’ Julian said. ‘Has it been a problem here, then?’

‘I should’ve warned you,’ Annie said, shaking her head. ‘You’ll be all right if you don’t take food down there. They’ve got so cheeky, you see. Lost their fear of humans, they have. It’s because people feed them, if you want my opinion. They should just let them be – they’re wild birds, they’re supposed to find their own food, but now they’ve got a taste for ham sandwiches and ice creams.’

‘I don’t think we’d better go to the beach anymore, then, Julian,’ Laura said in a worried voice. ‘Not with Jessica being so tiny.’

‘But Annie said it’s OK if we don’t take food down there, Laura,’ Caroline said.

‘Yes. But of course, even if people are sitting outside the beach caf?, or in the pub garden, they’re getting gulls going after their lunches.’ Annie shook her head again. ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the media making so much of it.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Oh, you know what they’re like. The local paper ran a front page story, towards the end of last year’s season.Tourists under siege from aggressive gulls– with pictures of people cowering on the beach while seagulls swooped all round them. Next thing you know,South West News got hold of the story. Then it got into the national papers, and that was when the bookings for this year started dropping off, you see. People were coming out of the woodwork to complain about gulls making off with their doughnuts and biting their babies.’

She stopped, glancing at Laura who was holding Jessica close to her as if she was in imminent danger of attack.‘It was all being exaggerated, out of all proportion,’ she went on more quietly. ‘You’re safe here, honestly, love. Just, well, I wouldn’t eat outside, if you’re worried, that’s all.’

Laura didn’t look particularly reassured. ‘I take it you didn’t hear about this before you decided we were coming here,’ she said to Julian in an accusing voice.

‘No, of course I didn’t. But as Annie says, it’s all been exaggerated anyway. Just a few seagulls, for goodness’ sake! What else do you expect, in a seaside town?’

‘That’s what I said,’ Caroline muttered, but everyone ignored her.

‘Well, it’s true the gulls are causing some problems, but it’s not as if Mudditon’s the only place it’s happened,’ Annie said. ‘And the council’s looking into ways of dealing with it. They’ve put up some notices telling people not to feed the gulls, but it’s not enough, in my opinion. They need to do more, or the tourism here is going to go completely down the pan.’

‘That’s a real shame,’ Julian said. ‘It’s such a nice little place.’

‘And people are going to lose their livelihoods, if it goes on.’ Annie sighed and looked around at us all. ‘Anyway, I just came to check you had everything you need.’

‘Yes, it’s very comfortable, thank you,’ Laura said a bit stiffly.

‘Well, look, please don’t let this spoil your holiday. As I said, just go inside to eat, to be on the safe side, and you’ll be fine.’

‘Thank you.’ Julian went to the door with her. ‘Poor woman’s worried about losing bookings herself, I imagine,’ he commented after she’d gone.

‘She should have told you about it when you booked the cottage!’ Laura retorted.

‘Come on, I’m sure she’s right that it’s all been exaggerated.’

‘Did itlook exaggerated when those gulls attacked us on the beach? It was just pure luck Jessica didn’t get bitten!’

‘Well, now we know, we won’t take food to the beach in future. We could go inside the beach caf? tomorrow and treat ourselves to a nice lunch there. If it stays this hot, we won’t want to stay on the beach all day anyway. We don’t want Jessica getting too much sun, do we?’

Laura nodded.‘That’s true. OK, we’ll try the caf? tomorrow. Or we could come back and eat here, I suppose. I do feel a bit sorry for Charlie being shut up in here all day without any company.’

I meowed with surprise. Somebody was actually considering my feelings! Caroline looked round at me and laughed.

‘I think Charlie agrees with that!’ she said. And then she looked at her father and added, ‘Please can I play games on your tablet, Dad, if we’re not going back to the beach?’

‘Yes, OK, for a little while,’ he said, passing her his computer thing.

‘Yes!’ she exclaimed happily, jumping up to take it from him. I couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about, but she seemed to get an enormous amount of pleasure from pressing that thing and watching pictures moving on it. She sat on the sofa with it and I jumped up onto her lap, purring contentedly. I hoped maybe my little family was starting to settle down now and get along better again. If only it would last!

[Êàðòèíêà: i_002.jpg]

CHAPTER FIVE

Are you all keeping up with my story so far? Good. What did you say, Smudge?When are we getting to the scary bit? Well, I’m building up the tension, aren’t I. Setting the scene. When we do get to the most exciting part, you’ll probably be the first one to turn tail and run off in fright!

In any case I was just about to skip forward slightly in the story, because for a while nothing much changed. It was nice sunny weather, and every day they all went off to the beach while I stayed on my own in the kitchen. Sometimes they came back for lunch, sometimes they apparently ate in the caf?, wherever that was. It was boring. I spent a lot of time asleep. Caroline thought it was boring too, even though she said she liked swimming in the sea. Swimming in the sea? I was quite alarmed for her, as you can probably imagine. We cats have never bothered with all thatswimming malarkey, have we– what’s the point in getting wet all over? It’s bad enough if we get caught in the rain, or if we have an unfortunate accident and fall into a pond, which of course is embarrassing as well as being frankly horrible.

The next Sunday– hard to tell what day it was, when nobody had been going to school or work, Julian packed his bag to go off back to Little Broomford. Laura looked sad when they said goodbye, and Caroline pleaded with him to take her back with him.

‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘I’ll be going to work. You’ll have much more fun here, swimming every day.’

But the following day it poured with rain. There was no going to the beach, and Laura was stressed because she’d run out of clean clothes for Jessica, the washer-drier machine in the cottage wasn’t very efficient and everything had to be finished off drying inside. I didn’t mind, of course, because after all, there’s nothing nicer than winding yourself up in clean warm towels and clothes hanging onan airer, is there? I was having a lovely time of it, unfortunately pulling a few things off the airer onto the floor in the process, but when Laura found me she was livid, moaning at me about having to wash things twice, and I ended up being shut in the kitchen again.

Caroline was miserable too.

‘I wish I had a tablet or a laptop of my own,’ she complained to Laura. ‘Now Daddy’s taken his with him, I’ve got nothing whatsoever to do. If you’d even let me have aphone it would be better than nothing.’

‘You don’t need a phone, at your age,’ Laura said. ‘Why don’t you read a book?’

‘Iwas reading a book, on Daddy’s tablet. I was halfway through it and now he’s taken it away. Everyone my age has a tablet of their own.And a phone! It’s pathetic – I can’t even text my friends. I feel like a prisoner.’

But Laura was ignoring her, tutting to herself about the washing. Caroline sat down on the kitchen floor next to my bed and whispered in my ear about how fed up she was. I agreed. Holidays weren’t much fun for anybody, as far as I could see.

*

Julian phoned Laura that evening to say he’d got safely home, and then he phoned her every evening after he’d been to work. I heard Laura talking to him, complaining that the weather was awful and Caroline was bored.

‘Did you phone for Caroline’s blood test results?’ she asked the second time he called.

I gathered from her end of the conversation that he had, but that the results still weren’t through.

‘Oh dear. I expect you’re right, it’s this uncertainty about her health that’s making her so edgy,’ she said.

It was true Caroline wasn’t being very nice. Every evening she pulled a face when she saw what Laura had cooked her for dinner.

‘You never used to be so fussy!’ Laura snapped one day. ‘I give up! Nothing I cook seems to be good enough for you anymore.’

‘I’m not being fussy. I keep telling you, but you won’t listen: I just don’t want to eat meat anymore.’

‘Well, I’mnot cooking special vegetarian dinners for you, just because you’re being difficult.’

Caroline looked like she was going to cry.

‘I haven’tasked you to cook for me, have I? I’ll just eat salads.’

Laura gave her a suspicious glance.‘You’re not trying todiet, are you? Caroline, you don’t need to—’

‘No, I’m not! I just want to be listened to, and treated like aperson!’ she said, and as usual, ran off to her bedroom.

I didn’t really understand. If she wasn’t being treated like a person, what did she think – that she was being treated like a cat? It wasn’t as if she was being given my cat food, on a dish on the floor, or being shut in the kitchen every time she put a paw wrong. But I loved Caroline best in allthe world, so I always ran after her and snuggled up to her when she was upset, anyway.

As well as the phone calls from Julian, I knew Laura had been talking to Nicky. I’d heard her laughing, the way human females only seem to do when they’re talking to other females. Towards the end of that first week without Julian, I was lying on the sofa while she was having one of these conversations, and I heard her saying:

‘Oh, Nicky, that would be so nice. Yes, please come! It would make it all so much more fun. We can have nice long chats and you can tell me more about what’s going on with Daniel. You’re right, it might do him good to be left to fend for himself for a week. You will? That’s wonderful! Yes, of course Julian will bring you down. And take you back the following weekend. I’m looking forward so much to seeing you!’

Laura was in a much better mood for the rest of the day, and the following evening when Julian arrived back, he had Nicky and baby Benjamin in the car with him. It was nice to see Nicky. She made a fuss of me, and Caroline. Everyone seemed quite cheerful for a change. Laura bustled around turning the sofa in the lounge into a bed, and helping Nicky to put up another of those funny travel cots, for Benjamin.

‘You’ll have to keep an eye on Charlie,’ she warned Nicky. ‘He jumped into Jessica’s cot last week. We found him curled up in her blanket, would you believe?’

Nicky laughed.‘Ah, how cute!’

‘Cute?’ Laura repeated, looking startled. Then she sighed. ‘Well, OK, perhaps I did overreact a little.’

Yes, you did! I meowed in agreement. At least it didn’t seem like Nicky would be shutting me in the kitchen every time I glanced in Benjamin’s direction. She was more indulgent to Caroline, too, letting her play games on her phone and shrugging off Laura’s complaints about her fussy eating with the advice, ‘It’s probably just a phase. Try not to stress about it.’

But the happy atmosphere disappeared somewhat during the night-time. One mewing human kitten is bad enough in such a small house. Two is just unbearable. One was waking up the other one, and both of them were waking up everyone else, including me. I burrowed right underneath my furry blanket and put my head under my tail but it still didn’t drown out the crying. In the end, I joined in. It seemed like the only option left to me. But that just resulted in Julian coming into the kitchen in his pyjamas to tell me off.

‘It’s bad enough, without you making matters worse!’ he snapped.

I gave up and sat on the windowsill for the rest of the night, staring out at the dark little garden and wishing I could go out hunting.

After they’d all had breakfast, the bad night seemed to be forgotten. The weather had turned sunny again and Julian and Caroline went to the beach on their own, so Laura and Nicky could sit and chat. This seemed to please everyone. I sat on Nicky’s lap and purred happily while listening to their conversation.

‘Obviously I’mpleased his business has taken off so well,’ Nicky told Laura, and I quickly realised she was talking about her own male, Daniel. I knew, from hearing them talk so often before, that Daniel had given up his old job in London to start a car repair business. ‘And of course I understand that he has to work hard now that he’s his own boss. But …’

‘But it’s not the hours he’s working that you’re objecting to, is it,’ Laura said quietly.

‘No. For God’s sake, Laura, I’m not being unreasonable, am I? I mean, fair enough if he wants a quick drink sometimes after working so hard all day – I don’t blame him for that – but it doesn’t stop there. He’s in the pub most of the evening, more often than not. It makes me feel like he doesn’t evenwant to come home to me.’

‘I can imagine.’ Laura reached out and took hold of Nicky’s paw. ‘And he must hardly see Benjamin at all.’

‘Some weeks hedoesn’t see him at all. Benny’s asleep long before Dan staggers home. And of course, he’s often working weekends too. Oh, I don’t want to sound like a nagging wife. I know some couples manage without seeing much of each other because of their jobs. But one of the reasons we both changed to working in the village was so that we didn’t have to spend all those long hours commuting, and never being at home.’

‘And now you must wonder whether you’re really any better off.’ Laura sighed. ‘Well, at least you’re happy with whatyou’re doing, Nick. The childminding work fits in so well with looking after Benjamin. I’m hoping to find something similar myself, when Jessica’s a bit older.’

‘You’ll have no trouble, with your nursing qualifications. And you’re right, I know we women need to find satisfaction with our own lives instead of relying on our men to make us happy. But …’

‘You and Dan wereso happy. And it’s not as if you’ve been married long! He has to be made to see sense.’ Laura grinned suddenly and nudged Nicky. ‘If he’s not careful you’ll take off with Kevin the Creep. Then he’ll be sorry!’

‘Oh, please!’ Nicky burst out laughing. ‘Don’t remind me about Kevin!’

And both of them doubled up with laughter. Nicky was shaking so much I had to jump off her lap. I had no idea who Kevin the Creep was. Where did he creep, and why? Perhaps he had poorly legs. Or perhaps he was a snake, for all I knew. But at least he was responsible for cheering up my two human friends– for now!

Once Julian had gone off back to work again, the atmosphere in the cottage changed. Laura and Nicky were still being happy and chatty together, but Caroline’s mood was even worse.

‘Now I’m the only one with nobody to talk to,’ she complained. ‘Even Jessica has got Benjamin to keep her company! Why can’tI have a friend to stay?’

‘Oh, Caroline, be reasonable,’ Laura said. ‘There isn’t room. It’s squashed enough here, as it is.’

‘Well, after Nicky goes home, then? Please, Laura? If Grace came down we could go out together and I wouldn’t be in your way anymore.’

Laura looked shocked.‘You’re not in myway, Caroline. I’ve never said that.’

‘You don’t have to say it,’ Caroline grumbled in response. ‘It’s obvious.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Isn’t it? Nobody cares that I’m totally bored here in this crappy place.’

‘Caroline!’

‘Well, you think that too, really, don’t you? You’ve only cheered up because Nicky’s here. It’s totally unfair. I feel more lonely now than I did when I was ill!’

There was a horrible silence. Laura was blinking at Caroline, her paw over her mouth. Nicky, who had left the room while the argument was going on, came back in and put her arm round Laura as Caroline stomped off up the stairs.

‘She didn’t mean it,’ Nicky said quietly.

‘Yes Idid!’ Caroline flung back from the top of the stairs. ‘You don’t understand!’

‘We’re trying to, Caroline,’ Nicky called back. Then, to Laura, she added, ‘Why not ask Julian what he thinks of the idea?’

‘Seriously? You think I should havetwo moody girls down here while he’s at work in London?’

‘Actually I suspect Caroline’s right about one thing – she’d be a lot happier and less trouble if she had company.’

Laura sighed.‘I suppose so. Perhaps we have been unfair to her. It shook me to the core just now to hear her saying she was lonely. The poor child spent all that time in hospital, and lying at home on her own when she was ill. Have I lost my compassion, Nicky?’

‘Of course you haven’t. You’ve got used to her feeling well, now, and she’s been trying your patience lately. Plus you’ve got your hands full with Jessica.’

‘I sometimes think Caroline might be jealous of her, you know.’

‘She wouldn’t be human if she wasn’t, a little bit. Especially where Julian’s concerned.’

‘Yes. After all, it was just him and Caroline, for such a long time. And he was very overprotective about her when she was ill. Understandably.’

‘Understandable, yes, but it meant she didn’t get to see other children. And now shehas made friends, she needs to spend time with them. It’s only natural.’

‘I know. You’re right. Well, I’ll see what Julian says when we talk tonight.’

I trotted upstairs to jump on Caroline’s bed with her. I expected to find her lying flat on her tummy with her face on the pillow, as she normally did after an argument. But to my surprise her bedroom door was closed, and through the door I could hear her talking. I pushed on the door with my head but it wouldn’t open, so I sat up and scratched at it with my front paws. The talking stopped. Then she said, more quietly, ‘Wait a minute, I can hear someone outside’, and came to open the door. She looked down at me and smiled, picking me up and carrying me into the room, closing the door behind her again.

‘It’s only Charlie,’ she said, and I saw that she was talking into a phone. Laura’s phone! I meowed with surprise. ‘Ssh, Charlie, lie down quietly. It’s OK, Grace, I’ve shut the door again. They can’t hear me. So will you come? It’ll be so cool. We can go swimming and stuff, and we can sleep in my bed together, it’ll be such a laugh! I’mdying down here on my own.’

I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but Caroline was saying, ‘Right,’ and ‘Yeah, I know,’ while she listened, and then she said, ‘Yeah, Laura’s the same, she just doesn’t understand. And everything’s about Jessica all the time. It’s like I don’t matter since she arrived. OK then, ask your mum. And I’ll try to talk to my dad tonight.’

After she turned off the phone, she sat on her bed for a while, hugging her knees and humming to herself. She picked me up and rubbed her face against my fur.

‘Oh, Charlie,’ she whispered in my ear, making it twitch and tremble with her warm breath, ‘Iso hope Grace is allowed to come. We’ll have an amazing time together and all the other girls will be well jealous. Surely I deserve this, before they make me say goodbye to all my friends forever and go to that stupid private school.’

And all I could do was purr back at her in agreement. I just wanted her to be happy, you see. How was I to know it was all going to go horribly wrong? Or that I’d end up being responsible for putting everything right again?

[Êàðòèíêà: i_002.jpg]

CHAPTER SIX

As it happened, there was another development that evening, which changed everything. I was in the lounge with Laura and Nicky when Julian made his usual phone call. Within minutes of listening to him on her phone, Laura’s expression changed and she looked like she was going to burst out mewing.

‘Oh, no,’ she said, very quietly. ‘Oh dear, I was desperately hoping it wouldn’t be necessary. Yes, of course you’re worried, darling – so am I. Well, the sooner it’s done the better. It may still be a false alarm, they just have to check, if there’s any doubt, don’t they? Right, so you’ll take her back with you on Sunday?’

There was a silence as she listened to Julian’s response, and then Laura gave a huge sigh and went on: ‘She won’t want to come back again afterwards, you know. I feel awful now about getting impatient with her. What if her moods and rudenessare because she’s sick again? She told me today she feels more lonely down here than she did when she was ill. It really brought me up sharply. Yes, she was being stroppy, but even so …’ There was another pause, and then: ‘Well, she’d started demanding that we let her friend Grace come down to stay for a week – because I’ve got Nicky here, you know, so I suppose she feels left out.’

It didn’t take much guesswork to realise they were talking about Caroline and that there had been some bad news. They went on talking for a while, with Laura saying ‘Yes’ and ‘I agree’, and then finally she said: ‘OK then, I think that’s a good plan. Shall I call her down so you can talk to her now?’

Caroline came bounding down the stairs as soon as Laura yelled that her dad was on the phone. She looked excited.

‘I’m going to ask him if he can bring Grace back with him this weekend,’ she said. ‘I bet he’ll agree.’

‘Caroline, Daddy’s got something to tell you …’ Laura warned her, but the phone had already been taken out of her paw and Caroline was babbling excitedly to Julian about her idea for Grace to visit.

Laura and Nicky exchanged a look, and Nicky grasped Laura’s paw. Like me, she must have guessed what the conversation had meant.

‘What?’ Caroline suddenly demanded. ‘I’ve got to go back to the hospital? Why?’ Then she fell silent, the corners of her mouth turning down. ‘Oh,’ she said quietly. And then: ‘Yes. All right. I suppose so. OK. Bye, Dad.’

She handed the phone back to Laura, silently, scowling to herself.

‘It’s probably nothing to worry about, sweetheart,’ Laura began.

‘Not foryou, maybe,’ Caroline shot back. ‘It’s me who’s got to go and have the horrible bone marrow thing done again. Why? They said I was better now. It’s not fair!’

‘No. You’re right, it isn’t. It’s veryunfair. But we have to trust the doctors. There was apparently something slightly borderline in your blood test, which is why it’s taken longer than usual to hear back about it. They need to investigate it further. It might be nothing whatever to do with the leukaemia, but the biopsy is just to rule that out. Did Daddy tell you what he’s going to do?’

‘Yes, he’ll take me back with him on Sunday. That’s the only good thing about it. I can get away from this boring dump.’

‘You’ll have your biopsy done on Monday, and he’ll bring you back again.’ Laura paused, looking at Caroline’s face. ‘And if it’s OK with her parents, he’ll bring Grace back with you.’

‘Oh!’ She brightened up immediately. ‘Really? He didn’t say!’

‘No, well, he’s going to phone her mum and dad now, so he probably didn’t want to get your hopes up yet. But, well, I thought it would cheer you up to know that’s the plan. We’ll keep our fingers crossed, shall we?’

‘Yes. Oh, thanks, Laura! It’ll be so cool …’, and she was off again on a surge of excitement about having Grace to stay. Borrowing Laura’s phone, this time with her permission, she ran back upstairs to call her friend again.

Laura glanced at Nicky and shook her head.‘It’s as if she’s forgotten about the possibility of the leukaemia recurring already! I hope I did the right thing, telling her about Grace.’

‘I think so. It’ll take her mind off it. I’m sure Sarah and Martin will agree to let her come – especially in the circumstances.’

‘Oh, Nicky!’ Laura said, wiping her eyes. ‘I’m so frightened for her. Please don’t let this be bad news. I can’t bear to think she’d have to go through all that again.’

‘Try to think positive,’ Nicky said, putting her arm round Laura. ‘At least you won’t have too long to wait. Come on, you need to be brave for Caroline now.’

‘And more patient with her.’

‘No. Then she’llreally worry that you believe she’s ill again!’ Nicky said, smiling. ‘I think it’s important for now that everything stays normal, don’t you? She waited a long time to be treated like a normal girl. Don’t change that now, unless you have to.’

They hugged each other then, and Laura wiped her eyes again and got up to make a cup of tea. I jumped up on Nicky’s lap. I wanted to be hugged too. I was just as worried about Caroline as they were, but I had nobody to talk to about it.

Julian took Nicky and Benjamin home that Sunday when he left with Caroline, who was looking pale and subdued now she knew the hospital appointment was the next day. Laura reminded her, as she kissed her goodbye, that she had Grace’s visit to look forward to, and she nodded and gave a little smile. For the next two days until Julian brought her back again with Grace, it was very quiet in the holiday cottage with just me, Laura and Jessica, apart from the times when Jessica was mewing at the top of her lungs, of course. Laura looked sad and worried, and seemed to keep forgetting I was there. I was very pleased to see Julian’s car arriving outside again when they came back.

‘How did it go?’ Laura said, the minute they walked in. I’d been shut in the kitchen, as usual, while the doors were opened and closed but I was listening from behind the kitchen door.

‘Fine,’ Julian said. ‘Caroline was very brave. We just have to wait for the result again now.’

‘Well done, Caroline,’ Laura said. ‘At least it’s all over now, and you’ve got Grace here to take your mind off it.’

‘My mindis off it,’ Caroline said. ‘I don’t want to think about it ever again. I’mnot going to be ill again, and I’mnot going back to that hospital anymore.’

‘Well, that’s a good attitude to have, but …’

‘Let’s go and play in my room, Grace!’ Caroline said without waiting for Laura to finish. ‘Come on, I’ll show you round!’

‘Where’s Charlie?’ I heard Grace say. ‘Can I say hello to him?’

Oh, at last! Someone remembered I was there! I meowed at her through the door, and then finally I was let out to join in the reunion.

‘Come on, Charlie, come upstairs with us!’ Caroline said, and all three of us bounded up to her bedroom, the two girls laughing excitedly.

‘I’m glad she’s OK,’ I heard Laura say a bit cautiously as we went.

‘Yes,’ Julian replied in a similar tone. ‘A bit over the top, though, if you know what I mean. All this hysterical excitement. I wonder if she’s covering up how she really feels.’

‘Scared?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

That night Caroline and Grace lay awake for half the night giggling, curled up together in Caroline’s bed. Every now and then I’d hear Julian or Laura saying ‘Shush! Keep the noise down! Go to sleep!’

Julian went back to work again the next day, and everything settled down a bit, but Caroline and Grace certainlydidn’t keep their noise down. Grace had brought something with her that played music, loudly, and the girls took to singing along at the tops of their voices, sometimes dancing too, and making up their own songs. Sometimes I joined in. I think I sing quite nicely, but for some reason it always made the two girls fall about laughing, which was a bit hurtful.

‘Charlie, stopcaterwauling!’ Caroline said on one occasion, making Grace laugh even more. I’d never heard that word before but I guessed it wasn’t complimentary. Even Laura was laughing, but then she stopped and, still smiling, said, ‘I’m glad you’re having fun, girls, but please keep it down a bit when Jessica’s asleep.’

When they weren’t singing and dancing, the girls were down at the beach. They didn’t have to come home for Jessica’s feeds or naps anymore, as Laura was happy for them to be out together on their own, as long as they came back at the time she’d told them. One day they were apparently late, though, and gottold off.

‘Youmust come back on time, or I won’t be able to let you go out on your own anymore,’ Laura said. ‘I’m responsible for Grace’s safety while she’s here, Caroline, as well as yours.’

‘It’s justten minutes!’ she retorted. ‘Chill, Laura, for God’s sake!’

Laura sighed. I wondered if she was finding it hard to bemore patient with Caroline, like she’d said she would.

‘Please don’t speak to me like that, Caroline. It isn’t clever, it’s just rude. You can both go upstairs and get changed now – dinner’s nearly ready.’

‘All right, but I don’t want any meat.’

‘Well, it’s take it or leave it, I’m afraid. I’m not messing around making two different meals.’

The girls went up to their room, and I ran after them.

‘See what I mean?’ Caroline was muttering to Grace. ‘She’s, like,totally unfair to me.’

‘Don’t worry, my mum and dad are just the same. They think everything my sister Rose does is amazing, but me, I can’t do a thing right these days.’

‘But Laura was always really nice to me before Jessica was born.’

‘Maybe the younger one is always the favourite,’ Grace said.

‘That’s what I think as well. If she and Daddy were really so worried about the leukaemia, you’d think they’d be nicer to me. It’s bad enough they’re making me go to a different school from you and all the others! I don’t want to go. Sometimes I feel like running away from home.’

‘Me too. I don’t want you to go to St Margaret’s, either. I’m really scared about starting at Great Broomford High without you. But when I try to talk to Mum and Dad about it, they’re just, like,Oh, you’ll soon get used to it. They don’t care about my feelings at all.’

‘If we ran away together before next week, when we’re supposed to be going home, we wouldn’t even have to go to high school,’ Caroline said quietly. ‘And I wouldn’t have to go back to that horrible hospital ever again.’

‘Unless they found us. Then we’d be in even more trouble.’

‘Yeah.’

They sat on the bed together, holding paws, looking so sad I wanted to mew myself. But to be honest, I was too shocked. You can probably imagine how worried I was. Half-grown kittens like Caroline and Grace, talking about running away from home! They’d never survive out there. They weren’t used to hunting for their own food, and goodness only knew whose territory they might wander into.

‘You mustn’t do it!’ I meowed at them. ‘It doesn’t matter if your adults get cross with you – they get cross with me, too, butI’m not leaving home, am I?’

Grace finally gave a little giggle.‘We’re making Charlie sad too,’ she said, jumping up and starting to change out of her sandy clothes. ‘Come on, Caro, let’s have dinner and then we can write some more songs.’

‘OK.’ Caroline grinned. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. Everything feels better now I’ve got you to talk to.’

But that, of course, was before the Really Bad Thing happened.

*

It was the following day, and as usual the two girls had been to the beach. When they got home it was still warm and sunny, so they went outside to play in the garden. I watched them from my kitchen window as they danced around, shrieking and laughing, pretending to bepop stars, whatever they are. It was nice to see them being happy.

‘I’m going in to get your iPad,’ Caroline yelled, and she burst in through the kitchen door.

I heard her race upstairs to their bedroom, and back down again, turning the music thing on as she went back into the garden.

‘You’ve left the door open,’ I meowed to her, but she didn’t answer. She was already running across the grass to Grace, the music blaring.

I jumped down from the windowsill and stood in the doorway, watching them.

‘You’ve left the door open!’ I called again, but neither of them looked round.

Just then, a stupid pigeon landed on the lawn, right near where they were sitting, and before I even realised what I was doing, I’d shot out of the door and across the grass after him, startling him into taking off again, with a clumsy flapping of his silly wings. Well, it was my job. And very satisfying it was too.

‘Charlie!’ Caroline screamed, making me jump almost out of my fur. She lunged at me, grabbing me round my tummy so that I wriggled and protested. ‘What are you doing out here? Oh, God, I left the door open, Grace! Quick, Charlie, let’s get you back inside.’

But needless to say, Laura had already heard the commotion and was coming out of the kitchen door after us, looking cross.

‘What onearth are you doing?’ she said to Caroline. ‘He could have run away and got lost!’

‘I know!’ Caroline said, starting to mew. ‘I’m sorry, Laura, I didn’t realise I’d left the door open.’

‘Well, youshould have realised! Daddy warned you, Caroline, about keeping Charlie safe. It was you who insisted on bringing him down here with us.’

‘I know!’ she said again. ‘I’ll be more careful, I promise. Please don’t tell Daddy or he’ll take Charlie home and put him in the cattery.’

‘Don’t say that!’ I meowed. I was being carried back into the kitchen now. I must say I’d enjoyed my brief couple of minutes of freedom, though. And I didn’t like Caroline getting the blame. I knew I wasn’t supposed to go out, after all. It was the stupid pigeon’s fault.

‘Well, if it happens again, hewill have to go to the cattery,’ Laura said, closing the kitchen door firmly. ‘That’s if he doesn’t end up lost, or run over by a car.’

As you can probably imagine, I had my paws over my ears at this point.

‘I said I was sorry!’ Caroline mewed. ‘I didn’t mean it!’

Laura shook her head.‘Go and play upstairs,’ she said, as she walked away.

I followed the girls up to their bedroom once again. Caroline was mewing properly now.

‘They don’t want me around, I’m always getting the blame for everything. I might just as well run away!’ she sobbed to Grace.

‘If you do, I’ll come with you,’ Grace said.

‘So, shall we actuallydo it, Grace?’ They looked at each other for a moment, Caroline still sniffing with tears. ‘If we do it now, we won’t have to start at our new schools. It’s nearly the end of August already.’

‘Yeah, let’s do it. I don’t want to go back home anyway.’

‘And I don’t want to stay where I’m always getting moaned at. But where can we go?’

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Grace said. ‘I was thinking about it after we talked yesterday. I’ve got this great-aunt called Barbara – she’s quite old, but she must be nice, ’cos she sends me and Rose money every year for our birthdays and Christmas. She lives in Duncombe. It’s the next village along the coast, I saw it when Daddy showed me on the map where Mudditon is. I bet she wouldn’t mind letting us stay with her.’

‘But your parents will guess that’s where we are.’

‘No, they won’t. The only time they mention her is when she sends us the cheques. We’ve never been to her house. I’ve only met her once, as far as I know. She came to stay with us, years ago, but she went home the next day.’

‘How would you be able to find her house, then, if you’ve never been there?’

‘It’s a really easy address: April Cottage, Duck Pond Lane. I know it off by heart because every birthday and Christmas, Mum makes us write her a thankyou letter for the money.’

‘April Cottage, Duck Pond Lane,’ Caroline was repeating. ‘It sounds nice. Do you really think she’ll let us stay with her? Do you think you should phone her and ask her?’

‘I haven’t got her phone number. But I’m sure she will. She must really like me, or she wouldn’t send me so much money. It was fifty pounds last time!’

‘Wow!’ Caroline said. ‘She must bewell loaded.’

‘Yeah. She’s probably, like, one of those old ladies who couldn’t have her own children so she loves other people’s. I betshe won’t tell us off all the time.’

‘Perhaps she’ll adopt us!’ Caroline said, giggling.

‘Yeah! Then we’ll be sisters!’

And the two girls collapsed on the bed together, laughing with excitement. But the whole time they’d been talking, I’d been sitting on the floor listening, frozen to the spot with horror. Whatwere they thinking of, plotting to run off on their own like that? They’d get lost! They’d get attacked by feral humans! And their parents would be really, really scared and upset –especially as Julian and Laura were already so worried about Caroline being ill again. I meowed at them until I thought I’d lose my voice, but they took absolutely no notice of me – they were too busy giggling over the packing of their little pink rucksacks, putting in pyjamas and socks and a torch and talking about stealing some food and drink from the kitchen when Laura’s back was turned.

This was awful. It was as if they thought it was one of those adventure games Caroline played on Julian’s computer. I’d heard her shout ‘I’m dead! Again!’ sometimes when she was playing one of them, laughing as if it was funny to be dead, as if she could come back to life again and no harm would be done. Surely she understood that humans don’t have nine lives? If anything happened to her, or Grace, I’d never forgive myself. But what could I do to stop them? I was just a little cat and nobody ever listened to me. I stood for a moment in the doorway of their room, trying to calm myself down. And I made a promise to myself that I’d do everything I possibly could to save the two girls, whatever the danger to me and no matter how many lives I lost in the process.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_002.jpg]

CHAPTER SEVEN

I ran downstairs and into the kitchen where Laura was cooking dinner.

‘They’re talking about running away!’ I shouted at her in Cat. ‘They’re packing their bags!’

‘Charlie, please don’t get under my feet while I’m cooking,’ she said without looking at me.

It’s the most frustrating thing, isn’t it, when you need to say something really important but you know they won’t make any effort to understand you. I meowed my head off at her and tried walking round her legs to get her attention, only to be told off and sent out of the kitchen. I was still hoping there was a chance the girls would realise it was a silly idea and change their minds. But when they sat at the table later, giving each other secret little smiles and eating up all their dinners without making any fuss at all, even remembering to say thank you to Laura for cooking it, I had ahorrible, sinking feeling in my tummy that they were purposely being extra good so that she wouldn’t suspect anything. They went up to bed earlier than usual – I know, because Laura looked up in surprise and said: ‘Well, I might as well have an early night myself, too, while Jessica’s settled so nicely.’

The cottage was soon in darkness, and I could hear Laura’s steady breathing as I loitered at the bottom of the stairs. I crept up and sat outside the door of Caroline’s room. They kept the bedroom doors closed now, to keep me out, but I could hear the girls whispering to each other. Perhaps if I stayed there, I could keep guard over them. I settled down, keeping one eye open, but of course, it’s so hard not to fall asleep, isn’t it, when it’s quiet and dark and you’ve had a stressful day. Suddenly, though, their bedroom light went on and I heard them padding about, whispering again, and the next thing I knew, the door was opened and they came tiptoeing out, almost falling over me on the dark landing.

‘Ssh!’ Caroline whispered at me fiercely. Then she picked me up and carried me downstairs with them. What was she doing? Surely she wasn’t taking me with them? But downstairs in the lounge, she sat down for a minute with me on her lap.

‘I’m going to miss Charlie, though!’ she whispered to Grace, and her eyes filled up with tears.

‘Don’t go, then!’ I meowed at her. ‘Please! It’s a crazy idea!’

‘Ssh, Charlie,’ Grace warned me. ‘Caro, put him down, or he’ll wake Laura up. Come on, we ought to get going. Goodbye, Charlie. I’ll miss you too.’

They both gave me a stroke, and Caroline’s tears dripped on my head. I meowed and Caroline put me down quickly, and before I could even try to trip them up again they were picking up their bags and turning towards the door.

I started to run back up the stairs. If I woke Laura up now, she could still catch them. They’d get a terrible telling off, but it was better than getting lost or attacked, wasn’t it?

‘Laura!’ I meowed at the top of my voice. ‘Quick, wake up! It’s an emergency! They’re running away!’

But her bedroom door was still closed. I started to scratch at it desperately, but then I heard the sound of the porch door being opened. It was too late! They were going! Frantic now, I shot back down again, just in time to wriggle through the glass door to the porch before Caroline closed it. It was so dark, neither of the girls noticed me, and when Caroline opened the outside door I slipped out in front of them and hid, shaking, under the hedge. It was dark, really dark, and the girls were holding hands and shining their little torch in front of them as they walked off. I could see OK, obviously, but I knew their night vision would be rubbish. Humans, as Oliver explained to me when I was a little kitten, are a seriously underdeveloped species compared with us cats. They can’t see, smell or even hear half as well as we can, which is probably why they need us to look after them. I only hesitated for a minute, twitching my tail anxiously as I watched their torchlight getting fainter in the distance.

It was no good. I’d never thought of myself as a scaredy-cat, and this was no time to start becoming one. I’d promised myself to do all I could to rescue those two human kittens, hadn’t I? So with my little heart pounding in my chest, I set off to follow them into the unknown.

Oh, I’m really sorry, Tabitha. I forgot to warn you, didn’t I? Yes, we’ve got to one of the scary parts now. But look, don’t keep mewing about it, you can see I survived, or I wouldn’t be here now, talking to you, would I? Is everyone else all right for me to carry on? Any little kittens need taking home? Oliver, can you see if anyone’s hiding behind the dustbins? Honestly, sometimes the responsibility of being a famous hero cat is quite a burden.

Well, you can probably imagine how I was feeling at this point in the story. Yes, Tabitha, that’s right – scared out of my fur. I was in a strange place a long way from home, with no familiar smells, and to make matters worse, there was a crashing and booming noise going on nearby that I couldn’t identify. I scurried along, following the light of Grace’s torch and keeping close to the hedges. If circumstances had been different I might have had a sniff around to see what creatures were lurking there, but I knew I mustn’t lose sight of the girls.

Then we turned a corner and crossed a road and for a minute I stood rooted to the spot, my back arched, my fur standing on end. I thought we must surely have reached the end of the world. Ahead of us was… nothing. Well, there wassomething, something huge and black that, when the moon kindly poked itself out from behind a cloud for a minute, I could see was moving, sliding backwards and forwards and making the crashing sound I’d heard. It took me a while to realise this wasit– the sea, that monstrous moving thing I’d glimpsed from the lounge window of the cottage. In the dark and close up, it looked even more threatening. I’d had no idea it was so noisy!Whoosh, crash. Whoosh, crash. Whoosh, crash. I wanted to hiss at it to shut up, but I was afraid it would come up onto the road and attack me.

‘Let’s walk along the beach,’ I heard Caroline saying to Grace.

‘No! What if we got caught out by the tide?’ Their voices carried back to me on the breeze, almost drowned out by the sea’s constant shouting.

‘OK. But we’d better follow the road along the coast anyway, or we might get lost.’

So we trotted on, with me always at a little distance behind them. For a while the road went along right by the sea, then we turned a corner up a hill and away from it. We went round more bends, down the hill, back up again, and came to a place where the torch showed three different roads.

‘I think it must be this way,’ Grace said, not actually sounding too sure about it at all, and off we went again.

There didn’t seem to be any houses around now. Just darkness and the occasional owl hooting at us from the trees. I was beginning to think I should just run up to the girls and let them see I’d followed them. They’d have to pick me up and take me back to the cottage then, wouldn’t they? But supposingthey didn’t? Supposing they took me with them to run away instead – then I’d be stuck, unable to do anything to help. You might well be wondering what on earth I thought I was going to do to help anyway and, believe me, so was I. I suppose I was hoping I could see where the Great Aunt person’s house was, and then find my way back with my amazing sense of smell and memory. I was obviously marking as many spots along the road as I could with my scent, but the occasional whiff of another cat’s scent was stressing me out. And I hadn’t got as far as working out how, if I did manage to get back, I was going to persuade Laura that I knew where the girls were. There’s only room in our heads for one plan at a time, after all.

It all started to go wrong when Grace suddenly stopped walking, saying her shoes were hurting her feet. We’d been walking for ages. If I’d worn shoes on my paws I bet they’d have been hurting too. I don’t know why humans seem to need to wear so much stuff on their bodies, but I suppose if we had no fur, like them, we might do the same, especially as we don’t like being cold. Once again it seems to be a design fault in their species. I suppose we should feel sorry for them. They look so ridiculous when they take their clothes off, don’t they – all bald and bare.

Sorry, I’m getting side-tracked from the story now.

‘Well, is it much further?’ Caroline was asking Grace as she took off her shoes, rubbed her back paws and put the shoes back on again. ‘I thought we might have been there by now.’

‘Me too,’ Grace admitted. She sounded a bit frightened. ‘I didn’t think it would be this far, Caro.’ There was a long pause. Then she added in a little voice that I could only just hear: ‘You don’t think we’ve come the wrong way, do you?’

‘Well, I don’t know, do I?’ Caroline said. ‘It’syour aunt’s house we’re going to. I thought you knew the way.’

‘I thought I did, too. But I’m wondering now if we should have gone the other way along the coast.’

‘What? You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘No. I’m not sure. I told you I’ve never been there, I just knew it was the next village along, but I can’t remember which way. I wish I’d had another look at a map before we started out.’

‘So, what are we going to do?’ Caroline said, her voice all shaky. ‘It’s the middle of the night, we don’t know where we are, the bags are getting heavy …’

‘And my feet hurt. Let’s go back, Caro. I’m sorry, it’s my fault, maybe this was a bad idea.’ Grace sounded like she was going to start mewing.

‘I don’t know if we’ll find our way back, though,’ Caroline said. ‘We went round so many corners.’

‘I’ll show you!’ I meowed at once. Now was the time to show myself. I’d be their Rescue Cat, leading them home safely … as long as I could find the right way myself, of course. But before I could run up to them, there was the sound of a car coming along the road behind us. We hadn’t seen any cars since leaving the cottage. Probably they were all fast asleep at their homes, and I wasn’t sorry, because the road was narrow, with no pavements. You know how aggressive cars can be, wanting the whole road to themselves. This one was purring quite loudly and its eyes were shining very brightly. I jumped back into the bushes, and I saw the girls hiding themselves too. The car roared past us, but as we all stood and watched it continue down the next hill, the light from its big eyes danced off something vast and shiny down in front of us.

‘The sea!’ Grace shouted. ‘We’re heading back towards the coast!’

‘Yeah, butwhich coast?’ Caroline said. ‘It could be the other side of England for all we know, the distance we’ve walked!’

‘Or itcould be the right coast, and we might be just coming into Duncombe. Come on, Caro, let’s get going again. It doesn’t look far.’

So off we trudged. Before long we could hear the crashing of the sea again, and one or two little cottages loomed up out of the darkness.

‘How are we supposed to know whether it’s Duncombe or not?’ Caroline demanded. She sounded fed up, and I didn’t blame her. ‘We didn’t think this through properly, Grace. It’s too dark to see anything, and there’s nobody around to ask.’

‘And I can’t walk any further. I’ve got blisters on both feet now. We’re going to have to stay here till the morning.’

‘What?’ Caroline shrieked. ‘Well, I’mnot sleeping on the beach.’

‘There might be a nice dry bit of sand, up against the sea wall,’ Grace said. ‘At least it’s not cold. What else can we do?’

Shining the torch in front of them, they started to walk down a slope towards the sea.

‘No!’ I meowed after them in terror. ‘The sea will get you!’

But they couldn’t hear me because it was crashing so loudly. I have to be honest here. For a minute – just a minute, you understand – I was too scared to follow them. I stood at the top of that slope, looking down at the sea, my tail swishing back and forth for all it was worth. The sea was so big, and I was just one little cat, not much older than little Timmy Kitten over there behind the dustbin. What chance would I have, if it came after me? Then I thought about those two children, all alone in the dark, talking about going to sleep down there. They were braver than me! What a scaredy-cat I was being. But just as I was plucking up my courage to run after them, I heard Caroline calling out:

‘Look! The door of this one’s not locked.’

I crept a little way down the slope to see what they were looking at. There was a row of funny little houses, each of them looking only big enough for a couple of cats to live in. Caroline had pushed the door of one of them open and they were staring inside.

‘There’s nothing in here. I don’t think anyone can be using it. The others have all got padlocks on.’

‘It’s not ours, though, Caro. I think beach huts belong to the council, and people just rent them for their holidays.’

‘I know, but we need somewhere to sleep, don’t we? It’s an emergency. Surely it won’t hurt. There’s nobody around.’

‘But what if someone comes and finds us? We’ll get into trouble. I’m scared. I wish we hadn’t left home now.’

‘So do I, Grace, but it’s no good us just standing here crying about it. Come on, I think we should stay in the hut, nobody’s going to know. If you like, we can take it in turns to stay awake and keep watch.’

‘OK,’ Grace said, sounding doubtful. ‘I do need to take my shoes off for a while. And we could eat some of our biscuits.’

‘Yes, good idea, I’m starving.’

And they disappeared inside the little hut together, closing the door after them and leaving me standing there in the moonlight, wondering whereI was going to sleep. I was starving too, I might add! And tired. It had been a long walk, much longer than my normal evening constitutional round the grounds of my house back in Little Broomford. Thinking about home made me mew to myself sadly for a while. But as Caroline had said, there was no use crying, was there? I didn’t want to go too far away from the girls, so I had to ignore the rumbling of my tummy, forget about hunting for food and concentrate on the priority of getting some sleep. I crept cautiously down the rest of the slope and trotted along the path next to the little huts. At the end of the path wasa bench, like the ones on our village green where people sit to chat to each other. I crept under the bench and put my head on my paws. I knew I should really keep a watch on the door of the hut where the girls were. I had no idea whether they were in danger or not. But it was no good. Exhaustion overcame me and, before I knew it, I was fast asleep.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_002.jpg]

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hello everyone, I’m glad to see you’ve all come back again today to hear some more of my story. It was a good idea of yours, Oliver, to have a break so that we could all go home for our dinners and get some sleep. I hope none of you had nightmares about my experiences with the sea. It actually doesn’t hurt you, you know, as long as you don’t walk right up to it. As an experienced traveller now, I can reassure you all of that, but of course, at the time I’m telling you about, I didn’t know any more than you do. No, Tabitha, there’s no sea around here, I promise you. We’d haveheard it by now if there was.

So let’s get back to my incredible story, shall we? I was just telling you how I fell asleep under the bench. Well, when I woke up, it was already bright sunshine so I must have slept soundly all night despite the scary situation. I felt bad that I hadn’t even managed to keep one eye open in case I was needed to protect the girls. I had a stretch and a quick wash, and padded cautiously along the walkway to the hut where the children had gone to sleep. To my horror, the door was open and neither of them were in there! I looked all around and in the distance I could see another small building, where a female human was carrying chairs and little tables and arranging them outside. And then, to my relief, I saw Caroline and Grace standing in front of the building, taking sandwiches and bottles of water from a young male serving them from the window. It must have been a shop of some kind. I wasso hungry I would have liked to run up and grab myself a bite of one of those sandwiches, but I was pretty sure I should stay out of sight. So I slunk carefully along, keeping to the shadows, until I was close enough to hear them.

‘Thank you,’ Caroline was saying to the boy, giving him some money. ‘And we wondered if you could tell us how far it is to Duncombe?’

‘We’re on our way there, to stay with my aunt,’ Grace added.

‘Duncombe?’ the woman putting out the chairs said, turning round to look at them in surprise. ‘You’re a bit off the beaten track here, then, my lovely. You need to get back on the main road into Mudditon and it’s about five miles further on from there. Your parents waiting for you in the car, are they?’

‘No, we’re—’

‘Yes! Yes, they’re … um … waiting for us, up the road,’ Caroline interrupted Grace quickly.

‘Right. Well, that’s just as well, because if you were trying to get there without a car, you’d have a job. The morning bus has gone, and the next one isn’t till one o’clock. And that only takes you as far as Mudditon.’

‘Is it too far to walk to Duncombe?’ Grace asked, glancing at Caroline.

‘Oh, bless you, you’d take all day and night to walk there, and that’s a fact!’ the woman said, laughing. ‘Get yourselves off back to Mum and Dad now, if they’re waiting for you up the top.’

‘Oh, it’s all right, they’re just … um … having their breakfast,’ Caroline said.

‘Yes,’ Grace joined in. ‘They said we could come down here and eat ours on the beach.’

The woman stared after them, shaking her head, as they walked away.

‘I don’t think she suspected anything,’ Grace whispered as they passed by without noticing me shrinking back into a gap in the wall.

‘Let’s sit on the beach to have these, then, while we decide what to do,’ Caroline suggested. ‘It looks like we’ll have to wait for the next bus, Grace.’

‘Yes, and then it’ll just take us back where we started. I’m sorry, Caro. Ihave brought us in the wrong direction, haven’t I?’

‘Well, it’s not your fault. We’ll just have to start again from Mudditon.’

And they proceeded to climb down some steps, taking them even closer to the sea. I must say, the sea didn’t look so scary now. It had turned from black to a nice blue colour, with shiny white bits in it, and was swishing backwards and forwards a lot more gently. Instead of roaring and thumping it was just making gentle whooshing noises. I still didn’t fancy getting any closer, but it wasn’t making my heart race with fear now. I sat down in the shadow of the huts and watched my two bad little human kittens sitting themselves down on the part they called the beach. Caroline got a jumper out of her rucksack and laid it on the ground, and they spread their sandwiches out on it and started eating. My mouth was watering and my tummy rumbled so loudly I thought they’d hear it. I’d have to hunt soon, or find someone to feed me, or I’d never have the strength to get back home!

At this thought, I mewed sadly to myself with the sudden realisation that I didn’t even know when I was ever going toget home, if the holiday cottage was even my home now. The girls were talking about getting on a bus! What about me? Could I get on it with them? I knew what a bus was, of course– one comes to Little Broomford a few times every day, as you know. (It’s a very large green car, Timmy Kitten, if you’ve never seen it. It snorts and grunts when it stops outside the village shop, and lots of humans climb onto it with shopping bags.) And of course, the human kittens all get on another bus every day to go to school, don’t they. But I’d never heard of a cat getting on a bus, and anyway I didn’t want the girls to see me following them. What was I going to do? I doubted I could run fast enough to keep up with the bus. I’d just have to try to find my way back to Mudditon on my own. The girls would carry on trying to get to the place where the Great Aunt lived, risking their lives again with predators and all sorts of unknown dangers, and my mission to save them would have failed miserably. I was despondent now, as you can imagine, as well as feeling hungry andlost.

I wasn’t allowed to dwell on this for long, though, because suddenly there was a loud squawking and screeching in the air above me, and out of nowhere, two huge seagulls came flapping down, skimming the roofs of the huts behind me, circling round each other for a minute over the beach and then suddenlyswooping down on the two girls, trying to grab their food.

‘Leave them alone!’ I meowed out loud without stopping to think, but of course, nobody could hear me because of the squawking of the gulls and now, the screams of the girls as they waved their paws around, trying to defend themselves.

‘Go away!’ Grace was yelling, flapping her paw at one of them. Bits of sandwich fell onto the beach and the gull started grabbing at them with his big hooked beak.

‘Ouch! Get off!’ Caroline was shouting at the other bird. She dropped the sandwich she’d been holding and jumped up, crying and clutching one paw in the other. ‘It bit my finger, Grace! Ouch! Goaway!’ Still holding her sore paw, she started to run away from the gulls, but she was too busy looking back at them and crying, to see where she was going.

‘Watch out for the rocks, Caro!’ screamed Grace.

Too late. I watched in horror as Caroline’s paw caught on a rock and she went crashing down onto the ground. Her head hit another rock and she made a noise that sounded like ‘Oomph’ before lying very still, with Grace running towards her, screaming her name.

I suppose you all think, if I’m such a brave young cat, why was I still standing up there on the pathway by the beach huts instead of galloping down the beach to help? But look, sometimes things are so bad that even the cleverest cat in the world wouldn’t know what to do, right? I admit it, I just stood up there and stared, my heart pounding, my muscles taut and tense, my tail twitching, quivering with fear and indecision. What couldI do? I wasn’t big enough to pick her up, was I? Evendogs wouldn’t be much better in a situation like this, I’ll have you know. They might go and lie down next to the wounded human and lick her face with their slobbery wet tongues, but at the end of the day, what’s the point of that? My instinct, to be honest, was to run for my life, but I think it says something for me, at least, that I didn’t. I was so scared for Caroline, I had to wait to see if she was all right. The seagulls had no such finer feelings, I can tell you. There they were, squabbling over the last few crusts of the girls’ sandwiches, not caring in the least about the trouble they’d caused, and within a few minutes they’d flapped their massive wings and taken off into the sky again.

‘Yes, clear off, you bullies, you!’ I meowed at them from the safety of the ground. I didn’tthink they’d ever been known to eat cats.

When I looked back at Caroline again, I saw to my relief that she’d now woken up and lifted her head. She let out a moan, and Grace cried out:

‘Oh, no! Your head! You’re bleeding!’

‘Ow, ow, ow!’ Caroline was crying, holding her paw up to her head. ‘No, it’s my finger that’s bleeding. That horrible seagull bit me, Grace!’

‘And you hit your head, look– you’ve cut it open. Oh, Caro, we need to go to a hospital. I’d better go and get help.’

‘No!’ Caroline mewed. ‘We’ll get into terrible trouble, Grace. And I’mnot going to hospital. I hate hospitals!’

‘But you’re hurt!’

‘I’ll be all right. Just give me a minute. I’ll … I’ll wrap something round my finger, and maybe you can help me clean up my head … we can use the sink in that toilet block behind the caf?.’

She tried to stand up, but she must have been feeling dizzy, like you do if you’ve chased your tail for ages, because she quickly sat back down again and held her head. There was red blood dripping down the back of her neck onto her T-shirt and even though Grace tried to wrap a tissue round her finger, blood was still coming through that too.

This was no good. I knew I had to do something now, or I’d definitely have to consider myself a champion scaredy-cat for the rest of my nine lives. And there was only one option. I belted back along the pathway to the little caf? where they’d bought the sandwiches. The woman was inside now – I could hear her talking to the boy, and laughing.

‘Quick!’ I meowed at them in Cat from the doorway. ‘I need your help! It’s an emergency!’

‘Oh look,’ said the boy. ‘A nice little tabby cat. I haven’t seen him around here before. He doesn’t look like one of the ferals.’

‘No, he’s not. He looks well cared for. Are you lost, puss? He’s only a kitten, Robbie.’

She came over and bent down to stroke me. I wanted to tell her I was getting a bit big to be called a kitten, and that my name wasn’tPuss, but there really wasn’t time for any pleasantries.

‘Outside!’ I meowed. ‘On the beach! Quick!’ I walked back out of the door, turned round and meowed at them again urgently. ‘Come on!’

‘What’s up with him?’ the boy said, without moving.

But the woman, frowning and muttering to herself, wiped her hands on a towel and followed me out of the door.

‘What is it, puss?’ she said. ‘Hungry, I suppose, are you, or …’ She stopped, staring down at the beach. ‘What’s going on down there?’ And then she called back through the door to the boy: ‘Robbie, call an ambulance. There’s been an accident on the beach. A little girl, tell them. Nine-nine-nine, you fool, and hurry up about it!’

Then she ran, as fast as a plump little human female can, down the steps and across the beach, calling out to the girls as I watched her approaching them.

‘Don’t try to get up, dearie. There’s an ambulance on its way.’

‘Oh no,’ Caroline said. ‘Please, we don’t need an ambulance. I’m fine. Honestly, we’ll just get going.’

‘Caro,’ Grace said. ‘I actually think you should get your head looked at. It looks quite bad.’

‘Yes, my lovely, that’s a nasty cut on your head, it probably needs stitches – and look at your poor finger too! How did that happen?’

‘A seagull bit her,’ Grace said.

‘Oh, they’re a dratted nuisance, those damn birds,’ the woman said. ‘Now then, why don’t you go and fetch your mummy and daddy from the car,’ she added to Grace. ‘Tell them the ambulance is coming, and I’ll stay here with your friend until they get here.’

Even from where I was watching, I could see the look Grace exchanged with Caroline.

‘Don’t say anything,’ Caroline warned her.

‘Wehave to,’ Grace said. ‘It doesn’t matter anymore, Caro. It’s all gone wrong, and we shouldn’t have done it in the first place. We’re going to have to go back. After you’ve been to hospital.’

‘Back where, my lovely?’ the woman asked, looking from one of them to the other.

Grace looked down at the ground.‘We told you a lie,’ she said, so quietly that I had to prick up my ears to hear her. ‘Our parents aren’t with us. We were trying to run away.’

‘But only to Grace’s great aunt’s house,’ Caroline said, as if that made it all right. ‘We were going to stay with her.’

‘That’s why you wanted to go to Duncombe. I did think it strange. And your parents didn’t know.’

The girls both shook their heads.

‘Are we going to get into really big trouble?’ Caroline mumbled.

‘Not from me, dearie. It’s not for me to say. But your poor parents will be beside themselves, you know. You’ll have worried the life out of them. Let me give them a call, for you, shall I? Let them know you’re all right?’

‘My parents probably don’t even know we’ve gone,’ Grace said, starting to cry now. ‘I’m supposed to be staying with you in Mudditon, aren’t I?’

‘Laura might have told them. And she’ll definitely have told my dad, and he’ll have totally freaked out. He’s probably had to come back down from London. I’ll be grounded for the rest of the holidays!’ Caroline said, joining in with the mewing.

‘Well, look, let’s not all get ourselves in a state about it,’ soothed the plump female. ‘First things first, you need that head injury checked, dearie, and here come the paramedics now, so let’s get you sorted out and we’ll worry about everything else afterwards.’

Two males wearing identical clothing were running down the beach now, carrying bags and looking very serious. They got down on the rocks next to Caroline and started looking at her head and her finger, and talking to her, and to Grace, asking them questions I couldn’t hear properly. They took quite a long time. They put white bandages round both her hurt places and, finally, took one of her arms each to sit her up.

‘She needs the stretcher,’ I heard one of them say as Caroline swayed slightly and put her paws up to her head again. ‘All right, sweetheart, we’re going to lift you now. One, two, three …’ She was laid onto a thing like a sheet that they’d put on the beach. ‘Still feeling dizzy?’

‘No, I’m all right while I’m lying down,’ Caroline said. ‘I really don’t think I need to go to hospital. I don’t like hospitals.’

‘It’ll be fine, love, they’ll take good care of you, you’ll see. Anyway we’ve already told them we’re on our way, so it’s out of our hands. And now we’ve got your names and your holiday address, we’ll be calling your details over to the hospital so they can get your parents there.’

‘But we don’t want—’ she started.

‘Has to be done, sweetheart,’ he said firmly. ‘No choice in the matter. You’ll be glad to see them when they get there, you know. Everyone has arguments, pet, but at the end of the day, they’re still your parents, see?’

‘I know,’ Grace said in a little voice as she followed them up the beach. ‘We shouldn’t have done it, Caro. We’ll just have to take the telling-off.’

I shrunk myself back into the shadows again as they all came back up the steps. I was glad they were going to the hospital. Glad they were going to be taken home, too. But as for me, I had no idea what I was going to do. I followed behind them, at a distance again, up the slope to the road where this big yellow car they called an ambulance was waiting. The female from the caf? called out goodbye to them.

‘You’ll be all right now, dearie!’ she said.

And then, as Caroline was carried inside the ambulance, with Grace climbing in next to her, the woman said:

‘Oh, there’s that little tabby cat again! I could swear he was trying to let me know there was an accident on the beach.’

I ran back quickly to the nearest bushes, trying to hide. I’d have liked to get into the ambulance and go with Caroline and Grace, to be honest, but I knew I wouldn’t be allowed.

‘It looked a bit like Charlie,’ I heard Caroline say.

I couldn’t help a pitiful little mew escaping from my lips. I felt so lost and lonely now the girls were being taken away. I don’t suppose they heard me, from inside the ambulance. But as the men started to close the doors of the ambulance, I saw Caroline’s face staring back out at me. I couldn’t have been as well hidden as I thought I was. And at the very last moment, just as the doors closed, I thought I saw her eyes growing wide with surprise and her mouth making the word ‘Charlie!’

And then they were gone. And I was all alone.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_002.jpg]

CHAPTER NINE

Despite all my worries, I knew my priority now was, of course, to get hold of some food. I’m not a bad hunter, even though I do say so myself. Oliver here gave me lessons from my early kittenhood. But the scrubby little bush things near the caf? didn’t look very promising in terms of mice orshrews, and the only birds around were seagulls. I certainly wasn’t intending to mess withthem after what I’d just witnessed. I sat down and washed myself again – always a good bet in times of uncertainty – and suddenly a voice behind me said:

‘Well, little puss, shall we see if we’ve got anything nice to reward you with?’

It was the female from the caf?, and before I knew it she’d picked me up and carried me inside with her.

‘What are you rewarding him for?’ the boy asked her as, to my delight, she proceeded to pour me out a big dish full of milk and started looking in the fridge for some scraps.

‘He came to let me know about that little girl, I’m sure of it. Told me there was an accident down on the beach, he did.’

‘Yeah, right, Auntie Stella!’ the boy laughed. ‘The amazing talking cat, is he?’

‘You can laugh,’ she said, giving me a stroke as she put down a second bowl, full of bits of lovely leftover fish. ‘But I’m telling you, if hecould speak he would have been saying:Quick, it’s an emergency!’

Fancy that. At last, a human with a pretty good grasp of Cat! I’d have to converse with her a little more, just as soon as I’d finished this delicious meal. I was enjoying it so much, I was purring out loud while I ate, but I still couldn’t help hearing the conversation going on between the female, who seemed to be called Auntie Stella, and the boy.

‘Hope the little girl will be all right,’ she was saying. ‘That was a nasty cut on her head.’

‘I thought you said it was her finger?’ the boy said.

‘I knew you weren’t listening. I told you, she hit her head when she fell over. She was running away from the dratted seagulls because one of them bit her finger when it pinched a bit of her sandwich. Damn things are getting to be a real nuisance around here, if you ask me. There’ve been a few people lately who’ve been attacked like that on the beach.’

‘Poor kid, she must have been frightened. I don’t like their big beaks myself.’

‘No, well, you’re a big wuss, aren’t you,’ she said, laughing. ‘And yes, I do feel sorry for the girl of course, but you know, they were asking for trouble, running away from home like that – silly children. God only knows what might have happened to them, far worse things than a sore finger or even a bumped head.’

I stopped eating for a minute at this, and gave a little meow of agreement. Wasn’t this exactly why I’d been so worried about the girls myself? I agreed with Stella – it had been a relief, in a way, that they had to go to hospital rather than carry on with their mad running away idea. But it wasn’t until I’d finished my food, licked the bowl clean and started to washmyself that the reality of my situation came flooding back to me in a rush. I was lost and alone in a strange place, and although my poor Caroline was safe now, I had no idea how badly injured she might be or whether the hospital would be able to make her better. Or whether I’d even be able to get back to her again, to find out. Now that my urgent need for food and milk had been satisfied, these worries were suddenly so overwhelming to me that I didn’t know what to do, apart from pacing up and down and crying.

‘Poor little thing’s still hungry,’ said the boy, watching me.

‘I don’t think so, Robbie.’ The female bent down and picked me up, giving me a little stroke and looking at me carefully. ‘I’m sure he’s somebody’s missing pet, you know. But he’s not wearing a collar.’

No, I wasn’t. I never do. I know some of you are happy about wearing them, but personally I can’t stand the things. After I chewed my way out of the first two Julian bought me, my family gave up trying.

‘Tell you what,’ the boy said. ‘Shall I put a picture of him on Twitter?’

‘Bloody Twitter, leave off about it for God’s sake. You’re never off your bloomin’ phone doing your cheeps and whatnot when you’re supposed to be washing up.’

‘Tweets, Auntie Stella!’ he said, laughing. ‘Tweets, not cheeps.’ He held his phone up in front of me and pressed something on it. ‘Look this way, little cat,’ he called. ‘That’s it.’ He pressed again. ‘Good one. Right, I’ll just share this on Twitter – and on Instagram and WhatsApp, while I’m about it. I’ll say he’s a lost kitten—’

‘I don’t know what the hell you’re on about, bloomin’What’s Up,’ Stella grumbled. ‘How’s a picture of him on your phone supposed to help?’

‘Oh, Auntie, you’re, like,so old school,’ he said, laughing again. ‘The picture goes all over the world! Everyone who sees it can share it with other people and thousands of people will end up looking at him. Someone’s bound to recognise him. That’s how these things work, see?’

Needless to say, I didn’t understand what he meant, any more than Stella seemed to. Caroline had sometimes done that thing before, holding up her dad’s or Laura’s phone and saying she was taking a picture of me, but when she showed me the picture of a little cat on the phone later, I couldn’t understand why she thought it was me. It could have been any little tabby, surely.

‘Well, for someone soold school, as you put it,’ Stella was saying now, ‘at least I know the right thing to do with our little furry friend here. I’m going to take him to the vet up the road, and they can scan him with their scanner thing to find out whether he’s got an identity chip.’

If the boy responded to this, I wasn’t there to hear it. As you can probably imagine, as soon as I heard the wordvet, I’d yowled in fright and jumped out of Stella’s arms. And by the time she’d finished her sentence I was on my way out of the door. Pity. I’d been enjoying her company up till then.

*

I started off running back past the beach huts and past the bench where I’d slept the previous night. Then the pathway ran out, and I plunged into an area of little soft sandy hills with tufts of horrible stiff grass, and spiteful prickly bushes growing on them. It was difficult to run, and I didn’t like the feel of the sand – I had to keep stopping and shaking mypaws. Yes, it was a bit like when you walk on snow, Smudge, but it was hot instead of cold, and had a gritty feel to it. Sometimes I felt like I was going to sink. But I was too scared to turn back now, in case the Stella woman was coming after me to take me to the vet. It was slow going, and seemed to go on forever. Despite feeling a bit stronger thanks to my delicious meal, I was getting tired from the effort of running on such difficult ground. After a while, I obviously had to stop for a cat nap, so I hid myself behind one of the prickly bushes. I didn’t sleep too well – I had a very vivid dream where I was being attacked by a giant dog with big sharp teeth, and I woke up to find I’d inadvertently wriggled closer to the bush and got scratches on my head and my back. Yelping to myself miserably, I trudged on through the sand, without any idea where I was going. It was only by sheer luck that I caught a tiny little bird who’d been feeding from the prickly bushes. I’d never seen one like him before, and he was barely more than a mouthful by the time I’d dispensed with his feathers. But he kept me going for a little longer.

To my relief, soon after I’d finished my makeshift lunch I noticed a rough path leading up the cliff, away from the sea again. Treading gingerly through an overgrowth of the horrible spiky grass, I followed the path and found to my surprise that it came out on a road. Not only that, but I was pretty sure from my superior feline sense of direction that it was the road where the girls and I had started our journey away from Mudditon-on-Sea the previous night. I was heading home, and by following the coast it had taken me far less time than it took us to make the journey on the road! All I had to do was find the littlelane that led to the holiday cottage, and I’d be safe, back with Julian and Laura and baby Jessica and … well, eventually Caroline and Grace, too, once they’d been rescued from the hospital place.

Oh, if only that had been true, my friends! I raced along the road and turned hopefully into the next little lane. I didn’t recognise it, but I was sure that at any moment I’d smell something familiar, preferably my own scent markings from the night before. No such luck. I went from one lane to another, and then into streets that were more built up, with big houses, shops, and lots of humans wandering about looking in the shop windows. I turned this corner and that corner, but it was no good. I was hopelessly lost.

Finally I turned down a narrow road that arrived back by the sea, but instead of the sandy beach thing I’d come to expect, this time there was just a pathway and a sheer drop down into the water. I backed away from the edge, terrified of falling in, as you can probably imagine, and stared at the sea. It wasn’t moving so much here. There were lots of little boats floating on the water – I knew what they were from pictures I’d seen on the television. They seemed to be tied up here to stop them from running away, and they were nudging each other in their sleep, some of them making a jangling noise like the bells on cats’ collars but much louder. There were humans around here too, some ofthem walking along the edge, others sitting on benches looking out to sea. There was a little caf?, with a picture of ice creams on a sign outside, and a pub – it looked very similar to the one where you live Oliver, in our village – with a roof made of that thatch stuff, and baskets of flowers hanging by the door.

‘It’s so pretty here, isn’t it,’ I heard a female human say to her male as they walked past. ‘I’m so glad we decided to come to Mudditon again this year.’

So I was right, I thought to myself.I’m back in Mudditon. But it seemed Mudditon was quite a big place, even bigger than Little Broomford, and just my luck, I was in the wrong part, with no idea where theright part was. There was nothing else for it but to find a warm little spot in the sun behind a wall, and have another little sleep. As always, cat logic decreed that I’d feel better afterwards, and even if I didn’t, it’d be easier to cope if I was well rested.

When I woke up, it was dark. I must have had a longer sleep than I intended. For a minute I couldn’t think where I was, or what had woken me up. I lifted my head and pricked up my ears. I could hear something, but more to the point, I couldsense something– some kind of threat nearby. You’ll understand what I mean when I say I could feel it in my whiskers. Then the sound came again, and I was up on my paws at once, instantly alert. There was a strange cat somewhere close to me, and whoever it was, he was making the low, rumbling, growly noise inhis chest that we all know means only one thing. He wasn’t best pleased to see me.

I waited, still and tense, only my eyes moving, checking all directions. I knew I had the disadvantage. I was a stranger, in someone else’s territory, and I still couldn’t see the other cat. If I ran, I’d only precipitate the attack. But when it came, it still took me by surprise. The skinny black cat jumped out of the shadows and went straight for my throat with his claws, forcing me to the ground.

‘OK, OK,’ I managed to squawk desperately as I wriggled on my back, trying to get free. ‘Sorry. I’ll clear off.’

But that didn’t seem to be enough for him. With his claws still into me, he rolled us both over so that his back paws were kicking me. At the same time he was trying to get a mouthful of my face to sink his teeth into. Obviously not a happy chap at all.

Now, I should say here that I hadn’t forgotten your lessons, Oliver, my mentor. I know you taught me that it’s always best to try to resolve a sticky situation like this by the most expedient means possible. By running away. Yes, you did explain that most sensible cats will drop the aggression if you retreat. After all, what’s the point in wasting energy? But I don’t think this guy had ever had the rules explained to him. He didn’t seem to like me at all. I was getting less and less keen on him by the minute, too. Fighting back was now my only option. For a few minutes we rolled over each other, teeth and claws out,screaming abuse at each other. It was the first time ever, you understand, that I’d been involved in a real, full-on, serious cat fight, and looking back I’m quite surprised at how my survival instinct took over. I did get myself free at one point, and managed to jump up on my paws again, arching my back at him, my fur up on end, hissing in his face, swiping at him with my paw.Take that, you skinny, stinky black Tom cat, you! And then it happened. Out of nowhere, there was another cat on my back, clawing me, biting me, and then another pounced from the other direction, wrestling me back onto the ground, swiping at my face. I tried to wriggle free but he’d got me in the eye, and I felt it swell up and close. Yet another body landed on top of me and I began to realise I was done for. Oh, I tried my best to fight back, my friends, I can assure you. I didn’t want to forfeit one of my lives at such a young age. But it was three cats, or four, or maybe more – I couldn’t tell anymore – versus one.

‘I submit!’ I cried, flattening my ears and trying to roll onto my side to prove it.

The biggest of the cats who’d joined in as reinforcements, a scrawny looking manky tortie with one ear missing and scars on his head, towered over me scornfully.

‘All right, boys,’ he said to the others, although his Cat accent was so strange, I had trouble understanding him. ‘Let’s leave the Cowardy Cat to wallow in his own pee, shall we? I don’t think we’ll see him around here again.’

With that they all slunk away, looking back over their shoulders once or twice to smirk at me.

I lay there for a moment panting, watching them out of my one good eye. I hurt all over, my heart was racing and I felt like crying for my lovely warm bed in my lovely comfortable home with my kind, gentle human companions. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I wasnot going to lie here and die, and I wasn’t going to give those thugs the pleasure of seeing me behave like a terrified new-born kitten. I wasnot a Cowardy Cat! And I was notwallowing in pee! Thecheek of that ugly great bony bruiser– I was a well brought up, decent, family pet who’d been taught to respect other cats’ territories and stay out of fights. I wasn’t going to stand for this! The physical abuse was bad enough but the insults simply could not be borne.

I struggled to my paws, gasping from the pain in one leg and shuddering at the dark stain of blood I’d left behind me on the ground. I felt a growl growing in the back of my throat as my anger and determination took hold of me. And crazy though it might have been – looking back, I guess it definitely was – I decided that perhaps it would be better, after all, to lose a life defending my honour against that gang of hoodlums, than to lose it lying broken and defeated on the ground. I took a couple of deep breaths – and hobbled after them.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_002.jpg]

CHAPTER TEN

Tabitha, please don’t cry. Or you, Nancy. I did warn you, didn’t I, about the scary parts? Honestly, nobody would believe the pair of you are my sisters, you’ve got such nervous dispositions, for the siblings of a local hero. Do you want to go home? No? You’re too excited about the rest of the story? Well, in that case I’d better get on with it!

Can you imagine how I felt, my friends, limping along the pavement in that strange place, with every bone in my body hurting and blood dripping down my face, knowing I was probably going to be finished off at any moment? If I hadn’t been so angry, I’d have gone in the opposite direction, trust me. But I hobbled on, round the corner where I’d seen my attackers go, and into an alleyway that eventually came out in a small yard. There were big tall buildings around the yard, but it didn’t look like anyone lived there – everything was closed up and some of the windows were broken. There was one lamppost, right in the far corner and, as I approached, I saw him sitting there – the big one-eared tortie – and he was on his own. I had the advantage of being in the shadows, but on the other hand he was twice my size and presumably had two working eyes against my one.

I flattened myself against the wall of a building and crept slowly closer. He was engrossed in washing himself, and didn’t even look up once before I finally made my move. I’d like to say I pounced, but although I’m proud of the fact that I took him by surprise, I have to admit it was more a case of flopping myself at him, with what little strength I had left. I’d timed it so that I got him while he was engaged in cleaning his private parts, so I was able to knock him off balance without too much trouble. He made a grunt of surprise as he toppled backwards, and I immediately threw myself on top of him and, yowling my fury straight in his ear, I took a very satisfying bite out of his neck.

‘Ouch! What in the name of bloody catnip?’ he squawked, in his peculiar Cat accent. ‘Get off me! Who the dog’s backside are you? Boys! Where are you! I’m being attacked!’

He squirmed, trying to get to his paws, but I aimed a swipe for his face and followed it up with another bite. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for him to throw me off. He was skinny, but muscular as well as being big, and I hadn’t hurt him anywhere near as much as I’d been hurt. I put my head down and hissed, waiting for him to start on me again, but just as he was aiming his claws at me, he suddenly blinked in surpriseand growled: ‘Well, by my tail and whiskers! If it ain’t the little Cowardy Cat, come back for more.’

‘Take that back,’ I hissed, forcing myself to sound really brave. ‘I’mnot a Cowardy Cat. It was four or five of you against one.’ Out of the corner of my good eye, I saw some dark shapes moving towards us in the shadows. ‘And if yourboys are coming back to do the same thing again, then they’ll probably succeed in finishing me off. If you think that’s a fair fight, then I don’t know what kind of hovel you were all brought up in …’

‘Talk posh, don’t you, Sunshine?’ He lowered his paw. ‘All right, boys!’ he called. ‘It’s only the little Cowardy—’ He stopped, looked me up and down, and then went on: ‘The littlebrave tabby from earlier on. No, leave him alone, Black. We’ve already done him enough damage, and it took a lot of guts for him to come after me. He doesn’t look very old but he’s a good fighter.’

And do you know what? He lay back down again, deliberately, in the submissive position in front of me. I could hardly believe my one eye. The other cats hung back, waiting, and when he got to his paws again he came up and rubbed himself against me.

‘Sorry about earlier,’ he said gruffly. ‘But for the love of catnip, what’s a posh lad like you doing around these parts?’

‘I got lost,’ I said. Now the danger seemed to be over and I was apparently still alive, I was starting to shake from head to tail. ‘My humans are staying somewhere around here, but I don’t know where.’

‘Your humans?’ he repeated, looking at me as if I’d spoken in Dog or Cow or something. ‘You have your own pet humans?’

I might be a bit slow, but it was actually only then that the truth dawned on me. These guys were the real deal– thealley cats we’ve all been warned to stay away from, the ones our mothers told us scary stories about before we could even walk.Ferals. The very word strikes fear into the heart of a cosseted domestic cat. Yes, I’m not surprised you’ve all frozen in terror.

‘Um, yes,’ I squawked, starting to back away.

‘And is it true that they let you live in their houses?’ he asked, staring at me now with wide eyes. ‘And feed you, and give you funny names? Don’t run away, I’m not going to hurt you anymore. I want to know all about it. Gather round, boys. This young tabby lives with humans!Have they given you a funny name? What is it?’

‘Charlie,’ I meowed quietly. They all stared at me in stunned silence.

‘Charlie,’ the tortie repeated. ‘Blimey whiskers. It makes you sound … like a human.’

‘So what’syour name?’ I asked timidly.

‘Name?’ he retorted. ‘We don’t have names! Why wouldwe want fancy names?’

‘So you could call to each other?’ I suggested.

‘Oh, that! We just call each other what weare. Like:he’s black.He’s tail-less. And him over there, he’s stinky.’

‘Oh, I see.’ As far as I was concerned, they were all pretty stinky. But I didn’t think it’d be wise to mention that, at this point. ‘So what areyou?’

‘Big, of course,’ he said, stretching himself up to his full height. ‘That’s why I’m in charge.’

‘Right.’ And I couldn’t help it. Despite everything, I couldn’t ignore my upbringing, you see. It was only polite to say, rubbing my face against his: ‘Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Big.’

‘You too, um,Charlie,’ he said, seeming to have difficulty with the pronunciation. ‘And if you’re lost, I suppose you’d better stick with us. At least till you find your pet humans again, eh? You won’t last long in this area without us to protect you.’

Well, that’d certainly be an improvement on having them beating the poo out of me.

‘Right, OK, thank you. You live around here, do you?’ I added, as we didn’t appear to be hurrying off home anywhere.

‘Born and bred in this yard,’ Big said proudly. ‘All the boys were. The whole of this area – the yard and the alleyways off it – is our territory. Humans don’t like us, of course, apart from the odd one or two who seem to feel sorry for us and bring us food occasionally.’

‘So you have to hunt every day, I suppose?’ I stared around me. There didn’t seem to be any bushes or trees or even grass around. ‘Just mice and rats, is it?’

‘And fish, if we can get it,’ said Black, who’d been creeping closer to get in on the conversation.

‘Yeah, the humans go out in their boats every morning and come back with loads of them,’ Big explained. ‘We take it in turns to creep up and try to nick a fish or two without them seeing us. Most of them shout at us or kick us if they catch us at it, but sometimes there’s a tame human who actuallygives us a fish.’

‘Not often, though,’ Stinky complained. ‘You’d think they’d share, wouldn’t you – I can’t see why they need so many fish just for themselves.’

‘Greedy,’ said Big. ‘That’s their trouble.’

I yawned. It was fascinating, now everyone had calmed down, to hear about the ferals’ lifestyle, but I’m sure you’ll agree I’d had a tiring day one way or another, and it must have been the middle of the night by now. I looked around me, puzzled.

‘Where are your beds?’

‘Beds?’ They all stared at me. ‘Are you being funny?’

‘No. Sorry, why?’

‘We sleep here, in the yard,Charlie. In corners, behind walls, in doorways, or down one of the alleyways. Sometimes in summer we sleep on the roof tops,’ Big said. ‘I’ll find you a little place near me, when it’s sleep time.’

‘Isn’t it sleep time yet, then?’ I asked, stifling another yawn. I’d always thought any time was sleep time for cats!

‘No, it’s scavenging time, for catnip’s sake,’ he said, looking exasperated. ‘Don’t you know anything?’

Evidently not. I didn’t even know what scavenging was, but I wasn’t about to admit it.

‘It’s how we get most of our food nowadays,’ Tail-less kindly explained, seeing my blank look. ‘Humans make it easy for us, they’re so lazy and untidy. They feed in the street, don’t finish their food, and throw what’s left over in bins. But sometimes they just drop it on the ground instead. And also the bins get full up, and overflow, so there’s always plenty for us. The best places are outside their eating houses.Caf?s, they call them,’ he added, as if I didn’t know. ‘And the ones they callfish and chip shops– they’re the best. Andtakeaways.’

The others were all meowing agreement.

‘Come on, then, let’s go,’ Stinky urged. ‘I’m starving.’

So was I, now he came to mention it.

‘You’d better come with us,’ said Big. ‘Seems like you need an education.’

And with that, he led the way back out of the yard. I watched them moving off for a minute. I was so tired, and so sore from my wounds, that getting an education wasn’t exactly uppermost in my mind. But what else could I do? As he’d pointed out, it seemed I’d be in danger around here if I didn’t stick with them.

‘Why can’t we go in the morning?’ I called out, in one last attempt to get time for a nap.

They all turned round and stared at me again. I was getting used to it.

‘In themorning?’ squawked Black. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘We can’t scavenge humans’ waste food during the daytime,’ Big explained patiently, as if I was a particularly dim little kitten. ‘That’s when the seagulls are out in force.’

‘Oh. Yes, I’ve seen some of them around. They’re not very nice, are they?’

‘Not very nice!’ Tail-less mimicked. ‘What an understatement, eh, boys? They’re thieving, spiteful, vicious hoodlums, that’s what they are,’ he added in a hiss. ‘We hate them, and they hate us. They’ve been known to kill cats, you know.’

That’s rich coming from you lot! I wanted to meow, knowing how close they’d come to killing this particular cat themselves. But I thought better of it, since I’d apparently now been adopted as their slightly odd posh friend.

‘I can well believe it,’ I said instead, limping after them. ‘One of them bit my human kitten’s finger.’

‘It probably deserved it,’ Big said dismissively. ‘But that’s not the point. We don’t go anywhere near the bins when they’re awake, right? We wait till the eating houses are closed for the night, then we go and get as many scraps as we can before the gulls wake up.’

‘It’s bad enough risking life and paw when the fishing boats come in,’ Stinky told me. ‘The gulls follow the boats back in from the sea – loads of them, all swarming together and shouting their heads off. If we want to try sneaking a fish when they’re unloaded, we have to be very quick and very crafty.’

‘One of us makes a run for the fish, while the others watch out for gulls and try to protect him,’ Big explained.

It sounded so dangerous, I wondered why they bothered, instead of just hunting for easy prey like mice. But then I remembered how delicious a mouthful of lovely fresh fish tasted, and my mouth started to water. I was weak with hunger. I’d have to take my lessons from these boys, whether I liked it or not.

By now we were approaching the area where all the shops were. I stayed close to the ferals, unsure what the procedure was.

‘Stay in that doorway, and watch me,’ Big said.

He stalked towards a rubbish bin outside the shop next to the one where I was waiting, and with a quick glance around him, leapt up onto the top of the bin, grabbed something in his mouth and ran back to me. It was all done in the flash of a cat’s eye.

‘Here you go,’ he said, dropping his trophy at my paws. ‘Help yourself. I’m going back for more.’

I sniffed the lump of food. Fish! Yes– just what I needed. I took a hungry bite and my appetite diminished straight away. What kind of fish was this? The outside was hard and crunchy! I spat it out, and tore at what was left of it with my teeth to investigate further. The inside looked nice enough – good white fish meat, a bit bland, but I had to be grateful for small mercies.

‘What on earth is it?’ I asked Big when he returned with another lump from the bin. ‘It’s all crunchy and horrible on the outside!’

‘Bit ungrateful, aren’t you?’ he remarked. ‘Is it true what they say about domestic cats – you’re so pampered, you can afford to be fussy eaters?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, immediately feeling ashamed. ‘You’re right. I’ve been used to the lovely food my humans hunt for me in the supermarkets. I suppose Iam spoilt.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said easily. ‘You’ll have to eat whatever you can get now, like us, or you’ll starve. This is the type of fish humans buy from fish and chip shops. For some reason they like it covered in this stuff. Batter, they call it. Ruins the taste, doesn’t it, but thefish meat inside is OK, until it starts to go off, anyway. That’s why we only take what’s at the top of the bin.’ He took a bite of the second lump of food he’d brought back. ‘Want to try some of this?’

‘What is it?’ I asked doubtfully. It looked like mouse meat wrapped in bread.

‘They call it a burger. Don’t your humans eat them? I thought they all did. Round here, they even walk along the street eating them. Crazy! Then they wonder why the seagulls attack them!’

‘I think they do have them at home sometimes,’ I said. Just thinking about Laura cooking the dinners for my family made me feel sad all over again. ‘But I’ve never tried one.’

‘Help yourself. I’ll see what else I can find. Then we’ll move on to catch the others up at the Chinese takeaway. That’ll be an experience for you!’

I nibbled at the burger, discarding the bread, and then felt bad for being fussy. The meat part wasn’t bad, but it was smothered in something yellow and spicy that made me want to throw up. Then Big came back again, this time with a mouthful of chips. I knew all aboutthem– I’d occasionally stolen one or two from my humans’ dinner plates when they hadn’t eaten them all. But these were different: greasy and slimy. I forced one down and hoped I wasn’t going to have an upset stomach.

‘If this is the sort of food humans eat around here,’ I commented, ‘they must have very strange tastes.’

‘Well, let’s face it,’ he said. ‘Humans are just plain weird. I’ve given up trying to work them out. I can’t understand what you see in them.’

And so the night went on. Exhausted, aching and starting to feel sick, I was forced to sample things I thought no self-respecting cat would ever let pass their whiskers. Now that my hunger had been eased, I really didn’twant to try balls of pig meat smeared with a bright red spicy sauce, or prawns that had been ruined by being covered in that awful batter stuff. But I didn’t want to offend Big and his friends, who were teaching me how to scavenge and might just as happily have left me to starve.

‘You’ll get a taste for these things in due course,’ Tail-less tried to comfort me as I retched on a piece of funny-tasting red sausage wrapped in stale bread.

But I wasn’t sure I ever could. When they finally led me back to their yard, Big showed me his sleeping place in a mossy crevice of a brick wall – and taking pity on me, offered to share it with me. Then I lay awake for ages, watching the dawn break, thinking about Julian and Laura, and whether they’d gone to the hospital to find Caroline and Grace. And whether Caroline’s wounds hurt as much as mine did. And … whether they all missed me. But eventually I mewed myself quietly to sleep, curled up against Big’s bony back, and dreamt I was back here in Little Broomford, chasing stupid pigeons in the Big House grounds. Oh, if only that dream would come true!

[Êàðòèíêà: i_002.jpg]

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When I woke up the sun was shining brightly, but I could see from the length of the shadows that the day was already half over. I guessed I’d have to get used to this more nocturnal lifestyle while I was living with the feral gang. I just hoped it wasn’t going to go on for too long.

‘I need to start exploring the town again, to try to find my human family,’ I told Big when I found him washing himself under the lamppost. ‘It’s not that I don’t appreciate your generosity in letting me stay with you and the boys. It’s very good of you to give me your protection.’

As you can tell, despite him calling me a hero the previous day, and seeming to like me well enough now, I was still a little wary of Big and I didn’t want to offend him.

‘All right, all right, no need for all that,’ he said. ‘I get it, you’re not one of us, and I suppose you’re missing your nice easy life with your tame humans.’ He paused. ‘But I’m not sure you should be off exploring on your own. You’re only a kid, and not very streetwise. You’ll probably get yourself lost again. Your eye is so swollen you can’t see properly.’

Yes, and whose fault was that?

‘What am I going to do, then? If I don’t find them soon, they might finish their holiday and go back to our normal home. And I’d never be able to get backthere on my own. It’s on the other side of the universe – our car had to carry us here and it took nearly a whole day.’

‘Oh, they’reholiday humans, are they? Huh! They’re the worst sort,’ he said.

‘Mine aren’t!’ I retorted. ‘They’re very kind humans, actually, and they love cats.’

‘I bet they wouldn’t loveus. Humans never do. They treat us like we’re rats,’ he said. ‘But still, I think a couple of us should come with you if you’re going to start touring the streets looking for them. I warn you, though, there could be a few fights if we trespass into other cats’ territories.’

‘I expect you’ll win, though.’

‘Of course we will. That goes without saying!’

Black, Stinky and Tail-less had joined us by now, and Tail-less was meowing about going to the harbour to try to steal a fish or two.

‘Good idea,’ Big agreed. ‘Let’s show our new little friend how it’s done. We have to be careful, as well as crafty,’ he said, as we began to move off.

‘Yes, you explained about the angry humans and the vicious seagulls,’ I said. It didn’t sound like my idea of fun. ‘Shouldn’t we just stay away?’ I think I’d proved myself not to be a Cowardy Cat now, but to be fair, my bites and scratches from the previous day were still sore, and I was walking with a limp.

‘What, and miss the chance of a nice bit of fish, fresh from the sea?’ squawked Stinky.

‘You can stay in the shadow of the humans’ pub place, and watch us from there,’ Big said. ‘Tail-less will stay with you and watch out for seagulls swooping down. Black and Stinky – you stand guard by the harbourmaster’s hut as usual. I’ll be the runner today. If anyone sees one of those humans by the boats, coming after me, you give me the cat-call, OK?’

Despite my anxiety, the whole operation was actually carried out so quickly, the humans still had their backs turned when Big returned, a whole fish hanging from his mouth.

‘Tuck in,’ he meowed to me and Tail-less. ‘I’m going back for another.’

‘Cod. Yum, my favourite,’ said Tail-less.

And I have to admit, it was the freshest, most delicious fish I’d ever tasted. No wonder these boys took such a risk for it.

Suddenly, there was a loud yowl of warning from where Black and Stinky were positioned. Big, another fish in his mouth, turned tail and dashed back towards us. The two humans had turned away from their boats and one of them was throwing something at him while the other one yelled:

‘Bloody cats! Thieving bloody varmints! Get out of here, you pesky moth-eaten bag of bones!’

‘Phew!’ meowed Big as he skidded to a halt beside us. ‘That was a close shave.’

‘I can’t believe how rude that human was to you,’ I sympathised. ‘There was no need to call you names like that.’

Big and Tail-less both gave me a funny look.

‘Oh, he was just making a lot of angry growling noises,’ he said without much interest.

I thought perhaps he’d been running too fast to hear what was being said. But a little later, while we were finishing off the fish round the back of the pub, a couple of humans strolled past, holding each other’s paws, the way they do sometimes if they like each other.

‘Ah, look at the poor little cats,’ the female said, stopping and bending down towards us. ‘Do you think they’re strays, Kev?’

‘No, I think they’re feral cats, Gemma. Don’t touch them, they might be carrying some kind of disease. And they might attack you.’

‘What a cheek!’ I muttered to Big, but he wasn’t taking any notice.

‘Poor things,’ said the female. ‘It’s not their fault, Kev – they were probably someone’s pets once. They might have got lost, and turned feral to survive.’

I pricked up my ears at this. Was I going toturn feral too, if I didn’t find my way home? Would I end up living my whole life like this, stealing fish, raiding bins for humans’ rubbish, sleeping rough and starting to talk in the strange, guttural Cat accent of my new friends? I started to shiver at the thought of it.

‘No, most of them will have been born in the alleyways around here to feral mothers,’ said the male. ‘They’re vermin, Gemma. There’s a lot to be said for the idea of a cull.’

‘What?’ She let go of his paw, looking at him in horror. ‘I can’t believe you just said that! What have these poor little things done to deserve that?’

As you can imagine, I was liking her a whole lot more than her male! I couldn’t help myself from purring and going to rub myself against her legs in gratitude. It seemed ages since I’d had any human affection.

‘Don’t let it touch you!’ the male said, pulling her away from me. ‘It’s probably riddled with fleas and disease.’

‘I’m not!’ I meowed. ‘I’m a pet! I’m lost! I want some love!’

‘What are you doing?’ Big meowed at me at the same time. ‘Stay away from them, Charlie, for the love of catnip! You don’t know whether they’re tame humans or not.’

‘They were. Well,she was,’ I mewed sadly as I watched them walk away. I noticed they weren’t holding paws anymore and the female was walking apart from the male, looking cross. ‘She was being kind, but the male was horrible, wasn’t he.’

All the other cats were staring at me.

‘So what are you, some kind of expert in human behaviour now?’ Big demanded. ‘I’m telling you, it’s impossible to know what they’re thinking. Not all of them are like the pet humans you used to have, you know.’

The wordsused to have filled my heart with despair. Iwas going to go back to my family. I had to find my way back! But in the meantime, something was puzzling me.

‘Didn’t you hear what that male was saying?’ I asked Big quietly. Maybe he was a bit deaf.

‘I didn’t notice any particular body language from him, no,’ he said. ‘But then again, humans don’t use much, do they.’

‘I mean what he wassaying. Verbalising.’

‘Oh, you mean all that growling and whining they do. It’s meaningless. Don’t worry about it. It’s only when they bark like dogs we have to make ourselves scarce.’

‘No,’ I protested, ‘it’s not meaningless at all. Do you mean to say you can’t understand Human?’

‘There’s nothing to understand,’ he insisted. But he was giving me another funny look now. ‘You’re not telling me you think you can translate it?’

‘I thought all cats could. We’re born bilingual. I mean, we can’tspeak it, of course, and they can’t understand Cat, sadly, but …’

Stinky and Black were sniggering. Big and Tail-less were frozen on the spot, looking at me as if I had two heads.

‘Prove it,’ Tail-less demanded.

‘Yeah, go on,’ Black said. ‘Tell us what those humans were saying.’

‘All right. But you won’t like it. The male said we were all vermin, we carry disease, and we should be culled.’

‘What?’ Stinky squawked. ‘I hope you’re making this up!’

‘No, I’m not. But the female felt sorry for us and told him off.’

There was silence for a while. They were starting to look at me differently– almost like they respected me.

‘And you’re saying you can understandeverything humans say?’ Big demanded.

‘Well, they do sometimes come out with new words I haven’t heard before. But I can usually get the gist of it.’

‘I suppose it’s because you were born to domestic cat parents,’ he said wonderingly, ‘and you’ve been raised by humans, lived with them from kittenhood.’

‘Well, all the cats I know can understand Human,’ I said. ‘So I didn’t think it was unusual.’

‘We’ve only ever had other feral cats for company,’ Stinky said. ‘All of our mothers were ferals. All the females we mate with, and all our kittens, are ferals too.’

‘Yeah, we’ve never been friends with a posh domestic cat like you before,’ Black said. ‘We normally leave them for dead if they stray into our territory.’

‘I know.’

There was another silence.

‘Well, we’re sorry about that now, aren’t we, boys,’ Big said. ‘And it looks like you might be a useful little cat to have around, after all.’

‘How?’

‘You can give us the low-down on what any passing humans are saying. There are always rumours going around our community about them plotting to poison us or chase us out of town, but we’ve never known whether there’s any truth in it all.’

‘Good idea,’ Tail-less said, ‘And in return we’ll keep trying to help you find your humans. You don’t belong round here, that’s for sure. You’re … well, you’redifferent.’

I wasn’t sure if the look he was giving me now was one of admiration or wariness. But it was a fair enough bargain. And if it resulted in me finding my family, preferably before I turned feral myself, it was the only way to go.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll be your translator. Now, can we start searching for my holiday home?’

That evening, while Black and Stinky went scavenging for scraps in the bins as usual, Big and Tail-less took me on a tour of some of the streets of the town. The houses here seemed mostly to be very large, with signs outside printed with names in Human.

‘Hotels,’ Big explained. ‘Holiday humans stay in them and get fed. The bins round the backs are good for scavenging. I’m guessing your humans will be in one of these?’

‘No,’ I meowed sadly. ‘They’re staying in a little house – a cottage. It’s in a quiet lane, not a street like this with -pavements. It’s near the sea.’

‘Hmm. Sounds like it’s further out of town. Well, we’ve covered quite a lot of ground already tonight. I suggest we call off the search for now and get something to eat. Don’t worry, young Charlie.’ He was sounding quite affectionate towards me now. ‘We’ll search the streets every day. We’ll get there in the end.’

I hoped he was right. But I was beginning to feel like it might be an impossible mission.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_002.jpg]

CHAPTER TWELVE

Yes, my friends, you’re right in thinking I was becoming used to the feral cats by now. After living with them like that, I can tell you I actually have a lot of sympathy for them. They’ve got a terrible reputation, and it’s true they can be very aggressive. I’ve got the scars to prove it! But it’s understandable. They’ve got tough lives, and after all, they didn’t choose to be born into those circumstances. I understand now why they hang around in gangs, too. On their own, they’d be prey to all sorts of dangers. They need each other for protection. It’s all very well for domestic cats like us to say we enjoy our own company. We can pick and choose which cats we want to spend time with, and who’s allowed into our territory, or we can be completely solitary if we want to. We’ve got humans to protect us and we can choose to stay inside our nice warm homes whenever we like. I found myself wishing I could do more to help those cats, but to be honest, I don’t think they’d have been able to adapt to a life like ours.

For one thing, none of them had ever heard about going to the vet forthat operation. They looked absolutely horrified when I told them I’d had it.

‘I thought you said your humans were kind!’ Black said.

‘They are. I know it seems like a cruel thing to do, but honestly, it’s just like my friend Oliver explained to me when I was a little kitten: what you’ve never had, you never miss.’

‘Well, I’m as sure as a dog’s backside thatI’d miss it,’ Big said. ‘We all would! Apart from the fresh fish, it’s the only thing that makes our lives worth living.’

I thought about this for a while. There were so many things that mademy life worth living when I was at home in Little Broomford, I felt almost guilty about it, not to say even more homesick.

‘We have humans to love us,’ I tried to explain. ‘We sit on their laps and get stroked and cuddled. It makes up for not mating.’

‘You must be joking,’ Stinky said. ‘That sounds awful. I’m surprised you put up with it.’

‘And it can’t possibly compare with a quick session with Blotchy Face when she’s on heat,’ Black put in.

‘Yeah, she’d soon make you forget about your humans, Charlie!’ said Tail-less.

I felt sorry for Blotchy Face, whoever she was. She must have spent her whole life being pregnant and having loads of kittens.

As the boys continued to discuss their mating rituals, I distanced myself from the conversation. I couldn’t help thinking about my sisters back at home. I was glad to remember most of you females have been spayed.

‘I was neutered before I was old enough to want to mate with anyone,’ I tried to explain to the boys when their banter had finally died down. ‘Our humans get us done because they want to take care of us. They don’t want our females to have lots of kittens who might not be looked after by anyone.’

‘Our females look after their own kittens,’ Black retorted. ‘Well, for a few weeks, anyway, till they can fend for themselves.’

And then they just end up living rough, like you, I wanted to say. But I knew it was no use. They’d never understand. The gulf between our lifestyles was too vast.

But the one thing they envied, once they were actually convinced I wasn’t faking, was my ability to understand Human. That same day, I proved my worth to them by translating a very interesting conversation that was going on outside the little caf? near our yard. Two females were sitting together at a table with cups in their paws, talking earnestly about seagulls.

‘Damn things are a real nuisance,’ one of them said, pointing out a couple of gulls circling above. ‘Ever since a few people were attacked, it’s been putting off holidaymakers from coming here.’

‘I know. Business is going down the pan for the beach caf?s and kiosks. Nobody wants to risk eating in the open air.’

I remembered how we were told the same thing by the Annie female who owned our holiday cottage. And because I still felt cross about Caroline having her finger bitten, I listened closely to the women now.

‘It’s the fault of people who leave their food rubbish lying around,’ the first one said. ‘I’m glad the council’s putting up new notices, warning people about dropping litter and threatening them with fines. It’s about time they clamped down on it.’

‘Yes, and on the people who feed the gulls, too! Some holidaymakers think they’re being kind, until they get swooped on and pecked. The gulls should be left to feed themselves with their natural food.’

‘There are signs up now about that too,’ said the other woman. ‘Please Do Not Feed the Gulls. They are Becoming a Nuisance. I just hope it works, otherwise Mudditon is never going to recover from this year’s slump in bookings.’ She paused, and I suddenly realised she was looking straight at me. I’d been so interested in what they were saying, I’d poked my head a little way out of the hiding place behind the fence where I’d been resting with the gang. ‘Look at that little cat watching us,’ she said, nudging her companion. ‘Haven’t seen him around here before.’

‘No. I suppose he’s one of the ferals, but he doesn’t seem as nervous as most of them, does he, Jean? Hello, puss!’

I shrank back behind the fence. Big was growling at me.

‘Stay out of sight, Charlie, for catnip’s sake! I keep telling you –you might like humans, but they don’t like us!’

‘Sorry. I’m trying to listen to what they’re saying. It’s interesting. I’ll tell you in a minute.’

‘Well, I know some people think they’re a nuisance,’ the first woman went on, ‘but the feral cats do have their uses.’

‘Do they? I can’t think what, although I do feel sorry for them.’

‘Well, there was a bit in the local paper this week about how they prowl around at night, foraging for food in the streets and around the bins. They’re actually keeping down the amount of food waste, Shirley. I’d sooner the wild cats ate the leftovers people throw away, than the seagulls, andhopefully in the end they’ll give up, if there isn’t enough food lying around for them, and they’ll go back to eating their natural diet.’

‘Yes, that’s true, I suppose. And of course, the cats keep down the numbers of rats and mice, too. It’s a shame they can’t catch the odd seagull! Or at least chase them away. Then we’d really have cause to be grateful to them.’

‘Yes, and perhaps the council would stop threatening to exterminate the poor things. They should realise they’re actually performing a public service!’

Their conversation turned to something less interesting then, so I turned back to the other cats and related what I’d overheard.

‘She actually said we perform a public service?’ Black meowed in surprise.

‘I thought all the humans hated us,’ said Tail-less.

‘Well, it seems like some of them, at least, realise that you’re helping to keep the seagulls away by getting to the food waste before they do,’ I said. ‘Of course, if you couldcatch seagulls, or chase them off, you’d make yourselves really popular, but that’s not going to happen, is it.’

There was a silence.

‘You’re surely not going to tell me you can catch seagulls?’ I said in disbelief. ‘They’re huge! And scary!’

‘Sadly, that’s something even we wouldn’t attempt,’ Big said. ‘But chasing them away? We haven’t tried that yet. What do you think, boys? Might be a bit of fun!’

‘Are you mad?’ I said. ‘They’ve got those massive great beaks. They’ll turn on you and take a bite out of your faces!’

‘Not if we all charge at them together,’ Stinky said. ‘We’re quite a force, when we work as a team, Charlie.’

‘I know,’ I said, giving my wounded paw a little lick. ‘Tell me about it. Butseagulls? Really?’

‘Worth a try, isn’t it?’ Black said. ‘If it means the humans around here would leave us alone and stop throwing things at us.’

‘Right, that’s settled,’ said Big. ‘We’ll get up a bit earlier than usual tomorrow, boys, and see what we can do. You can watch, Charlie. Don’t get me wrong, I know you’re a lot tougher than you look, after the way you came back forme the other day. But you’re still injured. You might be able to help when that leg heals up, but meanwhile just watch and learn.’

Despite my constant worries about finding Caroline and my futile attempts to find the holiday cottage, I must admit I fell asleep that night feeling ever so slightly proud of myself. I was learning to scavenge. I was learning to steal fish. I was going to learn to chase seagulls. I was tough, I was brave– I was surviving. For a minute I’d almost forgotten I didn’t want to become like the ferals.

Over the next couple of days, between continuing the search for my holiday home and practising chasing seagulls, our little gang was kept busy. To begin with, they only chased one solitary gull at a time, picking them when they were engrossed in feeding on something dropped on the pavement, or strutting towards humans eating on the beach. It was satisfying to see the look of alarm in their beady eyes as they took off, shouting at us crossly. Gradually they progressed to chasing off three or four at a time, and by then I was so caught up in the excitement, I couldn’t resist joining in. The five of us would rush them at once, and so far we’d escaped any injuries so we were beginning to feel invincible. Inevitably, though, there came the time when, occupied with chasing off two fat gulls coming in to land on the beach, we didn’t notice one of their friends running up behind us. Flapping his huge wings, he forced poor Stinky to the ground and began pecking him viciously.

‘Get off me!’ he screamed, trying in vain to fight back with his claws and teeth.

Within seconds the rest of us were rushing at the gull, who gave one disgusted‘Caw’ and took off to follow his friends.

‘Are you OK, Stinky?’ I asked. I was secretly pretty pleased with myself for joining in with his rescue without a second thought for my own safety, despite my injured leg. I was becoming braver and more heroic by the day!

‘Just a few scratches,’ he said, getting to his paws.

But after we’d all calmed down, I noticed him wiping blood from his head and licking a sore area of his flank where the fur had been pulled out.

‘I’ll kill that seagull for you if he comes near us again,’ I told him.

‘Nice thought, Charlie, boy,’ he said. ‘But it’d take more than one of you.’

If nothing else, the incident had reminded us all about the wisdom of keeping very close together.

Normally we’d make ourselves scarce as soon as we’d got rid of the gulls, before any humans on the beach could pay too much attention to us, as the other boys still had an instinctive distrust of them. But on a couple of occasions, as we darted back out of sight behind a rocky outcrop where we could lie in wait, there was a burst of noise from various humans who’d been watching us.

‘What’s that?’ Tail-less asked nervously the first time it happened.

‘They’re cheering,’ I said. ‘And clapping – banging their front paws together. They do it when they’re pleased.’

‘Really?’ said Big. ‘I thought they sounded fierce.’

‘No. They’re telling us we did a good job.’ I looked around at the others. ‘See? It’s just as we hoped. The humans are on our side when it comes to chasing the seagulls away from their picnics.’

This seemed to spur my friends on. It was as if we were on a mission: every time we saw a gull anywhere near humans, or looking as if it was going to start helping itself to human food, we scared it away.

‘Let’s hope those pesky gulls get the message in the end,’ Stinky said. ‘We don’t want them on our patch.’

And so it was that for the remainder of my time with the ferals, we dispersed more seagulls from the town than any cats anywhere could ever have done before. We were strong, we were powerful, we were fearless and undefeatable. Before long, we could see we were really making a difference, starting to keep the area free of scavenging seagulls and pleasing the human population, who on the whole were becoming kinder towards us.

I was particularly aware of this because of listening to the conversations of the two females called Jean and Shirley. Unknown to Big– who would definitely have tried to stop me – I’d started hanging around the caf? where they seemed to meet every day. They’d noticed me outside the fence again, and had called out hello to me in such friendly voices, I knew they were kind humans who wouldn’t hurt me. I was desperate for some human affection, and I knew Big wouldn’t understand. So I waited until he was having a nap, and went back to the caf? on my own. This time when Jean noticed me and said ‘Here he is again! Hello, little tabby cat. You’re a friendly one, aren’t you?’ – I scampered up to her and wound myself around her legs.

‘Ah, he’s really quite tame,’ Shirley crooned, reaching down to stroke me. ‘And he only looks young, Jean, not much more than a kitten. Perhaps he isn’t a feral after all.’

‘But look at the state of him. He’s definitely been fighting – and his coat’s in a terrible state. Poor little thing. How come you’re so friendly?’ Jean added, as I started to purr with the contentment of being stroked.

‘Because I’m not feral! I’m a pet, and I’m lost,’ I meowed, rubbing my head against her hand.

‘Perhaps he’s actually a lost pet,’ Shirley said, as if I hadn’t just been telling her that.

‘I don’t know,’ Jean said, looking at me doubtfully. ‘If he is, I reckon he’s been living rough for most of his life.’

‘Someone must be feeding him, then, unless he’s just hunting mice and birds.’

‘Or else he’s living on scraps, like all the other ferals – and helping to keep those dratted gulls away,’ Jean said, and then she laughed, and added, ‘although I can’t imagine this little chap chasing a seagull like the others have been doing, can you, Shirley?’

I felt a bit offended, then. Little did they know, I was getting as good at it as any of them! Anyway I didn’t hang around for much longer – I was too worried that Big would wake up and come looking for me, and I could just imagine how he’d feel about me not only fraternising with strange humans, but letting them stroke me. But I felt a bit better for having made friends with them, and I was determined to come back again whenever I could. It was, after all, how I got information for the other boys about what humans were saying. And, eventually, it was how I came to be taken home to my family. But that’s another story, and I can see there are some small kittens among you getting sleepy. So Ithink we should probably say goodnight for now, and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_002.jpg]

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Morning, everyone. I hope you’re all feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today? No? What’s up? Oh, you didn’t get much sleep, Smudge? Or you, Oliver? Nancy?None of you could get to sleep, could you… for worrying about the end of my story, wondering how I finally got brought home again? Well, I’m sorry, I must say. Imagine howI felt, wondering about it myself, night after night, curled up in that nook in the brick wall with Big snoring next to me. I might have gone a little bit feral myself in some ways, but I never quite got used to not having a soft, comfy bed to sleep in. So think yourselves lucky! I shall never take my good fortune for granted again, I can assure you.

One of the things that bothered me most during those long, uncomfortable nights, when I was often sleepless with homesickness and anxiety about the future, was that my family would be getting used to living without me. Caroline might have forgotten about me. What if they gave up on me, and got themselves a new cat to replace me? If they saw me now, would they even recognise me? I had no doubt I’d changed since I’d been living rough. Quite apart from the scars I’d got from that fight, and the slight limp I still had because of my leg wound, I could feel that I was thinner. I was probably unhealthy-looking from my peculiar diet, too, although my muscles felt harder and stronger. My fur was getting matted because, although I refused to neglect my personal hygiene, and I puzzled my new friends by insisting on washing myself thoroughly after every meal, I’d been used to having my coat cared for and brushed by my humans too. I guessed I’d be taunted and teased if I mentioned any concerns about my appearance, but I hated to think that I’d probably also got fleas by now. All the boys spent so much time scratching themselves, I had to accept it was inevitable, and started to regret all the times I’d fought against Julian and Laura when they’d been administering flea treatments to the back of my neck. We really should show more appreciation of how much our humans do for us, you know, but of course, we cats prefer to think we could manage without them. I’ve learnt my lesson the hard way. I always thought they needed us more than we need them, but in fact – I hate to say it, and you might not believe it – but the reverse is probably true.

Another thing I missed wasplaying. It probably sounds strange, but feral cats don’t play, not once they’ve grown out of their kittenhood, anyway. Their lives are too dangerous, too hard, and they have enough to do, trying to get food and keep safe from predators. Ah, don’t cry for them, Tabitha. They don’t know any different, remember. They’ve never had humans gettingdown on a nice soft carpet with them and rolling balls to them or tickling them, never had presents of toy mice filled with catnip … All right, I’m making you all upset now, I can see, so I’ll move on. But, you see,I missed it. I missed just having the freedom to leap around in the sunshine, chasing my tail or my shadow or some fluttery butterflies. After all, I was still only half grown. Now you know what I meant at the beginning of my story when I said I’d had to grow up fast.

Walking the streets day after day with one or more of the gang, trying to find the part of town where I’d been staying with my family, I was getting more and more dispirited. I knew I needed to find the holiday cottage before they moved back to Little Broomford, otherwise how on earth would I ever find them again? But I had no idea how much time had passed, and whether in fact they might have goneback already. Even if Carolinehadn’t forgotten about me, I hated to think of her missing me as much as I was missing her. And what if all the worries had proved true, about her being ill again? Or what if they hadn’t been able to make her head better at the hospital? I meowed to myself in distress at the thought of poor Caroline lying in bed, sick or in pain, without me there to cuddle up to her. Even if my family had left Mudditon now, I couldn’t give up searching for the cottage – it was my only linkwith them here. What else could I do?

‘I’m beginning to forget what my holiday home looked like,’ I admitted sadly one day to Big. ‘I’m not sure I’d know it now, if I saw it.’

‘Well, you know you’re welcome to stay with us permanently,’ he said. ‘You’ve fitted in really well. I’d never have thought it, when we first met. You’re almost one of us now.’

He was being kind, and I rubbed my face against his to show I appreciated it, but I don’t think he really meant it. I was doing my best, but I’d never quite be able to embrace their lifestyle. I was too fastidious, my accent still too genteel, and I couldn’t share their obsessive interest in female cats. And more to the point, however kind he was, and however much I could feel myself gradually changing, becoming more like my new friends and less like the little kitten I’d been before, staying with the feral cats permanently was obviously not what I wanted. I wanted to go home. I wanted my old life back. I just didn’t know how to make it happen.

But to pay them back for their friendship, I continued to act as their Human language translator, and I was able to report to them that there was a lot more talk around the town about our campaign against the seagulls. On one occasion, when I managed to sneak back to see my two human friends outside the caf? again, I found the one called Shirley reading a newspaper.

‘Look at this in the local paper, Jean,’ she said suddenly. ‘Wild cats chase seagulls off Mudditon beach.“They saved our toddler from attack” says local mum Claire, 32. “The feral cats are doing a good job. Let them stay!”’

‘You see?’ said Shirley. ‘I told you the cats were helpful in their way. Good for them. I’m glad people are taking notice. I never liked seeing those poor starving cats being persecuted.’

I’d been listening from behind the fence up till then, but now I decided it was time to join them again.

‘Talking of poor starving cats,’ said Jean when I trotted towards them, ‘here’s our little tabby friend again, Shirley.’

‘Ah, he seems to have adopted us!’ Shirley said as I rubbed against her legs, purring.

‘Yes. He certainly seems too friendly to be a feral.’

‘But he isn’t wearing a collar, Jean.’

I was only half listening at this point, as I’d found a little bit of cake that someone had dropped under the table, and was intent on gobbling it up.

‘Look at him eating those crumbs, though!’ Jean said. ‘He must be absolutely starving, poor thing. Is there any milk left in the jug?’

At the mention of milk, as you can imagine, I let out a huge meow and, throwing caution to the wind, jumped straight up onto Jean’s lap.

‘Oh!’ she said, making a surprised noise that turned into a laugh. ‘He must have smelt it!’

She was pouring milk from a little white jug into a saucer. I tried to get my head under her arm so that I could drink it, but she held me back, saying‘Careful, little cat! You’ll spill it!’ and she put the saucer down on the ground instead.

‘There you go, boy,’ she said, as I jumped off her lap again and began gulping up the milk furiously.

‘Thank you, that was delicious,’ I meowed. ‘Have you got any more?’

But they both just watched me, laughing, as I washed my whiskers.

‘He’s so sweet,’ Shirley said. ‘I’m tempted to take him home with me, you know. He’s just crying out for some love and care.’

I froze on the spot. They were nice humans, and I was grateful for the milk, of course, but I didn’t like the sound of this. If they took me home, they might want to keep me. And then what? I’dnever get back to Little Broomford or see Caroline again.

‘Goodbye,’ I said. ‘Thanks again.’ Well, I didn’t want to appear ungrateful. But I ran back to the yard where my friends were dozing in the sunshine, and lay down next to Big, feeling slightly ashamed now of my secret visits. It wasn’t fair that I’d had a lovely dish of milk and hadn’t been able to share it with them, but I knew they’d have been too afraid to trust Jean and Shirley.

I tried to make up for it by telling them later that I’d overheard some humans talking about the report in the newspaper while they were asleep. I emphasised the part about people calling for feral cats to be allowed to stay. This was all good news to my friends, of course. Not that they ever lost their distrust of humans in general, but they began to understand that not all of them were intent on hurting them or getting rid of them.

Everything started to change a couple of days later, because of a woman with a chocolate ice cream.

She was quite an elderly human, one of those whose fur have gone white and hobble along holding a stick in one paw. Why they don’t just give up and walk on four paws when they get too old to balance on two, I’ll never understand, but there it is. The boys and I were patrolling the seafront on the other side of the harbour this particular day. We’d already seen off a few seagulls, and had attracted the attention of a group of holiday humans who stood watching us, exclaiming and cheering us on. This old woman came tottering along with her stick, and in the other paw she had a chocolate ice cream, the type they eat out of a pointy biscuity thing, with a stick of chocolate poking out of it. My mouth watered as I watched her licking it, remembering how much Caroline loved those, and how she sometimes gave me the last bit to finish off. I wondered if I’d ever get to enjoy that kind of treat again.

Suddenly there was a shout from the crowd:‘Watch out, love!’

A huge seagull had swooped down from a lamppost and was aiming straight for the woman, trying to grab her ice cream. Suddenly I had a flashback to the day I’d watched Caroline being attacked on the beach for her sandwiches. I pictured Caroline’s poor bleeding finger again, remembered how she’d fallen, and the noise she’d made when her head hit the rock. How she lay there, lifeless, for a minute, before opening her eyes and looking so ill. I let out a little mew of anguish. Where was my poor Caroline now? Perhaps she was still at the hospital – I had no idea what they did at these places, except what Oliver had told me about Caroline being in one when she was very ill before, and that they’d kept her there a long time, trying to make her better. Perhaps this time they hadn’t even been able to make her better – it was bad enough her seeming to be ill again, without having got so badly hurt that day on the beach. And it was all the fault of a nasty, spiteful seagull – just like this one who was going for the poor old female’s ice cream! Overcome with fury at seagulls in general, I didn’t even stop to consider whether the rest of the gang was behind me, or whether in fact they’d even noticed the poor old human’s desperate situation at all. I just charged forward, hissing and spitting for all I was worth.

Of course, the other boys quickly came after me, Big shouting at me for not staying with them. I like to think I got the gull pretty flustered on my own, jumping up at him and yowling my head off, but once I had the gang’s support he didn’t need telling anymore. He flapped away crossly without having nabbed the chocolate ice cream. The poor human had dropped it on the ground, though, as she stumbled, letting go of her stick, and she was only saved from falling over by a couple of young male humans who rushed to help her.

‘Well done, Charlie,’ Big said gruffly, as between us all we quickly licked up as much of the ice cream off the pavement as we could. No point in it going to waste and, as you know, humans are far too pernickety to eat off the ground. ‘But it was a bit daft, wasn’t it, not waiting for us? For the love of catnip, don’t you realise that gull could have had your eye out?’

I flinched. One eye was already still quite sore and swollen. The thought of the other one being pecked out by a seagull was enough to make me realise how lucky I’d been, and how foolhardy. I’d landed badly on my wounded leg too, with all that jumping up at the gull.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I just felt so cross, I got carried away.’

‘It was bloody brave of you, young Charlie,’ said Black, coming to rub his face against mine. ‘I don’t think I’d have dared go for that gull on my own. Good for you.’

This was praise indeed, coming from Black. He was the most aggressive of the boys and I hadn’t forgotten that he’d been the first one to attack me, that day when I’d been alone and defenceless. Up till now I’d always believed he still looked down on me somewhat as a naive, posh little house kitten.

‘Thank you,’ I purred. ‘Thank you all,’ I added as the other boys joined in with the congratulations. I looked around at them all. My new friends. I finally felt completely accepted by them now. I should be able to confide in them, shouldn’t I – explain why I’d suddenly been able to behave so bravely. ‘It was because of Caroline, you see – my human kitten,’ I said. ‘I told you she got attacked by a seagull, didn’t I?’

‘So what?’ Stinky said.

‘Well, she hurt herself – badly. Her poor head was broken, and bleeding, and she might still be in hospital, and she might be very ill, everyone’s worried about her, and … and I miss her so much, she’s my favourite human in the whole world, and I just want to go home to her again and findout if she’s all right, and …’

I stopped. All the boys were staring at me. I realised I’d been making a terrible mewing noise at the back of my throat all through this long meow – that in fact I was probably sounding more like a pathetic baby kitten than a brave seagull-chaser.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But that was what made me so cross with that seagull.’

‘Well, at least something good came of it, then!’ Black said cheerfully.

They all turned away, and I tried to calm myself down again. It had been pointless, after all, trying to explain to them how I felt about Caroline. They’d never understand.

But just then, Big turned back again, breaking away from the others, and he came over to me and rubbed his face against mine. He didn’t say anything. He probably didn’t have a clue what to say, probably hadn’t even followed a single word of my meow. But he was showing he cared – and that, for now, was something. For now, it had to be enough. But after that day, I was even more determined I’d somehow find Caroline again, even if it took me the rest of my nine lives.

[Êàðòèíêà: i_002.jpg]

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

There was one thing about the Chocolate Ice Cream Incident that I didn’t tell the others. Never having lived with humans, the feral boys had no understanding about the kind of toys they played with. So it would have been hard to explain to them that I knew people in the crowd watching us that day, and probably other days too, had been taking photos of us. I’d glimpsed them holding their phones and cameras up in the air and aiming them at us as we stalked the gulls before a chase, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise to me to find out eventually that someone had captured a picture of megoing to the rescue of the Ice Cream woman. This is how I found out.

Once again it was because of my new human friends Jean and Shirley. When I made my secret visits to them at the caf?, I often heard them talking about whatever had been written in their newspaper. On this particular occasion, a day or two after the Battle for the Chocolate Ice Cream, they were sitting with their heads close together, laughing, apparently, at a picture in it.

‘That’s so funny, Jean!’ the one called Shirley was saying. ‘Just look at that seagull, terrified of one little cat!’

‘Well, you’re right about one thing, Shirl, I’ll give you that – the wild cats have certainly started being a deterrent around here. I hope that poor old dear wasn’t badly hurt.’

‘No. My niece Holly was down on the seafront that day, as it happens, and saw the whole thing. She said the cat scared the seagull right off, and although the poor woman got a nasty shock and did drop her ice cream when she stumbled, she wasn’t hurt. Someone caught her and stopped her from falling over. Apparently a lot of other cats joined in afterwards but this little one had already saved the day.’ Then she picked the paper up again and held it closer to her face. ‘Hang on a minute!’ she said, sounding excited. ‘Who does this look like to you?’

They both stared at the paper again, then at me– I was sitting by Jean’s feet, where I’d been washing my whiskers after their usual treat of a saucer of milk.

‘Are you saying you think it’s him – our little friend here?’ Jean looked back at the paper again. ‘Well, you could be right, although to be fair there are probably lots of little feral tabbies like this around.’

‘Well, the person who sent this picture into the paper wasn’t the only one to have his camera out,’ said Shirley. ‘My niece told me she’d filmed the whole thing on her phone. She’s going to show me when she comes round tonight. She’s put it on Facebook, and YouTube apparently. She says it might go viral, whatever that means. She seems to think it’ll make her famous. Kids, eh? The ideas they get into their heads!’

‘It’s more likely to make the little cat famous!’ her friend remarked, and they both laughed.

Well, by now, as you can imagine, I was meowing my head off at them.

‘Itwas me who chased the seagull away from that old lady!’ I said. ‘Iam that cat!’

But Jean had folded up the paper now and they were talking about something else. And even though I jumped up on Shirley’s lap and nudged her hands and arms with my head until she almost spilt her tea over me, they just gave me a little stroke and laughed at me, and nothing more was said about the picture.

When I rejoined Big and the others back at the yard, I was still so worked up about the whole thing, I couldn’t resist telling him what I’d overheard.

‘You mean to tell me you’ve been hanging around outside that caf? on your own while we were asleep?’ he meowed at me. ‘Have you suddenly got a death wish, these last few days?’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ I said. ‘I was just listening.’ I wondered if he could smell humans on me. What would he say if he knew I’d actually been cuddling up with them?

‘Charlie,’ he said in a stern meow, ‘I keep telling you not to take risks around humans. Even if some of them might not mind us so much now, you don’t know which ones might still be dangerous.’

‘They were talking aboutme, though! They had a picture of me in their newspaper.’

He gave me a pitying look.‘Charlie, do us all a favour, right? Don’t let all the fuss about your bravery the other day go to your head. You’re a good little cat, at the end of the day, but nobody likes a show off.’

‘I’m not showing off!’ I protested. ‘I could hear what they were saying.’

‘Yes, I know you can understand Human. But please, don’t start telling me they’ve got pictures of you. That’s just too far-fetched for common sense.’

I knew I’d never convince him otherwise. For a start, he didn’t know about cameras and phones making pictures. Even I didn’t understand how it worked, how a picture of me had got from someone’s phone into the newspaper, but I did at least believe it was possible – I knew how clever humans could be with things like that. I didn’t like Big thinking I was just a show off, so I just dropped the subject. But Jean’s and Shirley’s words lingered in my head, and in my dreams, giving me a funny, fluttery, hopeful feeling that wouldn’t quite go away. Could it be true? Could the pictures from the humans’ cameras really make me famous? And if they did, would it actually be such a bad thing, after all – especially if I got famous enough to be sent back home to my family?

What happened next, though, was so surprising, I still have trouble understanding it myself, even though I’ve learnt more about it since. There are lots of things in the human world, of course, that I still don’t understand. So if any of the older cats among you can enlighten me, I’m always willing to be educated, even now I’m not a little kitten anymore.

A few days after I heard about my picture being in the newspaper, Big and I were walking along the street where all the shops were. We were once again heading to a different part of town to see if I recognised anywhere that could have been my holiday home. I remember I was feeling particularly sad, as we trotted along together, because Big had just asked me whether I should be thinking about giving up now. I’d already suspected that a couple of the boys were getting tired of helping me with the search, but Big was very loyal to me, and had said he’d keep on coming out with me for as long as I wanted to. I guessed he just thought that by giving up I could spare myself more disappointment. But how could I ever give up looking for Caroline and the rest of my family? It would feel like I’d forgotten them and stopped caring about them, and that was never going to happen.

I was getting to know the shops. There were the ones selling food, of course, where the windows were full of bread and cakes, or those boring things humans eat that grow on trees or bushes, and of course there was our favourite, the shop that displayed delicious looking body parts of dead prey, and whole chickens hanging up on hooks. Other shops were less interesting. They had humans’ clothes in the windows, or shoes, or books, or toys for human kittens. Then right at the end of the row of shops was one with lots of televisions in the window. If there weren’t any humans hanging around outside, we sometimes loitered here for a few minutes because the televisions were usually turned on, showing various different pictures, and Big and the other cats found them fascinating. They had no idea what televisions were, of course, never having been inside a human house. I’d tried to explain, but of course like all of us I’ve never really understood the need for them myself.

‘You mean they just sit there and watch these things all the time?’ Stinky had retorted when I first told him my family had two of them in our proper home at Little Broomford.

‘Well, mostly in the evenings, but yes, they can watch them whenever they want to. Sometimes there are special pictures for human kittens to watch. And sometimes there are pictures of lots of male humans chasing each other and kicking a ball. I’ve noticed that if I walk in front of the television waving my tail, they sometimes tell me off. But if the picture is of something like birds or fish, and I sit on the shelf on top of it and dangle a paw over it, they find it quite funny.’

‘Suffering catnip!’ Black had said. ‘Humans are the weirdest creatures in the world.’

‘And the pictures keep moving!’ Big had said.

‘Yes. I suppose it gives them some sort of a thrill, like us watching a bird hopping, or a mouse creeping along.’

‘But at least we eventually pounce on the prey and eat it,’ one of the boys had said, and I’d had to agree, the whole thing about watching television really did seem like a pointless exercise to us.

This particular day, it was raining, with a stiff breeze blowing up the shopping street from the sea, and most of the humans must have stayed inside their houses, so Big and I spent a while staring at the moving pictures in the shop window. One of the television screens was showing pictures of almost naked humans swimming in a big bath of water. When the first one reached the edge of the bath, he threw both his front paws into the air and the humans who were watching stood up and clapped their paws together. Very strange. On another screen, there were pictures of pairs of humans holding on to each other and swaying together in very strange, unnatural looking positions. The females were wearing fancy flamboyant dresses so I could only surmise that the smartly dressed males were trying to stop them from tripping over.

‘It’s true,’ I commented to Big now. ‘The longer I’m away from my humans, the more I agree that they’re all a bit odd.’

And then I looked at the next television screen. And I nearly jumped with all four paws off the ground.

‘Oh my claws and whiskers!’ I meowed. I was beginning to pick up some of the boys’ vernacular. ‘It’s me! Big, look, it’sme on there, for the love of catnip!’

‘It can’t be!’ Big was staring at the same screen now. ‘It must be some other tabby with the same eyes …’ He glanced at my still slightly swollen right eye. ‘And the same scars on his head … and … oh. The same limp when he runs. That’s a coincidence. And …’ He broke off. ‘Bloody catnip, Charlie! It’syou!’

We both stared at the picture on the screen as it continued to show me running forwards across the pavement and then leaping into the air, and then the seagull flying off with an angry squawk and the old lady stumbling, dropping her chocolate ice cream, and being helped by the two young humans.

‘It’s me,’ I repeated.

‘It is,’ he agreed, turning to stare at me now. ‘How in the name of all the dogs and foxes did you do that?’

‘I didn’t do anything! It’s … I don’t know! Somehow my life has got repeated in pictures on that television.’

‘That’s impossible! You haven’t been inside that shop, have you?’

‘No, of course I haven’t. I don’t understand it any more than you do. I told you I think someone has put a picture of me in a newspaper, but …’

‘Yes, and that was unbelievable enough – I thought you were making it up. Butthis…’ He stared back at the shop window again, where the television screen was now just showing a male human with his mouth opening and closing as if he was talking to us, with a lot of Human writing running along the bottom of the screen. ‘This is justimpossible. It defies all common sense.’

‘I know. But it was definitely me, wasn’t it. It was me jumping up at that seagull.’

‘Yes, it was, although if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I’d say you’d finally taken leave of your senses.’