The Frightened Kitten

Chapter Four

Maddy and Biscuit spent so much time playing in the garden that on Friday evening, Maddy’s dad came home with a surprise. He put the big box he was carrying down in front of Biscuit’s cat basket with a flourish.

“What is it?” Maddy asked, peering round to see the front of the box. Biscuit blinked at it sleepily. She was worn out from racing round the garden with Maddy after she had got back from school.

“Oh, a cat flap! Thanks, Dad!”

“We can put it in tomorrow. It’s over three weeks since Biscuit had her vaccinations now, so we can let her out on her own.”

Maddy nodded. “I suppose so. But she’s still not quite fourteen weeks old. She’s only little.”

“I think cats like to explore though,” Dad pointed out. “She’ll be able to climb trees. Chase more butterflies…”

Biscuit suddenly perked up, bouncing up in her basket and staring at him, ears pricked. Dad laughed. “You see!”

Maddy had been worried that Biscuit might find the cat flap hard to work, or that she just might not like it – Kate had told her that Ben had taken ages to get used to his. He preferred to have someone open the back door for him. But as soon as Biscuit understood what the cat flap did, she took to it immediately. She spent most of Saturday afternoon popping in and out of it, coming back into the kitchen every five minutes to make sure that Maddy was still there.

Maddy had been a bit anxious that Biscuit might try going into one of the next-door gardens, but even though she’d sniffed at the holes under the fence, she didn’t seem to want to crawl through them. There was plenty in Maddy’s garden to keep her busy.

Maddy was doing her homework at the kitchen table on Sunday morning, with Biscuit curled on her lap. Her science worksheet seemed to be taking ages. It was probably because she kept thinking about her science lesson on Friday. She’d had to pair up with Sara, a girl she didn’t really like, and Sara had kept on making mean little comments throughout the lesson. So now every time she tried to write about the differences between solids and liquids, she just started thinking about how much she missed having Kate to work with. Kate would have said something really funny about Sara, Maddy was sure.

At least she’d seen Becky, one of the girls who sat on the table behind her, making faces at Sara. She’d rolled her eyes at Maddy in an “Ignore her!” sort of way, and Maddy had smiled back.

Now Biscuit yawned and jumped lazily off Maddy’s lap, making for her cat flap. She was bored with sitting still, and Maddy didn’t seem to want to play. Biscuit had tried chasing her coloured pencils across the table, but Maddy had put them away instead of rolling the pencils for her to chase.

The garden was full of interesting smells, and some bees were buzzing around the lavender bushes. Biscuit watched them, fascinated, her tail tip twitching. She was watching so closely that she didn’t see Tiger and Tom sneaking under next door’s fence. It wasn’t until the two big ginger cats were right behind her that Biscuit heard them creeping through the grass, and whirled round. She was sure it was one of these cats who’d been staring in at her through the window.

The ginger cats had their ears laid back as they snuck towards her. Biscuit backed away from them into the lavender bush. She didn’t quite understand what was happening, but she knew the two cats weren’t friendly. Her tail bushed out, and she darted a nervous glance towards the door. Could she make a run for her cat flap? But one of the big ginger cats, the one with the torn ear, was between her and the house, his tail swishing from side to side.

Tiger, the one with the darker stripes, was almost nose to nose with her now, hissing and staring. Biscuit was practically squashed into the lavender bush – she couldn’t retreat any further.

Tiger cuffed her round the head with one enormous paw, sending her rolling, and Biscuit wailed miserably. What was she supposed to do? Why were they attacking her?

Inside the house, Maddy was still gloomily eyeing her homework. She glanced up as her mum came into the kitchen, looking confused.

“Maddy, can you hear a strange noise? It almost sounds like a baby crying. A sort of howling.”

Maddy yelped and suddenly pushed her chair away from the table, racing for the back door. She hadn’t been paying attention to the noise, but now she was sure it was Biscuit.

She flung open the door, and Tom jumped round, hissing at her, but Tiger and Biscuit hardly seemed to notice. They were in the middle of the lawn now, and Tiger was about three times the size of Biscuit with all his ginger fur fluffed up. They were making strange wowling noises still, circling round each other. As Maddy watched, Tiger leaped on Biscuit again, and the two cats seemed to roll over and over, twisting and scratching.

“Stop it!” Maddy yelled. She raced over to them, shoving at Tiger, ignoring the hissing and scratching at her hands. She snatched Biscuit up, and yelled at Tiger and Tom, sending them scuttling away under the fence.

“Maddy, are you all right?” Her mum came running out. “It all happened so quickly, I didn’t realize what was going on. Is Biscuit hurt?”

“I don’t think so, but she’s shaking.” Maddy carried the kitten inside. “Those horrible cats!”

Her mum sighed. “I suppose they’re used to coming into our garden. They think Biscuit’s in their territory.”

“Well, she isn’t!” Maddy snapped. “It’s our garden and she’s our cat!”

“Yes, we know that, but I bet the cats don’t. Give her to me, you need to run your hands under the tap. They must hurt, you’re all scratched!”

Reluctantly, Maddy handed Biscuit over to her mum.

“She’s so scared,” Maddy said, her voice shaking as she washed her hands. “Tiger’s so much bigger than she is. He could have really hurt her.” Then she laughed a little. “I saw Biscuit scratch his nose, though, before he ran off.”

“Did they go under the fence?” her mum asked. “Is there a hole we could block up?”

Maddy dried her scratched hands and made for the door. “I’ll go and see.”

Biscuit gave a worried little mew as she saw Maddy opening the door, and Maddy stopped to stroke her. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to let those ginger bullies anywhere near you.”

She hurried out into the garden, checking the fence. There were holes all the way along – not huge ones, but big enough for a cat to squeeze through.

It was going to be difficult to block them all up. And the fence wasn’t that high, either. She was pretty sure that Tiger and Tom could climb it without too much effort.

“What are you doing?” someone asked in a sneery sort of voice.

Maddy straightened up from the flower bed. It was her next-door neighbour Josh, who owned Tiger and Tom. He was a couple of years older than she was and went to secondary school, so usually Maddy was too shy to say much to him. But not today.

“I’m looking at the fence! Your cats just came into my garden and beat up my kitten!” she snapped at him.

Josh shrugged. “Sorry. But cats fight. It’s what they do.”

“Don’t you care? She’s terrified!”

“There isn’t anything I can do, cats chase each other and they fight. There’s loads of cats round here. Your kitten’s going to get into fights, Maddy, stop being such a girl.”

“OH!” Maddy huffed, and she stomped back inside. Biscuit was not going to fight, because Maddy wasn’t going to let any other cats hurt her. She didn’t care how scratched she got.

But as she shut the kitchen door, slamming it hard enough to set the cat flap swinging, Maddy had a sudden, awful thought.

She could protect Biscuit now, but what about tomorrow, when she went back to school?

“Perhaps we shouldn’t have got a cat flap…” Maddy said worriedly.

Her dad scratched his head thoughtfully. He’d been out running when Biscuit got into the fight, and had missed the whole thing. “I can’t exactly put that chunk of door back. Anyway, Biscuit’s getting bigger all the time. She won’t be such easy pickings for those two next door soon.”

“I don’t think Biscuit’s ever going to be as big as they are,” Maddy said. “But it’s good for her to be able to go out. She loves being in the garden! Or she did, anyway,” she added sadly.

Biscuit hadn’t been outside again since the fight that morning. She’d retreated into the dining room. There was a lovely patch of warm sun coming through the glass doors at the back of the room. Biscuit lay in it, feeling the soft warmth on her fur. It made her feel better – not so jumpy and scared.

She stretched out on the carpet lazily and gazed out of the big window through half-open eyes, hoping to spot some butterflies.

Instead, the next time she blinked, Tiger and Tom were there. In her garden, staring at her, just on the other side of the window.

Biscuit’s tail fluffed up and she hissed in panic. For a moment, she forgot that there was glass there and they couldn’t reach her through it. She was sure that Tiger was about to knock her over again. She raced out to the kitchen and Maddy, mewing in fright.

“Oh! They’re back in the garden!” Maddy picked Biscuit up, cuddling her.

Dad quickly filled up a glass that was by the sink and headed out into the garden. But he came back shaking his head. “I was going to splash them – cats don’t like getting wet – but they’d gone already.”

“If they keep doing this, Biscuit’s going to be frightened all the time,” Maddy said anxiously. “It’s so unfair.”

She was still worrying when she went to bed that night. She’d left the kitten snoozing in her basket in the kitchen, after putting some of Biscuit’s favourite chicken crunchies in her bowl, in case she woke up needing a midnight snack.

It took Maddy ages to get to sleep. She tossed and turned, thinking about Tiger and Tom, and then about school tomorrow and how lonely it was going to be. Somehow it all got wound up into her dreams when she finally fell asleep, so that she was sitting doing numeracy with Tiger and Tom (in school uniform) on either side of her. Tiger was just telling her that she was stupid and she’d got her multiplication wrong, when Tom started wowling in her ear. Maddy twitched, turned over – and woke up. That wasn’t in her dream – the sound was coming from downstairs!

She flung herself out of bed and dashed down the stairs. The noise was louder now and it was coming from the kitchen. Maddy couldn’t understand – it sounded like more than one cat, but only Biscuit was meant to be in there. She shoved open the door, and saw Tiger and Tom by Biscuit’s food bowl, gobbling down the chicken crunchies she’d left out.

“Go away!” Maddy yelled. “Out! Bad cats!” Tiger and Tom hissed at her, but hightailed it out of the cat flap. The cat flap – of course. That’s how they’d got into Maddy’s kitchen!

“What on earth…?” Dad appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking sleepy.

“The cats from next door! They came in through the cat flap, Dad; they were eating Biscuit’s food!” Maddy crouched down by Biscuit’s bed. She looked terrified, and as Maddy gently picked her up, she could feel how tense the kitten was, as though she was ready to leap out of Maddy’s arm and run away at any moment. Her whiskers were twitching, and her little face seemed all frightened eyes.

Mum had been worried that Biscuit might end up making a mess in Maddy’s room if she slept upstairs, but Maddy couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her on her own.

“Dad, please can I take Biscuit upstairs to sleep with me?” she begged. “I know Mum said she should stay in the kitchen, but she’s so scared.”

Dad sighed. “I suppose she is very well house-trained now. And she’s got pretty good at the stairs, hasn’t she? She’ll be all right to come down if she needs her litter tray. I’m going to put a chair in front of the cat flap, in case Tiger and Tom come back.”

Maddy nodded. Biscuit was relaxing into her arms a little now, but she was still looking around nervously. Maddy hurried upstairs and fluffed up her duvet into a cosy kitten nest at the end of the bed. It didn’t leave much duvet for her, but she didn’t mind.

Biscuit stepped cautiously into the warm nest and padded at it with her paws. Maddy was here. She was safe. Tiger and Tom wouldn’t be able to come upstairs, she was sure. And if they did, Maddy would chase them away.

Maddy slid into bed and sighed. She’d wanted Biscuit to sleep on her bed ever since she’d got her, but she wished it hadn’t happened like this.

Maddy was just falling asleep again when she felt determined little paws padding up her tummy, and a soft wisp of fur brushed across her cheek as Biscuit curled up next to her on the pillow. Maddy giggled. Biscuit’s tail was lying across her neck and it tickled.

“We’ll sort those horrible cats out,” she told Biscuit sleepily. “It’ll be OK.”