The Missing Kitten

“Bootle!” Scarlett called happily, as she opened the front door to let herself and Izzy and Jackson inside. “Bootle, come and see Izzy!”

Dad hurried out of the kitchen, a worried expression on his face. “You didn’t see him in the lane then?”

Scarlett stared at him, not understanding. “What?” she asked, with a frown.

“Bootle! He’s not out there? I wondered if he’d slipped out somehow. He must have done, I can’t find him anywhere.” Dad glanced distractedly up and down the hallway, as though he thought Bootle might pop out from behind the wellies.

“You can’t find him?” Scarlett stammered. “You mean – he’s lost?”

“I’m sorry, Scarlett.” Dad ran his fingers through his hair till it stood up on end. “I had a long phone meeting all morning, it finished about an hour ago. Then I went to find Bootle and check that he was all right, but he’d disappeared. I just don’t understand how he can have got out!”

“Maybe he didn’t?” Izzy suggested shyly. “He could be shut in somewhere. Olly’s always doing that. He climbed into a drawer once and went to sleep, and my mum didn’t see him and she shut the drawer. Then she got a real shock because her wardrobe was meowing.”

“Maybe…” Dad murmured. But he looked doubtful. “Let’s check again.”

Scarlett grabbed Izzy’s hand and pulled her up the stairs, while Jackson hurried into the living room.

“Bathroom,” Scarlett muttered. “Not in here. The airing cupboard, maybe?” She pulled the door open, but no indignant kitten darted out. “Jackson’s room…” She peered in, and called, “Bootle! Bootle! He isn’t here, Izzy. I’m sure he’d come if he heard me calling. Or he’d meow to tell me where he was.”

“He could be asleep. Try the other rooms, just in case.”

Scarlett peered into her mum and dad’s room, opening the wardrobe, and all the drawers, but there weren’t even any gingery hairs. “This is my room,” she told Izzy, pushing the last door open. “Bootle!” Scarlett caught her breath. She’d been hoping to find him asleep on her bed, but he wasn’t there.

“Your window’s open…” Izzy said slowly.

“Oh, but he couldn’t get out through that.” Scarlett shook her head. “It’s really high.”

Izzy frowned. “It depends how much he wanted to.”

The girls climbed on to the bed so they could look out of the window.

“You see? He could jump on there.” Izzy pointed out the low bit of the roof. “And there’s all that ivy stuff. That’s like a cat ladder.”

Scarlett stared at her. “You think he really could have climbed down that?”

Izzy looked down at the grass, which was an awfully long way away. “He might have done.”

Dad came in, with Jackson behind. “He isn’t in the house,” he said grimly. “Was that window open, Scarlett?”

“Yes!” Scarlett nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m really sorry, Dad, I didn’t think Bootle would try to climb out of it! He can hardly get up the stairs, and the windowsill’s really high.”

“It isn’t your fault.” Dad put an arm round her. “I should have checked on him earlier. None of us realized he would be able to climb out of the window.” He leaned over to look out. “I think he did, though. Some of that creeper’s been torn away.”

“Can we go and look for him?” Scarlett asked. “He might have tried to get to school again, and got lost… Oh, Dad, what if he’s gone on the road?”

Dad hugged her tighter. “Don’t panic, Scarlett. I don’t think he would, he’s scared of the car noises. Remember how he meowed when we got him out of the car at the vet’s? Even though he was safe in his basket he didn’t like it when the cars went past. And why would he get mixed up about the way to school, when he made it yesterday?” He let go of Scarlett, and made for the door. “I’m just going to call the school and see if he’s turned up there.”

Scarlett sank down on her bed, staring up at Izzy. “I can’t believe it. Everyone’s been telling me today how lucky I am, and how gorgeous Bootle is, and now he’s gone. I’ve only had him a couple of weeks, Izzy! How can I have lost him?”

It was starting to get dark. Bootle scratched at the door with his claws again, but they were starting to hurt. He’d hoped that he could make that little thin strip of light and fresh air bigger, maybe even big enough to squeeze out. But all he’d managed to do was scratch off some of the paint. Miserably, he sank down, mewing faintly. No one seemed to hear him, and it had been quite a while since he’d last heard anyone outside.

Maybe he would have to stay here all night, he thought anxiously. Scarlett wouldn’t know where he was. Perhaps she was looking for him? He stood up again quickly, even though his paws felt sore, and meowed as loud as he could. Scarlett would look for him, he was sure of it.

But even though he called and called and called to her, she didn’t come, and at last he had to give up. He was worn out with scratching and meowing, and he dragged his sore paws back to the pile of mats. Then he curled up into a tight little ball, and lay there in the gathering darkness, wondering how long it would be before anyone found him.

“We can make some ‘lost’ posters,” Izzy suggested the next morning. “If we ask Mrs Mason nicely, I bet she’ll let us use the ICT suite. We could put them up all round the village on the way home.”

Scarlett nodded. She should have thought of that the night before. After Izzy had gone home, she and Jackson had searched the house all over again, and then Scarlett had gone to bed, and cried herself to sleep, knowing that her little kitten wasn’t curled up in his basket in the kitchen – he was out there in the dark, and she had no idea where.

“We could go round the houses between here and school, and ask if anyone’s seen him,” she suggested, shivering at the thought of poor Bootle wandering around lost somewhere.

“Ooh, yes,” Izzy agreed. “We could get people to check their garages. Don’t worry, Scarlett, I can help with that. I know almost everybody in the village, and it’s scary if you don’t know people.”

“That would be great,” Scarlett said. She’d do anything if it meant finding Bootle, even if she had to talk to hundreds of grumpy people.

A couple of the Year Six girls came past Scarlett and Izzy on their way in. “Hey, Scarlett! Did you get into trouble with Miss Wilson yesterday?” one of them asked.

Scarlett stared at her in bewilderment. “W-what?” she murmured, suddenly shy.

“When your kitten came back! I thought your brother said Miss Wilson had told your dad off? That he had to keep your kitten at home?”

Scarlett forgot all about being shy. “You mean you saw Bootle? Are you sure it was yesterday?” she asked the older girl eagerly.

“Yeah, definitely…” The older girl – Scarlett was pretty sure she was called Eleanor – frowned. “I saw him looking in the classroom window, but then he ran off. Why? What’s the matter?”

“Bootle’s lost,” Scarlett explained. “Dad had him shut in, but he climbed out of an upstairs window. We think he must have tried to follow us. We weren’t sure he had made it to school, but if you saw him, then he was definitely here!”

“You’re not mixing up the days?” Izzy asked Eleanor doubtfully.

Eleanor shook her head. “Nope. I’m certain. It was yesterday when it was raining. And your kitten was soaked, Scarlett. His fur was actually dripping. I saw him out of the window; he was in the playground. Before break, I think.”

“He must have got out of the window really soon after we left,” Scarlett murmured. “Thank you, Eleanor! I have to go and look for him!”