The Rescued Kitten

Chapter Seven

“Layla, look…” Evie whispered, gently turning her friend round. “In the doorway.”

Watching them, frozen at the entrance of the shed, was a tiny black cat. She didn’t look big enough or old enough to have had kittens, Edie thought. She was so skinny and little, but she had the most beautiful golden-green eyes.

“Shuffle back!” Edie told Layla. “I think she’s scared to come in because we’re here.” Her mum had told her how shy feral cats could be. The kittens were too little to be scared but their mum wouldn’t want to come near people.

Slowly, carefully, the two girls wriggled back to the side wall of the shed, as far away from the kittens and the mother cat as they could get. Edie wished they could just leave, but the kittens’ mum was in the doorway. She had her ears laid back flat, and she was pressed against the side of the door as if she was terrified – but she didn’t run away. She was obviously desperate to get to her kittens.

“She’s shaking,” Layla whispered.

“I know… Maybe if we keep still she’ll come in and then we can get out of the door without scaring them.”

The cat watched them suspiciously, glancing back and forth between them and her kittens as if she still wasn’t sure it was safe to move. Then, at last, she darted across the shed to her nest on the old sacks. She huddled herself over her kittens, as if she thought she needed to protect them from the two girls. Then she leaned down and picked up the ginger kitten in her mouth, hauling him out of the nest by the scruff of his neck.

Layla gasped. “She’s hurting him!”

“No,” Edie whispered. “That’s just how they carry their kittens. Look, he’s gone all limp. I don’t think it hurts. But where’s she moving him to?” She looked worriedly at Layla. “I think she’s doing this because of us! We scared her, and now she thinks this place isn’t safe and she has to take them somewhere new.”

The cat didn’t seem to know what to do. She jumped up on to an old wooden crate that was behind the nest, with the kitten dangling from her mouth, but then she hesitated and jumped down again, putting the kitten back with his sisters. She padded around the little pile of sacks, looking over at the girls every so often and then nudging worriedly at her kittens.

“Let’s get out of here,” Edie suggested, breathing into Layla’s ear. “We’ll stay by the wall and try to be really quick. Yes?”

Layla nodded, and they scurried as quickly as they could round the side of the shed and out of the door. Edie looked back as they dashed out and saw the mother cat still staring after them anxiously.

“What if she moves them and they get hurt like Barbie did?” Edie said, as they stood in the long grass outside the shed. “Where’s she even going to take them? She had to go so far last time, all the way across two fields and the road at least. It’s so dangerous!”

“We were trying to help…” Layla said, her voice faltering.

“And I think we’ve just made everything worse.” Edie shook her head. “We shouldn’t have stayed looking at the kittens. But they were so cute, I didn’t think about the mother cat coming back and getting scared. We should have gone away and got some food for her and left them alone.” She bit her bottom lip. “We messed up. Can I borrow your phone to ring my dad? Maybe he’ll know what to do.”

Layla nodded, pulling the phone out of her pocket and handing it to Edie. It had been her birthday present and Edie was definitely planning to ask for a phone for her birthday, too. “Dad?” she gasped, as soon as he picked up. “Dad, we’ve found Barbie’s mum and the other kittens. They’re in the old machine sheds, across the field from where we found Barbie. But I think we scared her, she’s going to move the kittens, and we don’t know what to do…”

“Wow!” her dad murmured. “OK.” He paused and Edie could almost hear him thinking. “Right. I reckon we need to get them all to a shelter. They probably won’t be able to rehome the mum, not if she’s feral, but they could find homes for the kittens once they’re not feeding from her any more. They’re still young enough to get used to people. So … we need to catch the mum and the kittens before she moves them again.”

“She’s really nervous, Dad. I don’t think she’s going to be easy to catch.”

“I know, but we’ll bribe her. I’ll bring a cat cage and some good snacks. Your mum’s going to wonder what’s happened to the contents of the fridge. We just need to find out what she likes. I’m betting on cheese. Lots of cats can’t resist cheese. But you never know, it could be cold baked beans! I’ll bring those, too, just in case.”

Edie laughed shakily. She could tell that her dad was being funny on purpose, to try and calm her down.

“Don’t worry, Edie. We’ll manage. And it’s wonderful that you and Layla found them. I honestly didn’t think that you would. See you in ten.”

“Bye. Thanks, Dad.” Edie handed the phone back to Layla with a sigh of relief. “He’s going to come and catch them, and take them to a shelter.” Then she glanced around, pulling a face. “And then he’ll know we went inside this falling-down old shed. Maybe he won’t mind because we were so clever and found the kittens.”

Layla rolled her eyes. “I know… I’ve probably lost all my pocket money for about a month. But it was worth it.”

Barbie stood up with her paws on the side of her box, mewing hopefully at Edie’s dad. It was only a little while since she’d been fed, but she was wide awake and wanted to get out of the box. She could hear him moving around, opening and shutting the door that led into the garage, and then the squeak of the door to the fridge.

She mewed again, a sharp, demanding squeak. If Edie had been there, she would have come running to see what was the matter. She would have picked her up, and petted her and let her play on the kitchen floor, patting bottle tops around and climbing all over her lap. Edie’s dad was ignoring her.

Barbie scrabbled at the side of the box and sank her claws into the thick cardboard. It was a new box, bigger than her first one, and it had taller sides. But if she tried hard enough… Determinedly, she hopped and hauled herself up to the edge and mewed, half-scared, half-triumphant as she wobbled on the side of the box.

Edie’s dad looked round and saw her, just as she scrambled and jumped to the kitchen floor. “Perfect,” he murmured, scooping her up and popping her back in. “Just when I have to go and rescue the rest of your family, you decide it’s time to learn how to escape from your box. Brilliant timing, kitten. Sorry, but I’m not taking you with me. No, don’t just climb out again!”

But Barbie was already climbing up the side of the box and Edie’s dad looked around the kitchen, trying to work out if there was anything she could hurt herself on if he left her. There weren’t any gaps she could get stuck in and there was no way she could get out of the doors. With a sigh, he grabbed a piece of paper and some Sellotape and scribbled a quick note to warn Edie’s mum:

Free range kitten!

Then he closed the kitchen door behind him and taped it up where she’d see it before she opened the door.

“Dad!” Edie waved as she saw the car bumping down the lane that led the long way round back to their house. She pointed to the overgrown yard in front of the sheds, but her dad stopped the car in the lane instead.

“I’ll leave it here, I don’t reckon anyone’s going to be coming past and I don’t want to scare the cat any more. Where is she?” he added, as he got a wire crate out of the back of the car and a bag of food to bait it with.

“They’re all inside this shed.” Edie pulled him into the yard and across to the doorway.

“This isn’t the kind of place you two should be exploring,” Edie’s dad pointed out, glancing around and then eyeing the two girls.

“I know – and we never would usually…” Edie said apologetically and Layla nodded.

“We only meant to look round the door…” she said.

“And then we saw the kittens,” added Edie. “They’re gorgeous, Dad, look.”

Edie’s dad peered cautiously through the doorway and smiled. “Three of them, right? They’re all walking around now. I can’t see the mum, though.”

“I know, after we called you, we went on watching them from the door – the mum kept picking the kittens up in her mouth and putting them down again, and then she disappeared into this pile of old boxes and stuff at the back of the shed. That was a few minutes ago. Now the kittens are starting to wake up and mew, and one of them’s wandering round the shed crying for her but she hasn’t come back.”

“There are lots of holes in the walls,” Layla put in. “She could have gone without us seeing her. Maybe we just scared her off and she’s left.”

Edie swallowed hard. “What if we made her leave all her kittens behind?”