To Be A Cat

‘IF YOU REALLY want a dog, you must be prepared to look after it,’ Barney’s mum had told him before they had brought Guster home from the dog rescue centre five years ago. ‘And that means walking it twice a day.’

To be honest, Barney didn’t mind taking Guster for walks. It was often the nicest bit of the day, especially when the weather was behaving itself. Today, though, it began to rain as Barney sat on the park bench waiting for Guster to do his business. Harsh, heavy rain which blatantly ignored the fact that Barney hadn’t brought an umbrella.

‘Some birthday,’ Barney mumbled as he clipped the lead back onto Guster’s collar.

He knew he was feeling sorry for himself, but he couldn’t help it.

On his way home, he passed a house on Friary Road with an old, silver-haired cat sitting in the window, snug and smug in the warmth. To be a cat, he thought to himself. That would be an easy life.

No school.

No Gavin Needle.

No need to be woken before seven in the morning.

Total freedom. And, unlike dogs, you don’t even have to go out in the rain.

As he was thinking all this the cat turned towards him, and Barney realized it was the same cat he often saw staring out at him from this house. The cat only had one eye. Its other eye socket was stitched up with a white thread so thick Barney could see it from the street.

Guster saw the cat too, yanked hard on the lead and began yapping.

‘Come on, Guster, stop being stupid. You’re not fooling anyone.’

Just before arriving home Barney bumped into the postman. ‘Anything for number seventeen?’ he asked.

The postman had a look through the bundles of post. ‘Oh yes. Yes, there is.’

And Barney took the envelopes and quickly shuffled through them. A birthday card from Aunt Celia was there amid the brown-enveloped bills, but there was nothing from his dad. He knew it

was unlikely, and it was stupid to expect anything, to hope for a glimpse of that handwriting he knew as well as his own. But if his dad was still alive Barney had been sure that his birthday was the most likely day he’d make contact.

But no. Nothing.

‘Oh, more bills,’ sighed his mum, receiving the bundle from her son.

‘Never mind, Mum,’ said Barney, trying to sound convincing.

His mum pecked him on the cheek, in fast-forward, then shot out the door. ‘I’ll be late tonight,’ she said. ‘There’s a meeting. I’ll be back around sevenish. But there’s some salad in the fridge if you get hungry.’

Salad?!

On his birthday!

You know, he wasn’t expecting a ten-course meal followed by a hot-air balloon ride, or anything, but maybe he’d expected a little bit more than a night on his own eating lettuce and doing his homework.

He watched his mum get into the Mini and couldn’t help feeling she wasn’t really a person any more. She was just a blur, always on the move and only stopping every now and then for a sigh.

She drove away.

And Barney stood on the doorstep, watching the rain and wishing his dad was there.

‘Oi, cheer up, Willow, you’re only twelve,’ came a voice. ‘No reason to start looking like an adult already.’

The voice was Rissa Fairweather’s. Barney looked up and saw his best friend standing there, tall and grinning, and with an umbrella spotted like a leopard.

‘Hi, Rissa,’ he said, smiling for the first time that morning.