by Holly Webb
“Does it need stitches?” Edie asked.
“No, we’ll be OK with glue… I think there’s some of that in the kitchen cupboard, too…” Edie’s mum grinned at her. “I know, I know. There’s enough for a surgery in those cupboards. But it’s useful stuff to have around. Just lift her up a minute, I want to pour on some antiseptic and you don’t want it all down you, too.” She whisked another towel under the kitten and then poured antiseptic wash all over her neck.
“Aww, her fur’s gone all spiky!”
“Yes, and you can see how little she really is,” her mum said grimly. “Without all that fluffy fur.”
“But she is drinking the milk, Mum. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”
“Mmm.”
“What are you two doing?”
Edie jumped as her dad appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“Must be something exciting, you didn’t even hear me come in!” He leaned over to look. “Oh, where did this come from?” He looked around as if he expected to find a few more kittens scattered around the kitchen.
“I found her, Dad! Me and Layla rescued her! She was stuck on some barbed wire. She’s really little. Mum thinks she’s only about five weeks old.” Edie looked up at him excitedly and then frowned. Her mum and dad were giving each other a Look. Not a good look. “What?” she asked worriedly.
“She’s very tiny, Edie love.”
“I know. Mum said. But at least she’s eating.”
“Yeah…” Her dad sighed. “OK. Yes, that’s good. But … kittens do just fade sometimes, if they’ve had a bad start. Don’t look at me like that, Edie, I’m not trying to be mean. I just don’t want you falling in love with a gorgeous kitten and then being heartbroken.”
“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” Edie said, a bit crossly. It was all very well Mum and Dad both going on and on about how little and fragile the kitten was. Did they think she should have just left her stuck on that wire? “And I had to bring her home! Now isn’t this the best possible house for a sick kitten to be in? She’s got two vets to help her!”
“OK, OK.” Edie’s mum hugged her carefully so as not to disturb the kitten. “Of course we’re not saying you shouldn’t have rescued her. We just don’t want you to be upset…”
“If something happens to her…” Edie’s voice wobbled a bit. “If something happens … of course I’ll be upset. But at least I’ll know I tried!”
Edie helped her mum weigh the kitten and work out exactly how much milk she ought to be having. Luckily the kitten was sleepy after the bottle she’d had so it wasn’t that hard to get her to sit in the kitchen scales. She was so little, she fitted perfectly into the bowl.
“In a couple of days, if she’s doing OK, we can introduce her to a bit of solid food,” Edie’s mum explained. “But for now, we’re going to need to feed her milk six times a day.”
“Six!” Edie squeaked.
“Yup. Every four hours. So, let’s say … at six, ten and two in the day and six, ten and two at night.”
“Two o’clock in the morning.” Edie’s dad sighed. “It’ll be like having you all over again, Edie.”
Because she’d already had a feed at five, Edie’s mum and dad reckoned that the kitten wouldn’t need another lot of milk at six. They’d feed her just before they went to bed and then get up again to feed her at two.
Edie called Layla to tell her how well the kitten was doing and that she was going to be given milk every four hours, including during the night. Layla agreed that she wouldn’t mind getting up at two in the morning either. She loved cats and she’d wanted one for ages, but her dad wasn’t all that keen on having a pet.
Edie peered into the kitten box as she got up to go to bed. She hadn’t wanted to leave the kitten on her own in the kitchen, so the box was on the sofa between her and her mum. They’d been watching TV together, with the kitten snoozing in the middle.
“I’ll set my alarm,” she said.
“You don’t need to get up at two in the morning!” Edie’s mum hugged her. “I’ll feed her, or your dad will. We can take turns doing the night feeds.”
Edie shook her head. “No, Mum! I rescued her.” She frowned, trying to think how to put it. “I can’t leave you to look after her – it’s important. I want to do it.”
Her mum sighed. “OK. You can help at two, if you go to bed and go to sleep now.”
Edie put her arms round her mum. “Thank you!”
Her dad laughed. “I bet you won’t feel like that at two in the morning.”
Actually, Edie felt surprisingly wide-awake. The beeping of her alarm clock broke into a dream about the kitten, where she wouldn’t stop mewing and Edie knew exactly why she had to get up. The kitten would be getting hungry. Perhaps she actually was mewing for real?
Edie pulled a jumper on over her pyjamas and hurried down the stairs. She could see a faint light from the kitchen – Mum or Dad must be down there already.
Her dad turned to her, smiling, as she came into the kitchen. “Wow, I wasn’t sure you’d make it.”
Edie made a face at him. Her dad was always teasing her about how long it took her to get up in the morning. “How is she? Did she mind being left alone?” Edie peered into the box and saw the kitten was staring back at her, green eyes round and worried. She looked a little bit less fragile than she had that afternoon – less floppy and exhausted – but the bandage around her paw made Edie’s stomach twist. It was so sad to see the tiny kitten hurt and still frightened.
Edie’s dad handed her the bottle. “She’s fine – she was still fast asleep when I came down. Do you want to feed her? Do you think you can sit her on your knee and hold the bottle, too?”
“Definitely.” Edie nodded and sat down, and her dad lifted the kitten out of the box for her. The little creature half-sprawled on Edie’s lap but she wasn’t relaxed – Edie could feel how tense she was, as though she was ready to spring away and escape. She was so tiny she wouldn’t get anywhere, but she was still thinking about it. It was so sad.
“Don’t worry,” Edie whispered. “We just want to look after you.”
Very gently, Edie held the bottle to the kitten’s mouth and the kitten wriggled a little to reach it. She was so light, Edie could hardly feel the weight of her moving. But when the kitten started to suck, she was so determined, so focused on drinking that milk – even if she did still keep gnawing at the bottle and missing it and stomping her little paws on Edie’s leg. The milk was hers and no one was taking it away.
Edie watched her sucking, feeling the rhythm as the kitten pulled on the bottle. It was soothing. Sleepy. She swallowed a yawn and realized that her dad was helping her hold the bottle. “I’m OK,” she muttered, sitting up a bit straighter.
“I know you are. It’s still the middle of the night, though. You’re allowed to be a bit sleepy.”
“I’m not going back to bed!” Edie told him, and then she looked guilty as the kitten stopped feeding and tensed up. “Sorry, baby. Shh.”
“Let’s go and sit on the sofa,” Dad suggested. “Come on.” He scooped the kitten gently off Edie’s lap and Edie followed him into the living room. The kitten reached eagerly for the bottle as soon as Edie held it for her, and Edie leaned against her dad’s shoulder, watching the tiny pink muzzle and the kitten’s contented, half-closed eyes. She ran one finger over the kitten’s head and round her ears, stroking the silky ginger fur.
“Dad, listen…” Edie put her hand on his arm. “Listen, she’s purring.”
The kitten had almost stopped sucking now. She was sleepy, just licking at the bottle as if she was full and couldn’t really be bothered. And there was a definite soft, tiny noise. A little purr.
The kitten felt the bottle move away from her mouth and she stirred, reaching after it, but then she slumped back down on to the soft fabric. She didn’t want the milk that much. She was warm, snuggled on the girl’s lap, and her stomach was nicely full.
Sleepily, as if the thought was far awa
y, she wondered where her mother was and why she hadn’t come back to find her. But she’d been fed, the way her mother fed her, and she was warm and clean and cared for.
The girl rubbed gently at her ears and the kitten began to purr.
“She looks so different.” Layla leaned over the box and giggled as the kitten looked up at her. “I mean, she’s properly awake. And the cut on her neck looks much better now.” Layla eyed the kitten thoughtfully, and she gave a huge yawn, showing tiny white teeth. “Is it stupid to say that she looks fatter? I think she does, though it’s only been a couple of days since we found her. But I think she looks fatter than when I came over yesterday…”
“Mum reckons she might not have been getting a lot to eat. If her mum was a feral cat, and she had lots of kittens, it would have been hard for her to make enough milk. But now she’s getting this special kitten milk and it’s got all these added vitamins. It’s like perfect kitten food.” Edie gave the kitten a proud look. “She does seem fatter.”
“Does your mum…” Layla wrinkled her nose, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to say it. “Is she…”
“Is she still saying the kitten might not make it?” Edie sighed. “Yes. But not as much as before. And even Mum’s impressed by the amount she’s eating.”
“We have to give her a name!” Edie said suddenly. “I can’t keep just calling her ‘she’. I didn’t want to before, with everything Mum and Dad were saying, because it would be worse if we’d given her a name. Just look at her, though… She’s so beautiful and she needs a name.”
“She does,” Layla agreed. “But are you sure she’s a girl kitten? I thought ginger cats were usually boys.”
“That’s true,” Edie said. “I just always thought she looked like a girl kitten. Maybe because of the long fur? And I was right! Mum told me she’s definitely a girl.”
They gazed at the kitten admiringly. She was beautiful. When they’d first found her, she’d been so bedraggled and miserable-looking that Edie had hardly noticed her markings. And she’d only seen the kitten’s long fur as something that had got her caught up on the barbed wire. But now, clean and well fed, the kitten’s coat was fluffy and rich, and her nose was a beautiful bright pink, the same colour as her paw pads. She had long, long white whiskers and a whitish chin, but that was the only white on her. Even her tummy was a pale creamy oat colour.
“You could call her Fluff. She’s the fluffiest thing I’ve ever seen!” Layla said, carefully reaching in a hand and tapping her fingers on the towel for the kitten to track. She wasn’t quite at the pouncing stage yet but she was definitely watching.
“Mmm. Maybe.” Edie frowned. “I’d like something that was a bit more special, sort of different. Like Treasure, or … or Rescue. Because we found her.”
Layla nodded. “I know what you mean. Oh! I know.” She laughed. “You could call her Barbie. Because of the barbed wire!”
Edie looked at the kitten again. “Yes! That’s perfect! She does look like a Barbie. Yes, Barbie, that’s you,” she murmured lovingly to the kitten. Then she sighed. “I wish we knew where she came from.”
Layla glanced at the living-room door – they could hear Edie’s mum and dad chatting in the kitchen.
“Are you going to keep her?” she whispered. “I mean, we’ve just given her a name. What if she has to go and live with someone else?”
Edie smiled. “I think it’s going to be OK. Mum came downstairs on Saturday morning, and me and Dad and the kitten – I mean, Barbie – we were all asleep on the sofa. We’d fallen asleep feeding her! And she was asleep on both of us, half on me and half on Dad. Mum laughed and said something like, Well, she’s obviously not going anywhere, is she? And I reckon that means we’re keeping her.”
She reached out and gave Layla a quick hug. “But you can come and see her whenever, I promise. You rescued her, too.”
Layla sniffed and sighed. “Thanks. Hey, we’d better get to school.” She leaned over to rub Barbie under her chin. “Bye, gorgeous.”
“This is almost where we found her,” Edie murmured, stopping to look around the path, trying to work out exactly where it had been. “Yes – here, look.” They could see where the grass had been squashed down as they crouched to rescue the little kitten.
Edie took a shocked breath at the sight of the rusty, jagged wire. It was hard to think of Barbie being caught up on it, even when she knew that the kitten was safe now. She had just left her at home, with Dad teaching her how to pat her little paws at a piece of string. She was the world’s best looked-after kitten, Edie was making sure of it.
“We should go, we’ll be late,” Layla pointed out.
Edie took one last look around. “I hate thinking of her stuck here,” she said, with a shiver. “Do you think we could stop on the way home? Look for clues? We should try and find out where she came from.”
Layla nodded. “Course. Though I don’t know what we’re looking for.”
Edie sighed. “Me neither. I just feel like we ought to.”
Edie had printed out a photo that her mum had taken of her feeding Barbie, and she spent the whole of break and lunch showing it off to everyone in their class. It was great having everyone oohing and aahing over how cute and fluffy and little she was but Edie felt worried all day. She hadn’t liked leaving Barbie with Dad – even though he was a vet and she knew he could look after a kitten much better than she could. He was even going to take Barbie into work with him later on so she wouldn’t be left on her own. All the same, Edie still felt like she was abandoning her tiny cat. She was practically chasing Layla out of the cloakroom after school.
“Slow down!” Layla gasped, as she hurried along the path after Edie.
“I can’t! I really, really want to get home and check Barbie’s OK, and I want to look at the place we found her and see if we can work out what happened,” Edie explained.
Layla smiled. “Oh, all right.” She sped up a bit, until they arrived panting back at the little space in the bushes. “I honestly don’t see what we’re going to find, though.”
Edie sighed. “I know. But we have to try. I mean, what if it was the cat’s owner who abandoned her kittens?”
“How horrible!” Layla was shocked.
“Some people do that. They don’t think animals matter.” Edie scowled and Layla stared at her.
“You look scary like that.”
“Good!” But then Edie’s shoulders drooped. “I can’t see any clues, can you? And we don’t even know what we’re looking for.”
Layla stood on tiptoe, trying to peer through the bushes on the side of the footpath. “What’s behind this hedge?”
“The road that goes into the village.” Edie stepped up close to the hedge. “If Mum’s right and it was a feral cat moving her kittens, she would have had to carry them across the road.”
“Maybe a car…” Layla’s voice trailed off, and the two girls looked at each other, appalled. “But your mum or dad would know about that, wouldn’t they? Somebody would have brought the cat in if they’d hit her?”
“I suppose…” Edie sniffed. “Can you see anything else? On the other side it’s just a field…”
“There are some sheds or something over there, near that copse of trees.” Layla pointed across the field. “They’re quite a long way, though.” Then she glanced up at the sky. “Edie, look! It’s going to pour down any minute. Come on. Let’s get home.”
Edie watched the grey-black cloud chasing up behind them and nodded. It looked like it might thunder and she knew Layla hated thunderstorms. Besides, she was desperate to get home and see Barbie. She grabbed Layla’s hand and they ran down the length of the field and across the courtyard.
Edie’s dad was standing at their front door and he waved. “I’m glad you’re back – it looks like it’s going to pour down, the kitchen went so dark!”
“How’s Barbie?” Edie asked, panting a little.
“Hello, Dad, did you have a nice day, Dad…” Edie’s dad rolled h
is eyes. “Barbie’s fine. She’s started to eat the kitten food. And she got a lot of fussing from Sammi and Jo at the surgery.”
Edie smiled. The two receptionists were both big cat fans, she wasn’t surprised they’d loved Barbie.
Barbie was in her box on the kitchen table, where Dad had been starting to make the dinner. She was awake and standing up, although she looked a bit wobbly.
“Hello, beautiful,” Edie whispered, putting her hand into the box. She didn’t want to scare the tiny cat by suddenly stroking her.
Barbie looked up at the hand that had appeared in her box and stomped forwards, marching shakily across the folded towel, her tiny paws catching on the fabric. When she got to Edie’s hand, she butted at it hard with the side of her head and mewed.
Layla started laughing and pulled her phone out of her backpack. “I promised I’d take a video of her,” she explained. “My little sister loves cats. And my mum said Barbie sounded cute.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m still working on my dad. But I don’t think even he could resist you,” she added to Barbie.
Barbie rubbed her tiny face against Edie’s hands and purred. It seemed far too loud a noise for such a tiny kitten to make.
Edie’s dad sighed. “Typical. I’ve been looking after her all day, and she didn’t do any of that to me! She’s obviously decided you’re her person.”
Edie looked at him sideways. “Dad … now she’s better, can we keep her? You and Mum didn’t really say for definite the other day…”
“She’s keeping us. Look at her. Yes, Edie, don’t worry, she’s staying.”