by Julia Romp
“I’m going to go home so that I can look for Ben,” I said at last. “I know I will be able to find him.”
George got up and a minute later I heard a rumbling sound as he reappeared, pulling his suitcase behind him. He had a couple of T-shirts in his hand and I knew I had to get us on a flight as soon as possible.
It had taken two days to organize it all and George had hardly spoken a word as we waited. Time had dragged by silently, both of us lost in our thoughts. The only thing that told me of the pain and panic George was feeling was the sight of his hands flexed out rigid beside him. It was something he’d done when he was younger if he got anxious. I kept trying to tell him that we would find Ben as soon as we got home, but he would not listen.
Neither of us had spoken on the flight home or during the drive back to the house. The moment I’d opened the front door, George had run upstairs to search all of Ben’s usual hiding places while I walked out into the garden to call him. I couldn’t think of what else to do, but I had to do something because the more I’d thought about it, the more convinced I was that someone had taken Ben to play a joke on us. He’d been outside our house one minute and gone the next. Someone must have done something.
“No one would do that, Ju,” Mum had told me when I’d phoned to tell her. “It would be too cruel.”
“But why else has he disappeared, Mum?” I’d wailed.
“He might just have gone off in a huff when you and George disappeared. You know how cats can be.”
“But Ben’s not like other cats!’
“I know, Ju. He’ll be back. I know he will.”
As we had traveled home, I’d clung to the hope that Ben would come running at the sound of our familiar voices. But calling his name in the garden did not bring him back and George couldn’t find him anywhere in the house. Even though it was three o’clock in the morning, I could not bear to wait until it was light to start searching and put on my coat, telling George I was going out.
“He’ll be at the river,” he said, coming downstairs. “He likes it there.”
It was as good a place to start as any, so I’d grabbed a box of Ben’s biscuits and left the house with George. Everything was quiet and still as we walked to the river. There wasn’t a person or a car in sight. It felt as though George and I were the only two people in the world, searching for the one we loved most.
“I think Ben’s hiding,” I said to George. “He’s just playing a joke on us and all we have to do is find him.”
But George said just two words again and again as we walked.
“He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.”
His words cut through me. George seemed so certain, but I couldn’t bring myself to even consider the possibility that Ben could be dead. I wanted to tell George to stop saying it, to insist that it couldn’t be, as we walked up and down the riverbank for what felt like hours, calling Ben’s name and searching in the undergrowth. But there was no sign of him. After a couple of hours I told George that it was time to go home. He did not say a word as we trudged back but when we got home he went straight into the garden and stared at the summerhouse, as if willing his friend to be sitting inside as he usually was. Everything looked the same—Ben’s chair was covered in his fur and his mouse wand was in his toy box in the living room—but it was completely different too. The house felt so still and empty without Ben’s purr or the soft padding of his feet as he ran up to have a cuddle.
I walked outside to where George was standing. The sun was coming up and the clouds were ringed pink in the sky. Today was a new day and I’d start searching properly for Ben. He had to be somewhere close by. Whatever had happened to him, he could not be far. Ben couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air. Someone must have seen him. I had to be like a detective and follow all the clues to find the person who had seen him last because that would lead us to him.
As I walked out into the garden, George turned to look at me. His eyes were completely cold.
“You’ve done this,” he said. “It was you. You wanted to go away and now Ben’s gone. It’s your fault.”
I froze inside. I knew exactly why George was blaming me. I was the one who’d persuaded him to go on holiday. I was the one who’d told him that Ben would be fine without us. Guilt flooded through me as I wondered if George was right. Why had I ever persuaded him to go away? Why couldn’t I just have been happy with the way things were?
George pushed hard against me as he turned to walk back inside and I wanted to grab on to him as he disappeared, tell him that I’d find Ben as soon as I could. But I couldn’t touch George, however desperate I felt. Something had shifted between us now that Ben had gone.
Everything seemed so still, as if all the life had drained from our home. It felt unreal, unbelievable. I couldn’t understand why Ben wasn’t running up to me and meowing, or stretching out on a patio chair to catch the first sun of the day. I walked slowly inside and went up to George’s room. The door was closed and behind it there was only silence. I took a deep breath.
“I’m going to find Ben,” I said. “I promise you I will.”
The door stayed shut.
“No, you won’t,” I heard George say eventually.
“I will. I promise you. I’ll find Ben and bring him home.”
I walked back along the landing and stopped outside my bedroom door. Ben’s blanket was still lying on my bed, just as it had been when we left, and I remembered the last time I’d seen him lying on it a few days ago. Then I thought of George and the promise I had made him, a promise I wasn’t sure that I could keep. All I knew was that I had to. You see, Ben wasn’t just a cat: he was George’s window on to the world, the key to the door which unlocked him. Call me daft, but he was like my second son, so I had to find him now that he’d gone missing. Because if not, I was more scared than I can say that I would never see the light in George’s eyes again. There was only one way to make sure that it came back: I had to bring Ben home.
Chapter 15
George had stayed in his bedroom the whole of the next day and refused to come out as the house filled up with people who were going to help me start the search for Ben. Wendy and Keith had come over, Mum was there with Sandra and Boy, who’d taken the day off driving his cab, and Nob was coming over as soon as he finished work. As I rushed around, all of them were telling me not to panic.
“He won’t be far,” Boy kept saying as the printer gushed out page after page of a poster I’d made with a picture of Ben and my phone number on it.
“He’ll be back before we get all these up,” Mum said.
I knew they thought I was overreacting, that cats went off and Ben would come home, but I was certain he’d never do that. Ben had not been seen for four days now and I knew he needed help. Otherwise he would have come home. He wouldn’t leave us—he loved George too much.
Earlier I’d gone to see George and found him sitting on his bed with his box of favorite shiny things in front of him—crystals, earrings and bottle tops that he’d collected over the years. He had refused to speak. I knew he’d be up there now lining all his precious shinies along a shelf one by one, trying to create order when all he felt was chaos. He was shut down, lost inside himself, and if I did not find Ben I didn’t know how I was going to reach him again.
It takes only a moment to lose something precious and another to realize it’s gone. The second I’d looked into George’s eyes last night, I’d known what had been taken from me and just how far George had come with Ben. I’d gotten so used to our cat talk and laughs, George’s special way of hugging me and the way he talked about love, and the nights when we’d watched TV together or sung old songs, that I’d slowly forgotten to appreciate all those things. But now they had gone and George blamed me for losing Ben. I felt afraid, panicked. Without Ben, I was sure that George would go back to how he had been before Ben came into our lives—a child who was almost a stranger to me—and I knew that I would not be able to bear it.
> I’d started the official search for Ben that morning by registering him on missing pet Web sites. Wendy and Keith had helped me do this and they were going to set up Ben’s very own Facebook page too—anything to help jog someone’s memory of seeing a black cat with a white bib. I’d also gotten lots of useful advice from the Internet on how to find a missing pet. Ben’s blankets were now outside, blowing on the washing line, lifting his scent on to the breeze to try to call him home. I’d even vacuumed the whole house and gone down to the river to scatter the contents, in the hope that he might smell home; and there was fresh mackerel hanging on pieces of string in the garden because I’d read it might help.
I tried to force myself to concentrate as I laminated posters and leaflets explaining there was a £250 reward for the person who found Ben. As thoughts of him kept running through my head, I hoped the reward would encourage all the kids in the area to look for him. Last night I had been so sure that he had been deliberately taken but now I could not stop thinking of all the other possibilities. Was he lying in a ditch somewhere, hurt? Had someone hit him with their car? I almost couldn’t breathe when I thought of him hurt and alone, lying somewhere, waiting for us to rescue him.
When the posters were done and everyone had been given a bag of them, we set off in separate directions to put them up, leaving George at home with Mum. We had to make sure that everyone knew about our search; then it would surely be just a matter of time before someone phoned with the clue that would lead us to Ben.
A few hours later I arrived home, after going to cafés and shops, pubs and post offices, schools and libraries, to see a familiar figure walking down our road as I got out of the car. It was the man I’d had all the problems with, and although we hadn’t spoken since the day I’d confronted him about what he’d said to George, I’d talk to anyone now if there was any chance they might help us find Ben.
“My cat’s gone missing,” I said in a rush as the man walked past our drive.
He stopped but didn’t say a word.
“I’ve been putting up posters everywhere but if you see him then can you let me know?” I asked.
The man’s mouth curled into a grin as I started to cry, tears bubbling out of me as I looked at him.
“Ben’s not just a cat,” I said. “He’s far, far more than that. My boy can’t live without him. We’ve got to find him. George is lost without him. Ben’s everything to us.”
The man stared at me even harder.
“Good luck with finding your pussy cat,” he said and smiled at me.
I swear it felt as if he was enjoying seeing me suffer. I felt sick as I stood on the pavement and watched him walk away. Did he know something about where Ben was? I’d never know. But someone did and if I just kept looking long enough then I was sure to find them.
My friends and family wanted to help me search for Ben, but they had jobs to go to and lives to lead. They did whatever they could, though. Kayleigh came over every day after school to help me put leaflets through doors, while Wendy kept an eye on George and Keith did the printing. Mum delivered leaflets and Nob, Tor and Boy all put up posters. Even Lewis helped and my friend from the estate, Tracey, her mum Anne and her daughter Eliza gave up hours of their time to go to a supermarket car park and put leaflets on every car windscreen. But when people were busy at work and school, I often went out to search for Ben alone. Each day began to follow the same pattern: I’d get up, try to persuade George to eat some breakfast but he’d always refuse, and Mum would come over to watch him because he was still too upset to go back to school. Then I’d go out to put up posters and I spent hours every day driving everywhere I could think of to give out leaflets.
A week after we got home I was out on the estate when I saw one of our local community police officers. I knew him quite well because he’d come round to my house for cups of tea or to use the loo when he was walking the beat. Relief flooded into me the moment I saw him. The officer had always seemed really interested in our estate and all the goings on, so maybe he’d be able to help me.
“I thought you were on holiday, Julia,” he said as I walked up to where he was standing with a woman officer I did not know.
“I was. But Ben has gone missing and I can’t get rid of the feeling that someone took him. He just disappeared into thin air. It doesn’t make sense. He’s never gone further than the bottom of the drive before. I was hoping you might be able to have a quiet chat around the estate for me just to see if you can find anything out.”
The policeman said nothing as he shifted on his heels uncomfortably.
“I think you need to find help somewhere else with that,” he told me eventually.
I stared at him in shock. I knew this officer well. He had sat in my house at Halloween, quite happy to chat to me about everything under the sun, and now he wasn’t willing to at least try to help me sort this out. I didn’t want him to arrest anyone or anything. But as my mouth opened and closed like a goldfish and I wondered what to say, I noticed that the woman with him was smirking and saw red.
“What are you laughing at?” I growled.
“I’m sorry,” the woman officer replied. “It’s just that you’re looking for a cat and they can disappear for weeks on end before coming home again, can’t they?”
I was getting sick of hearing people say that, and although most meant it well, I knew this woman didn’t.
“Not my cat,” I told her angrily. “He wouldn’t just disappear.”
The woman officer carried on smiling at me, as though I was a bit simple, and then she looked down at the leaflet I’d given her.
“Sorry, but I can’t carry this when I’m on duty,” she said as she handed it back to me.
That was it.
“You can’t even be bothered to carry a leaflet, you fat bitch?” I said under my breath.
It was terrible, I know, but all I can say is that everyone is human and on that day I lost control of myself. The male officer looked at me in shock as I turned around without another word and walked home furiously. I could not believe how quick those officers had been to say no to helping me. Of course I didn’t think that Ben’s disappearance was top of the crime solving to-do list, but I didn’t understand why they could not at least try to help. Politicians talk all the time these days about bobbies on the beat and community policing, but I was part of the community and these officers did not seem to care. The police were only too pleased to pile on to the estate in their vans if the local kids stepped out of line. But at least now I knew how things stood: I and the people who loved George were going to have to bring Ben home ourselves.
Excitement rushed through me as I ran to pick up the phone. Now people were seeing the posters the calls had started and each time one came I felt filled with hope that it would be the person who’d found Ben.
“Hello,” a voice shouted as I picked up the receiver.
It sounded like an elderly man and I could hear a woman’s voice in the background.
“Stop talking, Doris!” the old man boomed. “I’m trying to tell her, aren’t I? Just let me get me words out.”
“Hello?” I asked. “Can I help?”
“No, love. But I can help you. We’ve got your cat here. It’s in our kitchen. We’ve seen your poster and we know it’s him. He’s looking at me right now.”
“Is he black?” I asked, because I’d gotten a couple of calls from people who obviously had a bit of trouble reading and had rung to say they’d seen a gray or a tabby cat.
“Black as tar, love,” the man told me. “Are you going to come and get him?”
I scribbled down the address he gave me before knocking on Wendy’s door to ask if she would pop over and stay with George.
Five minutes later, I drew up outside a mid-terrace house with trees in the garden and a tiled step leading to the front door. Nerves filled me as I rang the bell. Was Ben inside? Would I be taking him home to George soon? I’d hoped that we’d find him quickly and now I knew I’d been right to thi
nk like that. Somehow Ben must have ended up here, just a couple of miles from home, and I was going to take him back to where he was meant to be, safe and sound after his adventure. The picture of him on the poster was so clear that it must be him.
The door was opened by an elderly man with a big belly, and a woman with white hair stood beside him in a hallway that was covered in such brightly colored wallpaper it made my eyes cross.
“Are you here for the cat?” the man said. “Come in, love. Come in. We knew it was him as soon as we saw him in the garden. He’s not from around here, because we know all the cats and we’ve never seen him. He’s friendly too. Not a stray. I knew he was lost. He was too fond of people to be a wild cat.”
The man led me down the corridor and I suddenly felt nervous. Was Ben OK? He’d been gone for more than a week now, so if he hadn’t had anything to eat he’d be starving. Night after night, I’d kept thinking back to when he first came to our garden, so weak and sick, scared and angry. I’d hardly been able to sleep for thinking about him and what a state he’d been in back then.
“He’s through here,” the man said. “It’s him, I know it is.”
He opened a door leading into the kitchen. It was neat as a pin and there was a teapot on the table, waiting to be filled.
“There he is,” the old lady said with a smile.
I stared into the corner to see a pair of big green eyes looking up at me and my heart lifted. But a split second later I could see it wasn’t Ben, however much I wanted it to be.
“Is he yours?” the man asked.
“No, I’m afraid not,” I said, hoping that I wouldn’t start crying.
“Really? I was sure it was. We’ve never seen him before, have we, Doris?”
The cat stared at us as we stood looking at him.
“What are we going to do?” the woman said. “We were so sure he was yours.”
As I looked at the couple, I knew I couldn’t just turn around and leave them to deal with the cat. I had to help, because maybe there was a family somewhere as frantic as I was, searching for their pet. My best hope was that it had been microchipped, just as Ben had been. A chip is the size of a grain of rice and is embedded in a cat’s coat; it lists its name and owner’s contact details. Every vet, police station and animal sanctuary has a chip reader, so if a cat gets lost anyone who finds it is able to trace its home. But lots of people don’t realize that cats have them, which means they don’t look for them, so I knew it didn’t mean someone hadn’t found Ben just because I hadn’t had a call. Maybe I could help this cat find its home again and someone would do the same for Ben any day soon.