by Holly Webb
Being outside was definitely better than being at her new house, anyway. Even when Charlie left her alone, which wasn’t often, Mrs Jones’s two grandchildren were almost as bad. They liked to fuss over her and stroke her, which the kitten didn’t mind too much. And sometimes it was quite fun to chase the string that they dangled in front of her nose. But they also kept trying to pick her up, which she hated, especially as they just grabbed her and hauled her along with her legs dangling, even though Mrs Jones had explained how to hold her properly. The kitten tried to stay out of their way.
“Puss! Puss, puss, puss! Where are you, Jet?” Millie called.
The kitten slipped quickly under the kitchen table, but it was an obvious hiding place, and the little girl crawled underneath to be with her. Jet’s tail started to twitch nervously.
Millie was carrying a handful of dolls’ clothes, but she dropped them on the floor and seized the kitten round her middle.
Jet yowled, wriggling desperately to get away, but the little girl held her firmly. Millie then grabbed a doll’s jacket and started trying to place one of her paws into it. “You’re going to look so pretty! Charlie’s too big for all my dolls’ clothes, but you’re just the right size.”
The kitten scrabbled frantically and raked her tiny claws across Millie’s hand. The little girl dropped Jet in surprise, and the kitten shot out from under the table, and cowered in the corner of the kitchen, hissing furiously.
Millie howled, staring at the red scratch across the back of her hand.
“What happened?” Sarah ran into the kitchen, and Millie scrambled out from under the table. “Jet hurt me!” she wailed, holding out her hand.
“Jet did that?” Sarah turned to stare at the kitten. “Bad cat! You mustn’t scratch people!” She sounded really cross, and the kitten slunk guiltily out of the kitchen to find Mrs Jones, knowing that she would understand.
Mrs Jones was in her favourite armchair as usual. But Charlie was there too. Curled up cosily on Mrs Jones’s lap, looking as though he belonged there. Just where the kitten was meant to be.
Mrs Jones was dozing, and she didn’t see Jet, staring wide-eyed from the corner of the room. The kitten watched for only a second, then she ran back the way she’d come, past Millie still sobbing in the kitchen, and straight out of the cat flap.
Charlie wasn’t only taking her food now – he was taking Mrs Jones too.
Amy was up in the tree house, sitting by the door and looking out over the garden. She was drawing in the beautiful sketchbook that one of her aunts had given her for her birthday, with a set of new pencils too. She was trying to remember exactly what that gorgeous little kitten had looked like. She wished she had seen her closer up – she still wasn’t sure exactly what colour her eyes were. She hesitated between the two greens in her new pencil box. Probably the lighter one. Smiling to herself, she finished colouring the eyes, and wrote Misty in the bottom corner of the page.
Every time she went up to her tree house, Amy watched out for the kitten, but she hadn’t seen her for a couple of days. Maybe she had a home after all?
It was just as Amy was admitting to herself that the kitten might not come back, that she saw her again. She was walking carefully along the fence that ran across the back of Amy’s garden – almost underneath the tree house. Amy caught her breath. She watched as the little creature padded along the narrow boards of the fence, like a tightrope walker. She smiled proudly to herself, noting that she had made the kitten’s eyes exactly the right colour.
“Puss, puss, puss…” she called, very gently and quietly.
The kitten looked up, startled. She had been watching a white butterfly and hadn’t seen the girl at all. She tensed up, ready to run. This girl was calling her like Millie had – was she going to try and pull her about, or dress her up in dolls’ clothes?
But the girl didn’t move. She was sitting up in a strange little house in a tree. Her voice was different too. Quieter. She didn’t make the kitten feel nervous, like Dan and Millie did.
The girl moved, and the kitten stepped back a pace, wondering if she should leap down from the fence and race across the garden to safety – although she wasn’t quite sure where that was, now that Mrs Jones wasn’t hers any more.
But the girl didn’t try to grab her. She just shifted herself so that she was perched on the ladder, her arm trailing down. The kitten looked up. If she stretched, she could just brush the girl’s fingers with the side of her face. She could mark the girl with her scent. Her whiskers bristled with surprise at the idea that she might make this girl belong to her. She took a step closer, and then another, so that she could sniff the girl’s fingers.
Swiftly, daringly, the kitten nudged the girl’s hand. Then she leaped down from the fence and dashed back across the garden.
Chapter Four
Amy laughed delightedly to herself, as she watched the little kitten scurrying away. She could still feel the cold smudge of its nose against her hand.
“She came back!” she whispered happily to herself. She gazed down at her drawing and sighed. Misty was so much prettier in real life. Amy was sure she was a girl kitten, she was so delicate looking. Her fur was midnight-black and glossy, not the dull black of a drawing. She was very thin, though. Amy thought that she might even be thinner than when she’d seen her last week. If Misty was getting thinner, did that mean she didn’t have an owner? Perhaps she’d got lost – Amy couldn’t imagine anyone abandoning such a beautiful kitten. How could they?
If she was a stray… Amy played with her hair thoughtfully. She knew her mum and dad had said she was too young to look after a cat, and that if she told them she’d found a stray kitten, they would want to take it to the cat shelter. But now she had the tree house. Her own special, secret place. A perfect little house to hide a kitten in.
Amy shook her head and sighed. It was only a silly dream. But dreaming was fun…
“Guess what happened yesterday!” said Amy to Lily, as soon as their mums had said goodbye at the school gates. She grabbed her friend’s hand and towed her over to a bench in a quiet corner of the playground.
“What?” Lily’s eyes sparkled excitedly.
“The kitten came back again and I touched her! She came walking along our back fence when I was up in the tree house. She was really shy, but she sniffed my fingers, and sort of nudged me, you know how cats do?”
Lily nodded. “Stella does that, it’s really sweet. Oh, I’m so glad I’m coming to your house tonight, maybe I’ll see her too.”
“The thing is, I definitely think she’s got thinner since I last saw her.” Amy sighed. “I’m really worried about her.” She looked up at Lily. “Do you think I should feed her? I know she might belong to someone else, but I just don’t see how she can. She’s awfully thin.”
Lily was practically bouncing up and down on the bench. “You should! You have to! But what are you going to feed her on?”
Amy smiled. “When you come home with me tonight, do you think you could ask to stop at the pet shop so you can buy some cat treats for Stella? I’ve brought some of my birthday money.”
Lily nodded eagerly. “Of course. Stella really likes the salmon ones, we should get those.”
Amy laughed. “I’m not sure this kitten would care about the flavour as long as it’s food.”
“I’ll tell your mum I need a couple of extra tins of cat food, too,” Lily added. “You can’t just feed her on the treats.”
“That would be brilliant,” Amy told her gratefully.
“I can’t wait to see her – can we go up in the tree house tonight and wait to see if she comes?”
Amy nodded. “I thought maybe if I put some food out, she might smell it.”
“Good idea. We definitely need to get the fishy flavours then, they stink! My mum won’t buy the tuna and prawn cat food, she says it makes her feel sick! A hungry kitten would smell it a mile off, I should think. Oh, Amy, this is so exciting.” Lily gave her a hug. “It’s almost like
you’re going to have your own cat after all!”
“She might not come,” Amy said cautiously, but she hugged Lily back, unable to keep the smile off her face.
“You definitely want this kind!” Lily took a foil pouch of cat snacks from the shelf. “They smell really strong. The kitten won’t be able to resist them.” She placed the cat treats in her basket. “I’ve just thought, you’ll have to give her a name. What are you going to call her?”
“I named her the first time I saw her,” Amy admitted. “She’s called Misty. Because I saw her coming towards me out of the mist, you see.” She picked up a different packet of cat treats and added them to Lily’s basket.
“Let’s get these too – if this cat on the front was a kitten, it would look exactly like Misty.”
“Very, very cute,” Lily said.
“She is.” Amy nodded. “I really hope she comes back this afternoon so you can see her! Oh, look, Mum’s waving at us to hurry up.” Amy’s mum was waiting outside the pet shop for them.
“Goodness, you needed a lot of cat food!” she said to Lily, as the girls came out of the shop.
Lily giggled. “Stella is very greedy,” she said, winking at Amy, or trying to; she wasn’t very good at it, and had to screw up her face.
“Lily, are you all right?” Amy’s mum asked. “Is there something in your eye?”
Amy burst out laughing, and her mum shook her head. “You two – sometimes I think it’s a good thing I don’t know what you’re up to.”
Amy and Lily grinned at each other. Secrets were such fun – and this was definitely the best one they had ever had.
They sneaked the cat food out into the garden while Amy’s mum was preparing their tea.
“Wow!” Lily looked up at the tree house. “Your dad built that? He’s brilliant!”
“It’s cool, isn’t it?” Amy agreed.
Lily hauled herself up the ladder and gazed around the inside of the tree house, admiring the bookshelf and the big purple beanbag.
“Come on, let’s open these.” Amy tore at the foil packet of cat treats eagerly. “I thought we could spread them out along the branch that almost touches the fence. I’m pretty sure Misty could jump on to it.”
Amy carefully leaned out of the doorway to sprinkle some cat treats on to the wide branch below. “Now we need to wait,” she said, edging backwards. She emptied the rest of the packet in the doorway just in front of her, then sat hugging her knees and staring over the gardens, searching for a little black figure.
Amy and Lily had meant to be totally silent, so as not to scare away the kitten, but they couldn’t resist chatting. They were deep in a discussion of exactly why Luke Armstrong in Mrs Dale’s class was so mean, when Amy suddenly clutched Lily’s arm.
“Look!” she ordered, in a hissing whisper.
“Oh!” Lily gave a little squeak of excitement. “Is that her?”
“I think so.” Amy leaned out to look further along the fence, where a black shadow was clambering over the ivy branches. “Yes, it’s her! Oh, I hope she can smell the cat biscuits.”
Scrambling through the leaves, her paws slipping on the thin branches, the kitten certainly could. She was terribly hungry. Charlie was still stealing all her food, and no one seemed to notice – Sarah was always busy, and Mrs Jones wasn’t very well and was spending most of her time resting in her chair. Quite often she had Charlie sitting on her now, and she would stroke him, while the kitten watched miserably from under the sofa, or peeping out from under the bookcase.
But now she could smell something tangy and lovely, and her stomach was making little rumbling noises. She trotted eagerly along the fence. Oh, the smell was getting even stronger and better.
The kitten stopped suddenly, and wobbled on the fence. She was there – the girl from yesterday! And there was another one with her. The kitten watched them warily.
Then the girl she’d seen before held out a little packet, and tipped something out of it, and the kitten knew that was where the wonderful smell was coming from. The tip of her little pink tongue stuck out, she was so hungry.
Amy couldn’t help giggling. The kitten was so cute, with her tongue just poking out like that. It made her look really silly.
The kitten put her front paws up on the tree branch, and the girls exchanged excited glances. Then she jumped all the way up, and found the first cat treat. She crunched it up in seconds, and scampered forwards, sniffing for more. When she got to the end of the branch, after about six more treats, she stopped and looked anxiously at Amy and Lily. She could see – and smell – the big pile of treats just in front of them.
Amy sighed. “Perhaps she’s too frightened to come closer,” she whispered.
Suddenly, the kitten sprung up on to the tree house ladder, and Amy and Lily held their breath. Then, keeping one eye on the girls, she started to gobble up the treats from the doorway.
When they were all gone, she licked the place where they’d been, then looked up hopefully.
“She’s still hungry!” Amy said. “Let’s open another packet.”
Lily shook her head. “No way. She’ll be sick. A whole packet’s loads more than she should have, anyway!”
Amy nodded. Then she held out one hand, very slowly, to the kitten, who was staring at her seriously. Amy scratched her gently behind the ears, and she half-closed her eyes with pleasure.
“Hello, Misty,” Amy whispered.
Chapter Five
The kitten sat there a little nervously, still ready to run, as Amy stroked her and then Lily joined in too.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Amy said proudly.
“The prettiest kitten I’ve ever seen – except Stella,” Lily added, out of loyalty. “Oh, Amy, she’s started purring!”
She had. Amy had just found the exact itchy spot behind her left ear, and the kitten had her eyes closed, and a tiny little throaty purr was making Amy’s hand buzz.
“Tea, girls!”
The kitten’s eyes shot open. She leaped off the ladder and raced back along the branch, jumping down on to the fence and disappearing away.
“Bye, Misty!” Amy called after her quietly. “Why did Mum have to pick just then to call?” she complained to Lily, as they scrambled down from the tree house. “I think Misty might even have let us pick her up.”
Lily nodded. “She was definitely friendly. But you’re right, she is much too thin. When I stroked her I could feel her ribs. She needs a nice owner to feed her properly.”
The kitten obviously agreed. She came back to the tree house the next afternoon at the same time, and Amy opened one of the tins of cat food she’d bought. She put it in an old plastic bowl she’d borrowed from the kitchen cupboard, and sat in the doorway of the tree house, watching Misty gobble it down. Misty let Amy stroke her again, too, and even put her paws on Amy’s leg, as though she was considering climbing into her lap.
“Are you going out to the tree house again?” Mum asked. “It’s raining, though! I didn’t realize you loved it that much.”
“It’s my best present ever!” Amy giggled, a little guiltily. She did love the tree house, but that wasn’t the main reason she was spending so much time out there. Every afternoon that week, as soon as she got home, she’d rushed straight there to look out for Misty.
She threw on her hoodie over her uniform and went out to the tree house. The ladder was slippery from the rain so she climbed up slowly, peering out along the fence for a little kitten. But no kitten came running to see her today. She sighed. Maybe Misty was sheltering from the rain somewhere.
She stood up and pulled open the tree house door, planning to sit and read on the beanbag, while keeping an eye out for Misty through the window.
But the beanbag was already occupied.
A little kitten – her fur shiny and spiky from the rain – was curled up on it, fast asleep.
Now that she had discovered that the tree house had a soft, comfortable place to sleep, and that Amy would come and feed her
, Misty spent most of her days there, even though she still went back to Mrs Jones to sleep at night. She had climbed in through the half-open window that first time to get out of the rain, and Amy hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact, she’d looked really pleased, and spent ages stroking her. The window was always open a little way now, so that she could get in, and there would always be a little bowl of cat crunchies or something else delicious waiting for her.
“I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but I think you’re looking plumper,” Amy told the kitten lovingly, a week after she’d first found her inside the tree house. She stroked the little black tummy, as the kitten lay sleepily in her lap. “Are you getting fatter, Misty?”
“Prrrrp.” The kitten purred, and yawned. Then she snuggled up on Amy’s lap, feeling more at home than she had for a long time.
Amy stroked her gently, wishing Misty was really hers. “Stay here, puss,” she murmured. “This is your tree house now too.” But it was getting dark now and Amy knew she’d have to head inside soon, and leave the kitten all alone.
“Amy! Your tea’s getting cold!” came her mum’s voice, from just below the tree house.
Amy jumped and so did Misty, springing off her lap.
She could hear her mum climbing up the ladder. Panicking, Amy dropped her hoodie top over Misty. She couldn’t let the secret out now – not when Misty felt almost hers. Mum would never let her keep a kitten.
Amy’s mum poked her head through the doorway. “I’ve been calling you for ages!”
“Sorry!” Amy got up quickly and went over to her mum, hoping she wouldn’t see the wriggling hoodie behind her. She followed her down the ladder.