The moon was rising, changing from a rosy pink to a sharp white gold. Now very weak, I just lay there watching the night sky. My body was pretty useless, but in my mind something was happening, a light brighter than the moon was waking me up, making me remember.
Solomon had told me cats had lived on Earth for thousands of years. He had told me about an invisible power called love.
So I listened. I gazed at the moon and let it soak into my lonely soul. I saw a light, greater and brighter than the moon, and with energy fizzling around it. I sat up, my hunger forgotten, my loneliness unimportant now as I waited, spellbound, for something to happen.
But what came padding towards me out of the light was a complete surprise.
It was a lion.
A White Lion with a mane that rippled like water. The luminous fur seemed charged with electricity, and barbs of dazzling light pulsed around its edges. The moths and creatures of the night vanished into the stillness. No twigs crackled, no grass rustled, no owls hooted, no rain pattered. Even the wind in the corn was silent, becalmed by this phantom creature from the spirit world.
I thought I was going to die. Or was I dreaming?
When the Lion’s eyes found me, I was hypnotised by their power. I managed to stand up. I walked towards him with my tail up, and lay down in the cocoon of light between his mighty paws, and he was SERIOUSLY SOFT.
We purred together, a tiny kitten who might have been dying, and a White Lion who had come from the spirit world – for ME!
I didn’t know what would happen next, or what I would do when morning came. I gave the last sparks of my energy to listening. Intense listening.
The eyes of the great White Lion burned with a secret he would tell me, if only I had the patience and faith to listen. A long time passed, and at last the words came, drifting out of him like magic seeds from a dandelion clock.
Words I would remember for ever.
Chapter Two
LEROY MCARTHUR’S CAT
An abandoned kitten doesn’t have rights. Humans can make terrible decisions about where and with whom it will live.
There’d been a row between the young teacher, Angie, and Leroy’s mum, Janine.
‘Findings are not keepings, Leroy.’
Angie was small for a human, and she reminded me of a squirrel as she stood there all bushy with anger.
‘They are for the likes of us,’ Janine hissed. ‘We don’t have money in the bank. I have to watch every penny. Leroy can’t have nothing he wants . . . nothing.’
‘So how can you afford to feed a cat?’ demanded Angie.
‘Cats don’t need much,’ declared Janine. ‘We had cats when I was a child and they lived on scraps.’
SCRAPS! I didn’t like the sound of that. It didn’t fit with my plan to grow into the biggest, fattest, most independent cat.
‘This is a very young kitten,’ Angie said. ‘He’s lost his mother and his home, and he’s weak. He needs feeding up with proper kitty milk . . . you get it in a tin from the pet shop, and mix it up. . . it’s specially formulated for weaning kittens.’
Janine snorted. ‘Well, I can’t afford fancy stuff like that . . . good old cow’s milk will have to do.’
‘I’ll be happy to get you a tin of kitty milk . . . as a gift,’ Angie said. ‘And I’ll get you some sachets of proper kitten food. You can have it on me.’
Janine puffed herself up. ‘No thanks. We don’t need charity.’
‘It’s not charity. I’m just concerned for this little kitten’s well-being.’
‘And I’m not, I suppose? I don’t want no bloody handouts from the likes of you. You don’t know NOTHING about how we have to live.’ Janine edged closer, her shoulders squared for attack, her face drained and joyless. ‘I want my Leroy to have the same as his friends.’
‘I ain’t got no friends, Mum,’ Leroy piped up.
‘Be quiet.’
‘This kitten’s gonna be my friend. Aren’t you?’ Leroy said, and his small hands clutched me so fiercely against his heart that I squeaked in alarm and tried to escape by crawling up his sweater.
‘I said shut up. NOW. And don’t let him ruin your school jumper.’
‘But I love him. I do, Mum.’ Two gleaming tears ran down Leroy’s cheeks and dripped onto my fur. ‘Tell her, Miss.’
Angie sat down at the table, bringing her head level with Leroy’s defiant stare.
‘Then try not to squeeze him like that, Leroy. He’s fragile,’ she said tenderly. ‘His little bones are like matchsticks. Let me hold him for a minute, please.’
Leroy clutched me tighter then, so tight I could hardly breathe.
‘You can have him back,’ Angie said, her eyes looking directly into his. ‘I just want to give him a goodbye cuddle. He’s so sweet.’
To be picked up by Angie was heaven for me. I snuggled into her cushiony chest, and listened for the heartbeat, steady and strong under the ruffled blouse she wore. Home. This was home. I couldn’t believe she was letting me go like this . . . to Leroy McArthur! I gave her a meaningful stare, and began to purr for her. ‘I want to be YOUR cat,’ I was telling her. ‘I belong with you.’
‘He’s purring. Listen.’
Leroy brought his head close, and a magical smile lit up his face.
‘What about his name, Leroy?’ Angie asked. ‘Are you going to give him a name?’
Leroy’s eyes roamed around the classroom and focused on a poster behind the teacher’s desk. He pointed, so I looked, curious to see what name he was going to give me. And there, unexpectedly, was a picture of the face of a White Lion. The moment exploded into magic. My neck got longer and longer as I stared at the Lion’s serious eyes. Was it MY Lion?
Leroy turned, beaming, and shouted out, ‘Timba!’ Then he reached to stroke me – this time gently – and he looked right into my eyes. ‘Hello, Timba.’
‘That’s a brilliant name, Leroy,’ said Angie.
‘Timmy will do for me,’ said Janine. ‘We don’t want nothing fancy.’
‘No, Mum. TIMBA,’ insisted Leroy, his eyes round and his voice husky with passion. ‘It’s cos of the White Lions of Timbavati. They came to save the world. Miss told us about them.’
Then Leroy added something amazing. ‘And if he had a brother, Miss, I’d call him Vati.’
I thought about my brother. Vati: that’s what his name would be. Timba and Vati. Two black kittens against the world. I remembered Vati’s poetic little face, his sensitivity and the way he had always stayed so adoringly close to me. Right then I wanted him so much.
‘That’s a very clever idea, Leroy,’ Angie said. ‘I like that.’
I was falling asleep in Angie’s comforting hands. Please keep me, I dreamed. I don’t want to be Leroy McArthur’s cat and live on scraps and get squeezed and mauled around.
Those few moments with Angie were precious. I was only a kitten, but I stared into her eyes with the mind of an adult cat who had lived many lives with her. I was searching for reasons why she needed me now. What was causing the stress? Why did I feel this beautiful, loving young woman was hiding so much sadness? I saw the burden of too much caring weighing her down, stealing her happiness. Angie was trying too hard to love. She wasn’t looking after herself. She definitely needed a cat. Me!
Perhaps if I’d stayed awake, there might have been a way of escaping, but I was so tired, and the last thing I heard was Angie’s voice saying, ‘Baby kittens need to sleep a lot, Leroy. You mustn’t try to wake him up.
‘Now you must promise me you will look after Timba and be kind to him. He needs small regular meals, and a litter tray, and a quiet home where he feels safe . . . Are you listening, Leroy?’
‘Yes, Miss.’
‘And he’s got to go to the vet and have his injections against cat flu. I’ll give you the name of this website about caring for kittens. It’s—’
‘We don’t have a computer,’ said Janine.
‘Right. OK.’ Angie looked thoughtful. She carried me over t
o the book corner. ‘There should be a book here about cat care.’
‘That’s no good. He can’t read,’ said Janine, and Leroy hung his head and looked ashamed.
‘But you can,’ said Angie, pulling out a slim book with a cat on the front. ‘And Leroy can read now, with a bit of help.’
‘I don’t have time for that,’ Janine said and she pushed the book back across the table. ‘I’m not stupid, you know. I know how to look after a cat. It’s not rocket science, is it?’
In my dream Vati was calling and calling for me. He told me an incredible story. The dog, Harriet, hadn’t hurt him or my tabby-and-white sister but carried them into a cottage where a kind old lady had looked after them and given them kitty milk on a saucer. Then he and my sister had gone to sleep WITH THE DOG! Today they’d both been delivered to a cat sanctuary, and a lady with a painted face had chosen my sister and taken her away. Vati was all alone, like me, and in the dream we established a telepathic link to keep us in touch. We’d always been close and needed each other, but now we were separated our need had become an intense ache in both our souls.
When I finally woke up it was late afternoon, and I was in a cardboard box with Leroy’s woolly hat and a battered teddy bear who looked and smelled musty. I wailed in fright, and Leroy’s bright face peeped in at me. ‘Hello, Timba.’ I meowed back, and he airlifted me out of the box and put me down in front of two dishes. One had milk, and the other had something white with orangey crumbs. The milk tasted weird and sour but I lapped and lapped until my tummy felt warm and heavy. Then I tried the other stuff. ‘A bit of my fish finger,’ Leroy said. ‘I mashed it up for you. Do you like it, Timba?’
Leroy sat on the floor with me and talked non-stop while I sidled round the dish, trying to work out a way of eating this tough, unfamiliar food. It tasted OK, but the crumbs were gritty and the fish too chewy for my immature teeth. I dragged most of it off the dish and made what Janine called ‘a dreadful mess’.
‘You can’t force him to eat, Leroy,’ she said, but he kept picking up flakes of fish and trying to put them in my mouth.
Next, Leroy wanted me to play, and he waved all sorts of bits and pieces right in front of my face when I was TRYING to wash. Jessica had always washed me first. I was her favourite, and her bristly tongue dealt efficiently with my long fur. Doing it myself was hard. I needed space and quiet so I crept under a table, but Leroy followed me, crawling as if he was a cat. The floor felt sticky and wisps of fluff clung to the chair legs, and there was nothing to look at. I longed to be sitting in a sunny window, or in a garden where things were happening. This was a gaunt and gloomy place.
‘Leave the poor kitten alone!’ Janine shrieked. ‘And get up off the floor. Who’s going to do your washing?’
Leroy took no notice of her. He seemed obsessed with watching what I was doing. Janine reached under the table, her eyes furious. She got hold of his arm and dragged him out, banging his head on the table edge. His roar of pain and rage frightened me, and I ran for the nearest crack, a space behind a cupboard, and squeezed in there. My washing effort was now impossible.
I peeped out, horrified at the sight of two humans fighting. Leroy was howling, his mouth open wide, his eyes and nose running, and he was kicking viciously at Janine’s shins, and clutching his head.
‘I hate you. You made me bang my head. You done it on purpose. You’re a horrible mother and I HATE YOU.’
‘Don’t you kick me! GET to your room. NOW!’
‘I hurt my head.’
‘I don’t care. You’ve been winding me up all day. Get out of my sight. Go on. Go!’ Janine pushed Leroy through a door and slammed it shut. She leaned against it, breathing hard, while Leroy kicked and thundered on the other side. ‘Bloody kid,’ she muttered, her lips white with fury. She slumped into a chair and sat with her hands over her ears.
Leroy pushed his way back through the door, picked up a chair and lifted it high above his head.
‘Don’t you DARE,’ warned Janine, but Leroy flung the chair violently across the room, knocking Janine’s coffee cup off the table, cracking it into jagged pieces. The coffee poured over her magazines and splashed onto the carpet. ‘Right . . . that’s it!’ she yelled. ‘Bloody well break up what’s left of this place, you evil little bastard.’ Jumping to her feet, she seized the broken chair and tore the leg off it with a cracking, splintering sound. Brandishing it, she flew at Leroy. ‘I’ll kill you!’ She lunged at him, but Leroy dodged out of the way. He grinned at the sight of his mum losing her cool, and that made Janine worse. ‘I’ll get rid of you,’ she growled. ‘I’ll get the socials to put you in care.’
Leroy suddenly looked devastated, and frightened. ‘No, Mum, please. I’ll be good. I’m sorry for winding you up . . . I won’t do it no more. I’ll go to bed.’ And he went upstairs.
‘Don’t give me that bullshit.’ Janine collapsed into an armchair and turned on the TV. It flickered blue, then went blank. The lights went out with a snap. ‘Oh no! The meter’s run out. And I’ve no money,’ Janine wailed. ‘I’ll have to sit here in the dark.’
She opened the curtains and the orange light from the street made a dim glow. I didn’t mind the dark; in fact I found it soothing after the noise and the fighting.
What about me? I thought. I am only a kitten.
Thinking about the loneliness and longing for my brother didn’t change anything. So I remembered something Solomon had told me. ‘Use your tail,’ he’d said. ‘Humans can’t resist tails. Your tail is like a smile when it’s up. At the worst times, when humans really get to you, don’t hide, don’t sulk . . . walk out there with your tail up.’
My tail wasn’t very long yet, but I decided to have a go. When Janine had quietened down, I meowed, put my tail up and walked out there.
She melted!
‘Oh Timba, you’re so cute,’ she crooned. ‘Poor little scrap . . . we weren’t shouting at you, sweetheart.’
She picked me up and let me nestle into her shoulder. I rubbed my soft fur against her bare neck, and we sat together in a calming silence. The ultimate surprise was that it made me feel better too.
‘It works every time,’ Solomon had said.
Encouraged by my unexpected success, I listened to this angry woman’s heartbeat. It sounded like tired footsteps.
A young kitten doesn’t usually experience sadness, but it wasn’t new to me. Already, in my short life, I’d had a bucketful. Yet it hadn’t touched my spirit. I could play and cheer myself up, any time, and I was glad to be a cat and not a human. So I decided to try and comfort Janine with my love, the way I’d comforted Vati. Janine was huge of course compared to a kitten, so I focused on her neck and shoulder, giving her little licks and purrs.
‘You’re a poppet . . .’ As she stroked me she began to talk, the words tumbling out of her as if they couldn’t wait to escape. ‘It’s no fun, being a single parent,’ she confided, ‘and Leroy’s a nightmare . . . an absolute nightmare . . . always has been. I am at my wits’ ends with him, and I know I shouldn’t hit him, but I can’t help it. I get so desperate.’
I listened, not understanding most of it, only sensing some bond I had with her, some undiscovered reason why I was there. Why me? And then it washed over me like the cold night air. I heard the word ‘dump’, and saw the light from the window shining through the slow-moving tears on Janine’s cheeks. ‘I’m so scared,’ she said, ‘of those social workers. They’re gonna take my Leroy away . . . I know they are . . . that is, if I don’t dump him in care first.’
I got the picture. Dumping. Abandoning. How well I understood that!
‘Sometimes I just want to end it all,’ Janine continued. ‘Take a load of pills, or pack my bag and get the hell out.’
Was that why I had been sent? To be Leroy McArthur’s cat?
Leroy’s tantrums happened several times a day, and usually involved a dispute with his mother. I became an expert at finding places to hide in the cluttered house. It made the time I had
spent in the hedge with Vati and my sister seem happy, a time of sunshine and discovery. Here in this house, there wasn’t a world. I had no contact with living creatures, no chance to observe their ways and learn. I was a kitten in prison.
Leroy couldn’t leave me alone. He’d pick me up and put me in some bizarre place so that he could watch the effect it had on me. Once it was high up on a top shelf where I felt unsafe so wanted to get down. He stood there laughing while my meows got more and more frantic. Another time he picked me up when I was asleep and put me into a deep stone urn. I woke up cold, and looked at the circle of light above me. Not yet strong enough to jump out, I panicked, screaming, and scrabbling on the slippery surface.
Instead of rescuing me, Leroy looked into the urn and shouted, ‘Boo.’ Then he tapped the urn with a spoon and the sharp ringing noise really upset me and hurt my sensitive ears. When Janine heard me wailing, it led to yet another row between them.
‘Either you stop tormenting Timba, or he goes back. Angie said she’d give him a home if things didn’t work out.’
‘I’m not tormenting Timba,’ Leroy argued. ‘I’m just entertaining him.’
‘No, you’re teasing him. Can’t you see the difference?’
Leroy shrugged. He picked me up before Janine did, and held me against his bony little chest. ‘He’s my kitten, aren’t you, Timba?’
‘Well he won’t love you if you treat him like that.’
‘He does love me.’ Leroy clenched his hand until I squealed.
Janine shouted at him furiously. ‘Stop squeezing him. He’s not a toy, Leroy. You’ll hurt him. Stop it, you stupid boy.’
‘I ain’t stupid.’ Leroy glared and pouted.
I felt the pain rush through his young body, and it was a new experience for me. Whatever Leroy did to me, his pain was worse than mine, and it was attacking his heart.
I climbed up to Leroy’s shoulder, and saw the pulse beating hard in his neck. I rubbed my head against it, and purred into his ear. He peeped round at me and smiled. For the first time I felt it was possible to love this desolate boy who seemed to be disliked by everyone, especially his mother.
Timba Comes Home Page 2