Timba Comes Home

by Sheila Jeffries

  Now it’s nearly noon. The sun is high, and Angie is standing in the garden with Vati and me in her arms. I wonder why she’s watching the sky so intently.

  Suddenly she stiffens.

  ‘That’s it!’ she says, and points to a shining plane that is climbing up and up into the blue sky.

  Angie is still full of tears. I lick one from her cheek. ‘Don’t worry, Timba,’ she says. ‘These are happy tears. Tears of joy. I’m so happy for Leroy, and so proud of him. But we’ll miss him, won’t we, guys?’

  We watch the shining plane until it becomes a bright bead, trailing a white arrow of smoke.

  And finally, Angie tells us what is going on.

  ‘That’s Leroy’s plane,’ she says. ‘It’s taking him all the way through the blue sky to Africa . . . to Timbavati to work with the White Lions.’

  Angie was unusually quiet after Leroy had left. Her bright flame seemed to have gone out. She only came alive when we were looking at her laptop, Vati and I sitting on the table beside her, our heads weaving from side to side as we saw pictures of Leroy onscreen. Running down the steps from a big aeroplane and climbing into a truck with some other young people. ‘He’s making friends . . . at last!’ Angie said. ‘He’s found kindred spirits.’ But Leroy’s eyes were homesick as he talked to Angie. ‘I miss you, Angie, and Timba and Vati.’

  When we finally saw the White Lions onscreen, we were awed. They looked so sumptuous and huge, powerful but relaxed. We cats were proud. Proud to belong to the global family of cats. The White Lions had come to change the world . . . but so had we, and we had one more job to do . . . for Angie.

  ‘She’s lonely,’ I said as the two of us gazed into the embers of the fire. ‘We’ve got to do something.’ I thought about the journey I had made through the forests and across the shiny river. Was I too old to try again? And how would Vati cope?

  He picked up my thoughts immediately. ‘Don’t even think about it, Timba.’

  ‘I’ve got to fetch Graham,’ I said. ‘Whatever it takes.’

  ‘No, Timba!’

  But I got up and stretched, ate the rest of my supper, and headed out through the cat flap into the moonlit garden. Facing south, I searched the sky for the brilliance of that star on the lion’s paw. My tail quivered. I saw the star. And that homesick longing filled my heart. I wanted my old home. I wanted Poppy, and the apple tree. But most of all I wanted Angie to be happy again.

  I had to fetch Graham.

  I remembered the maze of streets, the field of cattle, and the endless magical forest.

  I set off down the road to the south.

  Vati pelted after me and sprang in front of me like a dragon cat. His lemon-green furious eyes confronted me on the moonlit pavement. He wasn’t going to let me go.

  I sat down and felt my angry tail swishing to and fro over the tarmac. If my little brother thought he could stop me, I’d beat him up. My ears went flat, my fur bristled, and I hissed at Vati. To my astonishment he hissed right back at me, and the hiss lingered in the air between us. I tried to dodge around him, but suddenly Vati turned into a wild, hooky-looking demon. Even without his claws, he towered over me, the white moonlight glinted on his teeth, the orange street lights glazed the fur along his spine.

  I hesitated. I wasn’t scared of Vati. In a way I was proud of him. He hadn’t got claws, but somehow he’d made himself strong enough to challenge me. He believed in his own power. And judging by the speed and sting of the swipe he gave me with a long whip of a paw, he was going to use it. On me!

  Instead of fighting back, I sat there and looked at him until he calmed down. We studied each other’s eyes. ‘I won’t let you go, Timba,’ he said. ‘There is a better way.’ Still focused on my journey, I looked at him in silence, thinking I could sneak away later while he was asleep.

  ‘There is a better way, Timba,’ he repeated. ‘Just because you are in a physical body you don’t have to settle everything physically. Why go on that long journey when you can use your cat power?’

  I stared at him. Cat power? All I’d done for the last few years was roll around on the hearth rug, purr and eat. People kept saying I was too fat.

  ‘Follow me,’ said my streamlined, velvet-coated, assertive brother, and he led me through the front garden and round the side of the house to where the old stone glittered in the starlight. We sat down, side by side, facing south. ‘Talk to me,’ I said, fearing Vati was going into one of his mysterious trances.

  ‘Remember the golden roads?’ he said. ‘We’re on one, right now . . . you used to sit here, Timba, when we were apart, and I heard every one of your messages, even though I didn’t answer. I heard you. I saw you. And I felt you!’

  The mist cleared from my mind, and I remembered the great white Spirit Lion who had come to help me at those times. The remembering was a nice feeling, like coming home. So I stayed close to Vati, our bodies trembling a little as we picked up the energy of the golden road.

  ‘You do the purring,’ said Vati, ‘and I’ll send the message. We’re a good team. We’ll send Graham a message.’

  I don’t know how many hours we sat there on the golden road in the moonlight, but suddenly I could feel sadness. A grey emptiness, a yearning, and it was coming from Graham. He wasn’t singing. The lid of the piano was shut. Graham wasn’t moving. He was slumped in his armchair, staring into space. The way Vati had been. Numb.

  For three days nothing happened. Except that Vati was now the boss, not me. He’d kept me firmly inside, out of the rain that wrapped the house in veils of pearl and silver. Angie came and went, and cuddled us, and watched the laptop for news of Leroy. I ate and slept, and rolled on the rug.

  It must have been a weekend, because on the third day Angie got ready to go to work. Her mood was ominously dark as she stacked the children’s books and crammed them into a bag. I perched on the table and looked at her. I felt anxious. Something was going to happen. I could feel it through my fur. So strongly that I thought it justified an amplified extended-meow.

  ‘What’s the matter, Timba?’ she asked, and I did another one. I stood up on my back legs and put my paws on Angie’s chest. I stared at her. Her breathing changed and she started to cry. ‘You know, don’t you, Timba?’ she said, stroking me on both sides of my face. ‘You’re such an understanding cat. I really don’t want to go to work today. But I HAVE TO.’ She picked up her car keys and left.

  I worried about Angie all morning until the sun came out, sending shafts of warm light through the windows. Vati and I looked at each other. We knew an overgrown garden where we could mess around and catch mice, even if I ended up catching them for both of us. We set off down an alleyway and under a broken gate, and spent the afternoon in the long grass, playing with the nodding seed heads and grasshoppers.

  I wasn’t relaxed. Part of me was listening, sensing change and it had heavy footsteps. Strange in a town where hundreds of people were walking around, but my sensitive mind focused on those particular footsteps.

  ‘We should go home,’ I said, and Vati led me back through the broken gate and down the alleyway. We both knew something at home had changed. It spooked us, and we ran, low to the ground, our whiskers twitching.

  At the corner of the street, Vati turned and looked at me with frightened eyes. ‘You stay here,’ he said. ‘I’ll creep to the gate and check this out.’ Alarmed, I watched him slink along the pavement to our front garden. I saw him peep round the gatepost and his neck stretched out with fright. He came charging back with his fur all stiff.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘There’s a man sitting on the doorstep,’ hissed Vati.

  ‘I sensed him all day,’ I said, remembering the footsteps.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Suddenly Vati was like a scared kitten again, his winsome face waiting for me to lead him. I thought about the man on Angie’s doorstep. It could only be . . . my tail went up by itself. ‘Come on,’ I said, and Vati followed as I trotted confidently along the pavemen
t. My tail waved in the air behind me like a plume of joy. I knew that my eyes were sparkling like suns, my heart buzzing with anticipation.

  I paused by the gate to arrange myself for a grand entrance. With my fluffy coat flowing, I shone in the sun as I trotted faster and faster down the path, doing purr-meows at the man on the doorstep. I felt like the most powerful cat in the Universe.

  And I was right.

  It was Graham. On the step beside him was a bunch of red roses. ‘No, Timba,’ he said as I patted the crinkly cellophane. ‘Don’t shred the paper. These are for Angie . . . my Angie,’ he added, and then asked me a question. ‘Do you think she’ll have me back?’

  I did a yes-meow.

  I couldn’t wait for Angie to come home. Vati and I sat on Graham, keeping him firmly under control in the afternoon sunshine. Until, at last, we heard Angie’s quick bright footsteps on the pavement. I was anxious then. Would she fly into a rage and tell Graham to go away?

  Angie had been angry with Graham for so long.

  Graham got to his feet, the bunch of roses crackling in his hand. He looked suitably shamefaced, but it was only a mask. I knew in that moment that love was stronger than anger. I watched it change on Angie’s face. When she saw Graham she paused in disbelief. Her school bag fell to the floor, its heavy burden of books spilling across the path. A smile dawned on her face and she ran to him, almost crushing the roses in a huge hug. Graham looked pleased, and I saw a tear sparkling in the corner of his eye.

  ‘Angie . . .’ he breathed.

  Vati and I weaved and purred around their legs as Angie gazed up at Graham and into his eyes. ‘Does this mean what I think it means?’ she asked.

  ‘Angie,’ said Graham again. He searched for the right words. I did a purr-meow to encourage him. ‘Will you have me back?’ he asked nervously. ‘I made a terrible mistake, letting you go like that. I’ve regretted it so much. Please . . . could we start over?’

  If cats could cry, I’d have cried with happiness when the smile reached Angie’s eyes and she gave a scream of joy. ‘Thank you, Universe!’

  ‘Does that mean yes?’ Graham enquired.

  ‘Yes. A million times yes!’

  I knew then that we’d be going home.

  Vati and I exchanged knowing looks. We’d cracked it!

  We didn’t follow Angie and Graham into the house. We sat on the doorstep, proudly, guarding the love-nest.

  Two black cats against the world.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my brilliant agent, Judith Murdoch, my patient editor, Jo Dickinson, and the team at Simon & Schuster UK. I would also like to thank Anne Pennington for building my website, my fantastic writers’ group for their support, and my husband, Ted, for his kindness.