The Curious Kitten

by Holly Webb

  Perhaps she could go and ask some of their neighbours who had sheds and garages if she could check them. Then her eyes widened – she’d just thought of another place where Cleo could have got trapped. The family across the road was having a lot of work done on their house and had moved in with their grandparents for a few weeks. Jan, their mum, had told Amber’s mum that they’d have to pack everything up in boxes. But that meant some of the rooms were closed up, and there were piles of stuff everywhere – all sorts of places where a kitten could get shut in.

  Amber was so excited, and so sure she was right, that she didn’t even stop to ask Mum or Sara to go with her. She’d just have time to catch the builders before they went home, she reckoned. She slipped back out of the front door and crossed the road. Mum would tell her off, but if she came back with Cleo, surely Mum wouldn’t mind that much… And Amber was certain she would bring her back.

  She hesitated outside number 22, looking for one of the builders to ask. Until now, every time they’d gone past there had been someone around, unloading stuff from vans or hoisting materials up on to the scaffolding. But now there was no one at all.

  “Hello?” Amber called, stepping on to the driveway.

  No one came. Amber clenched her fists. She just couldn’t wait any longer. What if Cleo was starving? She knew it was stupid – and she’d get into trouble if Mum and Dad found out she’d gone into Jan’s garden with all the building going on. But she had to!

  She walked up to the house and tried to peer in through the front windows, pressing her nose against the glass. She was trying so hard to see through the dusty panes that she didn’t hear one of the builders coming round the side of the house.

  “Just what exactly do you think you’re doing?”

  Amber swung round to find a tall man staring down at her. He was covered in dust. The greyish colour made him look like a statue. “I’m – I’m looking for my kitten,” she squeaked.

  “Your kitten?”

  “She’s gone missing. I thought she might have got shut in…” Amber’s voice trailed away – the man looked so cross.

  “You shouldn’t be here. Don’t you realize how dangerous it is, messing around on a building site?”

  Amber hung her head, tears filling her eyes. Then she looked up again, straightening her shoulders. This was too important to let go. “But she’s been gone a whole day. What if she’s got trapped somewhere? Jan said some of the rooms were shut up to keep the dust out – what if she’s in one of them?”

  “They’ve all been closed up since we started,” the man said, more gently. “And we’d have heard her mewing, wouldn’t we?”

  Amber’s head drooped again. “Maybe… I really thought she had to be here. I’m so worried about her.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for her,” the man told Amber. “What colour is she?”

  “She’s a tortoiseshell, mostly gingery with black patches. We live just there.” Amber pointed across the road.

  “All right. Now, out of here, and don’t even think of coming back. What if something had fallen off the scaffolding?”

  Amber nodded, her eyes widening. She hurried out of the garden and crossed the road, her cheeks burning. That had been awful. But at least the builder hadn’t insisted on coming back home with her and telling Mum.

  George slid back through the kitchen, glad that his mum was still occupied sorting out Toby, his little brother. Everyone said that Toby was going through a stage, or that it was the terrible twos, but it basically meant that he was either really, really happy or furious and never anything in between. Right now it meant that Mum wasn’t going to notice him sneaking his leftover packed lunch outside to the kitten.

  George checked – yes, there was quite a bit of his lunch left. He didn’t think the kitten would be keen on grapes, but she would definitely be up for cocktail sausages, he decided. Pirate was always trying to nick them when Mum was making his packed lunch.

  He hurried back down the garden, hoping that the kitten would still be there. Perhaps I should really be hoping that she’s gone home, George thought to himself, feeling a bit guilty. The little kitten was probably still not used to being out much.

  Then he saw her peeping at him from behind the tent again and forgot to worry about her owner.

  As soon as Cleo saw the boy, she darted out from her hiding place at once and came up quite close. Maybe he had more food. She still felt so hungry, even after both those sandwiches. She was used to two good meals and the odd snack of cat treats from Amber. She stopped a short distance away and sniffed at the lunchbox as George put it down on the grass.

  George held out a sausage on the palm of his hand and looked hopefully at the kitten. Then he laughed as the little cat dived at him and started nibbling the sausage straight out of his hand. Her mouth was so soft, and her damp nose nuzzled at George’s fingers.

  “You’re really nice,” he whispered, using his not-sausagey hand to stroke the kitten’s soft back.

  The kitten finished off the sausage and looked hopefully into the lunchbox for more. She snagged the last sausage out of the little pot, and it disappeared in seconds.

  “Don’t make yourself sick,” George told her. “Sorry, that’s the last one. There’s still a bit of cheese, though.” He took it out and pulled off the cling film. “There you go.” He watched, smiling, as the kitten ate the cheese, too, and then sat down quite heavily and began to wash her ears and face. Her stomach looked a lot rounder than it had ten minutes ago.

  “I wish I knew where you’d come from, Patch,” George murmured. “I probably shouldn’t have given you all that food, if you’re just going to go home for your tea. But you looked starving, the way you wolfed down that sandwich.”

  The kitten licked her bright pink tongue over her nose and then looked at the boy with gleaming golden eyes. She got up and padded a little closer.

  George gazed down in surprise – he’d thought maybe the kitten would hurry away once the food had all gone. But instead she clambered on to George’s lap and slumped down, clearly exhausted by so much eating. She yawned, and then she seemed to melt into the space on George’s lap, completely saggy, like a beanbag toy. She was asleep.

  Cleo padded up to the shed and wriggled through a small gap in the boards. She gazed around, hoping to find something else to eat. The boy, George, had left her some food there in the morning – toast crusts and the end of a boiled egg. It wasn’t like anything Cleo had eaten before, but she’d quite enjoyed it. She was feeling hungry again now, though.

  George had shown her this place the evening before. He’d opened the door and gone in to shake the dust and spiders’ webs off some cushions from the garden chairs. He had arranged them into a comfy pile for a bed and filled an old plant saucer from the outside tap with water. He’d even brought Cleo a fish finger. It was a bit fluffy from being in his pocket, but she hadn’t cared. Then he’d shown Cleo that there was a hole in the shed wall, just big enough for a kitten to squeeze in and out of.

  Cleo had spent the night curled up on the cushions, but she kept startling awake. It wasn’t like being in a house. There were strange noises, and they seemed so close with just the thin wooden walls of the shed to protect her. Squeaks and chirrups and rustlings in the trees and the flowerbeds, and once, horribly close, a great deep sniff. Cleo had frozen, watching the little hole in the shed wall. After the sniff there had been a pause, a terrifying silence while she’d wondered if the creature was going to claw its way in. But it had gone away, obviously deciding that Cleo wasn’t worth the effort. It had left behind a sharp, unmistakeable whiff of something wild, and hungry.

  She had spent the day exploring the garden – every so often coming up against that smell again. She could still catch a trace of it now…

  Cleo hated the thought of spending another night in the shed, with that creature so close by. As kind as George was, she needed to find her home, where she slept indoors on Amber’s bed or occasionally in her basket. She wanted
Amber to snuggle up against. She clambered back out of the shed then crept uncertainly past the house, down the side passage and out into George’s front garden. There she looked out on to the street, wondering how to get home. It was mid-afternoon and quite quiet, even though there were children’s voices in the distance, returning home from school. Cleo peered down the road hopefully, wondering if one of them was Amber, coming to find her. But the voices didn’t sound right.

  Cleo hopped up on to the wall, so she could look around from a high point. The street stretched out in front of her – grey and empty, and utterly unfamiliar. Which way should she go?

  She sniffed the air, trying to catch a scent of home, but there was nothing. At last she jumped down from the wall and set off down the street, making for a garden with straggly bushes spilling out on to the pavement. She would go in short hops, from hiding place to hiding place, she decided. In case that creature was still around.

  A strange rattling sound suddenly came around the corner of the road, and Cleo scuttled towards the bushes and ducked underneath. There was a loud clattering and then footsteps. A face appeared under the branches, and Cleo’s heart slowed a little. It was the boy who had looked after her.

  “What are you doing?” George muttered. “You shouldn’t be out on the pavement – I bet you don’t understand about cars.” He thought of Amber at school, worrying about her kitten getting run over. He ought to ask her if the kitten had been out in her front garden again. She’d been really quiet at school today, not at all chatty like she usually was.

  He scooped Cleo up and snuggled her with one arm, glancing back over his shoulder. His mum hadn’t got round the corner yet – Toby was throwing a strop about being in the pushchair.

  “Don’t wriggle too much,” George warned. “It’s tricky scooting with only one hand.”

  He whooshed the last few metres towards his house and shoved his scooter into the little shelter down the side passage. The man next door, Luke, had helped Dad build it for all their bikes and things. The kitten was wriggling more and more. “I know,” he whispered. “I’m just waiting for Mum to open the door. Here, look!” He slipped his rucksack off his shoulders and crouched down, bringing out his lunchbox.

  The kitten stopped struggling at once and pricked her ears forward.

  “I saved you some of my lunch,” George told her. “You like cheese, don’t you?” He held out a cheese cube to the kitten, who swallowed it almost whole and then tried to burrow into the lunchbox to get more. George giggled. “You really do like cheese…” He peered round the corner of the side passage. “Just putting my scooter away, Mum!”

  “All right. Close the front door when you come in,” his mum called back. “Come on, Toby. We’re home now.”

  “You see,” George whispered. “Mum’s still busy with my brother. She isn’t going to notice if I sneak you up to my room, is she? You’ll be safe up there, Patch. No more going near the road.”

  He picked up the lunchbox again, then hurried in through the front door and slipped upstairs.

  “Can I make some leaflets about Cleo, Mum?” Amber asked, as she undid her school shoes. “Maisie suggested it. We could put them through people’s doors, in case they didn’t see the posters.”

  “I suppose it could encourage the neighbours to look in their sheds and garages,” Mum agreed. “But you’re not to go out delivering them without me or Sara,” she added with a stern look.

  Mum had been really cross the day before, when Amber had come back in after going to the house across the road. Luckily, Amber hadn’t had to explain exactly where she had been – she’d just said that she’d gone out looking for Cleo.

  Amber opened up the laptop and started to write the leaflet. She dropped in the photo of Cleo and added a message asking people to check their sheds and garages, then put her mum’s phone number at the bottom. Then she printed them out and went into the kitchen to show Mum.

  “Do you want to go and deliver them now?” Mum asked. “I’ve got some time before I make dinner.”

  “Please.” Amber hugged her. “Look, I’ve made enough for our road and Bramble Crescent. Cleo could have easily gone round into their gardens.”

  Mum nodded and got out her phone. “I’ll just text Sara to tell her where we are.”

  They set off down their road, taking turns to post the leaflets. It was surprisingly hard to push the flimsy sheets of paper through the letterboxes, and Amber hoped they wouldn’t just get squashed inside and missed.

  They were halfway back down the other side of the road when Amber noticed that the builder who’d told her off was coming out of Jan’s house. She stopped, staring at him in panic. What if he told Mum about yesterday? Mum would be so cross. She posted the next few leaflets extra-slowly, hoping that he’d go back inside before they reached him. But he didn’t.

  As they approached the house, Amber lurked behind Mum. Maybe the builder would think that this was another family looking for their lost cat. But she was pretty sure he knew exactly who she was.

  “Hello!” Mum smiled at him. “We’re from across the road. Our kitten’s gone missing. Can I give you one of these, just in case you spot her? It’s got my number on. She’s been gone a couple of days now. Amber here’s really missing her.”

  Amber’s eyes widened in panic. Now he was bound to say something…

  “Of course,” the builder said. “Do you want to hand me a couple more? I can give them to the other guys. I’m Luke, by the way.” He smiled at Amber, and she wasn’t sure, but she thought he gave her just a hint of a wink, as if to say he’d keep her secret.

  “This is my bedroom,” George explained to the kitten. Then he laughed to himself. “I know you don’t really understand a word I say,” he murmured. “You’re more bothered about the cheese than anything else, aren’t you? Here…” He grabbed a piece of paper from his desk and used it like a plate for his leftover sandwich.

  “I can’t keep on giving you sandwiches,” he said. “It can’t be good for you to be living on my leftovers. But Mum would have seen me if I got you some of Pirate’s cat food.”

  He sat there watching the kitten nibble her way through the sandwich. He hadn’t thought about keeping the kitten before. But could he? Of course the kitten might have a proper home where someone wanted her, even if she didn’t have a collar. Some cats just wouldn’t wear them. Pirate was an expert at taking them off – or he had been. They used to have to go on collar hunts in the garden, but Pirate didn’t go out much any more. He was fourteen, and his legs hurt. He spent most of his days asleep on someone’s bed. George really loved him, but Pirate had always seemed more like Mum’s cat. He didn’t play with George that much. Not like this bouncy little kitten… She could be his very own.

  “You’ve been in my garden a whole day now,” George pointed out. “At least, I think you have. And you haven’t tried to go home. Do you like it better here, Patch, hmm?” But that didn’t mean the kitten hadn’t got an owner… Maybe she was just good at losing collars, too. George sighed. She didn’t really look like she had been living as a stray for a long time. She wasn’t skinny or grubby-looking. “I expect someone’s looking for you,” he admitted. “Well, if you were mine, I’d be making a lot more effort to find you. I reckon you’d be better off with me.”

  The kitten gazed around George’s bedroom with interest and padded over to investigate his bookcase. She gazed up at it, wriggled her bottom a bit and made a flying leap up to the top. Then she stood there looking proud of herself.

  Cleo sniffed at George’s Lego spaceship, and the fur rose a little along her spine. She liked this house, and she liked the boy. But there was something wrong. Cleo hadn’t shared a home with another cat since she left the shelter where she’d lived with her mother and the rest of her litter, but she was almost sure there was another cat here. That this house belonged to another cat. And perhaps the boy belonged to the other cat, too.

  She nosed at the spaceship again, leaping back a little
as it slid away on its wheels, and the boy leaped to catch it. Then Cleo jumped down again and wandered over to George’s bed. The other-cat smell was even stronger here. She backed away from the bed, her tail twitching nervously.

  Just then the bedroom door swung open and the boy jumped. “Oh, Pirate, it’s only you! I thought it was Mum. Hey, don’t be like that…”

  A huge black-and-white cat stood in the doorway, glaring at Cleo. His fat black tail was slowly fluffing up, getting even fatter as every hair stood on end. Pirate hissed, lowering his head to stare Cleo in the eyes.

  Cleo felt her own fur rising up and she hissed, too – a thin, feeble noise compared to the sound the larger cat was making.

  “Oh no,” George muttered. The kitten was crouched by his bed, looking terrified – but her tail was switching from side to side in just the same angry way that Pirate’s was.

  “Pirate, she’s just a kitten.” He got up and tried to shoo Pirate out of his room, but Pirate wasn’t having any of it. He swerved round George and jumped at the smaller cat, sending her flying with a fat paw.

  “No!” George yelled, panicking. He’d never expected this to happen. Pirate was so slow and sleepy, but now it was like he’d got ten years younger. Pirate was massive compared to the kitten – what if he really hurt the little thing? George reached down, trying to grab the kitten. He’d go and put her in the garden and shut Pirate in. But then he jumped back with a yelp. He’d got in between Pirate and the kitten, and there were claw marks all down the back of his hand, oozing thin red lines of blood.

  George looked miserably at Pirate – he’d never seen him look so furious. But he supposed he should have realized. This was Pirate’s house, and another cat had suddenly turned up. Pirate was right to be hissing and spitting and clawing. Then he gasped as Pirate launched himself at the kitten, bowling her over with a swipe from his huge paw.