Холли Вебб - The Perfect Kitten

“We need to go home and have something to eat, Abi,” Chris said gently. “It’s nearly six and we haven’t spoken to anyone else who’s seen her. We can come out again after that but it’ll be getting dark soon.”

“She’ll be easy to see in the dark,” Abi said stubbornly, thinking of Flower’s pure-white fur.

“I know – it’s just so hard when we can’t call for her.” Chris looked around, frustrated. “She could be right here, waiting for us to find her.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Sorry.” He gave Abi a hug. “Come on. Let’s go and get some dinner. Mum sent me a text to say it’s ready.”

“OK. But I’m coming out to look again afterwards.”

Chris nodded. “We will.”

In the end, Ruby wanted Chris to read her a bedtime story and she was so miserable about Flower being missing that it was easier not to argue with her. So after Abi nibbled a bit of pasta, Mum went out with her to look again instead. She got a torch from the kitchen drawer because it was just starting to get dark.

They walked down the street, stopping to tap on gateposts and stamp their feet outside each garden. But no little white shape dashed out to meet them and Abi’s heart seemed to sink a little bit more with every house they passed. It was sitting somewhere on top of her stomach now and she felt sick with worry.

“I wonder if we should call the shelter,” Mum said as they reached the supermarket at the end of the road. “Just in case someone’s found Flower and handed her in.”

“But then they’ll know we didn’t look after her properly,” Abi whispered.

“Oh Abi, love. I’m sure they won’t think that. We’ve done everything they said…”

“Except we let her out!” Abi gasped. She’d been trying so hard not to cry all this time, but now she couldn’t help it. “What if she gets run over? What if she already has been? They said it’s happened on this road before…”

“Someone would have seen and told us,” Mum said firmly. “And I think the shelter will be closed now anyway. So we can’t ring them tonight. But I think we’ll have to tomorrow morning, if we haven’t found her by then.”

Flower stayed huddled under the bushes. She had peeped out into the darkening alley a few times, but she could still see the blurred lines of cars shooting along the road at the end, and she remembered how one of them had come so close to her. She didn’t understand why that had happened, but she dreaded that rumbling rush and the blast of air through her whiskers. The bushes were safe, even if her fur was smeared with dust. Yes, she could just stay here…

But if she did that, she wouldn’t be able to get home. Abi and Ruby would have put food out for her to find, and she was hungry. She had sniffed around in the dead leaves for something to eat but all she had found was a beetle that was crunchy and tasted strange when she’d tried to eat it. She was so, so hungry. She wanted her food and to have Ruby dance a toy about for her, and then to be lifted up on Abi’s lap to sleep.

She had to get home. Even if meant going back to that road again.

Abi lay in bed listening to Ruby’s snuffled hiccupy breathing. Ruby had been crying again, and she’d woken up when Abi came to bed and crawled in with her. She’d cried all over Abi’s pyjamas so Abi felt damp and even more miserable and she just couldn’t sleep.

“Are you OK, Abi, love?” Mum whispered from the doorway. “Are you awake?”

“A little bit,” Abi whispered back.

“We’re going to bed now,” Mum said, coming to crouch down by Abi’s bed. “Do you want me to put Ruby back in her own bed?”

“No, she’ll wake up. It’s OK.”

“I’m sure we’ll find Flower tomorrow.” Mum stroked her hair. “Chris will look for her while we’re all at school.”

“OK.” Abi didn’t know what else to say. She was sure she couldn’t spend the day doing literacy and maths while Flower was still missing. But her mum was a teacher – she was never going to agree to let Abi have the day off school to keep on looking.

Mum shut the door gently and Abi wriggled a bit, trying to get comfortable next to Ruby. Her little sister snuffled in her sleep and half rolled over so that she was up against the wall. She took most of the duvet with her and Abi sighed and pulled her old cuddly fleece blanket up around her instead. It smelled comforting, like washing powder, and she snuggled it up by her face, sniffing it sadly.

Then she stopped and sat up on her elbow, staring into the darkness.

Smell!

One of the websites she’d read had said deaf cats probably had better other senses than cats who could hear, because they depended on those senses more and practised using them. And Abi had definitely read somewhere else that one thing you could do for a lost cat was put their bed or their litter tray outside the house, because cats had brilliant noses and would smell their own scent and find their way home.

So Flower would be even better at that than an ordinary cat, wouldn’t she?

Abi slid carefully out of bed, trying not to wake Ruby, and wrapped her blanket round her shoulders. She hesitated on the landing outside Mum and Chris’s room – should she wake them? If she did, they’d probably go and put the litter tray outside and tell her to go back to bed.

But Abi wanted to be there – she wanted to watch, in case it worked. What if they put the litter tray outside and went back to bed, and then Flower came? She wouldn’t understand why her litter tray was there and nobody was waiting for her. She might go away again.

So Abi tiptoed down the stairs and into the kitchen to fetch the litter tray. Luckily no one had cleaned it out – it didn’t smell very much to Abi but she bet Flower would be able to smell it for miles. She hoped so anyway. This had to work. It had to.

She unlocked the front door carefully and couldn’t stop herself glancing round to make sure Flower wasn’t racing down the hallway to see what was happening. “Stupid,” she muttered to herself. Then she slipped outside, shivering in the night air, and set the tray down on the path.

She stood in the gateway, looking up and down the road, hoping to see a little white shape hurrying towards her through the darkness but there was no one around. It was eerie.

Abi retreated back indoors so she could watch from the living-room window. She sat down on the sofa just next to where Flower liked to sit. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness now and she was sure she could see a few of Flower’s white hairs against the dark fabric. She knelt up, leaning her elbows on the back of the sofa, and stared determinedly out of the window.

She was going to stay awake until Flower came home.

Flower stepped out from underneath the bushes and looked down the alleyway. It was fully dark now and she’d been getting colder and colder huddled there. She felt stiff, and slow, and she wasn’t sure she could run away if one of those rumbling things came near her again. But to get back home she supposed she would have to go along the road and risk it. She padded down the dark alley and then flinched as something ran in front of her. She had a moment’s glimpse of white teeth gleaming and a massive paw swept the air in front of her nose, cuffing her and knocking her sideways. She jumped and twisted and rolled over, landing half on her side as the creature loomed over her. Then it darted away.

Flower lay crouched and gasping in the dust, making herself as small as she could, wondering if the creature was going to come back. What was it? Another cat? It must have been. The smell seemed right, but it had been so much larger than she was. She wasn’t sure if she should stay still, or run, or try to hide. But the cat seemed to have moved on and even though there were scents of other animals around, there was nothing else nearby.