Шейла Нортон - Charlie The Kitten Who Saved A Life

‘He’s going to need some feeding up, poor little chap,’ Mr Caswell commented, feeling my ribs again. ‘And his coat’s going to need some attention.’

‘We’ll see to that ourselves,’ Julian said firmly.

‘Yes, I think that’s best. With a bit of grooming he’ll be back to his old self, and it’ll help him settle back at home and bond with the family again. Although,’ he added, watching as I climbed up Julian’s chest and tried to bury myself inside his shirt, ‘from what I can see, I suspect that’s not going to be a problem.’

Julian laughed, but Mr Caswell lowered his voice and added, ‘Just a word of warning. Keep a close eye on him. There’s just a chance he might have picked up something more serious, if he was involved in any fights with feral cats. They can carry disease in their saliva, which can be transferred in a bite. I’m sure your own vet will advise you. He might want to check him over from time to time while he recovers.’

‘Thank you for the warning. We’ll take great care of him.’

‘I’m sure you will.’ He smiled at me. ‘He’s missed you, that’s obvious!’

‘And we’ve missed him. I know one little girl who’s going to be very happy tonight.’

Caroline . I purred with joy at the thought of seeing her. But there was still another ordeal to face yet: the long car journey back to Little Broomford.

In some ways the journey wasn’t quite as bad as the previous one, at the start of the holiday, because at least we didn’t have Jessica in the car mewing her head off, keeping me awake. It seemed so long now since that day, and strange to think that back then I’d still had no idea really what to expect from a holiday. Remembering that now, I realised again how much I’d grown up over the course of this summer. For one thing, up till then I’d never been away from my home village before, whereas now I was a well-travelled little cat with a wealth of experience. I’d seen the sea, and had eventually got quite used to it during my time with the feral gang. I’d had my first proper fight, lived to tell the tale and had got some sore places to prove it, and hoped I’d never have to fight like that again. I’d made new friends, learning to get along with cats who were quite frankly not the type we normally fraternise with. Most importantly, I’d learnt to survive. And after all that, the most important thing I’d learnt was that I loved my life with my human family and never wanted to leave them again.

Julian called out to me occasionally as he drove the car home. Are you all right, there, Charlie? And Not too far now, boy. But most of the time, we were nice and quiet, apart from the music he’d got playing very gently to take my mind off the car’s growling and rumbling noises. I was actually asleep again when the car finally stopped outside our house. I woke up at the sound of the car door being pulled open and the voice I loved most in the whole world squealing:

‘Charlie! Oh, Charlie, you’re home!’

I was so excited to see Caroline’s face looking back at me, I jumped up and hit my head on the lid of the silly carrying basket. I meowed so loudly I couldn’t even hear what else she was saying, but as she carried my basket into the house, I realised she was crying.

‘Don’t cry, darling!’ Julian said as he followed us in. ‘We’ve got him back now!’

‘I know!’ she sobbed. ‘I’m crying because I’m so happy!’

That was a new one on me. Humans are very odd sometimes! But I didn’t care, Caroline could be as odd as she liked, just as long as I could jump into her arms, which I did as soon as she let me out of the basket. We sat on the sofa and I snuggled into her for a lovely long cuddle, purring fit to burst. It was probably the happiest moment of my life.

‘He’s so thin!’ she was saying to her father. ‘And what’s happened to his eye?’

‘He’s been in a fight or two, we think,’ Julian explained, as Laura came and sat next to Caroline, stroking me and inspecting me carefully. ‘He’s had a bad bite to his leg there, too – see? It hasn’t healed properly so it’s left a nasty sore. We’ve got to take him to our vet tomorrow or the next day, when he’s settled down. And the vet in Mudditon thinks he got clawed in his eye – that’s what caused the problem there, but we’ve got drops for him. He’s lucky he didn’t lose the sight in it.’

‘He’s got scabby places on his head, too,’ Laura said. ‘And his poor coat! It’s all dull and matted.’

Caroline started to cry again. ‘Poor Charlie! It’s all my fault!’

‘We’ll soon nurse him back to health, Caroline,’ Laura said gently, putting an arm around her. ‘He’s young – he’ll mend. Just as you will,’ she added quietly, looking like she might cry herself.

I looked up at Laura in surprise. What did she mean by that? Was Caroline still not mended? Hadn’t they been able to fix her head at the hospital? All my worries about her while we’d been apart immediately came flooding back.

‘If Grace and I hadn’t been so stupid …’ she was saying, wiping her eyes.

‘What’s done is done,’ Julian said. ‘We’ve talked about this, haven’t we? Losing Charlie was more than enough punishment for you, to say nothing of you getting hurt yourself. I know Grace’s parents grounded her for the rest of the holiday, just as we did with you, but you’ve both learned your lessons, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Charlie, I’m so sorry you got lost! I didn’t mean for you to run out of the house. It was dark … we didn’t see you … we were being so stupid.’

‘It’s all right,’ I meowed. ‘I’m home now, with you. That’s all that matters.’

Actually it wasn’t. What mattered even more was for me to find out whether she was feeling better. There wasn’t any blood dripping from her head anymore, and her finger wasn’t looking sore, but what about that horrible illness? Had it come back? Was that what Laura meant? I meowed to myself anxiously, but Caroline just carried on stroking me.

‘I’m still absolutely sure it was him, watching me being put into that ambulance, you know,’ she said to Laura.

‘Well, there must be lots of other little tabby cats just like him. We’ll never know for sure.’

‘It was me!’ I told them in Cat, but of course, none of them understood. ‘I ran to get help for Caroline! I got the woman from the beach café to come to her rescue!’

‘I bet he would’ve helped us, if he could,’ Caroline said. ‘I bet that was why he ran out after us – to try to look after us.’

‘Yes!’ I squeaked. ‘Why else would I have done it?’

‘Nice idea,’ Julian said, smiling at her. ‘And if he could, I’m sure he would have done, darling. He loves you very much, that’s obvious. But at the end of the day, he’s just a little kitten, isn’t he. Dogs have certainly been known to look after people, but I’ve never heard of cats doing it.’

‘But he did help a human, Daddy! He helped that old lady with the ice cream, when he jumped up at the seagull, didn’t he? That’s what got into the paper and onto the TV News, wasn’t it, and how those ladies came to think it might be him. Everyone in Mudditon thought he was a hero!’

And she cuddled me closer again, wiping her eyes.

‘My little hero, Charlie!’ she said.

I saw Julian and Laura looking at each other.

‘Well,’ Julian said. ‘Yes, we think it was Charlie. And the publicity certainly helped to get him found and brought back, so that’s all good. But we can’t ever be completely sure. As Laura says, there are lots of little tabby cats around, and—’

‘But it was him, Daddy. I knew it as soon as we saw him on the TV.’