Шейла Нортон - Charlie The Kitten Who Saved A Life

I was flattered by her confidence in me. But I wasn’t so sure she was right.

A little later I was sunning myself on my windowsill, where Caroline had kindly put a cushion for me to sit, when there was a knock on the front door.

‘Who on earth can that be?’ Laura said. And then, as Julian opened the door, ‘Careful, darling, close the porch door first. Charlie hasn’t been shut in the kitchen.’

‘OK.’ I heard Julian respond. And then, ‘Oh, hello Mrs Grimshaw.’

‘Hello, love,’ came a stranger’s voice. ‘And call me Annie, please. Everyone does.’

I jumped down from my perch and padded into the lounge to investigate.

‘So this is your kitty cat you were telling me about,’ the woman said as soon as she saw me. ‘Hello, little puss. Nice puss!’

I swished my tail at her. For one thing I really object to being called Puss. I’m sure you all agree, it’s so patronising. If someone wants to say hello to you, why don’t they find out your name first? Also, I didn’t know yet whether she was friend or foe. She was short and plump, with a red face and a very loud voice that made her sound like she was shouting.

‘Charlie. His name’s Charlie,’ Caroline said, and I blinked my thanks at her.

‘Charlie. Right.’ The woman nodded. ‘Nice markings in his coat, hasn’t he?’

‘That’s because I’m a tabby, you silly female,’ I meowed. Didn’t she know anything?

‘He’s a tabby,’ Caroline said. ‘His father was a tabby, his mother was grey, so some of the kittens were like him and the others were—’

‘I see,’ the woman said, without waiting for Caroline to finish. ‘So, how are you all settling down?’

‘Good, thank you, er, Annie,’ Julian said. ‘The cottage is lovely.’

I could see Caroline was looking as puzzled as I was about this loud voiced, red-faced person who was ignorant about cats. Julian must have noticed because he turned to her now and said, ‘Annie owns this cottage, Caroline. She lives next door. I picked up the key from her yesterday when we arrived.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Caroline said politely.

‘It is lovely here,’ Laura agreed. ‘Such a beautiful beach. We were surprised it wasn’t more crowded.’

Annie’s face went even redder.

‘Tell me about it!’ she boomed. ‘We’re not getting the usual number of visitors in Mudditon this year. The season looks to be a dead loss. To be fair, it’s not been too bad for me, as I get a lot of repeat bookings for the cottage, you see. But the hotels and the bed-and-breakfasts have suffered, and so have all the shops and the cafés.’ She shook her head. ‘Everyone’s having a bad time of it.’

‘Why?’ Julian said. ‘I mean, I know it’s a quiet little place but I thought it was usually very popular in the summer.’

‘It is, usually. Busting at the seams this time of year, until all this panic about the seagulls.’

I saw Julian and Laura exchange a look.

‘We had seagulls coming after our sandwiches on the beach earlier,’ Julian said. ‘Has it been a problem here, then?’

‘I should’ve warned you,’ Annie said, shaking her head. ‘You’ll be all right if you don’t take food down there. They’ve got so cheeky, you see. Lost their fear of humans, they have. It’s because people feed them, if you want my opinion. They should just let them be – they’re wild birds, they’re supposed to find their own food, but now they’ve got a taste for ham sandwiches and ice creams.’

‘I don’t think we’d better go to the beach anymore, then, Julian,’ Laura said in a worried voice. ‘Not with Jessica being so tiny.’

‘But Annie said it’s OK if we don’t take food down there, Laura,’ Caroline said.

‘Yes. But of course, even if people are sitting outside the beach café, or in the pub garden, they’re getting gulls going after their lunches.’ Annie shook her head again. ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the media making so much of it.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Oh, you know what they’re like. The local paper ran a front page story, towards the end of last year’s season. Tourists under siege from aggressive gulls – with pictures of people cowering on the beach while seagulls swooped all round them. Next thing you know, South West News got hold of the story. Then it got into the national papers, and that was when the bookings for this year started dropping off, you see. People were coming out of the woodwork to complain about gulls making off with their doughnuts and biting their babies.’

She stopped, glancing at Laura who was holding Jessica close to her as if she was in imminent danger of attack. ‘It was all being exaggerated, out of all proportion,’ she went on more quietly. ‘You’re safe here, honestly, love. Just, well, I wouldn’t eat outside, if you’re worried, that’s all.’

Laura didn’t look particularly reassured. ‘I take it you didn’t hear about this before you decided we were coming here,’ she said to Julian in an accusing voice.

‘No, of course I didn’t. But as Annie says, it’s all been exaggerated anyway. Just a few seagulls, for goodness’ sake! What else do you expect, in a seaside town?’

‘That’s what I said,’ Caroline muttered, but everyone ignored her.

‘Well, it’s true the gulls are causing some problems, but it’s not as if Mudditon’s the only place it’s happened,’ Annie said. ‘And the council’s looking into ways of dealing with it. They’ve put up some notices telling people not to feed the gulls, but it’s not enough, in my opinion. They need to do more, or the tourism here is going to go completely down the pan.’

‘That’s a real shame,’ Julian said. ‘It’s such a nice little place.’

‘And people are going to lose their livelihoods, if it goes on.’ Annie sighed and looked around at us all. ‘Anyway, I just came to check you had everything you need.’

‘Yes, it’s very comfortable, thank you,’ Laura said a bit stiffly.

‘Well, look, please don’t let this spoil your holiday. As I said, just go inside to eat, to be on the safe side, and you’ll be fine.’

‘Thank you.’ Julian went to the door with her. ‘Poor woman’s worried about losing bookings herself, I imagine,’ he commented after she’d gone.

‘She should have told you about it when you booked the cottage!’ Laura retorted.

‘Come on, I’m sure she’s right that it’s all been exaggerated.’

‘Did it look exaggerated when those gulls attacked us on the beach? It was just pure luck Jessica didn’t get bitten!’

‘Well, now we know, we won’t take food to the beach in future. We could go inside the beach café tomorrow and treat ourselves to a nice lunch there. If it stays this hot, we won’t want to stay on the beach all day anyway. We don’t want Jessica getting too much sun, do we?’

Laura nodded. ‘That’s true. OK, we’ll try the café tomorrow. Or we could come back and eat here, I suppose. I do feel a bit sorry for Charlie being shut up in here all day without any company.’

I meowed with surprise. Somebody was actually considering my feelings! Caroline looked round at me and laughed.

‘I think Charlie agrees with that!’ she said. And then she looked at her father and added, ‘Please can I play games on your tablet, Dad, if we’re not going back to the beach?’

‘Yes, OK, for a little while,’ he said, passing her his computer thing.

‘Yes!’ she exclaimed happily, jumping up to take it from him. I couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about, but she seemed to get an enormous amount of pleasure from pressing that thing and watching pictures moving on it. She sat on the sofa with it and I jumped up onto her lap, purring contentedly. I hoped maybe my little family was starting to settle down now and get along better again. If only it would last!