Шейла Нортон - Charlie The Kitten Who Saved A Life

Charlie the kitten would do anything for his human. Just having recovered from a debilitating illness, eleven-year-old Caroline isn’t feeling her best, and the arrival of a new baby only makes her feel even more left out.

So when Caroline decides to run away, Charlie follows, vowing to protect her at all costs. But, for such a little kitten, it’s a big and scary world outside the comfort of the cottage – how far will he go to save his greatest friend?

Sheila Norton lives near Chelmsford in Essex with her husband, and worked for most of her life as a medical secretary, before retiring early to concentrate on her writing. Sheila is the award-winning writer of numerous women’s fiction novels and over 100 short stories, published in women’s magazines.

She has three married daughters, six little grandchildren, and over the years has enjoyed the companionship of three cats and two dogs. She derived lots of inspiration for her books Oliver the Cat Who Saved Christmas and Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life from remembering the pleasure and fun of sharing life with her own cats. Sheila is convinced cats can understand Human and that we really ought to learn to speak Cat!

When not working on her writing Sheila enjoys spending time with her family and friends, as well as reading, walking, swimming, photography and travel. For more information visit www.sheilanorton.com

For my lovely family – including their cats!

OK, settle down, you lot. My friend Oliver here says you’re all desperate to hear my story, so please come out from behind the dustbins for a minute and stop fighting over that dead sparrow. Now, before we start, I know that some of you still think of me as a silly little tabby kitten who barely knows his tail from his whiskers, but I’ve had to grow up a lot during this summer, and you’ll understand why when you hear my story. Oliver, could you let my sisters sit next to you in case they get frightened? That’s right, Nancy. Yes, snuggle up to Oliver, Tabitha. I do feel a bit protective of you both, you see, even though we spend our lives living with separate human families. And if there are any really little kittens listening, or any scaredy-cats – sorry, I mean any cats of a nervous disposition – you may need to cover your ears with your paws at certain parts. No, Tabitha, I didn’t mean yet. I haven’t even started. I’ll tell you when we get to a scary part.

Where should I begin? Well, I suppose I should start with the day I found out about the holiday. Of course, back then, before it all happened, I had no idea what a holiday was. The first I heard about it was when my human, Julian, came home from work one evening and announced:

‘Right. I’ve booked a holiday.’

His female, Laura, just looked up at him, her eyes all cloudy with tiredness. I felt sorry for her, because I knew she hadn’t been getting much sleep. None of us had.

‘Oh, Julian,’ she said, sighing. ‘It’s a nice idea, but how on earth can we go on holiday at the moment? With all the bits and pieces we’d need to take for the baby?’

Right on cue, the baby, Jessica, who was upstairs in her little white basket, supposedly asleep, began to mew at the top of her voice. You know the sweet, soft little squeaky noises we make when we’re new-born kittens? Well, trust me, this was nothing like it. Human kittens, as I’d now learned only too well, make the most terrible din you can imagine. They howl. Their little faces go red, their mouths open so wide they seem to fill their whole face, and they scream. It happens when they want milk, but it also seems to happen for no apparent reason, any time, day or night. No wonder poor Laura looked exhausted.

‘I’ll go,’ Julian said, throwing his jacket on a chair and heading up the stairs. I trotted up after him. He hadn’t said hello to me yet. I meowed at him a bit and jumped round his feet while he lifted Jessica out of her basket, but he just said, ‘Mind out of the way, Charlie. I don’t want to drop the baby.’

The baby, the baby . It was all I heard about, these days! I mean, she was cute, I supposed, when she wasn’t yelling, but what about me? I wasn’t getting my share of cuddles anymore, and there had even been times when they’d forgotten all about my dinner. I’d had to walk round and round my empty dish so many times, calling for attention, I ended up getting dizzy.

Still ignoring me, Julian carried the baby out of the little pink room where she slept and past the door of Caroline’s bedroom. Caroline, our big human kitten, had had what her father called a growth spurt recently. If she’d been a cat, I’d have said she was more or less fully grown, but humans seem to stay kittens for much longer than we do. She spent a lot of time in her bedroom, especially since the baby had arrived. I sneaked in there with her as often as I could. She was the only one who still seemed to have time to cuddle me.

‘Hello, Caroline!’ Julian called out, pausing outside her door and tapping on it gently. ‘Come downstairs, I’ve got something exciting to tell you.’

I waited for her outside her door, and after a bit she came out and trudged down the stairs alongside me.

‘What is it?’ she asked. She didn’t look like someone who was about to be told something exciting. In fact Julian was the only one looking remotely excited. As usual, nobody was telling me what was going on so I just had to listen carefully to their Human chat and try to pick up some clues.

‘I’ve booked us a holiday,’ Julian said again. He smiled, obviously pleased with himself. He’d been standing jiggling the squawking baby in his arms, and now he placed her on Laura’s lap so that she could feed her.

‘Oh, cool!’ Caroline said, brightening up. ‘Where are we going? Is it Florida? One of the girls at school went there last year.’

‘Florida?’ Julian echoed, staring at her. ‘No, of course not. We can’t go somewhere like that with a three-month-old baby.’

‘Oh.’ Caroline’s mouth turned down again. ‘Typical. Everything’s about her now.’

‘Caroline!’ Julian said, giving her a warning look. ‘That’s not true, at all—’

‘So, where are we going?’ she interrupted.

‘Mudditon-on-Sea.’

There was silence. Even baby Jessica was quiet now she was being fed. Caroline just stared back at her father, while Laura shook her head as if she couldn’t quite believe it.

‘But it’ll be lovely!’ Julian said, looking from one of them to the other. ‘I’ve booked us a beautiful holiday cottage for the whole of August.’

‘The whole of August?’ Caroline gasped.

‘Yes! Look,’ he said, turning to Laura, ‘I know how hard it’s been for you. The pregnancy wasn’t easy, the Caesarean left you exhausted, and the baby’s been hard work—’

‘How can you possibly take a whole month off?’ Laura said.

‘Oh.’ Julian sat down next to her, his smile fading. ‘Well, I’m not, exactly. I’ll just spend the first week with you all, then of course I’ll have to come back.’

‘And go back to work.’

‘Yes, but I’ll come down for weekends. You can enjoy the sea air, darling, and get lots of rest.’