Шейла Нортон: Oliver The Cat Who Saved Christmas

So I had to bump along in that bag as he strode off, whistling again. The bag was smelly and uncomfortable, with some bits of twigs at the bottom of it, and the walk seemed to take forever. Eventually I could tell from the sound of traffic that we were out of the woods, and then it wasn’t long before I heard him unlocking a door, closing it behind me and calling out, as he put my bag down gently on the floor:

‘Hello? Are you home, Nick?’

Then there was someone else’s voice – a young female by the sound of it.

‘Oh! You were quick! I’ve only just got in from the shop. Did you manage to get some firewood?’

‘No. Sorry.’ I felt him lift the bag again. ‘Look what I found instead.’ He started to undo the zip – I braced myself to jump out and hide in a corner somewhere until I’d made sure it was safe here, wherever I was. But then he stopped and asked: ‘Are all the doors and windows closed?’

‘Of course they are! It’s freezing out! Why, what on earth have you got there?’

And the bag was opened, and I made a dive for it – straight up the curtains at the nearest window.

‘A cat!’ squealed the female person. ‘Where did it come from, Daniel? Why have you brought it home?’

‘He was stuck up a tree! I got him down, and he wouldn’t leave me. I think he must be lost. He’s got a name tag on, with a phone number, but I didn’t have any signal, so I thought I’d better bring him home.’

‘Poor little thing!’ she said, looking up at me now, having apparently got over the shock of seeing me run up her curtains. ‘He looks scared stiff. Come on, kitty cat – what’s his name, Dan?’

‘Oliver. He’s very friendly. Come on down, Oliver,’ he added in that nice kind voice I liked. ‘I’ll get you some milk.’

Great. I was gasping for a drink. I jumped back down and followed him into a little kitchen where he poured me out a nice dish of milk, which I lapped up immediately and licked the dish clean.

‘I reckon he’s hungry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how long he’d been stuck up that tree. Can we give him something to eat, Nicky?’

The girl started emptying tins out of a shopping bag onto the kitchen counter.

‘I’ve got some sardines here,’ she said doubtfully. Sardines! Yes – result! I immediately started winding myself round her legs, purring for all I was worth. ‘But they were supposed to be for lunch,’ she added quietly.

‘We can have something else, can’t we? You’ve got baked beans there. I’ll phone his owner as soon as he’s eaten. We won’t have to keep on feeding him.’

They were looking at each other with worried faces. I wondered what the problem was. I just wanted those sardines!

‘OK,’ the girl called Nicky finally agreed. She started opening the tin. The smell made me feel faint with hunger and longing. ‘Here you go, Oliver.’ She put the dish down on the floor and I fell on it. ‘Good grief, Dan, he must be starving! ’ she added, laughing. ‘Fair enough, his need’s even greater than ours.’

Out of the corner of my eye, while I wolfed down the food, I saw him put his arm round her and give her a kiss. That was good. I’d seen people sitting together in the pub doing that, and it usually meant they were happy.

‘I’m sorry about the firewood,’ he was saying. ‘I’ll go out again later.’

‘No, it’s five o’clock now and it’s dark already. Leave it till tomorrow and I’ll come with you. We can carry more, together. I just don’t think we can afford to put the heating on.’

‘I know. How much was the shopping this time?’

‘Not as bad as last week. The butcher gave me some cheap mince, and I got special offers on tea bags and butter.’

‘Well done.’ He gave her another kiss. ‘We’ll manage, Nick. If we can get through the winter, things will get better.’

And they stood like that, arms round each other, watching me till I’d finished eating. I had the impression they liked me but at the same time, wanted me to go home as soon as possible. And sure enough, the minute I’d finished the last morsel, Daniel picked me up and called out the number on my identity disc, while Nicky punched the numbers into her phone.

‘There’s no reply,’ she said after a while.

‘OK. Well, the owner’s probably just gone out somewhere. Looking for their cat, probably!’ he added, but Nicky didn’t laugh.

‘We can’t keep him, Dan,’ she said.

‘I know. Of course I know that.’ He stroked me, and I gave him a little purr. I wanted to go back to George, obviously, but I was feeling full and safe and warm now, and could easily have fallen asleep right there in Daniel’s arms. It had been a terrible time, what with the fox, and the trauma of the fire …

The fire! I meowed and twitched my tail anxiously as it all came back to me. Poor George! My poor pub. Did I even have a home to go back to now? I wanted to explain to nice Daniel and Nicky that the number on my disc might belong to a phone that was lying in a burnt-up wreck of a building where nobody could live anymore.

‘He still seems a bit distressed,’ Nicky commented, and she gave my head a little stroke. ‘Perhaps you’re right, he might have been lost for ages. Although he doesn’t look too thin.’

I took that as a compliment.

‘Let’s just try the phone number again later on,’ Daniel said. ‘I’m sure someone will be out looking for him. He’s such a lovely cat and he looks well cared-for.’

I knew he was a human I could trust. He had good taste in cats. I was purring to myself happily as he put me down on a sofa, and I dozed off into a nice peaceful sleep.

It was a different voice that woke me up – a strange male voice. I was instantly on high alert, ears up, muscles tense, ready to run. The voice sounded friendly enough, but you can never be too sure.

‘ I know who that is!’ The voice belonged to another male, a large one with a bristly face. I didn’t like the look of him. I gave him a warning growl as he came closer, but he just laughed. ‘It’s Ollie, the pub cat from the Forester’s Arms. You know Ollie, don’t you? Everyone in the village knows Ollie.’

Daniel and Nicky exchanged a sad kind of look. ‘We never go there,’ Daniel said.

‘Oh. No, well, I suppose you haven’t lived here very long. Well, he belongs to George, the landlord. Blimey, I suppose he’s got nowhere to go, now. I take it you’ve seen what’s happened to the pub?’

‘Oh, yes, of course!’ Nicky gasped. ‘The fire.’

‘Yes, it’s pretty badly damaged, isn’t it?’ said Daniel. ‘And the village hall doesn’t look much better.’

‘Well, the fire brigade managed to put it out before the hall burned down completely, but you’re right, the pub and the hall will both be out of action for God knows how long.’ He stroked his bristly chin, looking at me seriously. ‘I wonder why old George didn’t take the cat with him when he left.’

Left? Left? I sat up straighter, unable to believe what I was hearing. George wouldn’t leave, without me!

‘Where’s he gone?’ Daniel asked.

‘To stay with his sister in London. Poor chap hasn’t got any other family, see. His sister’s offered to put him up till the repair work’s done. I reckon that’ll be the best part of a year. The insurance will have to pay out, of course, but you know how long that can take.’

‘How awful for him. Losing his home and his livelihood,’ Nicky said, looking upset.

‘And his cat,’ the big man said, nodding at me. ‘We ought to let him know you’ve found him.’

‘We’ve tried, twice now. The number’s on his disc. No reply,’ Daniel said.