Холли Вебб - A Kitten Called Tiger

Mum had explained to Bel and Lucy again that Tiger was only little and needed time to get used to them all. And that kittens never, ever, ever wanted to be dressed up. Ava wasn’t totally sure that her little sisters understood, though. Lucy definitely thought Tiger was a new and improved sort of teddy. Ava wasn’t sure what to do – maybe Lucy wasn’t old enough for a pet, after all? But if she said that to Mum and Dad, they might agree with her and decide to take Tiger back!

“I’m going to tell Miss Daniels all about Tiger,” Bel said, swinging her book bag round and round as she and Ava waited for Mum and Lucy in the front garden. “And everybody in my class.” She stopped suddenly. “I could take in Tiger for Show and Tell!”

“No!” Ava yelped.

“He wouldn’t like it, Bel,” Mum said, locking the front door. “He’d be scared. But you could take in a photo?”

Bel was about to argue when she caught sight of one of her friends coming down the road with her mum and started waving. “Mia!”

Ava waved, too – her friend Jess was Mia’s big sister and they all often ended up walking to school together.

“We’ve got a new kitten!” Bel told Mia proudly.

Jess looked surprised. “Have you really?” she asked Ava. “I didn’t know you’d found one!”

“We went to see a litter of kittens on Saturday and we brought him home yesterday. He’s called Tiger.”

“Oh, lucky you…” Jess sighed. “I love our cats but they’re both a bit old and doddery. It’d be great to have a kitten to play with.”

“You can come and play with Tiger,” Ava said. “Oh, hi, Megan!” Ava smiled as their next-door neighbour came out of her garden gate and then crouched down to stroke her dogs, Charlie and Max. “Are you going for a walk?” Ava loved the dogs. She sometimes went with Megan to walk them.

Charlie and Max wagged their feathery tails and yapped with excitement as all five girls made a fuss of them – even Lucy reached over from her pushchair to stroke their ears.

“We’ve got a kitten,” Bel told Megan.

“I wonder if Charlie and Max can smell that? They’re very excited. Come on, you two. We’re a bit late this morning, we’ve only got time for a quick walk before I have to get to work,” Megan told the girls. “Have a good day at school!”

“Bye!” Ava and Jess led the way round the corner to the alleyway that went past the woods. It went almost all the way to their school and Lucy’s nursery. It was a bit wild, with overgrown hedges and nettles and other weeds growing up round the big trees, but because there were no cars, it meant she and Jess could walk on ahead and their mums didn’t mind.

“Oooh, look, blackberries!” Jess reached into the bush to pick a couple and passed one to Ava. “So, is Tiger ginger with stripes?”

“No, he’s brown – golden brown, with really black stripes. And the tip of his tail’s black, too, like he dipped it in a pot of paint.”

“Awww… Is he cuddly? I suppose he’s a bit shy still.”

“He was when he arrived,” Ava agreed. “But he loves playing so much, he forgets to be nervous around us. And he’s really adventurous! When we first saw him at his old house he was on top of a bookcase and yesterday he climbed up the kitchen wallpaper and got stuck!”

Jess giggled. “He sounds like he’s going to get into trouble!”

Ava nodded. “I know. I love it that he’s so bouncy and full of energy but I’m a bit worried about what he might do next!”

“Look, Tiger.” Ava put her hand through the cat flap and wiggled it about. Now that the kitten had had all his vaccinations, he was allowed to go outside. Ava couldn’t wait. She really wanted to see Tiger out in the garden for the first time. She was sure he was going to love having more space to explore.

Jess had been right about the kitten being trouble. Tiger already went everywhere in the house – and that meant everywhere . He seemed to be able to squeeze into the smallest space and scramble up the tallest piece of furniture. He’d even managed to jump from the bookcase in Ava’s bedroom to the top of her bedroom door. Then he’d sat there, looking a bit confused, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was meant to do next. Dad had lifted him down but Ava had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before he tried again. Tiger just seemed to love being high up.

Ava let the cat flap bang shut again and looked at Tiger. He didn’t seem to be getting it. He stared back at her. He wasn’t sure if this was some new sort of game. Ava was good at playing with him – she would roll a ball around for ages, or bounce his cat-dancer toy up and down. But now all she seemed to want to do was bang at this strange hole in the door.

Suddenly his ears pricked up and his whiskers twitched. He had caught a whiff of fresh air floating through the cat flap. The scent of outside, where he hadn’t been allowed to go. He’d tried to get out, of course, hovering behind people as they went into the garden and sneaking after them, but they always caught him. He’d even got as far as the back step once, when Lucy nearly fell over and Mum was paying attention to her instead of watching the door. But then Mum had scooped him up while he was still staring out at the open stretch of grass.

“Come on, Tiger! You can go out,” Ava told him, lifting the flap right up. “It’s your own special door. Charlie and Max have one just like it, so they can get out while Megan’s at work.”

Tiger crept up to the cat flap and then jumped back as he saw Lucy peering through it from the garden.

“When’s he coming out?” she demanded.

“He was about to!” Ava said. “You scared him!”

Lucy stomped away and Tiger poked his nose through the flap, looking out at the garden. It smelled so good, and he could hear birds scratching and fluttering in the bushes by the back door. He twitched his tail and hopped suddenly through the flap – so suddenly that Ava squeaked in surprise, and had to scramble up and open the door to follow him.

“He’s out,” she called to Mum, who was pushing Bel on the swing. “Look at him!”

Tiger prowled along the patio, stopping every few steps to sniff at a leaf or watch an ant scurrying between his paws. Then he walked into a patch of bright autumn sunlight, feeling its warm glow on his fur. He sat down for a moment, closing his eyes and letting the warmth soak in. Then he lay down and rolled over, his paws in the air. He blinked lazily as a bee buzzed past but couldn’t be bothered to leap up and chase it.

Mum laughed. “He looks blissed out.”

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Ava said, sitting down next to Tiger. “And now you can go out whenever you like,” she told him.

“Not for too long this first time, though,” Mum said. “Remember what it said in the cat care book. We need to take him back inside for his tea, so he learns that it’s a good thing to come back home. We don’t want him to wander off and get lost. And we’ll need to keep the cat flap locked when we’re not around, at least to start with.”