Холли Вебб - The Brave Kitten

“Oh.” Helena nodded, wishing the cat would open his eyes again. He looked so weak. He hadn’t even flinched when Molly had moved him.

“Once he’s warmed through we can examine him properly,” Molly explained. “I don’t want to fuss him with X-rays while he’s like this. But we can at least check if he’s got a microchip, so that if he has, we can ring his owner.”

Lucy passed her the microchip scanner and Molly held it above the cat’s neck – but it didn’t beep. It didn’t make any sound at all.

“No chip,” Molly sighed. “Oh well. We can put a sign up in the surgery window, I suppose.”

“But what if his owners never find out where he is?” Helena asked, her voice shaking a little. Life seemed so hard for the poor cat – run over, and now maybe homeless as well.

“Once they realize he’s missing, I’m sure they’ll ring round the local vets,” Lucy told her comfortingly. But she glanced at Molly. “Are we going to be OK to operate?” she asked. “I mean, he is very skinny. If he’s a stray…”

Molly nodded, frowning. “I know. We could send him over to the PDSA clinic – they’d treat him. But he’s so wobbly already, I don’t think it’s a good idea to move him.”

“Why can’t you sort his leg out here?” Helena asked. She didn’t understand what was going on. Surely they needed to operate on the cat as soon as they could? Helena knew that Molly sometimes worked as a volunteer vet at the PDSA clinic, which was for pets whose owners had problems paying for expensive vet treatments. But why did the cat have to go there?

Lucy put an arm round her shoulders. “It depends on the X-ray, but he might need to have the broken leg pinned,” she explained. “It’s a really expensive operation, and then he’s going to need to be looked after for a while. Plus he’ll have to have another operation to take the pins out. If he’s a stray, there’s no one to pay for all that, or for his medicine.”

“And even if he does have an owner, they might not be able to afford the treatment.” Molly ran her hand over the cat’s caramel-coloured ears, looking sad.

“You mean, you might not be able to do the operation?” Helena whispered. “Even if it would make him better?”

“Of course we want to sort him out,” Molly explained. “He’s young enough to recover really well. But…”

“You have to!” Helena’s eyes filled with tears as she stroked the cat under the chin. “He’s so lovely. He nuzzled me… He’s trusting us to look after him!”

“I bet the PDSA would help look after him while he’s getting better,” Molly said, eyeing the cat thoughtfully. “They might cover the costs if we have to operate, too.” She crouched down to be eye to eye with the caramel cat, and gave a firm little nod. “We have to help him.”

The caramel-coloured cat lay in his cage, staring out at the dimly lit room. He didn’t understand where he was, or what was happening. He was dazed and he felt sick. And there was still something wrong with his leg. It felt worse, if anything. It was aching and heavy, and he couldn’t move it properly. It smelled wrong, too – strange and sharp with chemicals. He hated it. Wearily, he pulled himself up on his front legs so he could look at his leg properly. It was that weird white wrapping all over his leg that smelled odd.

He leaned over, wincing as the weight pressed on to the broken leg, and pulled at the bandage that lined the cast with his teeth. If he could just get that off, then his leg would be all right again, he was certain…

“I wasn’t sure you’d be up yet!” said Lucy, smiling at Helena, who was standing outside her front door with her coat on, looking impatient.

“Mum’s still got her pyjamas on,” Helena admitted, pointing over her shoulder, and Lucy spotted her aunt waving at her out of the kitchen window. “I know it’s early, but I really want to see how the cat is.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Lucy said. “Molly stayed overnight, remember. One of the vets always does when there’s a serious case, and she was worried about him. There’s a bed upstairs, and she’ll have popped down every couple of hours to check on him. Bye, Auntie Clare!” she called to Helena’s mum. “I’ll drop her off in time for lunch – I’m only going in to help Molly out this morning. I hope she’s managed to get some sleep,” Lucy added to Helena. “That bed’s really lumpy. We’ll go and make her a cup of tea and some toast.”

But when they got to the surgery, Molly was already up, and she looked upset when she opened the front door to them.

“What’s wrong?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t know how he did it.” Molly shook her head frustratedly. “I only checked on him a couple of hours ago and he was still dozing. He looked fine. But I’ve just been in, and he’s pulled the cast off.” She sighed. “We went with a cast because it was a fairly simple break, but at this rate he’s going to make it worse.”

“Can you put another cast on?” Helena asked, as they followed Molly to the ward.

“We’ll have to. But the more he messes around with that leg, the longer it’s going to take to heal. We’ll just have to keep an eye on him. He’ll probably need a cone collar on now to stop him trying to tug the cast off, but he’ll hate it, and he’s pretty miserable already. This time I’m going to use a special sort of cast that tastes horrible if cats try and chew it, so I’m hoping he’ll just leave it alone.”

“Poor little cat,” Helena said, looking into the small cage where the kitten was stretched out on a blanket. He looked back at her wearily, and she could see how sad he was. He was squashed right into the corner of the cage, as if he was trying to hide from everyone. “I bet he hates being shut up in here.”

“He needs to be kept still, though,” Lucy explained. “Even if he went home, he’d have to stay in a small room – maybe even a dog crate or something – to stop him doing something silly.”

“Has anyone phoned about him?” Helena asked Molly hopefully. “His owners?”

Molly shook her head. “No, no one’s called. I’d better put up a notice.”

“I could make some on the computer,” Helena suggested. “We could print them out and put them up close to where we found him, too. His owners must be really worried about him.” She shivered, thinking about how lovely it would be to have a cat of her very own, and how frightened she’d feel if he simply disappeared.

“Posters would be good.” Molly nodded. “OK. Plaster cast number two…”

“Please don’t try and pull this one off,” Helena murmured to the cat. He was back in his cage with the new cast on, and she’d brought him some food and water. “And don’t put your foot in the water bowl, either. When I broke my arm, I wasn’t allowed to get it wet at all.”