Sophie Pembroke - Lara The Runaway Cat - One cat’s journey to discover home is where the heart is

‘Okay, say we do this, how would it work?’ Dad stood up, crossing to the kettle to make himself a drink. I followed, just in case he opened the fridge and there was anything interesting in there for me.

‘Well, we could all take the ferry to France together, so Lara and Gobi don’t have to travel in the hold of the plane leaving the UK,’ said Mum, obviously thinking things through as she made up her plan on the spot. ‘The overnight one, maybe, for a change? To break up the journey a bit. Then we can fly from France to China with the animals with us. We’d need to book pet-friendly accommodation everywhere anyway, for Gobi, so adding Lara into the mix won’t make much difference for the hotels. And we can all explore the country together. It’ll be fun!’

It did sound sort of fun, I supposed. Apart from the ‘with Gobi’ bit. I’d seen pictures of planes, and I knew they had windows. And Dad and Gobi sometimes videocalled from hotels when they were travelling, and they didn’t look all that much different from the bedrooms at home.

But most of all, it was an adventure. Maybe I’d finally find out what all the fuss was about, and why people wanted to have them in the first place.

‘What about when Gobi and I are doing interviews, or book signings and events and stuff?’ Dad asked. Because of course, it was still all about Gobi. Everything was.

‘Lara and I will come, too! Come on, Dion! You and Gobi have been everywhere together – the States, Canada …’

‘Holland, Italy, France and Switzerland,’ he added, in case we’d forgotten quite how many places they’d been together. Like we didn’t have the map to remind us.

‘Exactly. Maybe it’s Lara’s turn for an adventure.’ Mum didn’t say ‘and mine too’, but I got the feeling she was thinking it. ‘Besides, it would be so nice to spend the summer all together as a family.’

That was true. Even if I wasn’t completely thrilled that our family was made up of four of us now instead of three, I really didn’t like the idea of the other three going off and having fun together and leaving me behind all summer.

‘It would be nice,’ Dad admitted. Reaching down, he picked me up and held me against his shoulder. ‘What do you think, Lara? Would you like to come on an adventure with us?’

Most importantly, if I could show Mum and Dad that I was just as good at adventures as Gobi was – better even – maybe they’d remember that I was their favourite pet and quite clearly the superior animal in our household.

Even if I wasn’t entirely sure what having an adventure entailed, yet. If Gobi could do it, how hard could it really be, anyway?

So, I meowed my agreement. Loudly. It was my turn to travel with Dad for a change.

Mum laughed, looking pleased, and Dad smiled too. For one precious moment, it was just the three of us again – and it was perfect.

Of course, Gobi picked that moment to wander into the kitchen, looking sleepy. She’d obviously just woken up from her afternoon nap, and arrived just in time to butt in on my important moment with Mum and Dad. As usual.

Dad put me down and went to make a fuss of Gobi instead. I slunk back to my ball of fluff again.

‘Guess what, girl?’ Dad said, sounding excited for the first time in the conversation. ‘We’re all going on an adventure. Together!’

Gobi barked her approval of the plan. I just hoped that they had prawns in China. And that I didn’t have to share them with Gobi .

The planning for our trip took a lot more work than I’d expected. Before, I hadn’t really paid much attention to what went into getting Gobi and Dad ready to go away. This time, though, I watched every detail, usually from inside a suitcase, where I couldn’t possibly get forgotten. After a lifetime of happily staying inside, I was suddenly terrified of being left behind and missing out on the adventure.

With every day that passed, the excitement and anticipation grew in my belly – closely matched by the worry and the fear. Dad was wrong, obviously, about me not being able to cope with adventure. But that didn’t change the fact that I’d never actually had one before, only heard about theirs.

In my experience, new things could be either very good (like the new, bigger prawns Mum had found for me) or very bad (like Gobi’s dog biscuits, which tasted good, but always ended up with me being sick, every single time. I kept trying though, just in case).

I really hoped that adventures were more like prawns. But that didn’t stop the nervousness from growing, especially as I learned more about the tour, where we were going, and what would be happening while we were away.

‘I’ve got the itinerary through from the publishers,’ Dad said one day, waving a few sheets of paper stapled together at us.

‘Let’s hear it then,’ said Mum, as she put my prawns in my bowl.

I was torn: prawns or listening to the details of our adventure? In the end, I tried to do both. The prawns were delicious, as always; the itinerary less lovely.

In summary, the plan for our three weeks in China seemed to be: take Gobi to lots of lovely places, where there would be lots of people wanting to see her and make a fuss of her, wherever we went. And nobody to pay any attention at all to me, or my big adventure.

And that was the big problem: this was supposed to be my chance to show Mum and Dad that I was more than just an indoor cat, that I could be adventurous, too. But it still seemed very much like Gobi’s adventure, even though I was along for the ride. How was I going to prove that I was the superior pet if everything was still about Gobi?

I sat at my window and ignored the world outside for once, thinking hard instead. There had to be a way to have my own adventure, surely? One that was all about me.

I just didn’t know enough about adventures yet to figure out how.

By the time the day finally came to leave Edinburgh for Portsmouth and the ferry (via London, for some important, last-minute publisher meeting for Dad and Gobi), I’d started to go off the whole idea, really. I sulked in my carrier in the car, dozing off as we drove.

And when I saw the ferry, lit up brightly against the darkening night sky, I was certain this was a very bad idea indeed.

‘It’s huge!’ I stared at the giant ship up ahead of us. It was bigger than our house, by far. I’d never even seen anything so big. Travelling by car was one thing – I quite enjoyed a car trip – I wasn’t convinced I was going to enjoy this journey.

Gobi barked her agreement. ‘Isn’t it brilliant?’

‘Brilliant’ wasn’t quite the word I’d been looking for.

‘How long are we going to be on it?’ I asked, still eyeing the ferry suspiciously.

‘All night!’ Gobi said it like that was a good thing.

Was the ferry the adventure? Because really, if we had that whole giant ship to explore, what more adventure could we possibly need? Maybe we should just turn around and go home – after all, Ragdoll cats were indoor cats. Not ferry cats or aeroplane cats or even China cats. I missed my window. And my prawns.

But just then, Dad put me in my carrier to take me aboard, and going home was no longer an option.

Adventures also seemed to involve a lot of people frowning at paperwork. Before we were even allowed on the ferry, a man had to glare at some paper, then run the same magic device thing over me that they sometimes used at the vet’s.