Holly Webb - The Curious Kitten

Cleo stood perched on the pile of old sacks, mewing anxiously. She didn’t understand why the doors had closed so suddenly. All she knew was that now she couldn’t get out. She started to pick her way carefully between the boxes back towards the doors. Perhaps when she got closer she’d find a way to escape. When she pushed on doors in the house, sometimes they opened. Although sometimes they didn’t… She scampered up to the doors and scrabbled at them with her front paws. They were shut tight.

There was a growling noise and then suddenly the van lurched, and Cleo slipped over sideways with a little squeak of fright. She’d only been in a car a few times, when she was brought home from the shelter and for trips to the vet. She’d always travelled in a comfortable basket, padded with a blanket, though. She slid across the floor of the van as it pulled out into the road, meowing frantically. She hadn’t meant for this to happen at all.

Cleo pressed herself into a small dark space under a storage locker that had been built for tools. It was a tight fit, but it made her feel safer. Nothing could get at her under here. She squashed herself back against the cold metal of the van’s wall and waited.

Eventually the van seemed to slow down, and then it lurched to a stop. The noisy engine was turned off, leaving Cleo’s ears buzzing. There was a crunching, clashing sound, and the doors swung open. Cleo wriggled her nose out of the tiny gap and tried to see what was happening. She could smell the fresh air coming in through the open doors, and she desperately wanted to race for them. But there was so much noise. She darted back into her safe hiding place as a huge box slid past her with a shriek of metal on metal and shivered. What if more of the boxes moved as she ran for the doors? She had to try, though.

Cleo laid her ears back close to her head and crept out. With her tummy pressed against the floor of the van, she edged across to the doors.

She could see the road outside, and her whiskers twitched with the warm smells of the sunny afternoon. But just as she was getting ready to jump down, the doors clanged shut. She was trapped once more.

Cleo flung herself at the doors with a desperate wail, banging her paws against the hard metal. The doors didn’t budge. She should have run for it when she could! Furious and frightened, she stomped back across the van, the fur all along her spine raised, her tail fluffed up. What was going to happen now? What if she never got out?

Miserably aware of how hungry and thirsty and lonely she felt, Cleo meowed as loudly as she could, hoping that Amber would come, the way she always did. Surely Amber would come and rescue her…

“Amber, I don’t think she can have been hit by a car,” Mum said gently, as Amber’s dad came into the kitchen and hung his laptop bag over a chair. “We’d have heard. Cleo’s microchipped. If she’d been taken to a vet, they would have called my mobile.”

Amber had searched everywhere she could think of. She’d opened every cupboard in the house, remembering the day when Dad had accidentally shut Cleo in the cupboard under the stairs. And then she’d gone back and checked all the drawers, too. When Sara had got home from school, the sisters had gone down their road calling for her, while Mum had checked the garage and the shed. But Cleo was nowhere to be found. And what made it even worse was that Amber and Sara had found her collar under one of the bushes in front of the house next door. So now even if someone found her, they wouldn’t know the number to call.

“What’s up? Has Cleo disappeared?” Dad asked, giving Amber a hug. “She’s probably just out exploring.”

“Well, that’s what I said,” Mum sighed. “But it’s six o’clock, Dan. She normally has her dinner about four. It’s really unusual for her not to turn up for that.”

“And now we’ve found her collar,” Amber said shakily, pointing to it on the kitchen table. “So we know she was out at the front of the house. What if she’s been run over?”

“No, your mum’s right. I’m sure someone would have found her and let us know, Amber.” Dad frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe she is lost, though. She’s only little – she could just have got confused about where she was going. How about I have another quick look along the street?”

When Dad came back a while later, he had to admit that he hadn’t seen any sign of Cleo, either. As Amber picked at her dinner, she kept thinking of the open cat food pouch, which Mum had folded over and put in the fridge. Cleo must be so hungry, wherever she was.

“Try not to worry, Amber,” Mum said, as she turned off Amber’s light at bedtime. “She’ll probably be back in the morning.”

“You’re not sure…”

Mum sighed. “No, I can’t be absolutely sure. I really do think she will be, though.”

Amber pulled the duvet over her head. She was desperate to sleep so that she could wake up and find Cleo stomping up and down her bed, purring and mewing until Amber got up and fed her her breakfast. But she lay awake for what seemed like hours, imagining the kitten hungry or lonely or, worst of all, hurt.

Cleo woke the next morning feeling stiff and cold. She had slept on the pile of sacks, but they weren’t very comfortable, not compared to her soft basket. She was also desperately hungry. She had never gone for so long without a meal – or without Amber to stroke her and fuss over her and play with her.

She sat up, shaking out her paws, and licked at the fur on her shoulders and neck. She felt so dusty and dirty in here. But washing only made her realize how much she needed a drink of water.

Cleo froze suddenly, with one paw lifted ready to sweep over her ear – she could hear footsteps. Someone was coming! She ducked behind a large crate and watched eagerly as the van doors swung open. Hands reached into the van and a box of tools clanked down loudly. Cleo edged forward. She crept round the boxes until she was just by the doors and waited for the footsteps to move further away again. Her heart was galloping – this was her chance!

Cleo jumped down on to the road and scurried under the van. She needed to stop and think about what to do next. She had hoped that once she was out of the van she would see her house, her garden wall and maybe even Amber. Although she knew that the van had moved, it had no windows in the back, and she didn’t really understand that it had travelled from one place to another. So she was deeply confused when she realized that she was somewhere different – somewhere that did not smell familiar at all. Cleo peered out from round the back wheel of the van, looking up and down the road. She was lost.