Holly Webb - The Curious Kitten

“Do you want to go and deliver them now?” Mum asked. “I’ve got some time before I make dinner.”

“Please.” Amber hugged her. “Look, I’ve made enough for our road and Bramble Crescent. Cleo could have easily gone round into their gardens.”

Mum nodded and got out her phone. “I’ll just text Sara to tell her where we are.”

They set off down their road, taking turns to post the leaflets. It was surprisingly hard to push the flimsy sheets of paper through the letterboxes, and Amber hoped they wouldn’t just get squashed inside and missed.

They were halfway back down the other side of the road when Amber noticed that the builder who’d told her off was coming out of Jan’s house. She stopped, staring at him in panic. What if he told Mum about yesterday? Mum would be so cross. She posted the next few leaflets extra-slowly, hoping that he’d go back inside before they reached him. But he didn’t.

As they approached the house, Amber lurked behind Mum. Maybe the builder would think that this was another family looking for their lost cat. But she was pretty sure he knew exactly who she was.

“Hello!” Mum smiled at him. “We’re from across the road. Our kitten’s gone missing. Can I give you one of these, just in case you spot her? It’s got my number on. She’s been gone a couple of days now. Amber here’s really missing her.”

Amber’s eyes widened in panic. Now he was bound to say something…

“Of course,” the builder said. “Do you want to hand me a couple more? I can give them to the other guys. I’m Luke, by the way.” He smiled at Amber, and she wasn’t sure, but she thought he gave her just a hint of a wink, as if to say he’d keep her secret.

“This is my bedroom,” George explained to the kitten. Then he laughed to himself. “I know you don’t really understand a word I say,” he murmured. “You’re more bothered about the cheese than anything else, aren’t you? Here…” He grabbed a piece of paper from his desk and used it like a plate for his leftover sandwich.

“I can’t keep on giving you sandwiches,” he said. “It can’t be good for you to be living on my leftovers. But Mum would have seen me if I got you some of Pirate’s cat food.”

He sat there watching the kitten nibble her way through the sandwich. He hadn’t thought about keeping the kitten before. But could he? Of course the kitten might have a proper home where someone wanted her, even if she didn’t have a collar. Some cats just wouldn’t wear them. Pirate was an expert at taking them off – or he had been. They used to have to go on collar hunts in the garden, but Pirate didn’t go out much any more. He was fourteen, and his legs hurt. He spent most of his days asleep on someone’s bed. George really loved him, but Pirate had always seemed more like Mum’s cat. He didn’t play with George that much. Not like this bouncy little kitten… She could be his very own.

“You’ve been in my garden a whole day now,” George pointed out. “At least, I think you have. And you haven’t tried to go home. Do you like it better here, Patch, hmm?” But that didn’t mean the kitten hadn’t got an owner… Maybe she was just good at losing collars, too. George sighed. She didn’t really look like she had been living as a stray for a long time. She wasn’t skinny or grubby-looking. “I expect someone’s looking for you,” he admitted. “Well, if you were mine, I’d be making a lot more effort to find you. I reckon you’d be better off with me.”

The kitten gazed around George’s bedroom with interest and padded over to investigate his bookcase. She gazed up at it, wriggled her bottom a bit and made a flying leap up to the top. Then she stood there looking proud of herself.

Cleo sniffed at George’s Lego spaceship, and the fur rose a little along her spine. She liked this house, and she liked the boy. But there was something wrong. Cleo hadn’t shared a home with another cat since she left the shelter where she’d lived with her mother and the rest of her litter, but she was almost sure there was another cat here. That this house belonged to another cat. And perhaps the boy belonged to the other cat, too.

She nosed at the spaceship again, leaping back a little as it slid away on its wheels, and the boy leaped to catch it. Then Cleo jumped down again and wandered over to George’s bed. The other-cat smell was even stronger here. She backed away from the bed, her tail twitching nervously.

Just then the bedroom door swung open and the boy jumped. “Oh, Pirate, it’s only you! I thought it was Mum. Hey, don’t be like that…”

A huge black-and-white cat stood in the doorway, glaring at Cleo. His fat black tail was slowly fluffing up, getting even fatter as every hair stood on end. Pirate hissed, lowering his head to stare Cleo in the eyes.

Cleo felt her own fur rising up and she hissed, too – a thin, feeble noise compared to the sound the larger cat was making.

“Oh no,” George muttered. The kitten was crouched by his bed, looking terrified – but her tail was switching from side to side in just the same angry way that Pirate’s was.

“Pirate, she’s just a kitten.” He got up and tried to shoo Pirate out of his room, but Pirate wasn’t having any of it. He swerved round George and jumped at the smaller cat, sending her flying with a fat paw.

“No!” George yelled, panicking. He’d never expected this to happen. Pirate was so slow and sleepy, but now it was like he’d got ten years younger. Pirate was massive compared to the kitten – what if he really hurt the little thing? George reached down, trying to grab the kitten. He’d go and put her in the garden and shut Pirate in. But then he jumped back with a yelp. He’d got in between Pirate and the kitten, and there were claw marks all down the back of his hand, oozing thin red lines of blood.

George looked miserably at Pirate – he’d never seen him look so furious. But he supposed he should have realized. This was Pirate’s house, and another cat had suddenly turned up. Pirate was right to be hissing and spitting and clawing. Then he gasped as Pirate launched himself at the kitten, bowling her over with a swipe from his huge paw.

Cleo squealed in fright. This was nothing like the play fights she’d had with her brothers and sisters back at the shelter, and she didn’t know what to do. She made a desperate leap, scrabbling on to the windowsill.

Pirate sat below, staring up at Cleo, still making those horrible hissing sounds – but he couldn’t easily jump to that height any more.

Cleo didn’t know that, though. The window was only open a crack, but she just managed to shoot through the gap before George could grab her.

“Come back!” George wailed. His bedroom was at the side of the house, and the window looked out on to the two garages – theirs and next door’s. The kitten was teetering on the narrow windowsill.

“Come on, here, puss,” George called. He was trying to sound calm and coaxing, but his voice was trembling. The kitten hissed at him and jumped down on to the steeply sloping garage roof. She clung to the tiles, her fur all fluffed up and her eyes round with fear.