The Rescued Kitten

  For the real Edie and Barbie. Thank you so much for telling me your wonderful story.

  www.hollywebbanimalstories.com

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Extract

  Collect them all

  Biography

  Copyright

  “This week seems to have gone on for ages. I’m so glad it’s the weekend.” Edie rolled her shoulders under the straps of her school bag and gave a huge sigh.

  Layla nodded. “I know. Sometimes I think Mr Bennett makes Fridays hard on purpose. He knows we all just want to get home. We did too much writing today, way too much.” She shuddered.

  Edie giggled. “And too much thinking. Are you doing anything this weekend? Want to come over to mine tomorrow?”

  Layla nodded. “Sounds great. I’ve got swimming tonight but nothing else.”

  The two girls lived almost next door to each other, in a group of houses that had once been old farm buildings. Each house had its own little garden at the back, but there was a shared courtyard in the middle of the houses, which meant there was usually a group of children around.

  Up until this year, one of their mums or dads had always walked them to school, but luckily for Edie and Layla, a footpath led from their houses along the edge of some fields to the main village, where their school was. Now they were in Year Five, they were allowed to walk there and back by themselves.

  The girls weren’t far from home, following the footpath past a wheat field. They were keeping to the side, in the shelter of the hedge, out of the spitting rain. It was close to the end of the summer term but it had been a damp sort of day, not very summery at all.

  “Is that a bird?” Edie asked, stopping suddenly.

  “Where?” Layla stopped, too, peering up the track. They quite often saw pheasants stalking across the path, or rabbits. But she couldn’t see anything now.

  “I’m sure I can hear a noise.” Edie turned round slowly, trying to work out where it was coming from. Maybe it was a bird that had fallen out of its nest. It was a bit late in the year for nesting birds, but she knew some birds laid more eggs after their first chicks had flown. So it could be a fledgling stuck on the ground. “A squeaking sound. Can’t you hear it?” She crouched down. The noise seemed to be coming from somewhere to the side of the path.

  “Oh… Yeah, I think so…” Layla crouched, too, frowning a little.

  “I think it was coming from the hedge. But it’s stopped now…” Edie could feel her heart starting to thump harder. When she’d first heard the noise, it had just been something she’d wanted to investigate, but now she was worried. The squeaking had sounded thin and weak and now it had stopped, as though whoever was making it had given up – like they didn’t even have the strength to ask for help any more.

  “I’m pretty sure it was over here,” Edie murmured, leaning in and parting the long damp grass. There was a hedge of straggly hawthorn bushes growing beyond the grass and wild flowers.

  “Mind the wire,” Layla said, looking over Edie’s shoulder. “There’s barbed wire under those bushes, I can see it. Don’t get scratched.”

  Edie nodded. “I’ll be careful. Oh! Did you hear that?”

  Another tiny, breath-like squeak rang out. There definitely was something in the hedge, something that sounded little and lost.

  “What is it?” Layla asked, in a worried voice.

  Edie carefully pulled back the prickly branches and the two girls peered in.

  “Oh no…” Layla whispered.

  Under the branches of the hedge, dangling from the strands of barbed wire, was a limp little bundle of ginger fur.

  The kitten could hear something coming. She didn’t know that she was hearing children’s voices – she didn’t know what people were, she had never met any. She only knew her mother, her brother and her sisters, and that they had left her here. She didn’t understand what was happening now. Could it be her mother coming back to find her? It didn’t sound like her mother. She moved softly, quickly, not like this – not with noise and heavy footsteps. The kitten wriggled a little, unsure whether she should try again to free herself before this strange thing came any closer. But she couldn’t move. She was trapped and every time she tried to pull herself away from the thing that was holding her, she felt weaker and weaker.

  She needed help.

  But if it wasn’t her mother, what was it? The kittens had heard foxes and other animals sniffing around outside the hollow tree where their mother had made her little den, but they didn’t know what the creatures were. They were so little that their mother was the only thing they really knew – the warmth of her curling up around them, her milk and the gentle way she licked them clean.

  It must be her mother coming back to find her, the kitten decided. Her mother wouldn’t abandon her like this. The kitten tried again to wriggle, and then mewed, as loud as she could. Find me, help me, take me home, I’m frightened!

  Even though it was her loudest mew, the sound was still very faint. Hardly more than a squeak. She tried again, squeaking and tugging back against the wire as hard as she could. It bounced a little and she squeaked once more, with pain this time as the long fur on the back of her neck pulled and the wire pressed into her skin.

  The noise was coming closer and she twisted her body, pulling to try and see what was making it, still calling faintly to her mother. But instead of a cat hurrying to rescue her, the kitten saw two frightened, wide-eyed faces. She wrenched at the wire again and the cut on her neck went deeper. It hurt and she sagged down miserably. She was terrified and so, so tired. She didn’t understand. All she could do was close her eyes and hope that whatever this was would go away and then her mother would come.

  “A kitten!” Edie breathed. “I thought it had to be a bird…”

  Layla nodded. “Is it stuck?”

  “Yeah, poor little thing.” Edie wriggled a bit closer into the hedge, ignoring the thorny branches catching on her jacket and tangling in her hair. “I think it’s her long fur – she’s got it all tangled up in the barbed wire. Oh, poor baby, she’s actually cut her neck on it, too.”

  “Can you get her out?” Layla asked. “Do you want me to lift up the wire or something?”

  Edie sat back on her heels for a moment. “I’m just thinking. Maybe we should go and fetch my mum? She’ll know how to rescue the kitten without hurting her.” She looked worriedly at the tiny kitten, wondering what to do. What she wanted was to get her off the wire as quickly as possible. She seemed so small and fragile, stuck there, and the cut on her neck looked horrible. Edie’s mum and dad were both vets, so it wasn’t as if Edie hadn’t seen sick animals before. Quite often if no one was able to look after a sick cat or dog at the surgery, Mum or Dad would bring them home, and Edie loved the chance to fuss over them and pretend she had a pet of her own. But she’d never seen a creature look so feeble and so clearly in pain.

  As Edie looked at her, the kitten opened her eyes – tiny round green eyes – and stared back. She mewed, or at least she tried to but no sound came out. She didn’t even have the strength left to mew, Edie realized.

  “No, we need to get her out of there right now,” she muttered. “She’s so weak. We need to get her back home so Mum can have a look at her.” She reached tentatively towards the kitten, wondering if the little thing would scratch or bite – not to be nasty, just because she was so scared. But when Edie touched the clump of fur that was twisted up in the teeth of the wire, the kitten didn’t try to figh
t. She just shuddered a little and opened her mouth in another heart-breaking silent mew.

  Edie tried to pull at the clump of fur, but it was stuck so tightly that it didn’t budge and she could feel the kitten flinching. “It’s no good, I’m only hurting her,” she whispered, looking round at Layla anxiously. “What are we going to do?”

  “Scissors! I’ve got scissors in my pencil case!” Layla shrugged off her backpack and fished inside for her pencil case. “Here, look, and they’re nice and sharp. You can just cut the fur away.” She passed a pair of scissors to Edie and Edie leaned in closer to the kitten.

  The tiny creature opened her eyes again, but when she saw Edie looming towards her, and the shiny blades of the scissors, she started to struggle.

  “It’s OK,” Edie whispered. “We’re trying to get you out of there.”

  “Is it working?” Layla asked worriedly, peering over Edie’s shoulder.

  “Yes … nearly there.” Edie snipped at the ginger fur. She cupped her left hand underneath the kitten to catch her and cut through the last chunk of fur. The kitten slumped into her hand, limp and floppy like a beanbag toy.

  Edie passed the scissors to Layla and crept backwards, the kitten cupped in her hands. The tiny thing stirred and wriggled a little as she was brought out of the shadow of the hedge and into the light. The two girls stared down at her.

  “She’s so little,” Layla whispered. “What’s she doing here on her own?”

  “I don’t know.” Edie cuddled the kitten against her school dress for a minute, trying to reach round to her backpack. “Ugh, I can’t do this with one hand – can you get my cardigan out? We can wrap her up in it – I know it’s not all that cold but you’re supposed to keep tiny kittens warm and it was chilly under that hedge.”

  Layla found the cardigan and Edie wrapped the kitten up in it, so that just her little ginger face was peeping out. Her eyes were closed again and Edie was sure that wasn’t a good sign. “She’s got a cut on her front paw, too, did you see? Maybe she was trying to claw her way out of the wire. Come on – we’d better not run and bounce her around but we can walk fast.”

  Layla nodded and they hurried along the path with the kitten in Edie’s arms.

  “Mum! Mum!” Edie rang the doorbell for a second time and called in through the open front window.

  “I was in the kitchen…” Edie’s mum pulled open the door, rolling her eyes at the two girls. “I didn’t take that long!”

  “No, I know, sorry – Mum, look!” Edie held out the sad little bundle in her arms.

  “Oh my goodness. Where did you find a kitten?” Edie’s mum took the cardigan and looked down worriedly. “Was it hit by a car?” Then she looked up, confused. “No, you’d have gone to Dad at the surgery if you were by the road. So what happened?”

  “We found her in a hedge. She was caught on some barbed wire. I had to cut her fur with Layla’s scissors. Is she going to be OK?”

  Edie’s mum gently put the bundle on the kitchen table. The kitten was lying there, curled up on Edie’s cardigan, not moving at all. Edie could just about see she was breathing but that was it.

  “I don’t know,” her mum said slowly. “She could have been there for a while, you see, and she’s very tiny. Maybe about five weeks old? That’s very small to be away from her mother. Edie, can you get me a cardboard box out of the garage? Not a massive one – just something we can make into a nice little nest for the kitten.”

  When Edie came back with the box she saw that her mum had found a hot-water bottle and was filling it up. “We need to get her nice and warm,” she explained. “Not too warm, though, we’ll wrap the bottle in a towel. Edie, could you—” but Edie was already racing up the stairs to the airing cupboard. Her mum padded out the box with the hot-water bottle and the towel, and gently lifted the kitten inside. “I’m pretty sure we’ve still got some of that kitten milk from the last time we had kittens here,” she murmured. Then she looked up at the girls. “Look, we’ll do the best we can, of course we will, but you have to understand, she’s very little and she’s injured and shocked. She might not have the strength to get through this.”

  Edie swallowed and nodded, and she felt Layla’s hand slip into hers. “We can try, though?” she whispered.

  Her mum nodded. “Definitely. Just … don’t get your hopes up too much.”

  The kitten blinked wearily. She was warm and she wasn’t being jogged about any more. She wasn’t caught up in the wire now either, she was somewhere soft and comfortable. That was good. The kitten flexed her tiny claws in and out of the towel, and a shiver ran over her. But her mother still hadn’t come to find her and she was so hungry. And the wound on her neck hurt, and so did her paw. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to walk on it, even if she had the energy to try.

  What was happening? Where was her mother and why hadn’t she come back?

  Layla had to go home to get ready for her swimming lesson but she made Edie promise to call her later. “I still can’t believe we found her,” she murmured, as she backed reluctantly out of Edie’s kitchen. “You will tell me what happens, won’t you? I’ll be home by six.”

  “I promise,” Edie agreed. “We’d never have got her untangled from the wire without your scissors. She’s your rescued kitten, too.” She waved to Layla and hurried back into the kitchen. The kitten was snuggled into the towel that Edie’s mum had put on the floor of the box, covering the hot-water bottle. Edie’s mum had dressed her cut leg, and the bandage looked huge on her tiny paw.

  “I’ve got that bear you can heat up in the microwave like a hot-water bottle,” Edie suggested. “Shall I get it? The bottle isn’t covering the whole box. There’s a cold bit on one side.”

  Edie’s mum shook her head. “No, that’s good. She’s too little for her body to warm up or cool down by itself, so the box needs a warm side and a cooler one. Once she’s feeling warmer she’ll move herself away from the hot-water bottle. Hopefully, anyway.” She was watching the kitten, frowning a little as the tiny creature lay slumped on the towel.

  “Can’t we give her some milk?” Edie asked. “Wouldn’t that make her feel better?”

  Her mum nodded. “It would. I just want to wait a little bit – she’s so floppy, I think she’s still cold. If she’s been under that hedge for a while, she’ll have lost all her body heat. Ah, look… I think she’s rousing.”

  The kitten was still flopped on the towel but she’d raised her head and had turned towards the sound of Edie’s mum’s voice. She definitely looked more awake. And this time, when she tried to mew, she managed to make a noise. A definite, hungry little meow.

  “OK!” Edie’s mum laughed. “Let’s see if we can get some milk into her.” She picked up the box of milk powder and a little feeding bottle that she’d found in the cupboard. “This is kitten milk – it’s meant to be like her mum’s milk, it has all the right nutrients. If she’s five weeks old, she should still be feeding from her mum. She’ll be starting to eat solid food as well, but we’ll stick with milk for now.”

  She spooned milk powder into the bottle and added warm water, stirring it around.

  “That isn’t very much,” Edie pointed out.

  “I know – but she may not want to take it. And we can always make more. Later on we’ll weigh her, so we know exactly how much milk she should have but let’s see what she thinks of the bottle first. Some kittens don’t really like bottles, it probably feels a bit weird.”

  Edie watched anxiously as her mum lifted the kitten out of the box.

  “You sit down,” her mum suggested. “We’ll put her on your knee and I’ll hold the bottle.” She laid the kitten on Edie’s lap, stretched out on her front so she looked like a furry ginger frog. Then she tickled the kitten under her little white chin and laughed when the kitten stretched her head up. “That’s it, sweetie pie. Here. What’s this?” Very gently, Mum squeezed the bottle so a little milk dribbled out on to the kitten’s neon-pink nose and dripped into her mouth.
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  The kitten blinked and then a darker pink tongue lapped out and licked the milk. She lifted up a paw eagerly, as if she was trying to grab the bottle, and Edie giggled in relief. She definitely liked the milk! Surely that was a good sign?

  “Here you go,” Edie’s mum murmured, pushing the bottle’s teat carefully into the kitten’s tiny mouth. “Try that.”

  The kitten wasn’t very good at it. She kept pawing at the bottle and accidentally pulling the teat out of her mouth, and she looked very grumpy about the whole thing, as though the milk just wasn’t happening fast enough.

  “Is she trying to hold on to the bottle?” Edie asked. She was still giggling. Even though she knew that she should be worried about the kitten’s cut neck and paw, and Mum had said that the kitten was too tiny to be away from her mother, she couldn’t help it. The kitten was just so funny.

  “No, I think she’s doing that because it’s what she’d do to her mother if she was feeding from her. Kittens knead at their mum’s teats to make the milk come faster.”

  “So she’s trying to get it to come out of the bottle quicker! Greedy,” Edie told the kitten, running one finger lightly down the fur on her back. It was the first time she’d stroked her, she realized. She loved stroking cats, but she’d been so busy rescuing this one, she hadn’t given her even a little stroke till now.

  “Once we’ve fed her, we need to clean up her wounds,” Edie’s mum said, gently moving the fur around the kitten’s cut neck. “Actually, you know what, Edie, you hold the bottle. I’ll clean them up while she’s busy with the milk and then hopefully she won’t be upset about what I’m doing.”

  Edie watched worriedly as her mum got cotton wool and warm water, and started to clean the cut on her neck. Surely it would hurt? But the kitten only twitched a little and went back to chewing on the bottle of milk.