The Loneliest Kitten Read online

  For everyone at Birch Copse Primary School

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  About Holly Webb

  Copyright

  “Take off your trainers!” Mum yelped as Darcy and Will reached the back door.

  “Sorry, Mum.” Darcy kicked off her trainers and held on to Will’s arm so he could do the same. Even though it was the beginning of the summer holidays, the weather wasn’t very summery.

  “The garden’s really wet and it’s all muddy in front of the football goal…”

  “I can see that. Will looks like he’s been rolling in it.”

  “I was the goalkeeper!” Will said enthusiastically.

  Dad came into the kitchen and stared at Darcy and Will. “Wow. What happened to you two?”

  “We were playing football.” Darcy frowned. “You’re home early.”

  “That’s why I called you in,” said Mum. She had an ‘I’ve got a secret’ face on, Darcy thought. “You’d better go and get changed. And Will, I think you probably need a shower. We’re going on a trip, somewhere really exciting, but it’s a surprise.”

  “I’m here so I can come too,” Dad added. “I wish I’d been here earlier, then I could have joined in your football game. I’m nearly as good a goalie as Will!”

  “Nobody is better than me,” Will said smugly. “I saved almost all of Darcy’s shots.”

  Darcy made a face over the top of Will’s head to say that he hadn’t really and Mum smiled. Will was actually very good for someone who was only six. He was tall too – not that much shorter than Darcy, and she was three years older.

  “Go and get changed, Darcy,” said Mum. “And don’t worry, there’s no need to dress up. Shorts and a T-shirt are fine.”

  “Come on, Will, I’ll turn the shower on for you,” Dad suggested.

  Darcy could hear Will trying to quiz Dad as they went upstairs. “Where are we going? Will there be pizza? Can I wear my Batman outfit?” She was curious too. They did sometimes go on surprise days out in the summer holidays – the best one had been to the seaside, with fish and chips on the beach – but that was usually for the whole day, not in the middle of the afternoon.

  She hurried into her bedroom and changed out of her muddy tracksuit bottoms and football shirt. Luckily Mum had put her hair in Dutch plaits that morning and it still looked OK, even after playing football. She just had to scrub away the mud from under her fingernails.

  Will was back downstairs soon after, looking very clean and a bit damp.

  “Where are we going?” he kept asking as Mum and Dad hurried them out to the car.

  “Shh,” Darcy whispered. “It’s a surprise. Surprises are good. Don’t spoil it.”

  “I want to know,” her little brother muttered crossly. “I don’t like surprises.”

  “Five minutes,” Dad promised from the driver’s seat.

  Darcy and Will peered eagerly out of the car windows, trying to think where they might be going – Darcy thought they were quite close to where her friend Emma lived. Then a few minutes later Dad pulled up outside a long low building.

  Darcy read the sign outside: Haven Animal Rescue. She unclipped her seat belt and reached over to grab Dad’s shoulder. “Are we … do you mean … are we really—” She swallowed hard and started again.

  “Are we going to get a cat?”

  “A cat!” Will squeaked.

  Darcy had been trying to persuade her parents to get a pet for ages. She hadn’t been sure whether they should get a cat or a dog.

  Emma had a dog and she kept telling Darcy about all the naughty things he had done. Buster had eaten two of Emma’s lunch boxes (not what was inside them, the actual box!) and her favourite flip-flops. Emma still loved him loads, but he was a menace.

  Darcy and Will’s gran loved cats and she had two beautiful ones. When they went to see Gran, if Darcy was very lucky, Pippin or Smudge might get on her knee. Darcy loved it when they sat there and let her stroke them. It would be amazing to have a cat to make a fuss of all the time. A cat of their own might even decide to sleep on Darcy’s bed.

  Mum loved cats too, but Dad wasn’t so keen – he said they would need a lot of looking after.

  “I thought you’d said no!” Darcy wrapped her arms round Dad’s neck and hugged him.

  “Well, I realized it’s Mum who’s at home most of the time,” Dad pointed out. “She’ll end up looking after it, so she should be the one to make the decision.”

  Dad was right, Darcy thought. Her mum worked from home in a little office under their stairs.

  “But we’ll help,” she said eagerly. “We can feed the cat. And I can vacuum up the fur.” Cat hair all over the carpets had been one of the things Dad was concerned about. “I like vacuuming,” she assured him.

  “Can we go and see the cat now?” Will begged and Dad laughed and opened the car door.

  “Come on then!”

  “We made an appointment to see a litter of kittens,” Mum explained as they went into the building. “There are four of them, and they’re old enough to be rehomed now. When you went round to Gran’s the other day, a lady from the shelter came to check the house to make sure we weren’t too close to any busy roads or anything like that. They rang me yesterday to say we can definitely have a kitten! But –” she gave Darcy and Will a serious look – “they only rehome pets to people who have older children, because you need to be sensible to be around a cat or a dog. So you must show them how sensible you can be. No arguing!”

  Will’s eyes widened and he nodded seriously.

  “We’ll be good,” Darcy promised. She and Will had got into a fight at Gran’s house once, because Will wouldn’t stop tickling her. She’d been really cross and yelled at him, and Pippin had run away and hidden under Gran’s bed. It was ages until she would come out and Darcy had felt so guilty. She couldn’t help arguing with Will sometimes, but she definitely didn’t want to upset a kitten.

  “Hi, I’m Lucy Adams.” Mum smiled at the woman behind the reception desk. “We’re here to see some kittens.”

  “That’s right, we’re expecting you. Wait here for a minute and Jesse will come and collect you – he’s one of our staff. We have a meeting room where you can get to know the kittens before you choose.”

  Choose! Darcy looked around the reception area at the photos of cats and dogs on the walls. They were beautiful and all of them were staring hopefully out of the picture, as if begging to be taken home.

  How were they going to choose which kitten should be theirs?

  A young man in a green fleece with the Haven logo came in and grinned at Darcy and Will. “Hi – you’re here to meet the kittens?”

  “That’s right.” Mum squeezed Darcy’s hand. “We’re really excited.”

  “Great. They’re in our meeting room down here.” Jesse led them along a corridor lined with more gorgeous photos and opened a door. “It’s OK, they’re shut in,” he explained as Dad peered in, looking a bit worried. “They aren’t going to make a run for it.”

  “Oh, look…” Mum said softly as she went in. “Aren’t they sweet, Darcy?”

  But Darcy didn’t say anything. She was too busy watching. Jesse was unlatching a wire crate and three tiny kittens were starting to nose curiously at the door. They climbed and wriggled and stomped all over each other, trying to get out and see what was going on.

  “Look at the ginger one!” Will gasped as a ginger kitten launched itself over the top of two tabbies, bouncing on
to the floor. It sniffed nosily at Dad’s trainers and then batted one paw at the dangling laces.

  The tabby kittens stumbled out behind the ginger one and gazed thoughtfully up at Mum and Darcy.

  “Do they know we want to take one of them home?” Darcy whispered to her mum.

  “You’re actually the first family these kittens have met,” Jesse said, “so they probably don’t know what’s going on. We’ve had them for a few weeks, with their mum. We’re planning to rehome her with one of the kittens, and the others either on their own or together.”

  “Just one for us!” Dad said anxiously. “We’re not very experienced pet owners. We only want one kitten.”

  Darcy closed her mouth firmly. She’d been just about to say that maybe they should have two kittens, but she didn’t want to put Dad off.

  “Aren’t there four of them?” she asked Jesse, looking around the room. There were definitely only three kittens out. The two tabbies were still by the crate, watching cautiously, and the ginger one was now trying to climb up Dad’s jeans.

  Jesse nodded. “Look…” he murmured, and Darcy crouched down to look inside the wire crate. It was padded with a rumpled fleece blanket and peering out from under the folds was a small, worried-looking tabby and white face.

  The kitten had the pinkest nose that Darcy had ever seen on a cat. It was such a bright pink that it almost looked like it would glow in the dark. The kitten stared back at Darcy with round, yellow-green eyes and then it stepped out from under the folds of the blanket. Now Darcy could see that it looked different to the other two tabbies. They were tabby all over, with grey-brown paws. This kitten was tabby with a neat white shirt front and sparklingly white paws. It had a very cute white chin too, as if it was white with a tabby mask over its eyes and ears.

  “Oh, that’s a very sweet kitten,” Mum said and Jesse laughed.

  “I know – I love his markings.”

  The tabby and white kitten edged slowly out of the crate and then sat down in front of it. He still looked nervous – perhaps he was scared of the room full of people, Darcy thought. Will was so desperate to make Jesse think he was sensible that he hadn’t said a word, but even though they were being quiet, they were still very big compared to a kitten.

  The kitten lifted one of his front paws, licked at it and passed it vaguely in the direction of his ears. Darcy had a feeling he wasn’t really trying to wash, it was just giving him something to do, so he could pretend he hadn’t noticed all these people staring at him.

  Now that he was washing, Darcy noticed the underside of his paws – the pads were the same neon-pink as his nose. They stood out brightly against the white fur, like little pink beans.

  “He’s gorgeous,” she said, looking hopefully at Mum to see if she felt the same way. Maybe she’d fallen in love with one of the others?

  But Mum was looking at the kitten washing too, with the same sort of face that Darcy imagined she was making. “Isn’t he?” she agreed.

  “He’s washing his ears,” Will said in a tiny whisper. “He’s so clever!”

  Dad sighed. “I take it we’re having this one then?”

  “Don’t you like him?” Darcy asked indignantly.

  “Um… He’s definitely cute,” Dad admitted. “I’m just not a big cat person.”

  “Sorry,” Darcy said to Jesse, hoping this didn’t put him off them.

  “It’s OK.” Jesse grinned. “I’m pretty sure this one will win your dad over.”

  They walked back to the car with the kitten in a cat carrier – it had been in the boot of the car the whole time, but Darcy and Will hadn’t known. Mum told them she had been to the pet shop and bought it the same day the shelter had done the home check. She’d bought a cat basket, some food bowls and kitten food too. They were all hidden in the shed in the garden.

  “I haven’t got any toys or a collar yet, though. I thought you two would like to help choose those,” she said.

  “What will the kitten play with when we get home?” Will asked, frowning.

  “Kittens play with everything.” Mum laughed. “You saw that ginger one trying to eat Dad’s shoelaces. They like bits of string, balls of paper. Sunbeams even. Don’t worry, I expect our kitten will be too busy exploring to miss having any toys.”

  Our kitten. Darcy smiled – it sounded so good. She watched as Mum settled the cat carrier on the back seat between her and Will. Darcy could just see the kitten through the spaces in the sides. He was huddled up in a little ball at the end and he didn’t look very happy.

  “It’s OK,” Darcy whispered as Mum started the car. “I expect you don’t like being shut up in there. But we’ll be home soon and then you can get out.”

  From inside the carrier, the kitten heard her whispering, but he didn’t know what she meant. He didn’t like this. The carrier had been swinging about and now it was moving strangely, so that his insides felt like they were being left behind. The car lurched to a stop and the carrier juddered. The kitten slid forwards with a little mew of fright.

  The carrier had a soft blanket on the bottom, folded up like a cushion. He remembered a blanket like that from the crate back at the shelter. It was soft and warm, and inside it would be dark. He’d feel safe in there, he decided. He patted at the edge of the blanket with his claws, ruffling it up into a fold so he could sneak underneath. It made a cosy little cave and he crept inside.

  “I don’t think he liked being in the car,” Darcy said, looking worriedly at the small hump of blanket that was the kitten. “He mewed when we had to stop at the lights and then he hid in the blanket.” They had put the carrier down in the corner of the kitchen but the kitten didn’t seem to want to come out.

  “Poor little thing,” Mum said, crouching down to look at the rumpled blanket. “I did try to drive as slowly as I could. But I suppose he’s never been in a car before. He’ll be OK soon. Right now, though, I think we need to be patient and just leave him alone.”

  Darcy nodded. She knew Mum was right, even though she was desperate to play with the kitten. Jesse had told them that the kittens had been born at the shelter after their mum had been found abandoned. They’d never been anywhere else. Their kitten must feel like everything was different and scary. No wonder he wanted to stay wrapped up in a blanket.

  “Maybe he’ll come out if we put down food for him?” Will suggested hopefully.

  “He’s in a blanket!” Darcy pointed out. “He won’t see the food.”

  “But he might be able to smell it,” Mum said thoughtfully. “It’s worth a try. We want him to like being here, so feeding him would be a good start.”

  She fetched the bag of kitten food and shook some of the little biscuits into the kitten’s new bowl. It rattled as the biscuits fell in and Darcy saw the blanket twitch.

  The kitten was thinking. He knew that noise and he was hungry. But outside the warm, safe cocoon of blanket there were different smells and the oddness of being away from his mother and the other kittens. Did he want to come out?

  He was very hungry, though. He could smell the food now – the scent was creeping across the kitchen and it was making him feel even hungrier. His nose poked out from under the fold of blanket and he eyed the open door of the carrier. He could see the bowl right there, with the girl and boy sitting on the floor behind it.

  When they saw him watching, the girl patted the boy’s arm and they edged backwards, leaving a bit more space between them and the bowl. That was better. It wasn’t quite as scary if they weren’t so close.

  The kitten stumbled out over the folds of blanket and stood hesitantly in the doorway of the carrier. Then he crept over to the bowl and started to eat, keeping one eye on the children. It seemed ages since he’d last been fed and there was a good bowlful here. He had to go more slowly towards the end and he even left a few biscuits. He then sat down heavily and ran his paw over his whiskers.

  He could see the children looking at him. They seemed a lot less frightening now that they’d been sitting
still for so long and he was feeling much better after the food, although he was a bit sleepy. Thoughtfully, he padded towards them and sniffed at the girl’s hands. She was less scary than the boy since she kept so very still. The smaller boy wriggled. The girl didn’t move, even when the kitten licked at her fingers – she shivered a little, that was all.

  The kitten sat down. He was very full and he was getting sleepy, and the girl’s foot was in just the right place for his chin to lean on. He slumped against her and then, seconds later, he let out a tiny kitten snore.

  “Oh, Charlie! Where’s your collar gone?”

  “Not another one!” Mum turned round and Darcy held up the kitten to show her. Charlie nuzzled happily against her fingers.

  “Look – no collar.”

  “I don’t know how he does it.” Mum stared at Charlie and shook her head. “Monster,” she said lovingly. “It’s lucky I bought you a spare last time, isn’t it? Hold on to him a minute, Darcy, I’ll get the new one.”

  The kitten had settled in well after his shy start. He was funny and clever and Mum was right that he would play with anything. He adored Dad too. He seemed to know that Dad wasn’t as much of a cat fan so he had to be the perfect pet. Whenever Dad sat on the sofa, Charlie would appear as if by magic. Then he’d try to climb up the side of his jeans so he could collapse exhausted on Dad’s lap. Dad pretended it was nothing, but Darcy could tell he loved it. He’d stroke Charlie over and over, running one finger all the way down from the top of his head to his tail.

  They had argued for ages over what to call him. Will thought he ought to be called Mario, like the Nintendo character, but Darcy didn’t think he looked like a Mario. He needed something that was cuddly but showed his cheeky side too. Like the way he could get on to the kitchen table in less than ten seconds and drink the milk out of her cereal bowl before she was back from the fridge with a glass of juice.