The Perfect Kitten Read online

  “That’s a good idea,” Chris agreed. “There are lost cat websites as well – we can add her to those. And if she’s still missing tomorrow, we’ll make some posters.”

  “Tomorrow?” Abi heard her voice go high and squeaky. She’d been sure that they would get Flower back that day. They had to. She couldn’t imagine her tiny little kitten outside on her own all night.

  “We need to go home and have something to eat, Abi,” Chris said gently. “It’s nearly six and we haven’t spoken to anyone else who’s seen her. We can come out again after that but it’ll be getting dark soon.”

  “She’ll be easy to see in the dark,” Abi said stubbornly, thinking of Flower’s pure-white fur.

  “I know – it’s just so hard when we can’t call for her.” Chris looked around, frustrated. “She could be right here, waiting for us to find her.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “Sorry.” He gave Abi a hug. “Come on. Let’s go and get some dinner. Mum sent me a text to say it’s ready.”

  “OK. But I’m coming out to look again afterwards.”

  Chris nodded. “We will.”

  In the end, Ruby wanted Chris to read her a bedtime story and she was so miserable about Flower being missing that it was easier not to argue with her. So after Abi nibbled a bit of pasta, Mum went out with her to look again instead. She got a torch from the kitchen drawer because it was just starting to get dark.

  They walked down the street, stopping to tap on gateposts and stamp their feet outside each garden. But no little white shape dashed out to meet them and Abi’s heart seemed to sink a little bit more with every house they passed. It was sitting somewhere on top of her stomach now and she felt sick with worry.

  “I wonder if we should call the shelter,” Mum said as they reached the supermarket at the end of the road. “Just in case someone’s found Flower and handed her in.”

  “But then they’ll know we didn’t look after her properly,” Abi whispered.

  “Oh Abi, love. I’m sure they won’t think that. We’ve done everything they said…”

  “Except we let her out!” Abi gasped. She’d been trying so hard not to cry all this time, but now she couldn’t help it. “What if she gets run over? What if she already has been? They said it’s happened on this road before…”

  “Someone would have seen and told us,” Mum said firmly. “And I think the shelter will be closed now anyway. So we can’t ring them tonight. But I think we’ll have to tomorrow morning, if we haven’t found her by then.”

  Flower stayed huddled under the bushes. She had peeped out into the darkening alley a few times, but she could still see the blurred lines of cars shooting along the road at the end, and she remembered how one of them had come so close to her. She didn’t understand why that had happened, but she dreaded that rumbling rush and the blast of air through her whiskers. The bushes were safe, even if her fur was smeared with dust. Yes, she could just stay here…

  But if she did that, she wouldn’t be able to get home. Abi and Ruby would have put food out for her to find, and she was hungry. She had sniffed around in the dead leaves for something to eat but all she had found was a beetle that was crunchy and tasted strange when she’d tried to eat it. She was so, so hungry. She wanted her food and to have Ruby dance a toy about for her, and then to be lifted up on Abi’s lap to sleep.

  She had to get home. Even if meant going back to that road again.

  Abi lay in bed listening to Ruby’s snuffled hiccupy breathing. Ruby had been crying again, and she’d woken up when Abi came to bed and crawled in with her. She’d cried all over Abi’s pyjamas so Abi felt damp and even more miserable and she just couldn’t sleep.

  “Are you OK, Abi, love?” Mum whispered from the doorway. “Are you awake?”

  “A little bit,” Abi whispered back.

  “We’re going to bed now,” Mum said, coming to crouch down by Abi’s bed. “Do you want me to put Ruby back in her own bed?”

  “No, she’ll wake up. It’s OK.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find Flower tomorrow.” Mum stroked her hair. “Chris will look for her while we’re all at school.”

  “OK.” Abi didn’t know what else to say. She was sure she couldn’t spend the day doing literacy and maths while Flower was still missing. But her mum was a teacher – she was never going to agree to let Abi have the day off school to keep on looking.

  Mum shut the door gently and Abi wriggled a bit, trying to get comfortable next to Ruby. Her little sister snuffled in her sleep and half rolled over so that she was up against the wall. She took most of the duvet with her and Abi sighed and pulled her old cuddly fleece blanket up around her instead. It smelled comforting, like washing powder, and she snuggled it up by her face, sniffing it sadly.

  Then she stopped and sat up on her elbow, staring into the darkness.

  Smell!

  One of the websites she’d read had said deaf cats probably had better other senses than cats who could hear, because they depended on those senses more and practised using them. And Abi had definitely read somewhere else that one thing you could do for a lost cat was put their bed or their litter tray outside the house, because cats had brilliant noses and would smell their own scent and find their way home.

  So Flower would be even better at that than an ordinary cat, wouldn’t she?

  Abi slid carefully out of bed, trying not to wake Ruby, and wrapped her blanket round her shoulders. She hesitated on the landing outside Mum and Chris’s room – should she wake them? If she did, they’d probably go and put the litter tray outside and tell her to go back to bed.

  But Abi wanted to be there – she wanted to watch, in case it worked. What if they put the litter tray outside and went back to bed, and then Flower came? She wouldn’t understand why her litter tray was there and nobody was waiting for her. She might go away again.

  So Abi tiptoed down the stairs and into the kitchen to fetch the litter tray. Luckily no one had cleaned it out – it didn’t smell very much to Abi but she bet Flower would be able to smell it for miles. She hoped so anyway. This had to work. It had to.

  She unlocked the front door carefully and couldn’t stop herself glancing round to make sure Flower wasn’t racing down the hallway to see what was happening. “Stupid,” she muttered to herself. Then she slipped outside, shivering in the night air, and set the tray down on the path.

  She stood in the gateway, looking up and down the road, hoping to see a little white shape hurrying towards her through the darkness but there was no one around. It was eerie.

  Abi retreated back indoors so she could watch from the living-room window. She sat down on the sofa just next to where Flower liked to sit. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness now and she was sure she could see a few of Flower’s white hairs against the dark fabric. She knelt up, leaning her elbows on the back of the sofa, and stared determinedly out of the window.

  She was going to stay awake until Flower came home.

  Flower stepped out from underneath the bushes and looked down the alleyway. It was fully dark now and she’d been getting colder and colder huddled there. She felt stiff, and slow, and she wasn’t sure she could run away if one of those rumbling things came near her again. But to get back home she supposed she would have to go along the road and risk it. She padded down the dark alley and then flinched as something ran in front of her. She had a moment’s glimpse of white teeth gleaming and a massive paw swept the air in front of her nose, cuffing her and knocking her sideways. She jumped and twisted and rolled over, landing half on her side as the creature loomed over her. Then it darted away.

  Flower lay crouched and gasping in the dust, making herself as small as she could, wondering if the creature was going to come back. What was it? Another cat? It must have been. The smell seemed right, but it had been so much larger than she was. She wasn’t sure if she should stay still, or run, or try to hide. But the cat seemed to have moved on and even though there were scents of other animals a
round, there was nothing else nearby.

  At last she began to move forward again, creeping cautiously along the alleyway to the road. And then she stopped, almost forgetting how much the larger cat had scared her. She had expected the road to be busy and frightening. She had been steeling herself for the speed of the cars and the way they made the air whoosh past her whiskers.

  She hadn’t expected to be lost.

  Which way should she turn out of the alleyway? Which way was home? Which way back to Abi and Ruby? Flower felt the fur rising along her spine again and her tail fluffing up in panic. She was lost and there were more cats around – she could smell them. She was in their territory. Her territory was the house, and her basket, and the cat tree, and Abi. She was in the wrong place.

  Flower hurried out of the alley and stood on the pavement, sniffing anxiously for the other cats’ scent. She needed to get out of here. She had been lucky to be left alone all that time she was hidden under the bushes. But which way should she go now?

  Her ears flattened against her skull as she realized that she needed to go towards the rumbling, shaking road, the busier road that she had run down. Home was that way, however much she hated the thought of it.

  Whiskers bristling, she scurried down the street, darting along the innermost edge of the pavement in the shadow of the garden walls. When she came to the corner, she peered cautiously around at the cars speeding along the bigger road. Then she pressed herself against the wall with a mew of fright as a car turned into the side road towards her. But it rumbled on past without coming any closer.

  Which way? Flower huddled against the wall, trying to stay calm and ignore the instinct inside that told her to just run and run, to get away from the cars. But that wasn’t going to get her back to Abi and Ruby. After a few moments, she grew a little more used to the cars, and her fur began to lay flat again. She turned her head, trying to scent the way back home.

  There was something… Flower grimaced, opening her mouth and curling her muzzle back over her teeth to smell better. She could smell herself. Her home – her territory. She bolted along the pavement, following the scent blowing on the wind. She was getting closer, the smell was stronger and she could feel it – she was nearly home.

  At last – there it was! Her litter tray. But outside the house, not where it was meant to be. Flower padded into the front garden, sniffing at the litter tray cautiously. What was it doing out here? And how was she going to get into the house? She went over to sniff at the door – this was the way she had come out, carried in that bag. But now it was shut fast and it didn’t move even when she scrabbled and mewed.

  Flower sat down on the doorstep feeling cold and even hungrier now that she was so close to her food bowl. She mewed again, even louder, but still no one came.

  Was there another way she could get in? Wearily, she turned and walked back down the path, looking at the big pot of flowers by the front door and the window up above. She knew that window – it was where she sat to watch the street and the people passing by. Except now she was on the other side, looking in…

  She sprang up on to the edge of the flowerpot and made a scrabbly jump on to the windowsill. Then she peered through the glass. There was the sofa… Flower mewed loudly in frustration and then pressed her nose closer towards the glass.

  Abi was there! She was asleep, her head pillowed on the back of the sofa, on the other side of the glass.

  Flower stood up on her back paws, mewing and mewing, batting at the glass with her front ones. She could see Abi – so why wouldn’t Abi wake up and notice her?

  Abi was dreaming she was chasing down the road after her little white kitten, always just too far away to catch her before she disappeared. She was calling and calling, but all the time she knew it was useless – Flower couldn’t hear her. It was heartbreaking. Flower was so frightened. Abi could hear her mewing in the dream and the noise was frantic. Flower was racing so fast that her paws were thudding on the ground…

  Abi blinked and sat up a little, dazed with sleep. She had been dreaming that Flower was lost. No… She swallowed miserably. That wasn’t a dream, her kitten really was lost.

  She looked around, confused about where she was – and then she remembered. The litter tray outside. She had been trying to give Flower a scent to follow… Abi shook her head, trying to wake herself up properly. She hadn’t meant to go to sleep and she could still hear the mewing from her dream. It was even getting louder and she could hear the thumping paws too…

  “Flower?” Abi stared. Her kitten was there on the other side of the window, paws scrabbling eagerly, her mouth wide open in a mew.

  Abi jumped off the sofa, trailing her blanket, and raced for the front door, fumbling with the locks. At last she pulled it open and Flower darted in, purring. She stood up, patting at Abi’s knees with her little white paws until Abi picked her up and snuggled them both in the blanket.

  Abi blinked as the landing light went on and the glow spread down the stairs.

  “Mummy!” Ruby called from the top of the staircase. “Dad! Abi’s found Flower!” She stumbled down to hug Abi and stroke Flower’s nose.

  “She came back,” Abi told her little sister. “She’s so clever – she followed her own smell. Oh, she must be hungry.” She tapped her mouth – the food sign they always used to show Flower it was time for a meal – and the white kitten stared back at her seriously. Then she lifted her paw and tapped it against her own mouth.

  “She did the sign!” Ruby gasped.

  “She can’t have done…” Abi looked at Flower and tapped her mouth again.

  The kitten patted her own mouth with her paw and then wriggled out of Abi’s arms. She jumped to the floor and dashed into the kitchen to stand by her food bowl.

  Abi grabbed one of the pouches from the cupboard and emptied it into the bowl and the two girls crouched by the food to watch Flower eat. Abi could hear Mum and Chris coming downstairs, and then Ruby dash out to tell them about Flower signing back.

  “I’m so glad you found your way home,” she whispered to Flower as the kitten licked the last bits of food from round the edges of her bowl. “You’re so clever. But please don’t ever do that again. And we’ll be so careful too.”

  Flower padded towards her and climbed up into Abi’s lap, licking lazily at one paw and sweeping it around her whiskers. Then she looked up at Abi with her huge blue eyes and began to purr.

  Caitlin twirled the end of her ponytail around her finger and tugged at it. She always did that when she was worried. Everyone else in class sounded really excited about coming up with ideas for a charity for her school’s Community Week, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t think of anything. Her friend Lily was so enthusiastic she was waving her hands around and talking so fast Caitlin could hardly understand the words.

  “The stables where I go riding! We could help them! They’re part of this Riding for the Disabled charity, loads of people go there. I even helped last week, it was brilliant! Sometimes it’s children who are usually in a wheelchair, but they give them special saddles and it’s so amazing to watch. It even seems like the horses know to be careful.”

  Caitlin nodded. That did sound pretty amazing. In fact, it was obviously a fabulous idea. She gave a tiny sigh. Everyone had been asked to think of a charity that the school might like to support. They were supposed to find out about the charity as their homework over the next two weekends and present the idea to their class. Then each class would vote for their favourite and the staff would pick the final choice. But that meant she had to think of a charity and she didn’t know where to start.

  Of course she’d heard of the RSPCA and Guide Dogs for the Blind. But James who sat on the next table was already talking about guide dogs, and how his next-door neighbours looked after guide dog puppies and they had to learn that they weren’t allowed to chase his cat. So that was no good…

  Caitlin smiled and nodded at Lily, but she wasn’t actually listening to her friend going on about the ponie
s at the riding school any more. She was thinking about having to stand up in front of the class and talk. Caitlin wasn’t looking forward to it one bit. She didn’t like people staring at her. Miss Lewis was always telling her she had to talk more in class, but Caitlin tried her best not to. What if she said something silly and everyone laughed?

  Caitlin glanced around – everyone was talking at once and the classroom was buzzing. It was as if every single person there had an idea, except for her. Even Sam Marsh, who never did any homework and had pretended that he had a sprained wrist and couldn’t write for two whole days last week, was bouncing up and down in his chair. He was telling all his mates about his fantastic plan. It was something to do with the charity his football club supported, which sent footballs and sports equipment to children in Africa.

  Miss Lewis was having a very serious-sounding talk with Amy and Tayla about the hospice where Amy’s gran was being looked after and where Tayla’s mum worked as a nurse, saying of course they could do it together.

  Maybe she could share Lily’s riding charity, Caitlin wondered. But that wouldn’t really be fair – it was Lily’s idea.

  “So what do you think you’ll do?” Lily asked, finally running out of clever ponies to tell Caitlin about.

  “I don’t know yet…” Caitlin murmured vaguely. “I suppose I’ll think of something. Maybe an animal charity?”

  Lily nodded enthusiastically. “I read about a donkey sanctuary in my animals magazine. You could choose that.”