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After that first night, Milly settled in quickly. She didn’t stay confined to the kitchen for long – she was far too nosy. She missed her old home and all her brothers and sisters, but now she had a whole house to explore. She explored it properly, too – every surface, every shelf, every cupboard. She wasn’t big enough to climb the stairs at first, but whenever Tia and Christy were home, they were happy to carry her. And by the time she had been living with Tia’s family for a month, she was big enough to scramble up them by herself.

Milly’s favourite place was Tia and Christy’s room. It was full of toys to chase and boxes to wriggle in and out of. She was also fascinated by the ladder to Tia’s top bunk. Tia had carried her up there, but Milly wanted to be able to climb it on her own.

“What are you doing, kitten?” Tia said, laughing as she watched Milly from her desk. She was trying to do her homework, but Milly kept stealing her pencils and burying them under the bed.

Milly put her front paws on the first step– the ladder had flat, wide rungs, and it was easy enough to jump on to one. She managed to jump from the first step to the second. But then she wobbled and slid, and had to make a flying leap down on to Christy’s bed instead. Then she went prowling off through the soft toys, pretending that was what she had meant to do all along.

Tia wished she could play with Milly, but she had to finish her homework first.

It wasn’t until Christy came upstairs and let out a piercing shriek that Tia realized what Milly had been doing. One of Christy’s favourite toys was a feathery owl that Dad had brought back for her from a work trip. It always sat propped up at the side of her bed because it was made up of lots of tinyfeathers and it was a bit fragile.

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“Owly! She’s eaten Owly!” Christy howled.

Milly sat in the middle of the bed, looking rather confused. Christy did burst out crying every so often, she’d got used to that now. But she was being very loud and she was stamping about. Milly spat out a mouthful of the interesting feathers and slunk to the end of the bed, making for Tia.

“Whatever’s the matter?” Mum said, rushing in. “Oh my goodness. Christy, I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“He’s all eaten and ruined…” Christy sobbed.

“Tia, how on earth could you have let Milly do that?” Mum asked.

“I didn’t see! I was doing my homework. Sorry, Christy…” Tia picked Milly up, looking guiltily at her little sister. “Maybe we can glue the feathers back on.”

“You shouldn’t cuddle her,” Christy growled. “She’s a bad cat!”

“Oh no, she isn’t! She didn’t know.”

Milly snuggled closer into Tia’s school jumper, not liking the angry voices.

“You’re scaring her!” Tia said, and Christy wailed again.

“I don’t care! She broke Owly!”

“Take that cat downstairs, Tia,” Mum snapped. “Honestly, after the pavlova yesterday as well. I never thought a kitten could be so much trouble.”

“I wish we had a kitten that didn’t eat things!” Christy gulped.

Tia hurried down the stairs with Milly in her arms.“You are silly,” she muttered. “I love you climbing about and getting into everything, but the pavlova was a disaster.”

Mum had been making a lovely pudding to take to a friend’s house, and she’d left it out on the counter while she answered the door. She came back to find a very happy cat, and a lot less whipped cream on top of the pavlova. Mum had had to buy a pudding instead, although Tia was sure it would have been all right if Mum had just moved the raspberries around a bit.

“I think you’d better try and be perfectly behaved for the next few days,” she told Milly, as she put her in her basket. “You’re definitely not Mum or Christy’s favourite cat right now.”

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“You don’t think there’s anything I can do about Milly, then?” Tia asked Laura, sipping at her juice. It was the weekend, and she’d popped over to get some advice on Milly’s naughty tricks.

Laura shook her head slowly.“Not much. Just make her get down every time you see her somewhere she shouldn’t be. A lot of it’s simply that she’s a kitten. She will get better as she gets older. Charlie used to knock things over all the time, but he doesn’t do quite so much climbing now.”

Tia sighed. It didn’t look like there was an easy answer. “I guess I’m lucky she hasn’t really spoiled anything of mine yet. Well, she did eat my sandwiches yesterday while Mum was doing my packed lunch. But that’s not the same as Owly. Christy is still really upset. She says we should take Milly back and get a better-behaved cat.”

“I suppose the thing to do is make sure anything precious is put away,” Laura said. “And shut the doors if there are rooms you don’t want her in.”

“Mmmm,” Tia agreed. “It’s just Christynever shuts doors.”