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‘No,’ Aleksy said. ‘We wanted to talk to you about something.’

Claire led them into the kitchen, and I for one was eager to hear what they had to say.

‘So,’ Connie started. ‘We were wondering if we could ask your advice?’

‘Of course, on what?’ Claire’s eyes darted between the two of them.

‘So, you know how we were doing our school project on homelessness and we went to the local shelter? It gave us a real wake-up call about how bad the homeless situation in London is.’

‘It’s terrible, Aleksy, you’re right,’ Claire said.

‘And with Christmas coming up they need even more help,’ Connie said. ‘I mean now, even, as it’s winter. But Christmas makes having a home so much more important and not having one seem even more cruel. We wanted to get warm clothes, blankets, food, anything we could to help, you see.’

‘That’s so great of you. Homelessness is a huge problem in this country, not just in London.’ Claire looked concerned. It was hard enough being homeless as a cat, at least we have some survival skills, but imagine being a homeless human? I shuddered; it was a terrible thought.

‘But we can do something more to help as well, I think,’ Aleksy said. ‘We want to raise money.’

‘Like a big Christmas fundraiser to do something for the local shelter,’ Connie added.

‘That’s a wonderful idea. Where do I come in?’ Claire asked.

‘Meow.’ Where do I come in, I added.

‘Well out of all the adults you have the most time on your hands …’ Aleksy started. Claire narrowed her eyes. Oh boy. Because Claire didn’t technically have a job, a paying job, sometimes she felt undervalued. But she looked after two children, a house, two cats, a husband, Polly and Matt’s children part-time, and Pickles. She also shopped and made lunch for Harold some days, she coordinated most of the Sunday Lunch Club … She was incredibly busy and she worked very hard.

‘What Aleksy meant was that you used to work in marketing so we thought you might have the right expertise to help us.’ Connie managed to rescue things, phew. I noticed that she kicked Aleksy under the table. He turned a little bit red.

‘Yes, but Aleksy I don’t have much spare time, I’m so busy with the Sunday Lunch Club, the family, Pickles even, and we’ve got Christmas to organise … Anyway, of course I’ll help, it’s a great cause. What were you thinking?’

‘That’s the problem, we don’t have a good idea yet,’ Aleksy said. ‘We thought we could do a sponsored thing, maybe a sleep out, but then our parents wouldn’t like that.’

‘My mum would worry,’ Connie said.

‘Yes, she would,’ Claire agreed. Sylvie could be very overprotective.

‘Then we thought we could do something at school, but what?’ Aleksy added.

‘Yes, you see, we want to involve the community, really,’ Connie said. ‘But we don’t have many ideas that seem good enough.’

So, their big idea was that they needed a big idea, it seemed.

‘Meow,’ I said. They had come to the right place. Only I needed a bit of time to think about it. Although I had heard them talking about this the other day, with all that was going on, I’d forgotten, so now I needed to put my thinking cap on. Not literally. Not unless Doris knitted me one, anyway.

‘OK, why don’t you let me think about it for a bit, because I think it’d be great if you could do something,’ Claire offered.

‘The project at school was to raise awareness but we thought what if we do something that raises both awareness and money,’ Connie said.

‘I know, we really want to come up with something amazing,’ Aleksy said. I was so proud of these two, I purred at him to show him that.

‘Let’s brainstorm,’ Claire said, grabbing a pad and pen. She did love making lists.

‘Our first idea was doing something sponsored,’ Connie suggested.

‘But that’s not exactly exciting or different is it?’ Aleksy said. ‘I mean it’s not really very original.’

‘Meow.’ I didn’t exactly know what sponsored something was but it certainly didn’t sound as if it was quite good enough.

‘People do love a charity song,’ Claire said. ‘Remember Band Aid?’

We all shook our heads.

‘No of course not, before your time. But pop stars made this amazing song to raise money for famine in Africa. I’m sure there’ve been others, but that’s the one that springs to mind.’

‘Like the Children in Need songs,’ Aleksy said.

‘Yes, we could do a song.’ Claire nodded.

‘I actually can’t sing, or write music,’ Connie said. ‘I did learn the piano in Japan but I gave it up after coming here.’

‘No, I’m not exactly Beethoven either,’ Claire said.

‘And if we did a song, then how would we make it into a record and get people to buy it?’ Aleksy asked.

‘Yowl.’ I knew they weren’t quite on the right track. But it did get me thinking. Raising money for charity, the homeless, Christmas. There had to be something that would do all they wanted to do.

‘It’s impossible, we’ll never think of something that’s good enough,’ Aleksy said.

‘We will if we think about Christmas, how to raise money, and something we can all get involved in,’ Connie summed it up.