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We watched from a safe distance as she ingratiated herself with everyone. She was smiling, jolly, nothing like the woman we had seen the past few times we met her. I raised my whiskers.‘Everyone deserves a second chance, son,’ I said, and although he didn’t seem convinced, he reluctantly agreed.

‘Let’s go and see how she reacts to us, see if she’s different with us now,’ I suggested.

‘Isn’t it a bit risky?’

‘No, George, because there’s lots of people around. She wouldn’t dare do anything to us.’ I hoped she wouldn’t, anyway.

‘OK.’

I took off backstage, George dragging his paws behind me. We found Barbara near some of the trees, admiring them with Connie.

‘We’re going to spray the tops with snow, so it looks a bit like a Christmas card,’ Connie explained.

‘That’s a lovely idea.’ Barbara spotted us. She narrowed her eyes but turned back to Connie. ‘Well, dear, as I said, I am happy to help with everything.’

‘Thank you, I better get back to rehearsals but just ask if you need anything.’

George and I exchanged glances as we sat by the tree, not too far from Barbara. Were we going to see if she had changed towards us? I tentatively put my paw towards her foot but she saw and pushed a tree.

‘Run, Dad,’ George shouted, as the tree was about to fall on me. I sprinted away, just escaping before it fell to the ground.

‘Yowl!’ I shouted, narrowly having missed being squashed by a fake Christmas tree.

‘Oh dear,’ Barbara shouted. ‘One of the trees fell, I think the cats knocked it.’

‘Be more careful, guys. Maybe you shouldn’t be back here,’ Matt said as he and Tomasz came to see what was happening. George and I lay down, trying to catch our breath.

‘Never mind, it looks fine, as do the cats,’ Tomasz said, and picked the tree up again.

‘Thank goodness it didn’t get them,’ Barbara said innocently.

George and I raised our whiskers. This was worse than we thought. She hadn’t changed, she was just pretending she had. All my deliberations about her being unhappy not horrible, that she deserved a second chance, were a waste of my precious time. I was done with her. She was nothing but a cat hater; it was no longer up for debate.

‘Keep well out of her way from now on,’ I said to George.

‘It isn’t me you need to tell, it’s yourself,’ he hissed. He wasn’t wrong.

Claire took us home shortly after, leaving some of the others still working in the hall. We were glad to go, still shaken up from our ordeal. I wasn’t going to let that woman ruin the show for us. Her involvement wasn’t something I could control, but I wouldn’t let her get the better of me a third time. Mark my whiskers.

With just over a month until the first show it was all hands on deck. The show was consuming us, but we had been consumed by much worse. I just hoped that Christmas still carried on as normal, and I also hoped that the humans would find a way to let the Sunday Lunch Club enjoy the show as well.

Despite my weariness, I remembered my friendship resolution. It was too late to see Dustbin that night, but I resolved to go first thing in the morning, no matter how foul the weather was. It was time to remember to be a good friend, even if it did feel as if I was spreading myself a little thin at the moment. But then, I did have a lot of fish to fry. Um, I really could do with some fish right now, actually.

Claire was telling Jonathan about Barbara before we all went to bed.

‘She was really nice, not at all like the way she was with me when she came round here.’

‘Did she recite a long Shakespeare monologue?’ Jonathan joked.

Claire rolled her eyes.‘No, she did not. She was quite pleasant. Anyway, Heather and Vic told me that her husband died and she was forced out of her home due to money issues, so she was pretty miserable about moving into the flat. Maybe that’s why she was acting up a bit.’

‘Ha ha, good pun,’ Jonathan said.

I had no idea what he meant.

‘I didn’t mean to say that.’ Claire laughed and gave him a playful tap on his arm. ‘What I mean is that maybe she was angry about everything – you know, how unfair life can be and missing her husband – but now she’s turned over a new leaf. Maybe she’s so lonely that she realised theonly way to feel less so is to use the show to make friends.’

‘Maybe. Anyway, we don’t need to collect any more people do we, Claire?’

‘Meow.’ Of course we did, we could never collect too many people. But not Barbara, we did not need to collect her. He was right about that.

‘Jonathan, being kind doesn’t have a number limit,’ Claire said.

As I slept that night, I decided that Claire was right. I knew I shouldn’t give Barbara a third chance – I wasn’t stupid – but kindness was inherent in both Claire and I, and we couldn’t just switch it off. We wouldn’t want to anyway, so I decided that no matter what anyone said I would be kind to Barbara and show her that friendship was much better than being angry with people. I would just have to do it from a safe distance, that was all.

Chapter Nineteen

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