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‘I think we need to take it seriously,’ Connie said. ‘Weighing up all the evidence it looks as if someone is out to sabotage our show.’ Connie wants to be a lawyer and she’s very sensible, so I had to agree with her.

‘Oh my goodness, why would they do that? It’s for charity, it’s for the community and there are children involved.’ Claire’s voice was pitched a bit high; she was clearly upset.

‘Right, we need to find out who did this. Come on, I’ll get Matt to come pick up the kids and we’ll go to the hall and survey the damage. Can your dad make it?’ Polly asked.

‘No, he’s working tonight, covering for one of the chefs, so we’ll have to tell him later. Besides he’ll blame himself because of the keys,’ Aleksy said, sounding so upset. I nuzzled him but I feared that was little comfort at the moment.

‘It’s not his fault,’ Claire said. ‘But if we find out who it was, they better watch out.’

I was with Claire on this one. We would find out who it was, and when we did they would be sorry they messed with us and our show. Although, I was still worried about those big feet. Someone could do some serious damage to a cat like me with feet that size.

All the children and George were tucked up and I was with Claire and Jonathan, in our living room, as Claire explained the situation to him.

‘If it ruins my budget, they will be sorry,’ he said.

‘Always thinking about the money. Thankfully, Polly said that although it was pretty bad it’s nothing we can’t fix. More worrying is why would someone want to hurt the show.’

‘So, it looks as if the paint on the stage wasn’t an accident?’ Jonathan suggested.

‘No, and the keys, well, they were definitely Tomasz’s keys. He feels awful, but clearly someone took them without him knowing,’ Claire added.

‘You don’t think Tommy would do it, do you? He’s been in so much trouble lately … I hate to think badly of him – because he’s a great kid normally – but maybe he’s in a worse way than we thought? Maybe he did do this?’ Jonathan looked pensive. I knew what he was saying but I couldn’t believe it was our Tommy. No, no there was no way he would do this.

‘You mean for attention? I guess his acting up could have been a cry for attention, it often is with teenagers,’ Claire said.

Thinking about it, Tommy’s behaviour had been erratic – good one minute, terrible the next. But no, it couldn’t have been Tommy. I was pretty sure of that. He might be a bit of a wild one but he was working really hard for the show, and he’d been to the shelter with us; he’d met the people that the show was going to help. No, no way it was him, I’d bet my fur on it.

‘No, I’m pretty sure it’s not him; he wouldn’t. He’s turned over a new leaf and at heart he’s a good kid. Plus, he loves his role in the show,’ Claire said.

‘Yeah you’re right, it was just a thought because of the keys. But if Tomasz had them in his jacket, I guess anyone could have taken them. It’ll be tricky to find out who did it.’

‘We need to find out soon, before they do anything even worse,’ Claire added.

‘Agreed, I’ll start paying more attention when I’m there, look out for anyone suspicious,’ Jonathan said. I didn’t have high hopes for him as he wasn’t the most observant person ever. ‘And, we have family day this Saturday. We’ll get everyone onboard trying to discover who did this,’ Jonathan said.

‘No one can ruin our show, it’s so important,’ Claire said.

‘No one will. I promise, my love,’ Jonathan replied.

No, no one would because now I was on the case. Or I would be after a good night’s sleep and a decent breakfast. And first port of call would be to speak to the others – George, Snowball, Hana, and our other cat friends, because they would help us get to the bottom of it. As much as I knew the adults meant well, I also knew it would come down to me and my cat gang in the end. It always did.

‘You mean they did more damage?’ George asked when I filled him in the next morning. I waited until after breakfast when the house was empty, but we did have Pickles with us.

‘What does that mean?’ Pickles asked.

‘You wouldn’t understand, you’re a dog,’ George said, and I put a paw on him. He really had to remember to be kinder to Pickles. He was a dog, yes, but he was still a baby. George really needed to have more patience.

‘Actually I am Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,’ Pickles retorted and ran around in a circle.

‘Anyway,’ I said, bringing the conversation back to the matter at hand. ‘The point is that we need to foil whoever it is who is doing this and so far we have very little evidence.’

‘What is evidence and can I eat it?’ Pickles asked.

‘See what I mean?’ George raised his whiskers. Yes, my defence of Pickles was wearing a little thin.

‘So far, we know the person has big feet, the size of Tomasz, Matt or Jonathan’s.’

‘But none of them would have done this,’ George said.