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I looked at Salmon, and I never thought I would say this, but I was so glad he was here and so sensible. Because he was right. One night locked in a dusty props cupboard would not put us off.

‘Right, so we just make sure we’re here every night until we can get the humans to catch her,’ I suggested.

‘Yes, and also, if we’re here, we can probably try to stop her ruining things, somehow,’ George said.

‘But she’s not nice, I mean, she didn’t hurt us but she shut us in here so we have to be careful,’ I said. My mind was ticking over. ‘Salmon, you are so right. We ensure she knows we are on to her and as soon as we can we get the humans to find out too.’ I had no idea exactly how we were going to do that, but somehow we would figure it out.

‘And me too. I can be here all the time,’ Pickles said. I glared at George.

‘Hospital,’ he said, and stalked off to a corner to resume sulking.

I really was getting very hungry, and so was Pickles, who was trying and failing to find anything to eat. He wasn’t so keen on cobwebs it seemed, but he gave them a good go. George had even tired of sulking and was trying to show Salmon his sheep acting, in order to keep us from thinking too much about how long we were actually going to be here. I lay down, but it was cold and dark, and it smelt funny. Pickles started whining.

‘I need to eat,’ he said.

‘Pickles, just hold on, someone will come and get us shortly.’ I looked at Salmon. Would they? It felt as if we were going to be here all night. We might even freeze to death.

‘Right, let’s try to make a comfortable area, so we can try to get some rest,’ I suggested.

There was a blanket, which had paint on it, but would at least provide some warmth.

‘We should all huddle together to keep our body heat up as much as possible,’ Salmon suggested.

‘How do you know that’ll work?’ I asked.

‘Because my humans are survival experts,’ he replied. That did not surprise me, although why they needed to be when Vic and Heather rarely seemed to go beyond Edgar Road, I had no idea.

We huddled together on the blanket.

‘What if we never get rescued?’ George asked. I wanted to tell him that that was why I didn’t want him here but knew that wouldn’t be helpful.

‘As much as I’m angry you brought Pickles – and don’t say hospital again – at least with him here they’ll look for us more quickly.’

However, as more and more time passed, hope began to fade.

We stayed huddled together for what felt like forever, then Pickles moved and I had to as well, as my paw had gone to sleep.

‘This is silly, I’m going to rehearse,’ George said. ‘I’m bored.’

‘I’m bored and hungry,’ Pickles added.

I raised my whiskers at Salmon, as if to say:‘See what I have to put up with?’ He gave me a sympathetic smile.

What if they didn’t think to come here until the next rehearsal? We had hours to go until daytime and hours more until evening when the rehearsals were held. Thankfully someone rehearsed almost every evening and, if they didn’t, people came to work backstage. Still, we would have so long to wait. And Pickles, who was already complaining about being hungry, would be unbearable. What would we do? I felt panic rising. George was prancing around being a sheep now, but how long before he got scared? I lay down again. This had not gone according to plan at all and Barbara needed to be stopped. But more than that, we needed to be rescued.

‘Shush,’ I said, as George was mid sheep.

‘Don’t shush me,’ he said.

‘No, I can hear something,’ I said.

‘Me too, voices,’ Salmon said.

‘Wait, and when they get closer we all make as much noise as we can. And that includes you, Pickles,’ I said. We waited and when we could clearly hear Claire and Jonathan we all started crying out.

‘Yowl.’

‘Meow.’

‘Mew, mew, mew.’

‘Woof, woof, woof, woof.’

The door swung open and I blinked as Jonathan put the light on.

‘What the hell?’ he started.

‘How did you all end up in here?’ Claire asked.

‘Is that the Goodwins’ cat?’ Jonathan was scratching his head as usual.

‘I am so sorry,’ Barbara said.

‘Hiss.’

‘Alfie, stop it,’ Claire chastised. ‘Barbara, it’s not your fault, you couldn’t know they were here. And thanks for coming down with us; you didn’t need to, I’ve got keys.’

‘Oh, well, I wanted to check they were alright. If I had known they were here I would never have shut the door, they must have been hiding.’

I looked at Salmon.

‘YOWL,’ he said at the top of his voice.

‘MEOW,’ I shouted.

‘WOOFWOOFWOOF,’ Pickles added.

‘HISS,’ George said.

‘Oh goodness they must be so distressed from being shut in,’ Claire said, missing our point entirely.

‘Right, let’s get them home,’ Jonathan said, putting the lead on Pickles and scooping George up.

‘What on earth?’ Claire was asking. I glanced at Salmon. We would have to do much more because they weren’t even remotely suspicious of Barbara.

‘How did you know they were here?’ Barbara asked.