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‘You awful cats, I will get you and you’ll be sorry,’ she shouted, but she wobbled as she tried to grab Snowball and missed, almost falling over her own feet.

We ran around some more with Barbara chasing us, but finally Salmon and Snowball launched themselves under her feet. I watched in horror in case my beloved was in trouble, but Barbara lost her footing, wobbling backwards, arms swinging to try to steady herself as she fell into the trees. It was as if it was all in slow motion as she went backwards, landing on the stage with a number of the trees falling on top of her.

‘Ahhhhh,’ she screamed, and then as she lay still all went quiet.

‘Oh my goodness, do you think she’s dead?’ Nellie asked as we all crowded around, pretty much unable to see her.

‘Of course she’s not,’ Salmon said. Although how he knew, I wasn’t sure. The trees were quite light, I reasoned, so it wasn’t likely that she was.

‘I’ve got a bright red tail,’ George lamented, spinning around as he tried to see it. ‘How am I meant to be a sheep with a bright red tail?’ he asked.

‘Shush, what are we going to do about her?’ I asked.

‘We’ll have to get a human,’ Snowball said.

‘She might be badly hurt,’ Elvis said. ‘I’ve seen it on TV, my owners like hospital drama so I’m something of an expert.’

‘Who would be the best grown-up to alert?’ Salmon asked.

‘It depends on how late it is. Quick, let’s go to our road and see who is still up.’

We all left, pushing the back door with all our might and squeezing out one at a time until Rocky, the last of us, made it out. I had been slightly worried about that part of the plan. As we made our way home, hearts still hammering, I was pretty exhausted but pleased that we had a) made it out in one piece, b) would now have Barbara banged to rights, and c) our only casualty was George’s red tail. I was so proud of all my friends and how brilliant they had all been. I felt a little bit proud of myself, too.

‘You were all so brave tonight,’ I said.

‘But I hope she isn’t really hurt,’ Nellie said.

‘My tail,’ George repeated.

‘We don’t want her to be hurt,’ Snowball said. ‘Just stopped.’ I knew it wasn’t our fault, she fell into the trees, but I agreed, we didn’t want her to be hurt. But we did want to stop her, and it looked as if we may have succeeded in that.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

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Iled the gang back to ours, to see if we could find a human to help us.

‘Hey I can see a light on our front step,’ I said. There were a lot of Christmas lights outside our house though, so I wasn’t sure that anyone was there until we got closer. Thankfully, we struck gold. ‘Right, we go as a gang, and they’ll have to take notice of us.’ I led my army up to our front door, where Jonathan was stood, talking to Matt.

‘What on earth?’ Matt said as he saw us. On cue we all started making an almighty noise, prancing around and making a general fuss.

‘Oh God, not this again … Is George’s tail red?’ Jonathan asked. We made our way to the front gate.

‘What are they trying to tell us this time?’ Matt asked. We all started making noise again.

‘OK, I’ll get my shoes.’ Jonathan went into the house, leaving Matt staring at us, confusion in his eyes. As Jonathan came out and shut the front door, we saw the Goodwins’ door open.

‘What is going on?’ Vic asked as he strode across to us, Heather trotting behind him trying to catch up. ‘Salmon, what are you doing?’

‘Meow,’ Salmon said.

‘No idea,’ Jonathan said. ‘They are all here screeching away, so I think we need to follow them.’

‘This is most bizarre,’ Heather said, looking at Salmon, who raised his whiskers.

The other cats went home but Salmon, George and I led them back to the community hall and to the back door. I was excited, this was one of our more elaborate– and dare I say it, dangerous – plans and we seemed to have pulled it off. Matt opened the door and turned on the lights, which made me blink as my eyes adjusted to the dark. We led them all to the stage where they looked at the mess, and we tried to draw attention to where Barbara—

‘She’s gone,’ George hissed.

‘Oh no, what a nightmare,’ Salmon said. I was bitterly, bitterly disappointed as I glanced at the humans.

‘Who the hell did this?’ Jonathan asked. ‘My budget won’t stretch to new trees, not if we’re going to make money for the shelter.’

‘Do you think it was the cats?’ Vic asked.

‘Meow.’ Of course not.

‘No, the cats won’t have done this and look there’s a can of spray paint. Even I know that cats can’t use spray paint,’ Matt said with a laugh, then stopped when he saw how downcast Jonathan looked. ‘Hey, the trees will be alright mate, but we’ll need to clean this red paint pretty quickly. Not just on George’s tail and bum it seems.’ Matt put a reassuring hand on Jonathan’s shoulder.

‘Yowl.’ George really wasn’t happy.

‘We’ll bath him at home, but let’s get the stage cleaned up right now,’ Jonathan said. Heather and Vic went to the kitchen then came back with a bowl of water and started scrubbing the stage.