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Darcy blinked. Just for those few minutes since Mrs Jennings had come to their classroom at the end of school, she’d completely forgotten about Charlie – on the very first day they’d left him alone. She suddenly felt guilty.

“Was he OK today, Mum?” she asked anxiously.

“I think so. He played with the cat dancer toy and then he slept on my knee while I was working. Still, he’ll be pleased to see you two.”

Darcy nodded.“We’ll play with him for ages when we get home.”

“Don’t forget your football practice,” Emma reminded her. “Mrs Jennings said we need to practise at home too.”

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Charlie hopped down the stairs a step at a time as he heard them coming up the path. He’d spent most of the day asleep, with spells of wandering around the house looking for Darcy and Will. Their mum was in her little office under the stairs, but she just kept typing around him, even when he tried to catch her fingers to nibble. It wasn’t much fun.

As the front door opened he galloped across the hallway and twined lovingly in and out of Darcy’s and Will’s legs. They crouched down and fussed over him and Darcy stroked his ears just the way he liked it. Charlie purred and purred – he’d missed them so much.

He followed the children eagerly as they went into the kitchen and accepted a little bit of Darcy’s cheese sandwich. Where had they been all day? They’d never gone away for so long before. Charlie bounced around excitedly as Darcy waved the cat dancer toy. It was his favourite – he loved stalking it up the hallway, but every time he pounced, Darcy would whisk it up out of the way, so that his paws just grazed the dancing feathers. He had more of a chance when he played with Will, as sometimes Will wasn’t quick enough and Charlie managed to get a mouthful of feathers.

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But after they’d played for a little while, Darcy disappeared upstairs and came down in different clothes. She was going into the garden, Charlie realized, and he hurried out of the door after her. He loved being outside. There were so many good hiding places and interesting smells in the garden. Sometimes there were bees too, and butterflies. Charlie was desperate to catch a fat furry bumblebee. They blundered about just in front of his nose but somehow he’d never managed to nab one.

Whatever Darcy was doing was probably even more interesting than a bee, though. He followed her down the lawn and sprang delightedly on the football when she tapped it with her foot and it rolled across the grass. She laughed and tapped it again and he raced after the ball, flinging himself on top of it and then rolling off on to the grass. He sprang up and lunged again as Darcy shimmied the ball across the grass, and this time as the ball rolled he went with it, nosediving to the ground.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_17]

Darcy crouched down next to him. She looked at him worriedly as he shook his whiskers.“Sorry, Charlie. Did it squish you? Are you OK? Maybe I’d better take you inside, kitten. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

She scooped him up and slipped him back inside the kitchen door, and then she flipped the switch on the cat flap so he couldn’t follow her back out again.

Charlie glared indignantly at the cat flap. Darcy had been away all day and now he wasn’t allowed out to play with her! He stalked across the kitchen and sat down grumpily in his basket. Why had Darcy stopped him playing? He’d only wanted to be with her. What had he done wrong?

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Charlie could see the children were going to disappear the next day too– they had bags and coats and everything was a rush. When he tried to get on the table to drink the milk out of Will’s cereal bowl, Mum scooped him back down with a firm, “No!” and then she added, “Oh no, he’s lost his collar again! I’ll have to get him another one.”

Darcy made a fuss of him when she gave him his breakfast but she was dashing about and didn’t want to play. Charlie went to sit a little way up the stairs and watched as the children pulled on their shoes. Why were they going off again?

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When Will ran back into the kitchen to fetch his forgotten lunch box, Charlie padded softly down the stairs and sniffed at his backpack, trying to work out what was happening. The zip was open and the bag smelled strange– musty, like leftover packed lunches. It was interesting… Charlie put one paw in, and then the other, and sniffed at the grubby crumbs at the bottom of the bag. Then he sneezed.

“Look at Charlie! He’s in my bag!”

Charlie looked up to see Will crouching over him, laughing.

“I think he wants to come to school!”

“Poor Charlie – he’s missing you,” Mum said. “You’d better get him out, Will. We need to go.”

Charlie wriggled as Will gently reached under his front legs and lifted him out of the bag. Taking him out only made him think that the bag was exciting…

He watched gloomily as the front door slammed behind them, and then stalked back into the kitchen to his basket.

Perhaps they’d play with him when they got home?

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