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Darcy stared at her. She had completely forgotten about the football match! She shook her head.“I can’t! Not when Charlie’s missing, Mum. I just can’t. Please will you tell Mrs Jennings I can’t go?”

Mum looked at her worriedly.“I’m not sure we should do that, sweetheart. You’re part of a team. You’ll be letting everyone else down.”

“I won’t – it will just mean Emma gets more of a chance to play. Honestly, she’ll be really pleased. Don’t you see? I stopped looking after Charlie properly because I was so caught up with the football team. I was practising all the time and not bothering to play with him. But now I don’t care if I never get to be in the team again, if only we can find Charlie and he’s safe.”

Mum sighed.“OK. Maybe I won’t tell Mrs Jennings exactly that, but hopefully she’ll understand.”

[Êàðòèíêà: img_33]

Charlie had meant to go home– after a little while. After he’d given Darcy and Will time to calm down and stop shouting. When they were arguing it made the fur on the back of his neck rise up and it hurt his ears. He’d never bitten Darcy or Will, he’d never wanted to, except sometimes when they were yelling at each other and the anger seemed to be in the air all around them. Then it made him want to nip their ankles. It was better just not to be there.

When the old lady came home with a couple of shopping bags, she’d laughed to see him curled up and snoozing on her rug. She crouched down with an effort, rubbed his ears and spoke softly to him, telling him how beautiful he was and what nice company.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_34]

“There I was feeling quite lonely and now you’ve come to see me,” she murmured.

Charlie sat up and purred, pushing his head affectionately into her stroking hand and twining himself around her.

“It’s a good thing I picked up a few more of those food sachets, isn’t it? Are you hungry, little one?” She stood up and Charlie followed her eagerly into the kitchen. Hewas hungry. And after he’d eaten he was sleepy and it was so nice to curl up on the old lady’s lap on the sofa. He would go back later on, under the fence and over the wall, back to Darcy and Will… But the flat was cosy and quiet and somehow, he just didn’t.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_9]

Darcy listened to Mum’s end of the phone conversation with Mrs Jennings – she sounded very apologetic. She kept saying how much Darcy loved football, it was just that this was important and everyone was very upset.

At that point, Darcy put one of the sofa cushions over her head. It was too weird listening to Mum describe how miserable she was. It made her feel even sadder. The more people who knew that Charlie was missing, the worse it felt. And now loads of people were going to know, Darcy thought, sighing into the dusty fabric of the cushion.

Dad thought putting small versions of the poster through people’s doors was a very good idea. The neighbours would have a copy of the flyer with their number on if they spotted Charlie, he pointed out, and Darcy knew they wanted as many people as possible to look for Charlie. But when everyone in the street was getting a little photo of Charlie through theirdoor, it made him seem a lot more missing.

She and Dad took turns to do the houses on their side of the road, while Mum and Will did the other side. Will was enjoying it, Darcy noticed sadly. He thought it was exciting, getting to post the little notes through the letter boxes. If it had been anything else they were posting, Darcy would have liked it too. But she seemed to keep catching the photo of Charlie at just the wrong angle– he looked so sad as she squashed him through the flaps, his nose wrinkling up, his whiskers drooping. He looked like a Lost Cat.

[Êàðòèíêà: img_35]

They worked their way down the street to the side road, Thirsk Way, which led on to Barrett Close– a mirror image of their road, with its gardens joining on to theirs.

“We definitely need to deliver notes along here,” Darcy said to Dad. “Charlie was out in the garden – he could easily have gone over the back fence into one of the gardens here.”

“Do you think so?” Dad said doubtfully. “Our back fence is pretty high. I’m not sure he could get over it, to be honest. I’d have thought he nipped up the side passage and out through the front garden.”

Darcy shook her head. She’d seen Charlie scrambling up the side wall before and shooting up a tree as if it was a little cat ladder. He was an amazingly good climber.

“But maybe you’re right,” Dad said. “And it’s not that far away – he could even have walked down the road and round the corner like we did. Have we got enough flyers left or do we need to go back and print some more?”

“Just about enough,” Darcy said, showing him her handful. “Except there’s the little block of flats that almost backs on to us. I don’t know how many people live there.”

“Well, let’s see how far we get,” Dad said, heading up the path of the nearest house.