Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life

‘He’s never seen it before, and cats don’t like water,’ Laura said. ‘Put him down, he’s struggling.’

I was. I couldn’t understand why none of them seemed bothered about the fact that there was only this thin bit of glass between us and disaster.

‘This is another reason why we must make sure he doesn’t get out of the cottage,’ Julian warned.

‘Oh, don’t worry!’ I meowed as I ran off to find out where my bed had been put. ‘I’m not getting any closer to that sea thing than I can help, thank you very much!’

Thankfully, the kitchen, where they’d put my bed, felt nice and safe. Its window, as I discovered when I plucked up the courage to jump up and investigate, looked out over the garden instead of the sea. The garden looked very small. I could see a wall going all the way round it, not a particularly high wall, so there was definitely a danger that we could be prone to illegal visits from strange cats who didn’t realise this was now my territory. I puzzled for a while over how I was supposed to defend the garden if I wasn’t going to be allowed outside. I doubted whether growling from the windowsill was going to have any more effect on a feline interloper than it did on the sea. This was a worry, but I’d have to face it when it happened. Meanwhile I was pleased to see my dinner had been dished up and was waiting for me in my bowl, and after eating this and having a good wash, I felt a bit more settled. I joined the family back in the living room, averting my eyes from the big window. The sea still hadn’t come through into the room, so perhaps it had given up. I jumped up on Caroline’s lap and she stroked me nicely while she watched TV, and needless to say I eventually dozed off.

When I woke up, I was lying in one of the armchairs – Caroline must have put me there when she got up – and nobody was around.

‘Hello?’ I meowed as I stood up and stretched myself. ‘Where are you all?’

No response. I wandered out of the lounge and upstairs, but both bedrooms were empty too. There was a funny kind of cot that looked more like a cage next to the bed in the bigger bedroom, but Jessica wasn’t in it. Nobody was in the little bathroom either and I finally realised they’d all actually gone out and left me! I meowed with indignation. I mean to say, I’m obviously used to being on my own at home, quite often all day. But to be left in this strange place, with a huge sea probably on the point of breaking through the windows, and marauding local cats plotting to surround the property – this was a different matter! I trotted around the cottage for a while, crying to myself in frustration, not daring to look outside, and then, suddenly, to my relief, I heard the front door opening and the sounds of my family returning. I was even pleased to hear baby Jessica’s shrieking as they pushed her pram into the porch. At least it meant I wasn’t alone in this place anymore.

‘Make sure the front door is closed behind us before you open the inside one!’ Julian was saying.

‘There’s not enough room for us all in this silly little porch,’ Caroline retorted. ‘Can’t you leave the pram outside?’

‘No, we can’t,’ Laura said. ‘I don’t want it getting wet if it rains, or damp from the sea spray overnight.’

‘No, of course not,’ Caroline muttered, her tone of voice a bit odd. ‘Can’t have Jessica getting damp.’

‘I told you this was a bad idea,’ Julian said crossly. I walked up to the glass door that separated the porch from the lounge and stared at them through the glass. They were all trying to cram into that tiny space, elbowing each other and almost falling on top of Jessica’s pram. What on earth were they playing at? ‘I told you we should have shut Charlie in the kitchen. That’s what we’ll have to do in future, so we can open the doors without having to worry about him getting out. This is ridiculous.’

‘I don’t think he wants to get out, Daddy. Look, he’s just sitting there watching us,’ Caroline said, squashing herself against the other side of the glass door as Julian struggled to close the outside one.

‘We don’t want to take that chance, do we?’ Laura pointed out.

‘But it was really hot in the kitchen! Poor Charlie will be boiled in there, without any windows open!’

Boiled? I didn’t like the sound of that! Just another worry to add to the list, although personally, I couldn’t think of anything nicer than being really hot.

Finally, the outside door was closed and Caroline opened the glass one, almost falling in on top of me.

‘Well, we’re certainly not doing that again,’ Laura said as she wheeled the little pram inside, and even Caroline didn’t argue this time.

‘We went for a walk along the seafront, Charlie!’ she said, throwing herself down on the floor next to me. ‘There’s a really nice beach. We’re going down there tomorrow. Daddy said it was too late today – for some reason,’ she added quietly, pushing her eyebrows up to the top of her head.