Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life

I trotted upstairs to jump on Caroline’s bed with her. I expected to find her lying flat on her tummy with her face on the pillow, as she normally did after an argument. But to my surprise her bedroom door was closed, and through the door I could hear her talking. I pushed on the door with my head but it wouldn’t open, so I sat up and scratched at it with my front paws. The talking stopped. Then she said, more quietly, ‘Wait a minute, I can hear someone outside’, and came to open the door. She looked down at me and smiled, picking me up and carrying me into the room, closing the door behind her again.

‘It’s only Charlie,’ she said, and I saw that she was talking into a phone. Laura’s phone! I meowed with surprise. ‘Ssh, Charlie, lie down quietly. It’s OK, Grace, I’ve shut the door again. They can’t hear me. So will you come? It’ll be so cool. We can go swimming and stuff, and we can sleep in my bed together, it’ll be such a laugh! I’m dying down here on my own.’

I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but Caroline was saying, ‘Right,’ and ‘Yeah, I know,’ while she listened, and then she said, ‘Yeah, Laura’s the same, she just doesn’t understand. And everything’s about Jessica all the time. It’s like I don’t matter since she arrived. OK then, ask your mum. And I’ll try to talk to my dad tonight.’

After she turned off the phone, she sat on her bed for a while, hugging her knees and humming to herself. She picked me up and rubbed her face against my fur.

‘Oh, Charlie,’ she whispered in my ear, making it twitch and tremble with her warm breath, ‘I so hope Grace is allowed to come. We’ll have an amazing time together and all the other girls will be well jealous. Surely I deserve this, before they make me say goodbye to all my friends forever and go to that stupid private school.’

And all I could do was purr back at her in agreement. I just wanted her to be happy, you see. How was I to know it was all going to go horribly wrong? Or that I’d end up being responsible for putting everything right again?

CHAPTER

SIX

As it happened, there was another development that evening, which changed everything. I was in the lounge with Laura and Nicky when Julian made his usual phone call. Within minutes of listening to him on her phone, Laura’s expression changed and she looked like she was going to burst out mewing.

‘Oh, no,’ she said, very quietly. ‘Oh dear, I was desperately hoping it wouldn’t be necessary. Yes, of course you’re worried, darling – so am I. Well, the sooner it’s done the better. It may still be a false alarm, they just have to check, if there’s any doubt, don’t they? Right, so you’ll take her back with you on Sunday?’

There was a silence as she listened to Julian’s response, and then Laura gave a huge sigh and went on: ‘She won’t want to come back again afterwards, you know. I feel awful now about getting impatient with her. What if her moods and rudeness are because she’s sick again? She told me today she feels more lonely down here than she did when she was ill. It really brought me up sharply. Yes, she was being stroppy, but even so …’ There was another pause, and then: ‘Well, she’d started demanding that we let her friend Grace come down to stay for a week – because I’ve got Nicky here, you know, so I suppose she feels left out.’

It didn’t take much guesswork to realise they were talking about Caroline and that there had been some bad news. They went on talking for a while, with Laura saying ‘Yes’ and ‘I agree’, and then finally she said: ‘OK then, I think that’s a good plan. Shall I call her down so you can talk to her now?’

Caroline came bounding down the stairs as soon as Laura yelled that her dad was on the phone. She looked excited.

‘I’m going to ask him if he can bring Grace back with him this weekend,’ she said. ‘I bet he’ll agree.’

‘Caroline, Daddy’s got something to tell you …’ Laura warned her, but the phone had already been taken out of her paw and Caroline was babbling excitedly to Julian about her idea for Grace to visit.

Laura and Nicky exchanged a look, and Nicky grasped Laura’s paw. Like me, she must have guessed what the conversation had meant.

‘What?’ Caroline suddenly demanded. ‘I’ve got to go back to the hospital? Why?’ Then she fell silent, the corners of her mouth turning down. ‘Oh,’ she said quietly. And then: ‘Yes. All right. I suppose so. OK. Bye, Dad.’

She handed the phone back to Laura, silently, scowling to herself.

‘It’s probably nothing to worry about, sweetheart,’ Laura began.

‘Not for you, maybe,’ Caroline shot back. ‘It’s me who’s got to go and have the horrible bone marrow thing done again. Why? They said I was better now. It’s not fair!’