Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life

This was awful. It was as if they thought it was one of those adventure games Caroline played on Julian’s computer. I’d heard her shout ‘I’m dead! Again!’ sometimes when she was playing one of them, laughing as if it was funny to be dead, as if she could come back to life again and no harm would be done. Surely she understood that humans don’t have nine lives? If anything happened to her, or Grace, I’d never forgive myself. But what could I do to stop them? I was just a little cat and nobody ever listened to me. I stood for a moment in the doorway of their room, trying to calm myself down. And I made a promise to myself that I’d do everything I possibly could to save the two girls, whatever the danger to me and no matter how many lives I lost in the process.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

I ran downstairs and into the kitchen where Laura was cooking dinner.

‘They’re talking about running away!’ I shouted at her in Cat. ‘They’re packing their bags!’

‘Charlie, please don’t get under my feet while I’m cooking,’ she said without looking at me.

It’s the most frustrating thing, isn’t it, when you need to say something really important but you know they won’t make any effort to understand you. I meowed my head off at her and tried walking round her legs to get her attention, only to be told off and sent out of the kitchen. I was still hoping there was a chance the girls would realise it was a silly idea and change their minds. But when they sat at the table later, giving each other secret little smiles and eating up all their dinners without making any fuss at all, even remembering to say thank you to Laura for cooking it, I had a horrible, sinking feeling in my tummy that they were purposely being extra good so that she wouldn’t suspect anything. They went up to bed earlier than usual – I know, because Laura looked up in surprise and said: ‘Well, I might as well have an early night myself, too, while Jessica’s settled so nicely.’

The cottage was soon in darkness, and I could hear Laura’s steady breathing as I loitered at the bottom of the stairs. I crept up and sat outside the door of Caroline’s room. They kept the bedroom doors closed now, to keep me out, but I could hear the girls whispering to each other. Perhaps if I stayed there, I could keep guard over them. I settled down, keeping one eye open, but of course, it’s so hard not to fall asleep, isn’t it, when it’s quiet and dark and you’ve had a stressful day. Suddenly, though, their bedroom light went on and I heard them padding about, whispering again, and the next thing I knew, the door was opened and they came tiptoeing out, almost falling over me on the dark landing.

‘Ssh!’ Caroline whispered at me fiercely. Then she picked me up and carried me downstairs with them. What was she doing? Surely she wasn’t taking me with them? But downstairs in the lounge, she sat down for a minute with me on her lap.

‘I’m going to miss Charlie, though!’ she whispered to Grace, and her eyes filled up with tears.

‘Don’t go, then!’ I meowed at her. ‘Please! It’s a crazy idea!’

‘Ssh, Charlie,’ Grace warned me. ‘Caro, put him down, or he’ll wake Laura up. Come on, we ought to get going. Goodbye, Charlie. I’ll miss you too.’

They both gave me a stroke, and Caroline’s tears dripped on my head. I meowed and Caroline put me down quickly, and before I could even try to trip them up again they were picking up their bags and turning towards the door.

I started to run back up the stairs. If I woke Laura up now, she could still catch them. They’d get a terrible telling off, but it was better than getting lost or attacked, wasn’t it?

‘Laura!’ I meowed at the top of my voice. ‘Quick, wake up! It’s an emergency! They’re running away!’

But her bedroom door was still closed. I started to scratch at it desperately, but then I heard the sound of the porch door being opened. It was too late! They were going! Frantic now, I shot back down again, just in time to wriggle through the glass door to the porch before Caroline closed it. It was so dark, neither of the girls noticed me, and when Caroline opened the outside door I slipped out in front of them and hid, shaking, under the hedge. It was dark, really dark, and the girls were holding hands and shining their little torch in front of them as they walked off. I could see OK, obviously, but I knew their night vision would be rubbish. Humans, as Oliver explained to me when I was a little kitten, are a seriously underdeveloped species compared with us cats. They can’t see, smell or even hear half as well as we can, which is probably why they need us to look after them. I only hesitated for a minute, twitching my tail anxiously as I watched their torchlight getting fainter in the distance.

It was no good. I’d never thought of myself as a scaredy-cat, and this was no time to start becoming one. I’d promised myself to do all I could to rescue those two human kittens, hadn’t I? So with my little heart pounding in my chest, I set off to follow them into the unknown.