Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life

Oh, I’m really sorry, Tabitha. I forgot to warn you, didn’t I? Yes, we’ve got to one of the scary parts now. But look, don’t keep mewing about it, you can see I survived, or I wouldn’t be here now, talking to you, would I? Is everyone else all right for me to carry on? Any little kittens need taking home? Oliver, can you see if anyone’s hiding behind the dustbins? Honestly, sometimes the responsibility of being a famous hero cat is quite a burden.

Well, you can probably imagine how I was feeling at this point in the story. Yes, Tabitha, that’s right – scared out of my fur. I was in a strange place a long way from home, with no familiar smells, and to make matters worse, there was a crashing and booming noise going on nearby that I couldn’t identify. I scurried along, following the light of Grace’s torch and keeping close to the hedges. If circumstances had been different I might have had a sniff around to see what creatures were lurking there, but I knew I mustn’t lose sight of the girls.

Then we turned a corner and crossed a road and for a minute I stood rooted to the spot, my back arched, my fur standing on end. I thought we must surely have reached the end of the world. Ahead of us was … nothing. Well, there was something, something huge and black that, when the moon kindly poked itself out from behind a cloud for a minute, I could see was moving, sliding backwards and forwards and making the crashing sound I’d heard. It took me a while to realise this was it – the sea, that monstrous moving thing I’d glimpsed from the lounge window of the cottage. In the dark and close up, it looked even more threatening. I’d had no idea it was so noisy! Whoosh, crash. Whoosh, crash. Whoosh, crash. I wanted to hiss at it to shut up, but I was afraid it would come up onto the road and attack me.

‘Let’s walk along the beach,’ I heard Caroline saying to Grace.

‘No! What if we got caught out by the tide?’ Their voices carried back to me on the breeze, almost drowned out by the sea’s constant shouting.

‘OK. But we’d better follow the road along the coast anyway, or we might get lost.’

So we trotted on, with me always at a little distance behind them. For a while the road went along right by the sea, then we turned a corner up a hill and away from it. We went round more bends, down the hill, back up again, and came to a place where the torch showed three different roads.

‘I think it must be this way,’ Grace said, not actually sounding too sure about it at all, and off we went again.

There didn’t seem to be any houses around now. Just darkness and the occasional owl hooting at us from the trees. I was beginning to think I should just run up to the girls and let them see I’d followed them. They’d have to pick me up and take me back to the cottage then, wouldn’t they? But supposing they didn’t? Supposing they took me with them to run away instead – then I’d be stuck, unable to do anything to help. You might well be wondering what on earth I thought I was going to do to help anyway and, believe me, so was I. I suppose I was hoping I could see where the Great Aunt person’s house was, and then find my way back with my amazing sense of smell and memory. I was obviously marking as many spots along the road as I could with my scent, but the occasional whiff of another cat’s scent was stressing me out. And I hadn’t got as far as working out how, if I did manage to get back, I was going to persuade Laura that I knew where the girls were. There’s only room in our heads for one plan at a time, after all.

It all started to go wrong when Grace suddenly stopped walking, saying her shoes were hurting her feet. We’d been walking for ages. If I’d worn shoes on my paws I bet they’d have been hurting too. I don’t know why humans seem to need to wear so much stuff on their bodies, but I suppose if we had no fur, like them, we might do the same, especially as we don’t like being cold. Once again it seems to be a design fault in their species. I suppose we should feel sorry for them. They look so ridiculous when they take their clothes off, don’t they – all bald and bare.

Sorry, I’m getting side-tracked from the story now.

‘Well, is it much further?’ Caroline was asking Grace as she took off her shoes, rubbed her back paws and put the shoes back on again. ‘I thought we might have been there by now.’

‘Me too,’ Grace admitted. She sounded a bit frightened. ‘I didn’t think it would be this far, Caro.’ There was a long pause. Then she added in a little voice that I could only just hear: ‘You don’t think we’ve come the wrong way, do you?’

‘Well, I don’t know, do I?’ Caroline said. ‘It’s your aunt’s house we’re going to. I thought you knew the way.’

‘I thought I did, too. But I’m wondering now if we should have gone the other way along the coast.’

‘What? You’re joking, aren’t you?’