Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life

And they disappeared inside the little hut together, closing the door after them and leaving me standing there in the moonlight, wondering where I was going to sleep. I was starving too, I might add! And tired. It had been a long walk, much longer than my normal evening constitutional round the grounds of my house back in Little Broomford. Thinking about home made me mew to myself sadly for a while. But as Caroline had said, there was no use crying, was there? I didn’t want to go too far away from the girls, so I had to ignore the rumbling of my tummy, forget about hunting for food and concentrate on the priority of getting some sleep. I crept cautiously down the rest of the slope and trotted along the path next to the little huts. At the end of the path was a bench, like the ones on our village green where people sit to chat to each other. I crept under the bench and put my head on my paws. I knew I should really keep a watch on the door of the hut where the girls were. I had no idea whether they were in danger or not. But it was no good. Exhaustion overcame me and, before I knew it, I was fast asleep.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

Hello everyone, I’m glad to see you’ve all come back again today to hear some more of my story. It was a good idea of yours, Oliver, to have a break so that we could all go home for our dinners and get some sleep. I hope none of you had nightmares about my experiences with the sea. It actually doesn’t hurt you, you know, as long as you don’t walk right up to it. As an experienced traveller now, I can reassure you all of that, but of course, at the time I’m telling you about, I didn’t know any more than you do. No, Tabitha, there’s no sea around here, I promise you. We’d have heard it by now if there was.

So let’s get back to my incredible story, shall we? I was just telling you how I fell asleep under the bench. Well, when I woke up, it was already bright sunshine so I must have slept soundly all night despite the scary situation. I felt bad that I hadn’t even managed to keep one eye open in case I was needed to protect the girls. I had a stretch and a quick wash, and padded cautiously along the walkway to the hut where the children had gone to sleep. To my horror, the door was open and neither of them were in there! I looked all around and in the distance I could see another small building, where a female human was carrying chairs and little tables and arranging them outside. And then, to my relief, I saw Caroline and Grace standing in front of the building, taking sandwiches and bottles of water from a young male serving them from the window. It must have been a shop of some kind. I was so hungry I would have liked to run up and grab myself a bite of one of those sandwiches, but I was pretty sure I should stay out of sight. So I slunk carefully along, keeping to the shadows, until I was close enough to hear them.

‘Thank you,’ Caroline was saying to the boy, giving him some money. ‘And we wondered if you could tell us how far it is to Duncombe?’

‘We’re on our way there, to stay with my aunt,’ Grace added.

‘Duncombe?’ the woman putting out the chairs said, turning round to look at them in surprise. ‘You’re a bit off the beaten track here, then, my lovely. You need to get back on the main road into Mudditon and it’s about five miles further on from there. Your parents waiting for you in the car, are they?’

‘No, we’re—’

‘Yes! Yes, they’re … um … waiting for us, up the road,’ Caroline interrupted Grace quickly.

‘Right. Well, that’s just as well, because if you were trying to get there without a car, you’d have a job. The morning bus has gone, and the next one isn’t till one o’clock. And that only takes you as far as Mudditon.’

‘Is it too far to walk to Duncombe?’ Grace asked, glancing at Caroline.

‘Oh, bless you, you’d take all day and night to walk there, and that’s a fact!’ the woman said, laughing. ‘Get yourselves off back to Mum and Dad now, if they’re waiting for you up the top.’

‘Oh, it’s all right, they’re just … um … having their breakfast,’ Caroline said.

‘Yes,’ Grace joined in. ‘They said we could come down here and eat ours on the beach.’

The woman stared after them, shaking her head, as they walked away.

‘I don’t think she suspected anything,’ Grace whispered as they passed by without noticing me shrinking back into a gap in the wall.

‘Let’s sit on the beach to have these, then, while we decide what to do,’ Caroline suggested. ‘It looks like we’ll have to wait for the next bus, Grace.’

‘Yes, and then it’ll just take us back where we started. I’m sorry, Caro. I have brought us in the wrong direction, haven’t I?’

‘Well, it’s not your fault. We’ll just have to start again from Mudditon.’