Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life

‘Thank you, that was delicious,’ I meowed. ‘Have you got any more?’

But they both just watched me, laughing, as I washed my whiskers.

‘He’s so sweet,’ Shirley said. ‘I’m tempted to take him home with me, you know. He’s just crying out for some love and care.’

I froze on the spot. They were nice humans, and I was grateful for the milk, of course, but I didn’t like the sound of this. If they took me home, they might want to keep me. And then what? I’d never get back to Little Broomford or see Caroline again.

‘Goodbye,’ I said. ‘Thanks again.’ Well, I didn’t want to appear ungrateful. But I ran back to the yard where my friends were dozing in the sunshine, and lay down next to Big, feeling slightly ashamed now of my secret visits. It wasn’t fair that I’d had a lovely dish of milk and hadn’t been able to share it with them, but I knew they’d have been too afraid to trust Jean and Shirley.

I tried to make up for it by telling them later that I’d overheard some humans talking about the report in the newspaper while they were asleep. I emphasised the part about people calling for feral cats to be allowed to stay. This was all good news to my friends, of course. Not that they ever lost their distrust of humans in general, but they began to understand that not all of them were intent on hurting them or getting rid of them.

Everything started to change a couple of days later, because of a woman with a chocolate ice cream.

She was quite an elderly human, one of those whose fur have gone white and hobble along holding a stick in one paw. Why they don’t just give up and walk on four paws when they get too old to balance on two, I’ll never understand, but there it is. The boys and I were patrolling the seafront on the other side of the harbour this particular day. We’d already seen off a few seagulls, and had attracted the attention of a group of holiday humans who stood watching us, exclaiming and cheering us on. This old woman came tottering along with her stick, and in the other paw she had a chocolate ice cream, the type they eat out of a pointy biscuity thing, with a stick of chocolate poking out of it. My mouth watered as I watched her licking it, remembering how much Caroline loved those, and how she sometimes gave me the last bit to finish off. I wondered if I’d ever get to enjoy that kind of treat again.

Suddenly there was a shout from the crowd: ‘Watch out, love!’

A huge seagull had swooped down from a lamppost and was aiming straight for the woman, trying to grab her ice cream. Suddenly I had a flashback to the day I’d watched Caroline being attacked on the beach for her sandwiches. I pictured Caroline’s poor bleeding finger again, remembered how she’d fallen, and the noise she’d made when her head hit the rock. How she lay there, lifeless, for a minute, before opening her eyes and looking so ill. I let out a little mew of anguish. Where was my poor Caroline now? Perhaps she was still at the hospital – I had no idea what they did at these places, except what Oliver had told me about Caroline being in one when she was very ill before, and that they’d kept her there a long time, trying to make her better. Perhaps this time they hadn’t even been able to make her better – it was bad enough her seeming to be ill again, without having got so badly hurt that day on the beach. And it was all the fault of a nasty, spiteful seagull – just like this one who was going for the poor old female’s ice cream! Overcome with fury at seagulls in general, I didn’t even stop to consider whether the rest of the gang was behind me, or whether in fact they’d even noticed the poor old human’s desperate situation at all. I just charged forward, hissing and spitting for all I was worth.

Of course, the other boys quickly came after me, Big shouting at me for not staying with them. I like to think I got the gull pretty flustered on my own, jumping up at him and yowling my head off, but once I had the gang’s support he didn’t need telling anymore. He flapped away crossly without having nabbed the chocolate ice cream. The poor human had dropped it on the ground, though, as she stumbled, letting go of her stick, and she was only saved from falling over by a couple of young male humans who rushed to help her.

‘Well done, Charlie,’ Big said gruffly, as between us all we quickly licked up as much of the ice cream off the pavement as we could. No point in it going to waste and, as you know, humans are far too pernickety to eat off the ground. ‘But it was a bit daft, wasn’t it, not waiting for us? For the love of catnip, don’t you realise that gull could have had your eye out?’

I flinched. One eye was already still quite sore and swollen. The thought of the other one being pecked out by a seagull was enough to make me realise how lucky I’d been, and how foolhardy. I’d landed badly on my wounded leg too, with all that jumping up at the gull.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I just felt so cross, I got carried away.’