‘I love this,’ I heard Toby say, and Claire kissed him. ‘I’ve never been on a boat before.’
‘Have I?’ Summer asked.
‘No, darling, this is your first ever boat trip, both of you.’ Sometimes I forgot that there was a time when Toby wasn’t with us, and I felt emotional. He was such an important part of our family now.
The boat stopped with a jerk and I fell back, but luckily Aleksy had put a jumper in the bag so it was soft for me. Then I felt him pick me up and we were off. As we disembarked I saw us walking up a steep slope where lots of people were playing.
‘Let’s just find a space on the quay to decamp,’ Polly said. Again I was put down on the ground. The quay led down to the water and I could see lots of people were scattered along it, with fishing lines. I perked up. Things were improving. I might not like water but I certainly liked fish.
‘What are you doing?’ I heard Tommy ask someone.
‘Crabbing. We’re trying to catch crabs,’ a voice replied. Oh, not fish then; I felt disappointed.
‘Can we do that?’ Aleksy asked.
‘Please,’ Henry said.
‘Gosh, I vaguely remember doing that when I was a kid. Blimey. Right, I’ll go to the shop and get lines and buckets. Summer, you can share Toby’s.’
‘Oh, and Martha and Henry can share. But I don’t want any of you getting too close to the edge.’ Polly echoed my fears.
‘Psst,’ a voice said, and I looked to see George’s face. Tomasz had put the backpacks next to each other.
‘Are you having fun?’ I asked.
‘The most fun, but can I go crabbing?’
‘Best not. Let’s stay here and watch for a bit, we don’t want to get into trouble,’ I hissed.
‘OK, Dad.’ George sounded happy, which made me happy. I settled down to enjoy the sliver of sunlight coming into the bag and I felt sleepy all of a sudden.
‘Alfie,’ I heard Aleksy whisper. I opened my eyes. How long had I been sleeping for?
‘Meow,’ I said, sleepily.
‘George is out of the backpack. The adults have taken the little ones to the toilet, and left us and now George is insisting on crabbing with us.’ He sounded panicked. I climbed out of the bag, stretched — my legs were a little stiff — and looked for my kitten.
‘George,’ I said, quietly.
‘Yes, Dad.’
‘We were only allowed to come if we stayed out of sight,’ I explained, trying not to sound impatient.
‘Yes, but where’s the fun in that?’ he said. He had a point. I thought back to when I was younger, before George, and I used to go on many adventures. Yes I got into trouble at times, but at least I had some great experiences. I realised I was getting a bit boring in my old age. I tickled my boy with my tail.
‘OK, but listen, stay close to me and watch out for dogs.’
Aleksy looked worried but Tommy thought it was funny as we joined them on the quay to see what this crabbing business was. They had these long orange lines which they were dangling into the water. Beside them were two buckets which contained some funny-looking creatures— crabs — in. Aleksy was putting food on the line, it didn’t smell too bad actually, but I tried not to eat it. I was beginning to enjoy myself, when Ben, one of the children from the other day, approached.
‘Alright,’ he said.
‘Hi, Ben,’ Aleksy said, sounding friendly.
‘Hello.’ Tommy was more suspicious.
‘Sorry about the other day, those girls, Savannah especially, have started to be a bit bossy. They’ve always been nice girls, but lately they can be a bit mean. I am sorry though, we were having fun.’
‘They seemed really horrible,’ Tommy said.
‘But they aren’t always like that. I think that maybe they were upset that we were playing with you and they weren’t. And like I said, recently they have been a bit meaner than normal, and everyone tries to keep the peace with them.’ He looked at his sandalled feet.
‘You’re scared of them?’ Tommy asked.
Ben nodded, his face reddening.
‘I know what bullies are like,’ Aleksy said. He did, I had to go to school with him once to sort out a little boy who was bullying Aleksy. ‘But you know, you need to stand up to them.’
‘I know, but we’ve been friends for years, and normally they are really nice, so we don’t really understand.’ Ben looked downcast. ‘We do want to play with you though. But what if we still meet up on the beach? And now, how about I join you crabbing? My mum is having coffee with one of her friends so I’m a bit bored to be honest.’
‘Here,’ Aleksy said, handing him his line. ‘You have a go.’
I was so proud of my boys. They didn’t hold a grudge.
‘Oh, your cats are here!’ Ben giggled.
‘Yes, we stowed them away on the ferry.’ Tommy beamed with pride.
Ben stroked both me and George.‘That is so cool!’ he said. George, loving the attention, started showing off. He put his head into one of the buckets.
‘Yelp!’ George sprang up, an angry crab attached to his nose.
‘Oh boy,’ Aleksy said. ‘What do we do?’ He looked panicked, as did I. What on earth was this crab doing attaching itself to my kitten?
‘Don’t wriggle,’ Ben said, picking George up and gently removing the crab. He carefully placed it back in the bucket as George rubbed his nose, which looked a bit swollen, with his paw. I backed away from the buckets and nuzzled George.
‘Will he be alright?’ George was making a very loud noise, I knew it meant that it hurt but there was nothing I could do. Ben cradled him and tried to stroke him. I think we were all glad that he was there. I saw the boys looking worried but then Aleksy laughed.
‘Sorry, George, but you did look funny with a crab on your nose,’ he giggled. The others joined in and I have to say I did see the funny side. If only someone had taken a photo — that would have gone down a storm on Facebook!
‘Yowl!’ However, George did not.
We were so caught up in the excitement we didn’t notice the others returning.
‘What on earth is going on?’ Franceska said. Aleksy, Tomasz, Ben, myself and George all looked at them. At least that silenced George.
‘Alfie, George, what are you doing here?’ Claire snapped. The children giggled.
‘Um, we may have accidentally stowed them away,’ Tommy said.
‘No, they stowed away on their own,’ Aleksy corrected, but he was such a good boy he couldn’t tell a lie without laughing.
‘You boys!’ Franceska chastised. ‘Right, well there’s nothing we can do now, and we are heading back soon anyway. Ice cream?’ She smiled and picked me up.
‘MEOW!’ George said loudly and everyone laughed.
I was glad when we got back to Seabreeze Cottage with no further incidents. Apart from the crab incident— poor George’s nose was still a bit swollen — we’d had a very nice day out. Ben had been helpful and I was pleased that they were friends again, although I knew that those girls wouldn’t exactly welcome them being so. But as they said, if they played together on the beach — a public place — hopefully there was nothing they could say about that. Although I thought they probably could. I wondered what had happened to them to make them mean — Ben said that they were nice until recently. It was another conundrum for me to add to all the others. I fleetingly wondered if Chanel hadbeen nice once, but I couldn’t see that.
As they all sat down to eat tea, and George and I went to the garden, I felt quite relaxed. Of course, George went straight to the gap in the hedge and crawled through. He struck gold, because Chanel was there, sniffing some of Andrea’s very nice flowers.
‘Hello!’ George said, excitedly. I stayed close to him, just in case. He didn’t need any other injuries today.?‘Oh it’s you,’ she said, narrowing her eyes and swishing her tail.