I ran down the stairs to the landing. Debbie followed at an infuriatingly slow pace, pulling on her dressing gown as she stumbled sleepily along the hall. I ran to the end of the hallway and waited for her at the top of the stairs to the caf?. As she got nearer, Debbie noticed the piece of plyboard lying on the floor.
‘Molly, where do you think you’re going? You’re not allowed down there,’ she said sternly. I walked over the plyboard and placed one foot on the first step, trying to entice her to come after me. ‘Hey, Molly, I said you’re not allowed down there.’ She moved along the dark hallway and bent down to scoop me up. As she was about to lift me off the floor, she stopped. She stood up straight and sniffed. ‘Oh, my God, is that gas?’ she said, suddenly alert.
She raced past me down the stairs past me and I heard her run into the kitchen below.
‘Oh, my God, the gas is leaking! What do I do?’ she shrieked.
As I ran after her into the kitchen I saw that the pool of water underneath the boiler had spread across the kitchen floor. The air was thick with the pungent smell of gas, making my throat constrict and my eyes water. Debbie was standing in front of the boiler, one hand over her mouth in shock.
‘Windows!’ she shouted, and ran to the back of the kitchen to throw open the windows onto the alley. Then she grabbed the key to the back door and opened that too. She ran past me into the caf? and did the same in there, and soon the cool night breeze was blowing from the cobbled street in front to the alley at the back. Debbie stood by the kitchen door, swinging it back and forth by the handle, to increase the flow of fresh air into the room. The smell of gas quickly began to disperse, although the ominous hissing sound and the dripping of water onto the kitchen floor continued.
‘Sophie!’ she exclaimed suddenly. She closed the kitchen door and stood for a moment with her hand on the key, looking uncertain. ‘Door open or door shut, Molly?’ she asked me desperately. I chirruped helplessly, wishing I knew which was the correct answer. ‘You’re right, Molly. Better to leave it open. You’ll watch out for burglars, won’t you? I’ll just be a second.’ I stood dutifully by the open door while Debbie sprinted through the kitchen, then took the stairs two at a time up to the flat. I could hear her shouting as she ran along the hallway, ‘Sophie! You need to wake up, sweetheart. We’ve got a gas leak!’
A few moments later Debbie came tearing down the stairs again, a dishevelled Sophie staggering sleepily behind her. Sophie screwed up her face as the smell of gas hit her for the first time.
‘Right, everybody onto the street,’ Debbie ordered.
‘Are you kidding, Mum? It’s freezing out there. Can’t we just wait inside?’ Sophie protested.
‘Sophie. In case you hadn’t noticed, we have a gas leak, which could not only be poisonous, but is also highly flammable. No, we cannot wait inside.’ Debbie bustled Sophie through the caf? door and out into the cobbles. ‘Come on, Molly, you need to come with us,’ she said impatiently, asI stood in the middle of the caf? twitching my tail. ‘Molly! Come on!’ Debbie shouted, her patience wearing thin. She dashed back inside and tried to put her arms around me to lift me up, but I wriggled and twisted out of her grip. As soon as I had struggled free I ran back towards the stairs.‘Molly, what are you playing at? You need to come outside!’ Debbie had never shouted at me like this before, but I was not about to let her anger deter me.
‘She wants to get her kittens, Mum,’ I heard Sophie say from the street. ‘She doesn’t want to leave them upstairs.’
Debbie groaned.‘Oh, of course, the kittens.’ I could hear the exasperation in her voice.
I started to creep stealthily up the stairs, knowing that, if necessary, I could carry all the kittens to safety without her help.
‘Okay, Molly – fair enough, but we’ll have to be quick. Sophie, you stay there and don’t move.’
‘Are you kidding, Mum? I’m not going to stand out here on my own in the middle of the night! Besides, there are five kittens, and only one of you. It’ll be quicker if I come.’ Sophie was standing in the caf? doorway, hands on her hips, silhouetted by the street light behind. Debbie stood between us, clutching her hair as she tried to decide what to do. Still waiting on the stairs, I was losing patience with her procrastinating.
‘Oh, all right then, come on!’ Debbie cried, and the three of us stampeded upstairs to the flat. ‘I’ll need to find the carrier,’ Debbie gasped, trying to catch her breath after running up the stairs for the second time in a matter of minutes. ‘And then I’ll need to join the gym,’ she panted, as she steadied herself against the banister.
Sophie and I left her throwing coats and shoes out of the hallway cupboard as we ran into the living room. All the kittens were inside the cardboard box, fast asleep and blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding around them.
‘Got it!’ Debbie shouted in a voice that was verging on hysterical. She appeared in the living-room doorway, triumphantly clutching the carrier, even more flustered and red-faced than she had been before. She ran across the room to the cardboard box, unlocking the front of the carrier as she went. ‘Right, come on Soph, gently does it,’ she said.
The kittens started to squirm as she and Sophie picked them up, one by one, and placed them swiftly inside the carrier. By the time all five were inside they were wide awake, mewing and clambering over each other, confused at finding themselves incarcerated in a plastic box. I stayed close to the carrier as Debbie used both hands to lift it and we made our way, in a clumsy huddle, back along the hallway and down the narrow staircase.
Outside on the street, Debbie plonked the carrier down on the cobbles and sighed with relief.‘They’re heavier than they look, you know!’ she said to Sophie, by way of explanation for her shortness of breath. She slipped her hand into her dressing-gown pocket and pulled out her phone.
It was chilly outside and I could see goosebumps on Debbie’s legs as she stood next to a shivering Sophie. She pressed the screen of her phone, then held it to her ear.
‘Come on, come on – please pick up,’ she whispered, bouncing up and down on the spot in agitation. She stopped moving suddenly and I heard a faint voice at the other end of the line. ‘Oh, hi, John. I’m really sorry to call you so late. It’s Debbie.’
29 [Êàðòèíêà: i_005.jpg]
We huddled in the caf? doorway, under the eerie orange light of a street lamp. Sophie rested her head on Debbie’s shoulder, shivering in her thin cotton pyjamas. Every now and then a breeze wafted the smell of gas over to us, making my eyes prickle. As we waited, the kittens grew agitated, stumbling over each other as they tried to get to the front of the cat carrier. It felt strange to be on the street again, after so many weeks confined to the flat. My ears swivelled in alarm at sounds that had once been the familiar backdrop to my life: owls screeching in the churchyard, and cats yowling as they squared up for a fight in some distant passageway.
After about ten minutes we heard a car engine in a nearby street. Soon a pair of headlights appeared at the end of the parade, approaching slowly along the cobbles.
‘This must be him!’ Debbie whispered, lifting Sophie’s head off her shoulder and stepping out of the doorway. She waved, squinting in the headlights’ beams. ‘Hi.’ She smiled apologetically as John climbed out of the van. ‘I can’t thank you enough for coming out. I didn’t know whatelse to do.’
John’s eyes were puffy with sleep and, although his lips wore a thin smile, he did not return her greeting. He heaved his tool bag from the passenger seat onto his shoulder. ‘Quite the street party you’re having here,’ he said, glancing at Sophie, at me and at the carrier full of kittens.