He did actually try to tell Nicky it was because of me that he’d seen it, but she just laughed. Unfortunately, she also laughed when he told her what the notice had said, but it wasn’t the kind of laugh that sounded as if she was really amused. In fact she sounded quite snappy about it.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dan. Twenty hours a week, on local wages? How’s that supposed to be a good idea? We wouldn’t even be able to pay the rent, let alone feed ourselves.’
‘You wouldn’t have to pay train fares,’ he reminded her. ‘And I wouldn’t have to be worried sick about you getting exhausted from commuting, closer to when the baby’s due.’
‘Nobody’s asking you to worry about me,’ she said crossly. ‘Just go and find some firewood, please, Dan, and stop coming up with stupid ideas.’
He picked up his rucksack and went off towards the woods again, only this time he wasn’t whistling. And I slunk away to have a sleep in their kitchen, feeling sorry that I’d tried to help. Maybe I wasn’t as clever as I thought I was. The cat who saved Christmas? At the moment I just seemed to be the cat who caused arguments.
At least the atmosphere in Sarah and Martin’s house was more cheerful. On that same Saturday, the whole family went out in the car and came back laughing and excited, with a tree strapped to the car roof. Of course, from my Christmases at the pub, I knew straight away what it was, but Sarah must have thought I was a silly little inexperienced kitten like you, because she picked me up and cuddled me as Martin carried the tree inside, telling me not to worry, it wasn’t going to hurt me. I felt quite offended, but at the end of the day there was no point in passing up the opportunity for a nice cuddle.
‘Can we decorate it now, Daddy?’ Grace was shouting as she danced around the room. ‘Please, Daddy, can we…’
‘No. Let’s leave that for a few days, at least. It’s still far too soon – I don’t know why I let you talk me into buying one when it’s not even the first of December until Monday.’
‘Oh, Daddy, please! Now we’ve got it, can’t we put the decorations on?’ She was jumping up and down and going red in the face.
‘Calm down, Grace,’ Martin said. ‘I’ve said no.’ He gave Sarah a look, and nodded at Rose, who was sitting quietly on the sofa, just watching Martin trying to prop the tree up in its bucket.
‘Dad’s right,’ Sarah said. ‘It won’t hurt to wait a few more days for the decorations.’
‘Oh, Mum!’
‘You can both do it together, after Rose has her plaster off on Thursday,’ she said.
‘Oh.’ Grace looked at her sister. ‘Why? She can help me now, with her good arm, can’t she?’
‘That’s not very fair, is it? It’ll be much nicer if you can both do it together, and she’ll manage a whole lot better when she’s got both arms free.’
‘But you said they might not even take the plaster off when she goes to the hospital on Thursday,’ Grace said, crossly. ‘Then we’ll never be able to put the decorations up.’
‘We hope it will come off.’ Sarah sounded equally cross now. ‘But if it doesn’t, we’ll do the decorations on Thursday evening anyway, and I’ll help Rose so that she can join in properly.’
‘It’s not fair,’ Grace moaned.
‘And it’s not like you to be so selfish, Grace,’ Martin snapped at her. ‘Rose has had to put up with doing everything one-handed all these weeks and hasn’t complained about it. Think yourself lucky it wasn’t you that got hurt.’
‘I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to run into the road,’ Grace retorted – and then she went suddenly even redder, and put her paw over her mouth. ‘Sorry!’ she gabbled. ‘I didn’t mean it!’
But she was too late saying sorry, because Rose had burst into tears, and Sarah had put me down abruptly, got hold of Grace by the shoulders and marched her quite roughly out of the room.
‘Go upstairs and stay there until you’ve had time to think about what you just said,’ I heard her saying angrily. ‘I know you’re overexcited about the Christmas tree, but that was a really nasty thing to say to your sister. And to think you were the one sticking up for her when other children were being unkind.’
‘I know, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it!’ Grace was still saying through her sobs as she went upstairs. ‘I’m sorry, Rose,’ she called back from their bedroom.
But Rose was crying quietly on the sofa, and Martin was muttering to himself that if Grace carried on like that she wouldn’t get any Christmas presents. The whole day seemed spoilt.
I jumped up on Rose’s lap and snuggled up to her, giving her good paw a few licks of consolation.
‘I’m not stupid,’ she said in a little quiet voice as Sarah came back into the room. ‘I only ran into the road because I loved Sooty.’
‘Grace knows that really,’ Sarah told her, joining us on the sofa and putting an arm round Rose. ‘She was just being spiteful. She probably resents the extra attention Rose has had,’ she added quietly to Martin, who sighed and nodded.
When Rose had stopped crying, I jumped down and ran upstairs to see Grace. She was lying on her bed, looking like she’d cried even harder than Rose. Her face was swollen and blotchy and her eyes were all red.
‘Oh, Ollie!’ she said, picking me up and cuddling me. ‘I wish I hadn’t been so horrible. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Am I turning into a horrible person?’
‘No!’ I mewed at her in Cat. I didn’t really know what else to say.
‘I do love Rose, and I actually think she was really, really brave to try to save Sooty,’ she said, her eyes starting to fill up with tears again. ‘She was just getting over it all, wasn’t she, and now I’ve gone and upset her all over again. How can I make it up to her?’
I didn’t have any answers. I just purred against her neck to show I understood.
She jumped up suddenly, wiping her eyes, opened the drawer in her bedside table and pulled out a little pink purse, which she unzipped and tipped upside down on the bed. Lots of brown coins, a few silver ones and one of those pieces of paper they call five pound notes fell out, and she started counting it all up.
‘I know what I’ll do,’ she said, sounding excited again. ‘I’ll use all my money to buy Rose a new cat of her own, to keep. She can call it Sooty again. That’ll make her happy, won’t it, Ollie?’
I nearly fell off the bed. A new cat? Another Sooty, a permanent member of the family, coming to live in my foster home? I’m sorry to say, Charlie, the selfishness problem must have been catching that day, because all I could think was What about me?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
For a few days, things were more settled in Sarah and Martin’s house. But I was so worried about the suggestion of a new cat, I decided I’d better try harder than ever to make myself irreplaceable. Since being told off for leaving the headless sparrow in the lounge, I’d tried leaving a few gifts of mice and birds by the back door, but Sarah hadn’t seemed particularly thrilled. So this time, I spent a while stalking the stupid pigeons who dominated the bird feeder a few gardens down the road. They’re not particularly hard to catch, but they’re big and cumbersome to carry off. I chose the biggest, plumpest one, and just to make sure it was properly appreciated, left it on the front doorstep.