‘Because he was talking to himself, and…’
‘To himself? See, I told you he was mad.’
‘I wanted to listen. And it was very interesting. Now…’
‘Now we can go home,’ he said, looking all around him nervously. ‘I don’t like it here.’
‘It’s fine now he’s gone. He’ll be at work all day. Come on, I’m going inside.’
‘No!’ he squawked, running in front of me and trying to block my way. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Ollie, it isn’t safe. Come back!’
‘There’s a window open up here,’ I told him, jumping up onto the ledge again. ‘We can easily squeeze through.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ he muttered, but with a bit of huffing and puffing, he followed me, jumping down after me into the conservatory and still muttering his disapproval. ‘What now?’ he asked. ‘We are trespassing, Ollie – I suppose you do realise that? What are you doing?’
I’d made a dive for the wastepaper basket and knocked it over.
‘Here it is,’ I said, picking up the screwed-up page in my teeth. ‘Come on! I’m taking this to show Laura.’
‘The cat’s gone completely bonkers,’ he moaned to himself, nevertheless trotting obediently after me. ‘We’re going to get thrown out, probably kicked out…’
Just then a shadow fell over us. I glanced up, and to my relief, it was only Laura. But she didn’t look pleased. I suppose she didn’t want any more trouble for allowing one cat into the house, never mind two.
‘What…?’ she started. I dropped the ball of paper near her feet, but she didn’t even notice, kicking it with one foot as she came towards me. ‘Oliver! How did you get in, and who is this?’ She gave Tabby a disapproving look, and he shrank away from her. The paper ball had rolled towards him, and he promptly knocked it back to me, trying to show it had nothing to do with him.
‘Oh, look,’ came a little voice from behind Laura. It was Caroline, holding onto Laura’s arm as she watched us. ‘Ollie’s brought a friend with him, and they’re playing!’ She laughed. ‘Aren’t they cute?’
‘Cute!’ Tabby meowed to me indignantly.
‘Yes!’ I replied. ‘Be cute. Play!’
I knocked the ball of paper to him with my paw, and waited for him to bat it across to me again. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist the ball-of-paper game, however nervous he was feeling. When he knocked it back to me, I deliberately sent it towards Laura’s feet.
‘They want us to play with them,’ Caroline squealed.
But this time Laura bent down and picked up the paper. I held my breath. Was she just going to throw it back in the bin? No! She smoothed it out and started reading it. I watched her face. Her eyes widened, and when she got to the end, she flushed very red. For a moment, we were all frozen there – Laura staring at the note, Tabby and I poised to make a run for it, Caroline watching us.
‘Huh!’ Laura exclaimed suddenly, making me jump. ‘Why am I bothering to even read this nonsense? He must have been drunk when he wrote it.’
‘What is it?’ Caroline asked.
‘Just a bit of rubbish.’ And she screwed it back up and dropped it in the bin. ‘And I’m sorry, Caroline, but the cats have to go. You know what your father said.’
She opened the conservatory door and shooed us out.
Well, at least, I suppose, we didn’t have to climb back out of the window.
CHAPTER TWENTY
So I’d been through all that trauma, and achieved precisely nothing. I felt a failure. I’d tried to be a helpful cat, a cat who made people happy, and in the end all I’d been was a silly little cat who got people into trouble.
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself,’ Tabby said cheerfully. Funny how he’d perked up now we were on the way home and out of danger – but then, to be fair, at least he did come with me and didn’t run away when the heat was on, like a scaredy-cat. ‘It was an adventure. Something we can show off to the females about.’
I laughed and rubbed heads with him. ‘Thanks, Tabs. I’m glad we’re friends.’
‘Me too. You’re a much braver little cat than I ever thought. I don’t know why you used to let me call you timid.’
But in my little heart, I felt sad and sorry. I’d started off my new life as a foster cat with too high an opinion of myself, I now realised. Because I’d given a few people in the village the idea of getting together in their homes, I’d thought I was the mouse’s whiskers, but I obviously wasn’t as clever as I thought I was. I went back through the cat flap into Sarah’s kitchen and spent most of the day asleep.
When the children came home from school, the rest of the Foxes came round, and spent some time playing with me while Sarah looked through the papers they’d been writing about me during the last few weeks.
‘Well done, girls,’ she said eventually. ‘You’ve all completed your “Pet” projects now and they’re very good. I’ll pass these on to Brown Owl, and you can get started on the other sections of the badge.’
The children clamoured around her as she read out some options from a book.
‘The zoo!’ Grace shouted. ‘Yes! Let’s go to the zoo!’
‘Yes, the zoo!’ they all chorused.
Sarah laughed. ‘All right, I’ll talk to Brown Owl about it, and perhaps we can take you together. We could go on the train, during the Christmas holiday.’
‘Bye, Ollie,’ the girls called out as they trooped off to their homes.
I slunk back out to the kitchen and lay down in my basket, curling up with my tail over my head. Even the Foxes didn’t need me anymore. Pretty soon the family were going to replace me with another cat, and then there’d be nobody left who cared about me. Oh, if only that fire had never happened. If only I were still in the pub with George. I mewed myself quietly back to sleep.
I didn’t really cheer up until the following evening, when Sarah was rushing around the house excitedly, moving extra chairs into the lounge and tidying up, because it was her turn to have the WI ladies there.
‘Nicky next door is going to come tonight,’ she told Martin, who had put on his old coat and was going out to the shed, with a mug of beer in his hand, to make himself scarce. ‘I’m really glad I’ve persuaded her. It will do her good to meet some of the other women.’
I was glad too, and I felt sorry then for thinking I’d have nobody else in the world if Sarah and Martin didn’t want me. Although their cottage was cold, Nicky and Daniel were lovely humans and I know they liked me too. If it hadn’t been for Daniel, I might still be up that tree in the wood, or in the fox’s tummy, I reminded myself sternly with a little shudder.
When all the females started arriving, I sat in my hammock on the radiator so that I could listen to them chat. To my surprise, they started off by standing up in a row and singing a song about some place called Jerusalem. Some of them had loud screechy voices and I thought I’d better join in, to try to keep them in tune. I lifted my head and yowled as loudly as I could. They all started smiling and as soon as the song was finished there was a loud burst of laughter from everyone and they turned to me and clapped their paws. Believe me, Charlie, you’ll find female humans can be even stranger than the males at times.
After that, they all sat down, apart from one, who stood at the front reading things out to them about money they needed to pay and trips they might be going on.
‘And as we all know, ladies,’ she went on, ‘the Christmas party is cancelled this year but Sarah has kindly offered to have us all back here on the Saturday after Christmas, for a buffet lunch. Some of you have offered to bring cakes or sandwiches – you know who you are – and please all bring your own drinks, or all you’ll get is a glass of water.’