Olivia jumped, dropping half the treats on the ground.“I heard it too! It must be him. Smudge, where are you?” she called.
There was silence for a minute, and then a loud, desperate meow.
“It is! It is! Where is he? Smudge, we’re coming to find you!” Olivia called, running towards the garages.
Inside the garage, Smudge scrabbled at the metal again. He could hear Olivia! She’d come to find him. Furiously he scraped and scratched, mewing as loudly as he could. He had to make them hear him!
“Which one is it?” Ben asked.
“The one at the end, I think,” Rob said, smiling for the first time that morning. “He must be stuck somehow, he’s trying to get out.”
Olivia pushed her way past him, and crouched down by the garage wall.“He’s here somewhere. Smudge… Smudge…”
A little grey paw suddenly stuck out from a hole in the concrete wall, where it had been patched together.
“He’s there! I saw him. Oh, Smudge, we’ve missed you!” Olivia stroked the grubby little paw. “Look, his claws are all torn where he’s been trying to get out.” She sniffed, choking back sudden tears.
“How are we going to get him out?” Ben asked. “That hole isn’t nearly big enough.”
“What about this?” Rob held up a thick stick, which he’d found lying on the grass. “Couldn’t we use it to pull that metal away a bit more?” He banged gently on the metal sheet, and the paw shot back inside as Smudge jumped back in fright.
“Don’t scare him!” Olivia snapped.
Rob shook his head.“I had to, Olivia. If he was right behind the metal, I might hurt his paws with the stick.”
“Oh.” Olivia nodded.
Rob hooked the stick into the hole, and pulled. There was a creaking noise, and the thin metal bent a little.
“It’s getting bigger! Here, I’ll pull too.” Ben added his weight to the stick, and Olivia knelt down by the hole.
“Don’t be scared, Smudge, you’ll be out of there in a minute.”
“There!” Ben said triumphantly. “That must be big enough. Good plan, Rob!”
Inside the garage, Smudge blinked at the hole, his whiskers quivering excitedly. He could hear Olivia. He edged forward, squeezing himself tightly against the concrete block, and suddenly tumbled forward out of the hole, and into Olivia’s hands.
[Êàðòèíêà: _26.jpg]
“Oh, Smudge, we’ve been looking everywhere.” Olivia snuggled the kitten up against her chin, laughing and crying at the same time.
“Hey! You’ve found him!” Olivia’s dad came running up the alley, with all the others hurrying behind him.
“He’s fine,” Olivia told them. “Just a bit dirty. He was stuck in that garage.”
“We moved that bit of metal,” Ben explained. “It was Rob who thought of it.”
“But he wouldn’t have run off and got stuck if I hadn’t taken him first,” Rob muttered. “I’ll never do anything that stupid again, I promise.”
“You’re just lucky that you found him,” his dad pointed out grimly.
“I know it was all my fault,” Rob muttered. “I said I’m really sorry, Dad.”
“I think you’d better give some of your pocket money to the Rescue Centre by way of apology,” his mum suggested, and Rob nodded.
Olivia looked over at Rob.“He only did it because he really wants a cat of his own,” she murmured.
Rob’s dad sighed. “Well, maybe when he proves he can be sensible enough to look after a kitten, he can have one. Which will take a long time!”
Olivia turned to Rob.“Rob, do you want to stroke Smudge too?”
Rob ran a gentle finger down the back of Smudge’s head.
“Thanks,” he whispered.
Now she had Smudge snuggled up and purring in her arms again, Olivia felt like she could forgive anything. Smudge pressed closer against her, looking nervously at Rob.
“It’s OK, Smudge.” She tickled him under the chin. “Rob’s not going to hurt you.” She smiled at Rob, only a small smile, but she got a huge one back.
Lucie reached out to rub Smudge’s ears. “He’s gorgeous. You’re so lucky, Olivia!”
Olivia smiled. She was. Lucky to have Smudge – and even more lucky to have him back safe.
19. THE KITTEN NOBODY WANTED
Chapter One
“Oh, Mia, look! I told you Mrs Johnston had a new cat. Isn’t she gorgeous? So fluffy!” Mia’s mum stroked the little black cat, who was sitting proudly on Mrs Johnston’s front wall.
Mia’s best friend Emily tickled the purring cat under the chin. “She’s so lovely!”
Mia’s mum looked over at Mia hopefully, then sighed. She hadn’t even glanced up as Mum and Emily petted the cat. She was staring firmly at her school shoes as she marched on down the road. It was as if she hadn’t heard.
Mum and Emily exchanged worried looks, and hurried after her. Emily lived a few doors down from Mia, and the girls usually walked to school together. Their mums and Mia’s gran took it in turns to go with them, now that Emily’s big sister Leah had started secondary school. Gran lived in a little flat at the side of Mia’s house, and looked after Mia when her parents were working. She’d moved in with them a few years ago, when she’d been ill and it had been difficult for her to live on her own.
“See you tomorrow, Mia!” Emily called, as she turned into her drive.
“Bye! Call me if you get stuck on that homework!” Mia was very good at maths, and Emily wasn’t. Emily had been moaning about their maths homework all the way back from school.
Mia flung off her coat and hurried upstairs before Mum could start going on about Mrs Johnston’s gorgeous cat again. She could hear her mum asking her if she was OK, if she wanted a drink or a chat, but she ignored her.
Mia just didn’t want to hear. She’d never realized before how many cats there were in her road, or on the way to school. Now that she couldn’t bear to see them, there seemed to be cats everywhere.
She slumped down on her bed, and looked sadly at the navy blue fleece blanket spread over her duvet at the end. It had a pattern of little cat faces scattered over it– and there were still ginger hairs clinging on to it here and there. Sandy had slept on it every night, for as long as Mia could remember. She still woke up in the middle of the night expecting her old cat to be there – sometimes she even reached down to stroke him, waiting for his sleepy purras he felt her move. It was so hard to believe that he was really gone.
She looked at the photo on her windowsill. It had been taken a couple of months earlier, at the beginning of the summer holidays, just a few weeks before Sandy died. He was looking thin, and they’d taken him to the vet’s, but that day he’d been enjoying the late summer sun in the garden, and Mia had been sure he was getting better. Looking back now, she realized that he hadn’t been jumping and pouncing and chasing the butterflies like he usually did, just lying quietly in the sun. But she hadn’t wanted to believe that there was anything wrong with him.
[Êàðòèíêà: i_003.jpg]
Tears stung her eyes as she stroked the glass over the photo, wishing she had the real Sandy snuggled up on her lap.
How could Mum keep pointing out other cats, and expecting her to want to stop and stroke them? Dad had even suggested going to the cat rescue centre to look for a kitten! Mia didn’t want a kitten, ever. She was never going to replace her beautiful Sandy.
Mum was calling her from downstairs, asking if she wanted a snack. Brushing the tears away, Mia carefully straightened Sandy’s blanket, and went down to the kitchen.
[Êàðòèíêà: i_004.jpg]
She could tell that Mum was watching her worriedly as she ate her apple. It only made her feel worse.
“Shall I go and fill up the bird feeder?” she asked, wanting an excuse to leave the room. Mia knew Mum was only trying to help, but she really wasn’t, and any minute now she was going to start talking about kittens again, or getting a rabbit, like she’d suggested yesterday.
Mia grabbed the bag of bird food from the cupboard, and let herself out of the back door, taking a deep breath of relief. A blackbird skittered out of her way as she went over to refill the feeder, and she murmured to it soothingly as she unhooked the wire case.