She still wasn’t quite brave enough to cross the road and investigate the unusual things that were happening on the other side. Cleo edged between two bushes as another van came driving up. But this time when the van stopped it was on her side of the road.
Cleo wriggled out between the thick stems, her whiskers twitching. The driver was getting out – Cleo could see his heavy boots walking round the side of the van. Then he opened up the back doors and lifted out a box, which he carried across the road to the interesting house on the other side.
Almost without realizing it, Cleo was padding eagerly out into the middle of the pavement. The van was new and exciting, and she wanted to see what was in it.
Then the man was coming back. Cleo ducked under the sprawling fuchsia bush in the garden next door. Amber and Sara always tried to grab her when she went out at the front of the house. She didn’t want this man to catch her now and stop her exploring. But the man didn’t even notice her. He just unloaded another box and set off across the road again, leaving the van’s back doors open.
As Cleo edged out of the bush, she came to a sudden halt. Her collar was caught on the wiry branches. She pulled at it crossly. She hated collars. When the safety catch came open, she tossed her head briskly from side to side, enjoying the freedom. Then she hurried out from under the bush, shaking the dry leaves from her fur.
Cleo sniffed at the tyres of the van and then stretched up, putting her front paws on the little back step. The van was full of boxes, some old sacks, a folded plastic sheet and all sorts of fascinating things. There were dark corners and good smells to investigate, too.
She jumped up, scrabbling to get her back legs on to the step, and clambered into the van. It was dusty, which made her sneeze, but that didn’t put her off. She prowled further inside and rubbed up against one of the boxes. She liked this place and she wanted to mark it as hers.
Suddenly there was a shout from outside and the sound of footsteps approaching. Cleo froze, laying her ears back. What was happening? Was someone coming to chase her out? She backed between the box and a pile of sacks and watched, round-eyed, as the doors at the back of the van swung shut with a slam.
She was trapped.
Amber turned to her mum, smiling in relief. “It’s OK! Cleo’s not in the front garden. She must have decided to stay round the back today.”
Mum nodded. “Maybe the novelty’s worn off.”
All the same, Amber was a little bit hurt that Cleo didn’t come rushing to see her as she stepped into the house. Whenever they’d been out over the summer holidays, she’d always come to greet them. As soon as she heard the door bang, she would come dashing downstairs from Amber’s room, where she’d been asleep on her bed. Or sometimes she was sitting on the living-room windowsill, watching to see them drive up.
The house felt oddly quiet and empty without a little tortoiseshell cat twirling around her feet. “Cleo!” Amber called up the stairs. “Cleo, where are you?”
Mum pushed the front door shut and looked around in surprise. “Isn’t she here? She’s usually desperate for us to feed her when we get in from school.”
“I know…” Amber said. “Cleo! Cleo!” She hurried through to the kitchen and out into the back garden. But no kitten came galloping over the grass to meet her. The garden was empty and still, with just a few birds twittering in the trees.
Amber trailed back inside, feeling worried.
Her mum was emptying one of Cleo’s pouches of kitten food into her bowl and she glanced up as Amber came in. She put down the pouch, looking thoughtful. “No sign of her?” she asked.
Amber shook her head.
“That is odd. Go and check upstairs, Amber. She might have got shut in one of the bedrooms.”
Amber smiled. “I didn’t think about that! I hope she hasn’t made a mess in Sara’s room. Sara got really cross when Cleo tipped over all her hairbands and stuff the other day.”
She raced upstairs, but all the bedroom doors were ajar. She checked the airing cupboard on the landing, just in case, but she wasn’t in there... Or in Sara’s wardrobe, or hers, or Mum and Dad’s. She wasn’t anywhere at all.
“Mum, I don’t know where she can be,” Amber said, bursting back into the kitchen. She was trying very hard not to cry. Mum would only say she was getting in a state about nothing. But this really didn’t feel like nothing. Cleo never missed meals.
Mum put her arm round Amber’s shoulders. “Sit down for a moment, have a drink, and let’s think about this.” She handed Amber some squash and pushed her gently into a chair. “Cleo was around just before lunch when I went into school. And we know she’s been getting more adventurous lately, going over the wall into the front garden. She’s probably just gone further than before. After all, you’ve only been back at school a week. Cleo doesn’t really know what time you come home, does she? And the fact I’m working different times of day probably confuses her, too.”
“I suppose so…”
“I expect she’ll be back in a minute, yowling if we don’t get her food in front of her before the cat flap bangs shut.”
Amber tried to laugh, but she couldn’t quite manage it.
Cleo stood perched on the pile of old sacks, mewing anxiously. She didn’t understand why the doors had closed so suddenly. All she knew was that now she couldn’t get out. She started to pick her way carefully between the boxes back towards the doors. Perhaps when she got closer she’d find a way to escape. When she pushed on doors in the house, sometimes they opened. Although sometimes they didn’t… She scampered up to the doors and scrabbled at them with her front paws. They were shut tight.
There was a growling noise and then suddenly the van lurched, and Cleo slipped over sideways with a little squeak of fright. She’d only been in a car a few times, when she was brought home from the shelter and for trips to the vet. She’d always travelled in a comfortable basket, padded with a blanket, though. She slid across the floor of the van as it pulled out into the road, meowing frantically. She hadn’t meant for this to happen at all.
Cleo pressed herself into a small dark space under a storage locker that had been built for tools. It was a tight fit, but it made her feel safer. Nothing could get at her under here. She squashed herself back against the cold metal of the van’s wall and waited.
Eventually the van seemed to slow down, and then it lurched to a stop. The noisy engine was turned off, leaving Cleo’s ears buzzing. There was a crunching, clashing sound, and the doors swung open. Cleo wriggled her nose out of the tiny gap and tried to see what was happening. She could smell the fresh air coming in through the open doors, and she desperately wanted to race for them. But there was so much noise. She darted back into her safe hiding place as a huge box slid past her with a shriek of metal on metal and shivered. What if more of the boxes moved as she ran for the doors? She had to try, though.
Cleo laid her ears back close to her head and crept out. With her tummy pressed against the floor of the van, she edged across to the doors.
She could see the road outside, and her whiskers twitched with the warm smells of the sunny afternoon. But just as she was getting ready to jump down, the doors clanged shut. She was trapped once more.
Cleo flung herself at the doors with a desperate wail, banging her paws against the hard metal. The doors didn’t budge. She should have run for it when she could! Furious and frightened, she stomped back across the van, the fur all along her spine raised, her tail fluffed up. What was going to happen now? What if she never got out?