As soon as she got home, Amber raced upstairs to find the laptop she shared with Sara. Normally they argued about whose turn it was to have it, but Amber knew that today Sara wouldn’t mind if she got it out of her bedroom. She carried it into her own room and started to work out what the poster should say.
“Amber?”
Amber gazed up at Sara in the doorway. “Look!” she sniffed, holding out the laptop to her big sister. There were tears dripping down her nose.
“Oh…” Sara sat down next to Amber on the bed, peering over at the photo on the screen. “I took that one on Mum’s mobile. Cleo thought the phone was something she could eat – that’s why she’s so close up. She looks really cute.”
“I bet she’s really scared, wherever she is,” Amber sobbed. “She’s not going to understand what’s going on, is she? She won’t even know we’re looking for her.”
“I bet she will,” Sara said. “She knows we love her, Amber. I’ll help you put the posters up, and she’ll be home soon. It’ll be OK.”
Once she’d darted out from under the van on to the pavement, Cleo squirmed under the nearest gate. She still had no idea where she was and why she couldn’t find her way home to Amber, but she was so thirsty. She had to find something to drink. She followed her nose down the pathway at the side of the house and came out into the back garden. She could smell water, she was sure. There was a delicate pattering sound and she hurried towards it. She was right – there was a huge bowl full of water, with a little fountain in the middle.
Cleo put her paws up on the edge and drank greedily. It tasted odd, not like the water from her bowl at home, but it was still good. She liked the fountain too, and she darted her head about, trying to catch the water drops in her mouth. They got on her ears and her whiskers, but she didn’t mind – it helped to get rid of the dusty feeling.
Cleo padded across the garden, sniffing for something to eat – she felt much hungrier, now that she wasn’t so thirsty. There was a definite smell of at least one other cat around, but none appeared.
Eventually she came to a little teepee set up on the grass. She peered around the tent flap, sniffing hopefully. There on a rug was a plastic plate, with half a stale sandwich on it. Cleo darted in and gobbled down the sandwich, which was full of dry cheese. It was delicious! She was still hungry, so she washed herself thoroughly all over, making sure she got every last crumb out of her whiskers.
Then she yawned and curled up on the bit of the rug that was in the sun. The garden was quiet and felt safe, and the September sun was very warm. Before long Cleo was fast asleep.
She was woken mid-afternoon by a sudden noise – a loud wailing. Panicked, Cleo whisked round to the other side of the tent and hid behind it, peering out to see what was going on.
A boy came out of the back door of the house, carrying a plate. He wasn’t the one making the noise – that seemed to be coming from inside. The boy wandered to the end of the garden and sat down on a swing beside the tent. He swung idly back and forth, nibbling at the sandwich. He was staring vaguely round the garden when he spotted Cleo.
He stopped swinging at once, and Cleo froze.
The boy slipped off the swing, leaving the sandwich on the grass and crept towards the tent.
“Here, puss, puss…” he called.
Cleo shrunk back behind the tent, as the wailing started up again.
The boy glanced towards the house. “Is that noise scary? It’s just my little brother throwing a wobbly.”
Cleo could tell from the boy’s voice that he was friendly. And he had another of those sandwiches. Cleo came a little way out and eyed him hopefully.
“I haven’t seen you before,” the boy murmured. “I wonder who’s got a new kitten? You haven’t got a collar on, have you?” He looked carefully at the kitten’s neck. “Nope, no collar. Hey, where are you going? Oh!” He laughed. The kitten was hurrying over the grass towards his abandoned sandwich. “Do you want it? Oh, wow, you do.”
Cleo was already tearing at the corner of the sandwich, gulping it down greedily.
“You’re starving!” The boy smiled slowly as he watched the sandwich disappear. “Maybe you’re a stray?”
He grinned as the kitten devoured the last bit of sandwich and sniffed the plate all over to see if she’d missed any.
“Who do you belong to, hey? What’s your name?” He reached out to tickle Cleo gently behind the ears. “I reckon you look like a … umm. Maybe a Smudge? With that dark splodge over your eye? But you look like a girl cat to me. Smudge doesn’t sound like a girl. What about Patch? Are you called Patch? That’s why my mum called our cat Pirate, you know. Because he’s got an eyepatch.”
“George! George!”
Cleo darted away behind the tent again, and the boy sighed. “There’s Mum. I’ll come back later with some more food for you. That’s if you’re still here…”
Amber followed Sara back into the house, trying to feel hopeful. They had put up posters all along their street and the streets close by. Then they’d gone into the little convenience store at the end of their road and asked if they could put up one on their notice board. But it still didn’t feel like enough. Amber couldn’t just sit in the house, waiting for Cleo to come home. She needed to be doing something.
Perhaps she could go and ask some of their neighbours who had sheds and garages if she could check them. Then her eyes widened – she’d just thought of another place where Cleo could have got trapped. The family across the road was having a lot of work done on their house and had moved in with their grandparents for a few weeks. Jan, their mum, had told Amber’s mum that they’d have to pack everything up in boxes. But that meant some of the rooms were closed up, and there were piles of stuff everywhere – all sorts of places where a kitten could get shut in.
Amber was so excited, and so sure she was right, that she didn’t even stop to ask Mum or Sara to go with her. She’d just have time to catch the builders before they went home, she reckoned. She slipped back out of the front door and crossed the road. Mum would tell her off, but if she came back with Cleo, surely Mum wouldn’t mind that much… And Amber was certain she would bring her back.
She hesitated outside number 22, looking for one of the builders to ask. Until now, every time they’d gone past there had been someone around, unloading stuff from vans or hoisting materials up on to the scaffolding. But now there was no one at all.
“Hello?” Amber called, stepping on to the driveway.
No one came. Amber clenched her fists. She just couldn’t wait any longer. What if Cleo was starving? She knew it was stupid – and she’d get into trouble if Mum and Dad found out she’d gone into Jan’s garden with all the building going on. But she had to!
She walked up to the house and tried to peer in through the front windows, pressing her nose against the glass. She was trying so hard to see through the dusty panes that she didn’t hear one of the builders coming round the side of the house.
“Just what exactly do you think you’re doing?”
Amber swung round to find a tall man staring down at her. He was covered in dust. The greyish colour made him look like a statue. “I’m – I’m looking for my kitten,” she squeaked.
“Your kitten?”
“She’s gone missing. I thought she might have got shut in…” Amber’s voice trailed away – the man looked so cross.
“You shouldn’t be here. Don’t you realize how dangerous it is, messing around on a building site?”
Amber hung her head, tears filling her eyes. Then she looked up again, straightening her shoulders. This was too important to let go. “But she’s been gone a whole day. What if she’s got trapped somewhere? Jan said some of the rooms were shut up to keep the dust out – what if she’s in one of them?”