He whooshed the last few metres towards his house and shoved his scooter into the little shelter down the side passage. The man next door, Luke, had helped Dad build it for all their bikes and things. The kitten was wriggling more and more. “I know,” he whispered. “I’m just waiting for Mum to open the door. Here, look!” He slipped his rucksack off his shoulders and crouched down, bringing out his lunchbox.
The kitten stopped struggling at once and pricked her ears forward.
“I saved you some of my lunch,” George told her. “You like cheese, don’t you?” He held out a cheese cube to the kitten, who swallowed it almost whole and then tried to burrow into the lunchbox to get more. George giggled. “You really do like cheese…” He peered round the corner of the side passage. “Just putting my scooter away, Mum!”
“All right. Close the front door when you come in,” his mum called back. “Come on, Toby. We’re home now.”
“You see,” George whispered. “Mum’s still busy with my brother. She isn’t going to notice if I sneak you up to my room, is she? You’ll be safe up there, Patch. No more going near the road.”
He picked up the lunchbox again, then hurried in through the front door and slipped upstairs.
“Can I make some leaflets about Cleo, Mum?” Amber asked, as she undid her school shoes. “Maisie suggested it. We could put them through people’s doors, in case they didn’t see the posters.”
“I suppose it could encourage the neighbours to look in their sheds and garages,” Mum agreed. “But you’re not to go out delivering them without me or Sara,” she added with a stern look.
Mum had been really cross the day before, when Amber had come back in after going to the house across the road. Luckily, Amber hadn’t had to explain exactly where she had been – she’d just said that she’d gone out looking for Cleo.
Amber opened up the laptop and started to write the leaflet. She dropped in the photo of Cleo and added a message asking people to check their sheds and garages, then put her mum’s phone number at the bottom. Then she printed them out and went into the kitchen to show Mum.
“Do you want to go and deliver them now?” Mum asked. “I’ve got some time before I make dinner.”
“Please.” Amber hugged her. “Look, I’ve made enough for our road and Bramble Crescent. Cleo could have easily gone round into their gardens.”
Mum nodded and got out her phone. “I’ll just text Sara to tell her where we are.”
They set off down their road, taking turns to post the leaflets. It was surprisingly hard to push the flimsy sheets of paper through the letterboxes, and Amber hoped they wouldn’t just get squashed inside and missed.
They were halfway back down the other side of the road when Amber noticed that the builder who’d told her off was coming out of Jan’s house. She stopped, staring at him in panic. What if he told Mum about yesterday? Mum would be so cross. She posted the next few leaflets extra-slowly, hoping that he’d go back inside before they reached him. But he didn’t.
As they approached the house, Amber lurked behind Mum. Maybe the builder would think that this was another family looking for their lost cat. But she was pretty sure he knew exactly who she was.
“Hello!” Mum smiled at him. “We’re from across the road. Our kitten’s gone missing. Can I give you one of these, just in case you spot her? It’s got my number on. She’s been gone a couple of days now. Amber here’s really missing her.”
Amber’s eyes widened in panic. Now he was bound to say something…
“Of course,” the builder said. “Do you want to hand me a couple more? I can give them to the other guys. I’m Luke, by the way.” He smiled at Amber, and she wasn’t sure, but she thought he gave her just a hint of a wink, as if to say he’d keep her secret.
“This is my bedroom,” George explained to the kitten. Then he laughed to himself. “I know you don’t really understand a word I say,” he murmured. “You’re more bothered about the cheese than anything else, aren’t you? Here…” He grabbed a piece of paper from his desk and used it like a plate for his leftover sandwich.
“I can’t keep on giving you sandwiches,” he said. “It can’t be good for you to be living on my leftovers. But Mum would have seen me if I got you some of Pirate’s cat food.”
He sat there watching the kitten nibble her way through the sandwich. He hadn’t thought about keeping the kitten before. But could he? Of course the kitten might have a proper home where someone wanted her, even if she didn’t have a collar. Some cats just wouldn’t wear them. Pirate was an expert at taking them off – or he had been. They used to have to go on collar hunts in the garden, but Pirate didn’t go out much any more. He was fourteen, and his legs hurt. He spent most of his days asleep on someone’s bed. George really loved him, but Pirate had always seemed more like Mum’s cat. He didn’t play with George that much. Not like this bouncy little kitten… She could be his very own.
“You’ve been in my garden a whole day now,” George pointed out. “At least, I think you have. And you haven’t tried to go home. Do you like it better here, Patch, hmm?” But that didn’t mean the kitten hadn’t got an owner… Maybe she was just good at losing collars, too. George sighed. She didn’t really look like she had been living as a stray for a long time. She wasn’t skinny or grubby-looking. “I expect someone’s looking for you,” he admitted. “Well, if you were mine, I’d be making a lot more effort to find you. I reckon you’d be better off with me.”
The kitten gazed around George’s bedroom with interest and padded over to investigate his bookcase. She gazed up at it, wriggled her bottom a bit and made a flying leap up to the top. Then she stood there looking proud of herself.
Cleo sniffed at George’s Lego spaceship, and the fur rose a little along her spine. She liked this house, and she liked the boy. But there was something wrong. Cleo hadn’t shared a home with another cat since she left the shelter where she’d lived with her mother and the rest of her litter, but she was almost sure there was another cat here. That this house belonged to another cat. And perhaps the boy belonged to the other cat, too.
She nosed at the spaceship again, leaping back a little as it slid away on its wheels, and the boy leaped to catch it. Then Cleo jumped down again and wandered over to George’s bed. The other-cat smell was even stronger here. She backed away from the bed, her tail twitching nervously.
Just then the bedroom door swung open and the boy jumped. “Oh, Pirate, it’s only you! I thought it was Mum. Hey, don’t be like that…”
A huge black-and-white cat stood in the doorway, glaring at Cleo. His fat black tail was slowly fluffing up, getting even fatter as every hair stood on end. Pirate hissed, lowering his head to stare Cleo in the eyes.
Cleo felt her own fur rising up and she hissed, too – a thin, feeble noise compared to the sound the larger cat was making.
“Oh no,” George muttered. The kitten was crouched by his bed, looking terrified – but her tail was switching from side to side in just the same angry way that Pirate’s was.
“Pirate, she’s just a kitten.” He got up and tried to shoo Pirate out of his room, but Pirate wasn’t having any of it. He swerved round George and jumped at the smaller cat, sending her flying with a fat paw.
“No!” George yelled, panicking. He’d never expected this to happen. Pirate was so slow and sleepy, but now it was like he’d got ten years younger. Pirate was massive compared to the kitten – what if he really hurt the little thing? George reached down, trying to grab the kitten. He’d go and put her in the garden and shut Pirate in. But then he jumped back with a yelp. He’d got in between Pirate and the kitten, and there were claw marks all down the back of his hand, oozing thin red lines of blood.