Tia wished she could play with Milly, but she had to finish her homework first.
It wasn’t until Christy came upstairs and let out a piercing shriek that Tia realized what Milly had been doing. One of Christy’s favourite toys was a feathery owl that Dad had brought back for her from a work trip. It always sat propped up at the side of her bed because it was made up of lots of tiny feathers and it was a bit fragile.
“Owly! She’s eaten Owly!” Christy howled.
Milly sat in the middle of the bed, looking rather confused. Christy did burst out crying every so often, she’d got used to that now. But she was being very loud and she was stamping about. Milly spat out a mouthful of the interesting feathers and slunk to the end of the bed, making for Tia.
“Whatever’s the matter?” Mum said, rushing in. “Oh my goodness. Christy, I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“He’s all eaten and ruined…” Christy sobbed.
“Tia, how on earth could you have let Milly do that?” Mum asked.
“I didn’t see! I was doing my homework. Sorry, Christy…” Tia picked Milly up, looking guiltily at her little sister. “Maybe we can glue the feathers back on.”
“You shouldn’t cuddle her,” Christy growled. “She’s a bad cat!”
“Oh no, she isn’t! She didn’t know.”
Milly snuggled closer into Tia’s school jumper, not liking the angry voices.
“You’re scaring her!” Tia said, and Christy wailed again.
“I don’t care! She broke Owly!”
“Take that cat downstairs, Tia,” Mum snapped. “Honestly, after the pavlova yesterday as well. I never thought a kitten could be so much trouble.”
“I wish we had a kitten that didn’t eat things!” Christy gulped.
Tia hurried down the stairs with Milly in her arms. “You are silly,” she muttered. “I love you climbing about and getting into everything, but the pavlova was a disaster.”
Mum had been making a lovely pudding to take to a friend’s house, and she’d left it out on the counter while she answered the door. She came back to find a very happy cat, and a lot less whipped cream on top of the pavlova. Mum had had to buy a pudding instead, although Tia was sure it would have been all right if Mum had just moved the raspberries around a bit.
“I think you’d better try and be perfectly behaved for the next few days,” she told Milly, as she put her in her basket. “You’re definitely not Mum or Christy’s favourite cat right now.”
“You don’t think there’s anything I can do about Milly, then?” Tia asked Laura, sipping at her juice. It was the weekend, and she’d popped over to get some advice on Milly’s naughty tricks.
Laura shook her head slowly. “Not much. Just make her get down every time you see her somewhere she shouldn’t be. A lot of it’s simply that she’s a kitten. She will get better as she gets older. Charlie used to knock things over all the time, but he doesn’t do quite so much climbing now.”
Tia sighed. It didn’t look like there was an easy answer. “I guess I’m lucky she hasn’t really spoiled anything of mine yet. Well, she did eat my sandwiches yesterday while Mum was doing my packed lunch. But that’s not the same as Owly. Christy is still really upset. She says we should take Milly back and get a better-behaved cat.”
“I suppose the thing to do is make sure anything precious is put away,” Laura said. “And shut the doors if there are rooms you don’t want her in.”
“Mmmm,” Tia agreed. “It’s just Christy never shuts doors.”
“Milly might learn to open them anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised. Actually, Tia, I’m glad you came over,” Laura said, reaching over to a pile of newspapers on one of the kitchen chairs. “I was going to talk to your mum or dad. Do you know if they’ve seen this?” She folded the newspaper over and showed a headline to Tia – CATNAPPERS STEAL PRECIOUS PETS.
“No!” Tia looked at it in horror. “Why are they stealing them?”
“To sell.” Laura was frowning. “It’s because pedigree cats are so expensive. The thieves steal them and then sell them for less than you’d pay at a breeder. I’m sure most of the people don’t realize the cats are stolen. The thing is, this article particularly mentions Bengals. Because they’re so fashionable. And I know that one lady who has one of Charlie’s littermates caught someone trying to tempt her cat out of her garden. She doesn’t live all that far from here.”
Tia jumped up from the table. “I’m really sorry, Laura, but I have to go home. Milly’s allowed out of her cat flap now. What if someone’s trying to steal her this minute?”
Laura tried to tell Tia that it was unlikely anyone would try and steal Milly, and she hadn’t meant to scare her. She was still letting Charlie go out, but only when she was around to keep an eye on him. “Just to be safe,” she explained.
Tia calmed down enough to finish her juice. But she refused a biscuit, and as she hurried back home she couldn’t help keeping an eye out for cat thieves. What would they look like, though?
Tia went down the side of her house to the back garden. Milly loved it out there. She bounced in and out of the plants, and spied on the bird table. Tia had noticed that only the bravest birds came to it now.
But Milly wasn’t sitting underneath the bird table and she didn’t come when Tia called, like she usually did. She was nowhere to be seen.
“Milly! Milly!” Tia called anxiously. She ran down the garden to look over the back fence into Mr Jackson’s garden. Milly liked it over there. Mr Jackson had a goldfish pond. She had climbed the fence at the side of the garden, too, but the people next door had a spaniel called Max, and he had barked at Milly so loudly that she’d jumped straight down again.
Just as Tia reached the back fence and looked through the trellis on the top, there was a splashing sound and a horrified yowl. Then something bounded across Mr Jackson’s garden. A small, bedraggled thing, trailing long streamers of green weed.
“That cat of yours is after my goldfish!” Mr Jackson shouted crossly to Tia. “Little menace!”
Milly jumped on to Mr Jackson’s compost bin and then up on to the fence, where Tia reached up and grabbed her. She shuddered at the clammy wet fur – Milly was soaking.
“I’m really sorry!” Tia gasped to the old man. “We’ll keep her inside!”
“We’ll have to,” she murmured to Milly, as she carried her down the garden. “Maybe we’d better lock the catflap, so you can only go out when one of us with you. I know you won’t like that much, but I’m not going to let anyone steal you!”
Tia was quite right. Milly was most unimpressed with being shut inside. She always followed Tia and Christy when they went out into the garden. She would chase the football, and sometimes Tia carried her up on to their climbing frame. Christy had forgiven her for shredding Owly now, and she would dance down the garden trailing bits of string for Milly to pounce on. But sometimes Milly wanted to go outside on her own, too. It wasn’t the same watching the birds from the kitchen windowsill.
Often she sat in the front window instead, especially in the afternoon, when she knew that Tia and Christy would soon be home. People sometimes pointed at her, and Milly could tell that they were saying nice things. One blond-haired man seemed to walk past the house quite often, just to see her. He always stopped and looked at her for ages. And at the other cat, the one that lived across the road.
Milly liked to stare at the other cat as well. But he usually pretended not to see her.
“Look, Christy, Milly’s watching for us again,” Tia pointed to Milly, sitting in the front window, and Milly leaped for the back of the sofa. She would jump from there to the arm, and then on to the floor to meet them at the front door.