“Mum, look!” Tia grabbed her arm, towing her towards the van. “Look! It’s the catnappers!”
Mum frowned. “Oh… Is that the van Laura talked about?”
“Yes! And this is the road where the man who put up that advert lives. It’s got to be him, hasn’t it?”
Mum nodded slowly. “All right. Don’t you dare go in there, Tia! I’m going to call that number the police gave me. It’s starting to look as though you’re right.”
“Have a look at these.” The policewoman held out her mobile phone, and Tia stared at it eagerly. It had been so hard to wait for news. Tia had wanted to stay outside the house in Emwell Road, but Mum had said they’d better go home. They didn’t want to get in the way when the police came.
“We might make that man suspicious if we’re hanging around,” she had pointed out to Tia. “We don’t want him moving the cats.”
Tia knew she was right, but she hated to walk away when she was so sure that Milly was somewhere in that house.
It had only been a few hours until a police car drew up outside their house that evening, but it felt like Tia had been waiting for days.
“Is Milly one of these?” PC Ryan flicked through the photos – a Persian, and what looked like another Bengal, but with a marbled, stripey coat, and another cat Tia didn’t recognize.
“No…” Tia’s voice shook. “Look, there’s an empty cage next to this one. He’s already sold her!”
PC Ryan frowned. “Maybe. But he was definitely showing a spotted Bengal kitten to someone this morning. Another lady phoned us, saying that she’d been to see a kitten, and she suspected she might have been stolen. Perhaps your Milly got out.”
“Milly is very good at getting in and out of places,” Mum agreed hopefully. “If any cat could, it would be her, wouldn’t it, Tia…”
But Tia wasn’t listening. She dashed away upstairs to her room and scrambled up her ladder to hide in her bed. She couldn’t bear it. They were too late, and Milly was gone.
Milly kept walking all afternoon even though she was so tired she stumbled. The light was starting to fade now, and it was getting colder. Someone was walking along the road towards her with a dog, and Milly darted under a parked car to hide.
Even when the dog had gone by, she didn’t want to move. At least under the car she was out of the wind, and she couldn’t smell any other cats. She would just stay here for a little while, until she felt better. Milly dozed, her eyelids flickering and her paws twitching as the ginger cat chased after her. It was chasing her further and further away from Tia…
She hissed and startled awake, not sure where she was. It was now bright daylight, she realized as she peered out from under the parked car. She must have slept there all night, worn out from her long walk.
She stepped cautiously out on to the pavement and stretched herself. Then she heard voices. Children’s voices. Not Tia and Christy, she was pretty sure, but still … she would just go and see. Somehow she felt much more hopeful today, with the bright sunshine warming her fur.
It was a playground, and two little boys were chasing each other round and round. Milly paused at the gate, ready to run.
“Ooooh, look! Mum, look! A kitten!” The older boy dashed over.
Milly squeaked – she was nervous after the way that nice man had turned out not to be nice after all. She shot underneath the slide and hid there, shivering.
“Oh, Alfie, you frightened her. She doesn’t know you like Whiskers does. No, don’t try and pull her out, Billy. She’ll come out if she wants to.”
The woman’s voice was gentle, and the fur began to lay down flat on Milly’s back again. “She is pretty… Oh!”
“What, Mum?”
“I think she’s the kitten on those posters! You know, we said it was sad that she was lost. She’s called Milly, if she is that missing kitten.”
“And we found her!”
“No, I found her! I saw her first!”
“Shhh! You’ll scare her away. We need to ring the number and say she’s found. You two watch her, and I’ll run and see if I can find a poster. I think I saw one on that lamp post by the gate.”
Milly huddled under the slide with two curious little faces staring in. She was feeling a bit better now – the bigger boy had surprised her, that was all. She sniffed at his fingers as he held them out hopefully, and he beamed and patted her head.
“Hello, Milly…”
Milly came out from under the slide a little more. The boy knew her name! She nuzzled his fingers, and he giggled.
“Me too! Me too!” the littler one squeaked, so she rubbed her head against his jeans.
The boys’ mother hurried back over. “Good boys… I’m just ringing her owners now…” she said, crouching down beside them. She smiled at Milly as she keyed in the number. “I bet you want to go home, don’t you?”
“Tia, love, wake up.”
Tia blinked and rubbed at her sticky eyes. They were sore, and she couldn’t remember why. And then all at once she did remember and she gave a horrified little gasp.
Mum was standing at the bottom of the bunkbed ladder with Christy next to her. “Tia, why don’t you get up and have a shower and get changed? You fell asleep in your clothes last night!”
Tia peered over the edge of her bed. “Milly could be anywhere, Mum. That man isn’t telling the police anything, PC Ryan said so. He just says he’s looking after the cats for a friend. He must have sold her. We’re never going to get Milly back.”
“Listen, Dad and I think PC Ryan’s right. The man was showing someone a kitten just like Milly yesterday morning. You know how sneaky Milly can be! She ran away from him, I’m sure she did. The police have arrested the man, so they’ll be able to ask him more questions. Dad’s gone to put more posters up around Emwell Road. Do you want to go out looking again after breakfast? Shall we see if Lucy wants to come and help too?”
Tia sniffed and nodded, and Mum reached up awkwardly to hug her round the ladder. “Oh, that’s my phone. Maybe it’s Dad.” She dug it out of her pocket. “Hello?” She listened for a moment and then she gasped, shaking Tia’s shoulder. “Someone’s found her! She must have escaped! She’s not even that far away.” Mum held the phone back to her ear. “In the park between here and school. Oh, thank you so much, we’ll be there in a few minutes. Tia, come back!”
But Tia had already jumped down the ladder, and Christy was racing after her.
Milly had stopped listening to the little boys as they told her how nice she was and what soft fur she had. She could hear something. A voice…
It was Christy! “Tia, wait for me!”
“Come on, Christy! This is where Milly is, they said on the phone.”
Milly jumped right over the little boy’s knees and raced for the park gate.
“She’s there! Look!” Christy squealed.
“Milly!” Tia crouched down and the kitten bounded up to her, purring delightedly. “Oh, we were so worried!” She stood up, cradling Milly in her arms like a baby.
“Thank you for phoning us!” Tia said shyly to the woman with the two little boys.
The woman smiled. “I’m just glad we saw her. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
Tia smiled back. “She’s the most beautiful kitten ever.”
Christy danced round her sister. “We found you! Mum, look, here’s Milly!”
“She’s fine!” Tia called, as she turned to see Mum hurrying towards them.
“Better than fine,” her mum said, gently tickling Milly under the chin. “You little darling, did you run away from that man, hmmm?”
“The most beautiful kitten ever and the cleverest!” Tia sighed happily. It felt like she could breathe properly for the first time since Milly had disappeared. There had been a horrible lump of fear stuck in her throat all that time. “We got you back,” she whispered, rubbing her cheek over the top of the kitten’s head, and Milly purred so hard she shook all over.