Elsa decided it was thinking about making a mad dash back for the bed. It padded its paws up and down thoughtfully on her knee, but it didn’t move. Instead it lifted up one front paw and began a careful wash, swiping its paw around its muzzle and ears, still with one eye firmly fixed on Elsa.
Elsa let out the breath she’d been holding, very slowly. What was she going to do now?
She was just wondering if she dared try stroking the kitten when the doorbell rang, loud and shrill, and the kitten leaped off her lap and shot back under the bed again. Elsa sighed.
There was a faint yell from downstairs.“Girls? Can one of you get that? I’m under the sink – it’s leaking!”
Elsa listened hopefully for Sara but her sister still had her music playing, so she dashed downstairs and wrestled with the unfamiliar lock on the front door. When she finally got it open, there was a girl about her own age standing on the step, looking nervous. She smiled when she saw Elsa.
“Er … hi. I’m Lilly. From next door. I saw you looking out of your window a bit earlier and thought I’d come and say hi.” She twisted her fingers together and gazed at Elsa shyly.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_17]
“Oh! I’m Elsa. We just moved in yesterday. Um, do you want to –” Elsa stopped suddenly. She’d been about to say “Do you want to come in?” but then she’d remembered the kitten in her bedroom. The secret, mysterious kitten that nobody knew about. Elsa’s eyes widened in sudden horror. The kitten that was in her bedroom with the door open! She turned to peer up the stairs, hoping that she’d closed it after all.
She hadn’t.
She turned back to Lilly, biting her bottom lip. She had to get rid of her, before the kitten decided to make a run for it. What if it disappeared off somewhere and she never saw it again? Or it wandered into Sara’s room?
“Um, I’m really sorry, I have to go,” she gabbled, starting to shut the door.
“Oh … OK…” The other girl looked really hurt, Elsa realized as she closed the door. She supposed she had been a bit rude. Well, very rude actually. But she couldn’t help it. “It was the girl next door come to say hello,” she yelled to Dad, and then she raced back upstairs and flung herself down next to the bed.
The black kitten was nowhere to be seen.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_18]
Had the kitten got out of her room? Elsa sat up, looking around anxiously. Perhaps it had dashed through the open door, back upstairs to the attic. She wasn’t supposed to go up there – Dad said the floor wasn’t safe – but she could go and put her head round the door…
A tiny rustling made her turn and look at the pile of boxes, and she let out a soft sigh of relief. There were two black twitching ears poking out of the nearest box.
“What are you doing in there?” Elsa asked, going to peer in at the kitten. Now she looked, she could see delicate scratch marks on the cardboard where it had scrambled its way up. “Are you still hungry? Are you looking for more food?”
The kitten stared back at her and Elsa was sure it looked hopeful.“I can go and get some more,” she suggested. “Oh, except Dad’s in the kitchen now. We might have to wait a bit.” She eyed the kitten’s tufted ears and golden eyes and added, “I wonder if you’re a girl kitten or a boy kitten… I don’t like calling you ‘it’. Um… I’m going to guess you’re a boy. But if I called you Pepper, that could be a boy or a girl, couldn’t it?”
The kitten clambered up on to Elsa’s folded jumpers and made a friendly sort of squeaking noise. He was definitely a lot less shy since she’d fed him, Elsa decided.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_19]
“I probably shouldn’t have named you,” she told him with a sigh. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to stay here, Pepper kitten. Dad doesn’t want a cat and neither does Sara. She’s been begging to get a puppy for ages, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I might nearlyhave persuaded Dad to get guinea pigs, but he’s still only thinking about it.”
The kitten wobbled across the jumpers so he was a bit closer to Elsa and then leaned over, bumping his head against her hand.
Elsa’s eyes widened. Had she just imagined that? She hadn’t dared to stroke him – he seemed far too nervous and jumpy. But he had touched her! All on his own!
“Thank you,” she whispered, wondering if he’d do it again. He was looking up at her, his eyes almost all golden now in the winter sun that was pouring through her window.
“I don’t care if Dad and Sara don’t want a cat,” Elsa muttered. That tiny, quick touch of his velvet-soft fur had made all the difference. She still didn’t think the kitten was her cat, but she definitely felt as if she washis person.“I’ll just have to persuade them somehow.” She wrinkled her nose. “Only – maybe not yet… Dad’s still a bit stressed about the move and I bet he’s not happy about that leaking sink either. It’s not really a good time to tell him we’ve got a cat.” She held her hand out a little closer to the kitten, watching him hopefully. Would he do it again?
There was a moment’s pause and then the kitten rubbed the side of his chin against her hand, his eyes closed. And – yes! There was a tiny breathy rumbling sound. Elsa could feel it too, shaking the kitten all over.
He was purring.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_4]
Elsa decided that she needed to keep Pepper hidden for a few days, at least. During lunch, she told Sara and Dad that she was working on a Christmas surprise and please could they stay out of her room? Dad had looked really pleased, as if that meant she must be settling in.
Actually, Pepper would be quite a good Christmas surprise, Elsa thought to herself in bed that night. She could put some tinsel on a cat collar… She shifted her feet very slightly, just to feel the weight of a kitten on her toes again. She hadn’t expected Pepper to sleep on her bed – she had taken the box of jumpers off the top of the stack and put it down on the floor, to make it easier for him to climb into.
She’d done her best to make her bedroom into a proper kitten home. She’d spread some newspapers on the floor in the corner of her bedroom, hoping he’d know to use those instead of a litter tray, and she’d told Dad she was starving and needed an extra cheese and ham sandwich at lunchtime. She’d borrowed one of the plastic picnic plates and a little bowl for Pepper’s water. It was going to be tricky sneaking food upstairs, but Dad was still busy sorting everything out. Sara was more likely to spot what she was doing than he was.
Elsa had spent the afternoon trying to get to know the kitten better. She spent ages feeding him the sandwich bit by bit, although he turned his nose up at the crusts. Then she rolled a ball of paper around for him to chase, and waved the piece of curly ribbon that Maisie had used to wrap up her goodbye present. It bounced up and down in a long shiny coil, and the kitten darted after it with huge leaps– Elsa reckoned some of the time he jumped his own height, or even higher.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_20]
“Did you have kitten brothers and sisters?” she’d asked him, laughing as he stomped away from her with the ribbon in his sharp little teeth. He probably missed having them to play with. He must miss them all the time, she’d realized sadly. And his mother, too.
When she’d gone to bed, she’d lifted Pepper into the box of jumpers, but he’d clambered straight out again and stood by her bed. When Elsa got in, he scrambled up after her, digging his claws into a trailing bit of duvet, and padded around curiously for a while before curling up by her feet.
Elsa sat up in bed, trying to see the kitten. His black fur settled into the shadows so completely that she could only see a faint round shape, but she could feel him.“How did you end up in the attic on your own?” she wondered again, but the only answer was faint kitten breathing.