“It ought to be something to do with her colour,” Mum suggested. “Or her blue eyes. We could call her Sapphire.”
Abi made a face.“That’s not very easy to say.”
“Sky, then?”
Chris nodded.“That’s better.”
“My friend Sky would like that,” Abi said, tickling the kitten under the chin.
“Oh, I’d forgotten… It might be a bit confusing though. What about Blanche? It’s French for white.”
Abi wrinkled her nose.“I don’t think she looks like a Blanche. She’s like – she’s like…” Abi sighed. “I don’t know! She’s so pretty. And I love her pink nose – it’s like a flower petal.” She looked up at Mum and Chris suddenly. “We could call her Flower!”
Mum looked pleased.“That’s a lovely name.”
“Hey, Flower,” Abi murmured as she stroked the white kitten again. The kitten didn’t hear her, of course, but she began to purr, a purr so loud that Abi could feel Flower’s whole furry little body shaking under her fingers.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_5]
On Sunday, Flower began to explore her way all through the house. It took her a while to get upstairs, as her legs were still a bit short for the steps, but she was determined and Ruby gave her a lift the last few steps to the top. She sat on Ruby’s bed and watched her play and then tried to climb inside the dolls’ house. Then she slept on Abi’s lap while she did her homework.
Sometimes she sat on the back of the sofa and watched the road outside through the front window, but she didn’t seem to mind that she was an inside cat. She didn’t know any different, Abi decided. Actually, even if they’d adopted a kitten whowasn’t deaf, it would have had to stay inside for a while, Maria had told them. Kittens couldn’t go out until they’d had all their vaccinations.
The leaflet had been right when it said that indoor cats liked things to hide behind. Flower went under the sofa, inside the pan cupboard and nearly got stuck behind the bookcase in the living room. She loved climbing too.
On Monday morning before school, Abi came into the kitchen to get her cereal and looked around to see where Flower was. She’d hurried down before she got dressed and found the kitten still curled up asleep in her igloo basket – but she definitely wasn’t there now. It was only when she heard a tiny meow that she realized where Flower was. She was perched on the curtain rail over the kitchen window and she looked abit worried.
“Mum!” Abi yelled. “You need to come and see this!”
[Êàðòèíêà: img_21]
Flower mewed again and tried to stand up, slipping a bit.
“How did she get up there?” Mum said, stopping in the doorway to stare.
“I don’t know, but I think she’s about to fall off! Can you reach her?”
Mum unhooked the kitten and made a frowny face at her, wagging her finger like a cross mother in a cartoon.
“What are you doing?” Abi asked her mum. Then she giggled, watching Flower stalk across the kitchen floor to her water bowl, pretending she hadn’t been stuck at all.
Mum laughed too.“I was trying to do a big facial expression, like Maria said. So she understood I was cross.”
“Ohhh. I’m not sure it was her fault though. I was reading about deaf cats on the internet and one of the websites said they liked being high up because it makes them feel safe. Like no one could creep up on them.”
“Maybe. But she can’t get into the habit of climbing the curtains,” Mum said firmly. Then she turned, looking towards the front door. “Oh no, is that the dustmen? I haven’t put the bin out!” She hurried from the kitchen to open the front door. “Abi, make sure you’re holding Flower or watching that she doesn’t go out.”
Abi crouched down by the kitten but Flower hadn’t even noticed that the front door was open. Abi heard the door close and went to get her cereal. Flower finished her drink and padded out into the hallway.
“I nearly missed them!” Mum said, coming back with a relieved look on her face. Then her eyes met Abi’s and they both whirled round at the sound of the front door clicking open.
“It’s the bin lorry!” Ruby cried excitedly, waving to the man pulling the dustbin away from the front gate. “Hello! Hello!”
The bin man waved back and Ruby jumped up and down happily. Behind her, a curious white kitten hurried towards the door and Abi raced up the hallway.
“Ruby, don’t let her out!”
Ruby turned round, surprised and then horrified, as Flower slipped past her feet. Abi lunged forward, grabbing the white kitten just before she shot out of the door.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_22]
“Oh Abi, well done!” Mum gasped, hurrying down the hall after her. “That was close!”
[Êàðòèíêà: img_23]
“I’d have been so cross with her,” Sky said when Abi told her about it later on.
“I was a bit – but Ruby’s only little and she was really upset when Mum explained what she’d done wrong.” Abi shook her head. “It’s so tricky! I never thought we opened the front door that much. But we do, loads. And in the summer we leave the back door to the garden open all the time. Or we did.”
Sky made a face.“Are you thinking an indoor cat’s going to be too much trouble?”
“No way! We’ll just have to be careful. Flower’s so gorgeous. She’s still a bit shy sometimes, but we’ve only had her for a few days. Ithink she likes us.”
“Of course she likes you,” Sky said encouragingly. “Or she should do. It sounds like you’re being perfect indoor cat owners.”
They were trying, anyway– but it was a lot more work than anyone had expected, even after all they’d done to get ready. After Flower had climbed the curtains for the third time, Mum and Chris decided she needed something of her own to climb. So on Saturday they went to the pet shop to choose her a cat tree – a sort of special climbing frame for a cat with scratching posts, a box to hide in and a little hammock to sleep in.
[Êàðòèíêà: img_24]
Flower loved it and the hammock was her new favourite sleeping place, much better than her basket. She lolled about in it with her paws in the air and her chin hanging over the edge so she could see what was going on.
Abi wasn’t sure if Flower was so nosy because of her deafness or if all cats were like that, but the little kitten hated to miss anything. She had to climb and sniff and probably scratch everything that came in the house. She loved Abi and Ruby’s room because it was full of toys and blankets and thingsto explore and snuggle under. Sometimes she slept on Abi’s bed, but Mum always came and got her before she and Chris went to bed. Mum wasn’t sure that Flower would be able to make it down the stairs when she needed the litter tray.
Halfway through Flower’s second week with the family, Ruby brought home a junk model from school. Junk modelling was her favourite thing about Reception but Mum had made a rule – one model in, one model out. Otherwise Abi and Ruby’s room would be completely full of cereal packets stuck to toilet-roll tubes.
The new model was a cat– actually it was Flower, or so Ruby said. Abi couldn’t quite see it, only that there were some soggy bits of white tissue paper stuck on.
“Flower knows it’s her,” Ruby said proudly, setting it down on the floor in front of the kitten and watching as she sniffed it and then tried to climb inside the tissue box that was her body.
“You know what,” Abi said thoughtfully, “there was something like that on one of the websites I was looking at about indoor cats.”
Chris looked at her in surprise.“What, making junk models for them to shred? Ruby, if you don’t want her to eat it, I’d go and put it somewhere high up in your bedroom.”