The Great Escape

by Natalie Haynes

  ‘You could just say no, you know.’

  ‘Of course, but then how would you learn?’ Max gazed at her innocently.

  ‘Speaking of which, how have you learned so many languages so fast?’

  ‘I have not learned them fast. Sofie, with whom I live in Brussels, is an English teacher. She helps her son, Stef, with his homework – he is around your age, I should think. They speak French and also Dutch at home – there are two national languages in Belgium, you know. Well, three, really, because everyone also learns to speak English. I have been able to understand all three languages for many years. Once I could speak at all, I could speak all the languages I knew. Pretty good, huh? You must be very jealous. Everyone knows that English people are hopeless at languages.’

  Millie grinned, but they must have been talking too loudly to hear the stair creak, because an unexpected knock at the door made her leap suddenly to her feet.

  Chapter Six

  Max had dived back under the bed before Millie’s dad’s knuckles hit the door a second time. Millie was beginning to understand how the cat had escaped – he was astonishingly fast.

  ‘Millie,’ called her dad. ‘Are you all right in there? Can I come in?’ He had already begun to open the door. It banged immediately onto the open wardrobe door behind it. ‘Oops, sorry.’

  ‘I don’t know why you bother asking, if you’re just going to open the door anyway.’ Millie sighed, trying to sound vaguely annoyed, while her heart pumped crazily. She jumped up to shut the wardrobe so that her dad could open the door properly.

  ‘Sorry – I wasn’t sure if you’d heard me over the TV.’ He looked at the television, which was steadfastly switched off. ‘That’s funny, I could have sworn I heard—’

  ‘What’s up, Dad?’ she asked brightly.

  ‘Nothing, really, I just came to see if you were all right. You were so quiet at dinner, and you’ve been up here ever since we got home. You’re upset because we were out at the lab today, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not exactly upset.’ Millie didn’t like fibbing to her father, and she was trying hard not to lie outright, but she could see it was going to be tricky.

  ‘I know it bothers you, sweetheart. And I’m sorry I have to keep going there, but you don’t, you know.’

  ‘I know. I might not come out tomorrow, Dad, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Well, we’re not going back to Haverham lab till next week now anyway, so why don’t you have a think about it?’

  ‘I will. Do you, er . . .’ Millie tried hard to be as unconcerned as possible. ‘Do you happen to know who owns the laboratory?’

  ‘No, I don’t, love. A pharmaceutical company, I expect. That’s what the protesters’ signs all say.’

  ‘I thought you hadn’t seen any protesters? That man said they came quite late in the morning.’

  ‘Well’ – her dad looked a bit shame-faced – ‘I saw them earlier, actually. I was looking out for them after you mentioned them the other day, and from the third floor you can just make out the main road, over the trees. I could see their banners, and a couple of them were big enough to read.’

  ‘What did they say?’ asked Millie curiously. Maybe this was a chance to find out more about who had been kidnapping Max and the other cats.

  ‘They were both the same – “The drugs don’t work, and it’s too high a price to pay”.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ Millie was disappointed – she thought there would have been the name of a company at least.

  ‘I can’t answer that, sweetheart. We’ve been very lucky – it’s easy for us to moralise. If you were ill, and needed new drugs to keep you alive and healthy, God forbid, all I know is that I prefer you to some rats in a cage.’

  ‘What if it’s not rats, though? What if it’s a cat, or a dog, or a monkey?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t feel any differently. I still prefer you. But all animals are the same to me, love – I like them. I wouldn’t hurt any of them by choice. You know that. I mean, I’d call a man in if we had mice running around the place, because they could start a fire, chewing through the wiring behind the walls. But a dog, a cat, a monkey, a guinea pig – none of them should live in a cage. That’s why we don’t keep a pet. Animals are wild creatures, they’re not meant to be kept locked up.’

  Even though she couldn’t see him, Millie could feel Max nodding fervently.

  ‘I know. But’ – Millie had a sudden flash of brilliance – ‘you wouldn’t mind if I fed that cat that’s been hanging around outside, would you?’

  ‘Which cat?’

  ‘The stray one I told you about.’ This was a lie, but in such a good cause, she couldn’t help herself. It was like telling someone they looked nice in a new but horrible dress to which they were irretrievably and inexplicably attached. Sometimes you had to lie for the greater good. After all, they wouldn’t take the dress back if you said you didn’t like it. They’d just like you slightly less for not lying to them.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ her dad said, frowning slightly.

  ‘I knew you weren’t listening.’

  ‘Well, don’t get too attached to this cat – it almost certainly has a home somewhere else. Cats are pretty resourceful, you know. They don’t often end up in a scrape.’

  ‘He looks a bit skinny, Dad. Can I get him some cat food?’

  ‘Well, I should think so. But cats can usually find their own food, you know. They don’t very often go hungry.’

  ‘Well, maybe this one’s not been well. He looks a bit raggedy.’ She heard a tiny, huffy hiss, which she hoped her dad wouldn’t notice. ‘I’ll get some tomorrow. Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘What are you up to now? Do you want to come and watch a film?’

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

  Her dad recognised his cue to leave. ‘OK. I’ll just go and make a couple of calls – I’ve been meaning to do them all week. Come down when you’re done up here.’

  The door shut behind him. Millie went and opened the wardrobe secondary defence again. Max appeared from under the bed.

  ‘I hope he’s not ringing that woman,’ Millie said thoughtfully. Max didn’t hear.

  ‘Raggedy?’ was all he could say, almost spitting.

  ‘Not really,’ she said quickly. Cats’ feelings were obviously more easily wounded than she had imagined.

  ‘I just needed to have a reason to buy you some food,’ she explained.

  ‘Well, that was pretty quick thinking, I suppose,’ he congratulated her.

  ‘Thanks. You’re going to have to try and look a bit scrawnier, though.’

  ‘Scrawnier?’

  ‘Thinner.’

  ‘What are you saying? I am a very handsome cat. I am a Chartreux, from the ancient French cat family.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Millie smiled. She couldn’t deny that Max was a beautiful cat. He had thick blue-grey fur, and extraordinary, almost glowing orange eyes. ‘You’re supposed to look like some skanky stray who needs feeding. So if I were you, I’d groom a bit less, and maybe try and flatten your fur down, so you look smaller and more pathetic.’

  ‘Pathetic? I have never heard such a thing. I will catch birds myself and eat those.’

  ‘There might be times when I can’t let you outside, when my dad’s here. Then what are you going to do? It’s either look a bit feeble on the off chance my dad or the lady next door sees you, or a diet of cheese. You decide.’

  Max thought for a moment. ‘You are right,’ he said, defeated. ‘I shall try hard to look . . . ordinary. It won’t be easy.’

  Chapter Seven

  The next day, Millie told her dad that she would stay at home – there was a book she wanted to finish before she had to take it back to the library. No problem, he had said cheerily, he’d drop a note round next door, and Mrs Ellis, their neighbour, could pop by and see she was OK. Millie rolled her eyes heavenwards, and asked again what an old lady would be able to do if the much-heralded crisis ever actually occurred, perhaps swim in to resc
ue her if a water main burst, for example. Her dad told her not to be so ungrateful and ruffled her hair, in a way which was designed to be only slightly annoying, as he left.

  Millie opened the door to the back garden, and let Max out of her room. He flew off, delighted by the prospect of some real, undiluted freedom for the first time in many weeks. He was keen to start planning the rescue of the other cats as soon as they possibly could, but they both agreed that he should have a look around Millie’s neighbourhood first, and stretch his legs. How else would he get in shape for a mission?

  Millie found her book and read it, lying on a towel on the grass, waving up at Mrs Ellis when she saw her, to try and put her off coming round and interfering. Max reappeared an hour later, looking sleek and happy, with the merest trace of feathers around his mouth. Millie got up casually and wandered into the kitchen, as though she were going to get something to drink. She really, really didn’t want Mrs Ellis to think she had seen her talking to a mysterious cat. Max snuck in through the French windows.

  ‘I can see what you’ve been eating,’ Millie said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

  ‘If they only came with napkins . . .’ Max shrugged. He licked his lips. ‘Now let’s go and do some proper hunting,’ he said.

  They went back upstairs, and were online a few moments later, looking for the protesters’ website. They soon found a page which explained that the Haverham laboratory belonged to Vakkson, a pharmaceutical company with offices in London, France, Germany and Spain. The laboratory was their only one in the UK, but they had several more on the Continent. The protesters claimed that the reason the company went largely unnoticed was because they ‘only tested on rodents, which aren’t cute enough to stir up public feelings. People would react differently if it was puppies they were torturing.’

  ‘Some people would react differently,’ muttered Max.

  ‘Don’t be so unkind,’ Millie said hotly. ‘Just because you don’t like dogs.’

  ‘I don’t like rodents either,’ he pointed out. ‘Except as a starter.’

  ‘These people are on our side, you know. They’re the ones trying to stop Vakkson from testing on animals. I think they stand outside all day with placards and shout at all the cars that come onto the property.’

  ‘Have you seen them?’ Max asked, interested.

  ‘No. They get there after we do. My dad saw them, though, over the trees.’

  ‘So, how have they helped, exactly?’

  ‘Maybe they haven’t. But at least they’re trying.’

  ‘I suppose so. But they obviously know very little about what’s been going on, if they think there are only mice and rats in there. I presume even quite a stupid person would realise I am not a mouse. Or a grubby little rat.’

  ‘And they think that it’s only medicines that are being tested. But that’s not what they were using you for, is it?’ Millie frowned.

  Max had no idea. He shrugged.

  ‘I mean,’ Millie carried on, trying to explain, ‘they didn’t give you a voice to test a medicine, unless it was an unexpected side-effect, which doesn’t seem very likely. I can imagine there are medicines which could damage your voice, but not give you one from scratch. And they don’t need to find a medicine that can make people talk – we can talk already.’

  ‘More’s the pity,’ snapped Max. ‘Present company excepted of course. You’re right, though. So, what were they doing?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong – could it have been a side-effect of a drug? Did they seem surprised when they found you could talk?’

  ‘Not as surprised as you did.’

  Millie grinned. ‘I bet they didn’t. So they expected you to be able to talk?’

  ‘Yes. I think so. They asked us questions. That suggests that they were expecting answers.’

  ‘When did they ask you questions?’ Millie asked.

  ‘Every day.’

  ‘From the day you arrived there?’

  ‘No, from the second or third day. I’m not sure. I was tired, and my throat hurt.’ Max looked a bit dejected, not something Millie had seen before.

  ‘Your throat hurt? Let me see.’ Millie reached out for his neck, and he jumped back, hissing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Millie cried, and pulled back her hand as if scalded. They looked at each other for a long moment.

  Max sighed.

  ‘No, I am sorry. I know you’re trying to help me, and I didn’t mean to get angry. It’s just—’

  ‘I know,’ she said, imagining how she might feel if the last human being to come near her had kidnapped and tortured her. ‘I just want to see if there are marks on your fur.’

  He stepped forward, and she put her hand gently on his throat, where the fur seemed shorter than elsewhere. She nodded, grimly.

  ‘I think you were tired because they gave you an anaesthetic the day after you arrived. And your throat hurt because while you were unconscious, they operated on you to give you a voice. Your fur’s shorter here, because they must have shaved it. I had my tonsils out last year, and my throat hurt for a fortnight. And yours must have been much worse than that.’

  Max looked a bit sick.

  ‘They . . . shaved my fur?’ he said faintly.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Tell me we will punish them for this indignity,’ he said.

  ‘Of course we will. Do you always sound like one of the Three Musketeers when you get angry?’

  ‘Always.’

  They sat for a moment, and Millie gave him a small smile.

  ‘Did they test you for any other things?’

  ‘They took temperatures, heart rates, that kind of thing. They had charts on each of us, I think,’ he replied.

  ‘That just sounds like they wanted to check whether the surgery had made you ill in any way. Did they operate on all the cats as soon as they came in?’

  ‘I guess so. I don’t know exactly.’ Max furrowed his brow, trying to remember.

  ‘Could you all talk, in the end?’

  ‘Yes. Although they thought one of us could not.’

  Millie raised her eyebrows, questioning.

  Max explained: ‘There was one cat, Monty, who refused to talk to them at all. He could, but he wouldn’t. He was there when I arrived, and he was very smart, very funny. He took care of me. He was always planning some kind of escape, but he is old and not so quick or strong as I am. His daughter, Celeste, was there too – he was planning for her, I think . . .’ Max gazed at Millie. ‘We must help them.’

  ‘We will,’ said Millie simply. ‘I promise.’

  ‘After the first couple of days, when they started questioning us, he never answered. They thought it hadn’t worked on him.’

  ‘The surgery?’ asked Millie.

  ‘Yes, the surgery. They spoke to us all, and we all replied. It didn’t occur to us not to, you know, when we found we could talk. We wanted to ask them where we were, what they’d done to us, when we could leave.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Of course, but they never replied. Just told us to be quiet.’

  ‘How ironic.’

  ‘Quite. Anyway, Monty never replied to any of their questions, although I think he’d been through the same operation as the rest of us. They were very annoyed about it. They did more tests on him than on all the rest of us put together. He just used to yowl at them, like a normal cat.’

  ‘And he could talk, he just wouldn’t?’

  ‘Yes.’ Max suddenly sounded tired.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Millie said, ‘I know you probably don’t want to think about it very much.’

  ‘Quite the contrary. If it helps us to rescue my friends, I will think about it all day. What do you think was happening?’

  ‘I think they wanted to give you all voices. That must have been the plan. I just can’t think why.’

  Chapter Eight

  Millie and Max spent the next hour online, trying to find out as much as they could. There were two sites in pa
rticular which interested them – the first was the initial one they had looked at, which complained about Vakkson and its rodent testing, and had as its address www.haverhamlabprotest.co.uk. The second Millie found by searching again, and it came up as www.haverhamlabprotest.org.

  ‘That’s weird,’ said Millie. ‘Why would there be another one?’

  Max had no sensible suggestions to make. He wasn’t much of an internet expert, he admitted, and didn’t really know what to make of it all. Millie clicked onto the link, and went to look at the second site, which seemed fairly similar in content to the first. She combed through it, trying to see why someone had set up a second site. There was a diary page and she clicked onto that.

  ‘Maybe this will help,’ she said, beginning to read. ‘Ah.’

  ‘Ah?’ said Max. He had been hoping for less reading and more action, and though he could see that Millie thought this was all useful research, he was getting a little bored. He’d thought that perhaps they could just run to the lab and get the others out today, although he did admit that this plan lacked sophistication.

  ‘They’ve fallen out with each other,’ she explained, pointing to the screen. It appeared that the protesters had now formed two groups: one who did the placards and shouting, and one who thought the first lot a bunch of wimps, and advocated ‘direct action’.

  ‘What do you think that means?’ asked Max.

  ‘Rescue missions?’ guessed Millie.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No, probably not. Well, maybe. I think they do that sometimes. But usually I think they do things like hassle the people who work for the lab, and their families, and stuff. Try to frighten them out of doing it.’

  ‘Seems fair,’ said Max.

  ‘Mmm,’ said Millie.

  ‘You don’t think so?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I met some people last year who were campaigning against animal testing labs. And I wanted to join them, but some of them were really scary, and Dad wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘What do you mean, scary?’