by Jenny Dale
“Can I let Nell out for a while, Mum?” Tom asked, as they all walked back to the house together. “I’ll stand and watch her, to make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble.”
Mrs Morgan nodded. “As long as you do watch her,” she said.
Tom smiled back then glanced up at his bedroom window to see if Nell was still looking out. There was no sign of her. Then something caught his eye in the next window along, his mum and dad’s bedroom. Tom couldn’t quite believe what he saw. Outside it was beautiful sunshine, but inside his mum and dad’s room it was snowing.
Chapter Five
“What on earth . . . ?” gasped Mrs Morgan. She had seen it too and began to rush towards the house.
Tom hurried behind her with his dad and sisters. He had an awful feeling that this was something to do with Nell . . .
Mrs Morgan marched through the kitchen and up the stairs with Tom hot on her heels. She threw open the bedroom door.
Tom squeezed past her into the room. He was right. There in the middle of the big bed, surrounded by a cloud of white feathers, was Nell. She was busily shaking a pillow as though it was a huge white mouse. The other pillow looked crumpled and empty – its feathers already floating around the room.
Nell looked up, saw Tom and was about to purr – but sneezed instead. Then she saw Tom’s mum. Mrs Morgan’s face was very red and fierce-looking. Nell knew that she was in big trouble. She jumped off the bed, shot out of the room and hid in her basket in Tom’s bedroom.
“They’re my best pillows. I don’t believe it. I just don’t!” shouted Mrs Morgan.
“Mum, please, she was bored,” Tom pleaded. “I should have left her a toy to play with.”
“No, Tom,” Mrs Morgan replied. “She’s just too naughty and this is the last straw!”
Nell sat in her basket and listened miserably to the fuss going on next door. Soon she heard the sound of Mrs Morgan’s footsteps going downstairs. Then Tom came in and picked her up.
“Oh, Nell!” he said sadly. “You’ve really done it this time. Mum’s on the phone to Auntie Julie.”
Mrs Morgan’s voice came floating up the stairs. “I’m so cross! I’m going to have to buy new pillows, Julie . . .” she was saying. “Yes, terrible . . . Tomorrow morning will be fine . . . Thanks, Julie . . . Bye . . . Bye . . .”
Tom sighed and Nell noticed his eyes looked all wet.
Tom didn’t want to talk to Auntie Julie when she arrived the next morning.
“Hello, Tom,” she said. “I’m really sorry about Nell. You know that you can come and see her any time, don’t you? Any time at all.”
Tom stared at his feet. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Auntie Julie. The trouble was that he liked her very much and if she was any nicer to him he had an awful feeling that he might cry. So he kept staring at his feet and said nothing.
“Hattie, Jo,” said Mrs Morgan, “why don’t you show Auntie Julie the new piglets while Tom says goodbye to Nell?”
“What a good idea,” said Auntie Julie, sounding pleased to get out of the kitchen. She ushered Hattie and Jo out of the door.
“Right,” said Tom’s mum when they had gone. “Let’s find Nell and you can say goodbye to her properly.”
Tom didn’t say anything.
“Come on, love,” said Mrs Morgan. “Surely you can see that Nell can’t stay? And she’s only going down the road. You can see her every day at Auntie Julie’s if you want to.”
“But it won’t be the same,” Tom mumbled at his shoes.
Mrs Morgan sighed, but she wasn’t going to change her mind this time. “Now, where is she?” she asked.
With a heavy heart, Tom went up to his room to fetch Nell. He had left her asleep on his bed when he came downstairs that morning.
But Nell wasn’t there. She had gone.
Ten minutes later they still hadn’t found Nell.
Tom’s mum was getting annoyed. “Are you hiding that kitten somewhere?” she asked Tom.
“No,” Tom replied truthfully. It was a good idea and he wished he’d thought of it, but he had no idea where Nell was either.
Crossly, Mrs Morgan called Hattie and Jo in to help search for Nell. Soon they were turning the house upside down.
“She’s been here,” called out Hattie, “cos my drawing paper’s got footprints on it.”
“And here,” said Jo. “Look, she’s eaten my chocolate.”
“You ate that yourself, silly,” said Hattie, scornfully.
Tom was beginning to wonder if Nell really had disappeared.
Chapter Six
Out by the pigpen, huddled inside an upturned tin bucket, Nell kept as quiet as a mouse. When Mrs Morgan had taken her basket out of Tom’s room that morning, Nell had guessed that something not very nice was going to happen to her.
Nell had crept downstairs, and when Tom’s Auntie Julie had arrived, she had scooted outside unnoticed. She watched and waited, listening unhappily to the sounds going on around her.
“We can’t find her anywhere,” sighed Hattie and Jo.
Tom watched Auntie Julie through the window as she fussed around the pigpen. He was beginning to hope that Nell would disappear long enough for Auntie Julie to give up waiting and go home. He threw himself down on the sofa and sighed.
A moment later Auntie Julie came back in. Mrs Morgan shook her head to let her know that they hadn’t found Nell.
Auntie Julie shrugged her shoulders, then sat down at the kitchen table.
“You can’t hide Nell forever,” Mrs Morgan told Tom crossly.
“I’m not hiding her!” Tom cried.
Out by the pigpen, Nell’s nose twitched. Something was wrong. She peeped around the edge of the bucket and saw a little pink bottom with a curly tail rush by. It was one of the piglets. What was it doing out of the pigpen?
Nell crept out of the bucket to see more piglets running from the pen, while their mother snuffled about in the chicken feed. The pigpen gate hadn’t been closed properly. As she watched, one of the piglets squeezed under the front gate and ran down the lane.
Nell was worried. She liked to tease the other farm animals, but she didn’t want to see any of them hurt. And that piglet was going to get into big trouble, running off like that!
Nell dashed over to the house – but the kitchen door was closed! She jumped onto the stone ledge under the kitchen window. Tom and his sisters, and his mum and Auntie Julie were all sitting round the table, talking.
“Tom! Tom – come out! Come and look!” Nell miaowed loudly, scratching on the windowpane as she called.
Everyone looked up.
“Catch her!” shouted Mrs Morgan, pushing her chair back and dashing outside, closely followed by Tom.
Then Mrs Morgan saw that the piglets were out of their pen. “Oh no!” she cried, forgetting about Nell. “Catch them!” she yelled.
Everyone began to run around the yard, herding the piglets safely back into the pen. But Nell ran over to the front gate, hoping Tom would follow her.
“Come here, Nell,” Tom called, walking towards her.
But Nell ran under the gate and on down the lane.
“Nell! Come back!” Tom called. He quickly climbed over the gate and ran after her.
Just then, Nell spotted the runaway piglet snuffling about in a muddy ditch. She stood there, waiting for Tom to catch up.
At first, Tom couldn’t believe his eyes. Nell wasn’t being naughty at all. She’d run off to show him one of the farm animals was in trouble!
When Tom’s mum spotted him walking back up the lane she called out to him, looking worried. “There’s a piglet missing, Tom.”
“No there isn’t,” Tom called back, smiling. He held the piglet up for his mum to see.
Nell walked beside Tom, feeling pleased. Perhaps she was a real farm cat now.
But Mrs Morgan didn’t see it that way. She briskly picked Nell up and tucked her under her arm. “I might have known you’d be right in the middle of trouble,” she said to
Nell crossly.
“Mum . . .” protested Tom.
“Oh, that’s not fair,” Auntie Julie told her sister. “All this was my fault, not Nell’s.”
“Your fault?” asked Mrs Morgan, puzzled.
Auntie Julie went a little pink. “I must have left the pigpen gate open. Sorry.”
“And Mum,” said Tom, “if Nell hadn’t come and scratched on the window at us, all the piglets might have got out on the road!”
“Oh don’t, Tom,” said Mrs Morgan, looking pale.
“So Nell wasn’t being naughty at all this time,” Jo said brightly.
Tom smiled at his sister. “That’s right. Nell knew what was happening, Mum,” he said. “She came and got us – and then she led me straight to the piglet that had run off down the lane!”
“Now Nell’s a proper farm cat,” said Harriet, happily.
“So I think we should keep her, Mum,” Tom said quietly.
Harriet and Jo nodded hard.
Mrs Morgan looked at Auntie Julie to see what she thought.
“Tom’s right,” said Auntie Julie. “I think Nell will be a good farm cat, after all.”
“Yes, I will,” miaowed Nell, wriggling in Mrs Morgan’s arms. “Now can you stop squashing me, please?”
Mrs Morgan untucked the wriggling kitten from under her arm and gave her to Tom, smiling. “Then I suppose she can stay.”
“Really?” asked Tom.
“Really,” laughed Mrs Morgan.
Hattie and Jo cheered and Tom hugged Nell tight, a huge smile on his face.
As Nell purred happily in Tom’s arms, two ducks waddled past. Nell’s tail twitched. She was tempted, but she wasn’t going to chase them. No – she was going to enjoy being a good farm cat – for today, at least . . .
‘Felix the Fluffy Kitten’, ‘Star the Snowy Kitten’ and ‘Nell the Naughty Kitten’ first published 1999, and ‘Snuggles the Sleepy Kitten’ first published 2001, in four separate volumes by Macmillan Children’s Books
This bind-up edition published 2018 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2018 by Macmillan Children’s Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
Created by Working Partners Limited
London WC2B 6XF
ISBN 978-1-5098-7127-8
Copyright © Working Partners Limited 1999, 2001
Illustrations copyright © Susan Hellard 1999, 2001
Cover illustration by Simon Mendez
Jenny Dale’s Kitten Tales is a registered trademark owned by Working Partners Limited
The right of Susan Hellard to be identified as the illustrator of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Typeset by Nigel Hazle
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