by Orr, Wendy
Then the rain stopped. The sun came out, and for a moment Mona stood blinking in the brightness.
When she could see again, Bert was standing in front of the blue house with the wet cockatoo eating birdseed from his hand.
Above them was a rainbow.
CHAPTER 1
uster and his brother and sisters were born in a box at the back of a garage. The other four kittens were fluffy and pretty: his sisters were grey and brother was black. But Buster had a square head with a crooked white snip on his nose. His fur was as orange as marmalade on warm toast.
Their mother licked them clean, fed them, and looked after them so well that their cardboard box was as good a home as the comfiest cat basket a kitten could have. All the time the kittens were growing – opening their eyes to look around, and learning to wash their faces and paws clean with their small pink tongues – the mother cat kept them secret and safe.
One day, when the kittens were just old enough to walk and tumble and play, the mother cat led them out of the box to explore the world beyond the garage. But as each tiny kitten came blinking out into its first bright sunlight, a hand grabbed them and dumped them into a big bag. The mother cat yowled and the kittens mewed, but the bag was dropped into a car and the mother cat was left behind.
The car drove down a long road while the frightened kittens squirmed in the dark, squeezy bag. Then they felt a whoosh! as the bag was tossed from the car, and a thump! as they landed on the grass beside the road.
No one saw it happen, and so no one ever knew who had done such a cruel and terrible thing.
But Buster knew, and for the rest of his life he hated going in cars or being anywhere squeezy where he couldn’t get out, and he hated people wearing orange caps.
Luckily, the next person who drove down the road that day was Eliza Jones, and she was a very different sort of person. Even more luckily, she saw the squirming bag. She didn’t know what was inside, but she knew if it was squirming it must be alive, and if it was alive it didn’t belong in a bag on the side of the road. Even though the bag squirmed so much that she was afraid it might be a snake, she stopped her car and walked slowly towards it.
As she got closer, she heard a chorus of mewing.
Eliza sprinted to the bag and ripped it open. She was so angry at whoever had dumped the kittens, so sad for how scared they were, and so happy that she’d found them, that she wanted to take them all home and give them enough love and kindness they’d forget just how frightened they’d been.
But she knew that one kitten was enough for her tiny apartment, so in the end she drove straight to the Rainbow Street Shelter.
CHAPTER 2
liza Jones ran through the cherry-red door, under the seven-coloured rainbow of the animal shelter.
‘Can I help you?’ called Gulliver, the cockatoo, just as Mona opened the door to ask the same thing.
Eliza Jones told Mona the story of finding the kittens. She was still angry and sad as she told it. So was Mona when she heard it.
‘Of course we’ll look after the kittens!’ she said, and went out to the car with Eliza.
‘This is the one I’m keeping,’ said Eliza, picking up Buster’s handsome black brother.
Mona gathered up the other kittens. Three pretty fluffy grey kittens mewed and snuggled into her arms. The orange kitten with a square head scratched and leapt out of the car.
Mona put the other kittens down again and raced after Buster. ‘Here, kitty, kitty!’ she called.
Eliza Jones raced after her. ‘Here, puss, puss!’
Buster didn’t listen. He raced down Rainbow Street and across someone’s front lawn. A big dog roared at him from behind a fence, and Buster raced up the nearest tree. It was a huge old oak tree, the tallest tree on the block.
Mona and Eliza looked up, and up. ‘Meow,’ they heard, from high in the tree.
Mona began to climb. She’d been rescuing animals since she was eight years old, and sometimes climbing trees was the only way to do it. She scrambled up to Buster’s branch, and coaxed and cooed till he wiggled close enough for her to grab him and take him safely down.
The man in the house behind the oak tree took a picture of Mona rescuing the kitten, and sent it to the newspaper.
People who wanted a cat came to the Rainbow Street Shelter to see the feisty orange kitten they’d read about in the newspaper, but when they got there they saw Buster’s pretty, fluffy sisters. ‘What adorable kittens!’ they always said – and one after the other, Buster’s three sisters went home with new families.
Buster was still not pretty or fluffy. He got taller and more orange, and he waited to know people before he decided if he liked them. Mona and Bert were the only people he trusted. Gradually he began to let them pat him. Every day, they were allowed to stroke him for a little bit longer, until one morning Bert picked him up and cuddled him. A strange rumble came from the little cat’s chest.
‘Did you hear that?’ Bert asked Mona. ‘He’s purring!’
They felt like having a party. Knowing that the kitten was happy again was the best ‘thank you’ they could ever have for working in the shelter.
But Buster had added big barking dogs to the list of things he didn’t like, and nothing was going to change his mind about that.
When Buster grew into a yowly, prowly, tall and rangy teenage orange kitten, a family took him home. Buster wouldn’t sit on their laps, and he wouldn’t stop chasing their dog, so after three days they took him back to Rainbow Street.
‘Sorry, Buster,’ said Mona. ‘Maybe you’d better stay here and live with us, like Gulliver.’
But deep down, Mona kept hoping that Buster would find his very own home. ‘The right people must be somewhere!’ she said to Bert.
Finally, the right person came.
Mr Larsen was very old, and he didn’t want a brand-new, fluffy kitten.
‘I don’t care what colour it is or what it looks like,’ he said. ‘But I’ll know when I meet the cat that’s right for me.’
Then he saw Buster, lying in the sun on the roof of his cat-kennel. Buster looked back at Mr Larsen for a long minute. Then he jumped down, arched his back and stretched, and stalked over to meet the old man.
‘A marmalade cat!’ said Mr Larsen. ‘I’ve always wanted a marmalade cat!’
‘Buster hasn’t had an easy life,’ said Mona. ‘He’s got a bit of an attitude.’
‘Then he’s the cat for me!’ said Mr Larsen.
CHAPTER 3
ust as Mr Larsen knew that Buster was exactly the right cat for him, Josh knew that Rex was exactly the right rabbit for him.
Rex was a big rabbit with velvety orange fur. When he was younger he had liked playing with a little red ball and exploring new parts of the garden: once he’d even chased a stray cat out of the Lee’s yard. Now Rex was old but sometimes he still felt so good that he did crazy hopping bunny dances, jumping and twisting around the floor with Josh and Mai copying him. And when he was tired, he liked lying on his back and having his tummy stroked till he went to sleep.
If Josh was sad he always started to feel better again when Rex sat on his lap and let Josh stroke him, from behind the twitchy ears right down to the tail. Sometimes Josh thought there was something magic in Rex’s soft fur, which made bad things seem not so terrible.
Rex wasn’t just Josh’s rabbit; Mrs Lee had him before she even met Mr Lee. Then they got married, and then Mai was born, and then Josh, and now Rex was everyone’s pet.
He had his own hutch to sleep in. For warm sunny days he had a cage in the backyard that Josh and Mai moved around so he always had a fresh patch of grass to nibble. On cold rainy days he stayed inside and lollopped around the family room and kitchen. When he was inside he had a litter-tray in the laundry, and he never had an accident … Except for the time he ate the cable to the computer modem, and the time he ate the mobile phone charger cord, but those were a different kind of accident. ‘Bunnies make mistakes like everyone else,’ said J
osh’s mum.
Rex never made those sorts of mistakes any more. In the last few months, Rex had changed. He still sometimes liked his tummy being stroked and tickled, but he lolloped so slowly it was barely a bounce, and he never danced now. He didn’t do anything much except sleep and nibble.
But he was part of the Lees’ family, and Josh loved him.
Buster was still young. He was two years old, and he’d lived with Mr Larsen for more than half his life. He still hated orange caps, cars, squeezy places and big dogs, but he’d found lots more things that he liked.
He liked going for walks, even though Mr Larsen made him wear a harness and a leash. He liked lying in the sun, and sitting on the verandah beside Mr Larsen. He liked tossing and chasing the long curls of carrot peel Mr Larsen dropped for him when he was making dinner. Most of all, he loved Mr Larsen.
And Mr Larsen thought Buster was the most perfect cat in the whole world.
The first time Josh saw Buster, the big marmalade cat and a very tall, very old man were walking home from the beach.
This was not a cute and fluffy kitty cat. It was the biggest cat Josh had ever seen, and people who didn’t like cats might have even said he was ugly. He had a square head, with a crooked white snip on his nose, and one bent over ear that looked as if someone had taken a nibble out of the tip.
But he was exactly the same orange colour as Rex, and Josh thought that was the most perfect colour an animal-friend could be. He was also the only cat Josh had ever seen walking on a leash.
‘I’d never catch him if I let him loose,’ said the old man. ‘He chases every dog he sees, right down the beach and back again. Dogs don’t know what to do when they see Buster coming!’
Josh didn’t see the cat again for a long time, but he liked to think about him. There was something wild and crazy about a giant cat that chased dogs, as if he was so brave that didn’t even know that he was a cat.
Josh sometimes felt wild and crazy, but he didn’t know if he was brave. He knew for sure that he wasn’t big. Josh’s dad was tall and strong. His big sister Mai looked like their dad. But Josh’s mum was short and skinny, and Josh looked like their mum.
This year Mai was going to secondary school, and Josh had started walking to school by himself.
The Lees’ house was on Spray Street. If you walked straight down their street for two blocks, then turned right for one block, you ended up at the Ocean Street corner where the schoolyard started. That was the way Mai always went.
Josh liked to turn right at the first corner to get to Ocean Street, and walk that way to the school. It was exactly the same distance and took him exactly the same time.
And it took him past the house where the very old man and the very large cat lived. Every morning as he walked to school he saw them sitting outside on the verandah in the sun.
The old man looked even older. Josh never saw him walking to the beach anymore, but he always waved as Josh walked by, and Josh waved back. The big cat sat beside him, watching everything and everyone, as if he was deciding whether or not they needed to be chased away.
Josh liked the way Buster sat there on guard beside his man. He thought he’d like having a pet who looked out for him like that, but then he felt mean, as if Rex might know what he was thinking, so the next day he walked the other way to school.
The day after that everything changed.
CHAPTER 4
ex had had a very long life for a rabbit. He’d had a very happy life too. But Rex had lived as long as a bunny could possibly live, and he was so very, very old that when he went to sleep that night, snuggled up safe in his hutch, he never woke up again.
In the morning Josh found him curled up in the hay bed. He lay so completely still that Josh knew something wasn’t right. Not even his nose was twitching. ‘Wake up, Rex!’ he shouted, but when he patted the soft orange fur, the rabbit’s body was cold.
From that moment Josh felt as if part of his life had been ripped away. And it didn’t matter how much everyone said what a happy life Rex had had, or that it was his time to go – the whole family was sad and nothing seemed right.
‘It’s hard to believe now,’ said Mr Lee, ‘but one day we’ll be ready to get another pet.’
‘Maybe a dog that we could take for walks on the beach,’ said Mai.
‘Or another baby bunny,’ said Mrs Lee. ‘You kids can’t imagine how sweet Rex was when he was tiny.’
‘I don’t ever want another pet!’ Josh shouted. ‘I just want Rex!’
‘We all do,’ said his mum.
‘There’ll never be another Rex,’ said his dad. ‘But when we’re ready to have another pet, we’ll learn to love it too.’
Josh knew he’d never be ready. He didn’t want to get used to another pet – and he never wanted to feel this sad again. It wasn’t worth loving anything if it made you feel this bad when it died.
Now Josh didn’t want to meet anyone with a pet. He walked the other way to school so he didn’t have to see Mr Larsen and Buster. And he definitely didn’t want to go to the next ‘First Monday of the Month’ assembly. That was when Hannah stood up in front of the whole school to do a presentation about a lost pet. Josh didn’t know how she could do it; he didn’t even like standing up in front of everyone in his class!
Josh had known Hannah since Year Two. She’d been talking about dogs for as long as he’d known her. On the first day of school this year Hannah told the class about the dog she’d found, and how her parents had made her take it to the Rainbow Street Shelter. And then the new boy had jumped out of his chair so fast he’d knocked his desk over. ‘His name is Bear!’ he’d shouted. ‘He’s my dog!’
Even though Hannah had her own puppy now, she still went to Rainbow Street every week to help feed the lost animals. She cleaned out their cages and played with them so they remembered how to trust people again. And every month, from that first assembly on the First Monday of the Month, she told the school about a pet who needed a home.
Josh knew for sure that hearing stories about homeless animals wasn’t going to make him feel any better at all.
Maybe I’ll catch a cold and be too sick to go to school on Monday, he thought. He started practising coughing.
CHAPTER 5
t was the scariest night of Buster’s life. It was scarier than being dumped out of a car, being chased by big dogs or being stuck at the top of a tall tree.
It started just like every other night. Mr Larsen and Buster sat out on the verandah after dinner till it was dark, then went inside and watched TV till bedtime.
Watching TV was the only time Buster sat on Mr Larsen’s lap. His purr started off as a whispery hum, but as the old man’s hands stroked the thick fur from the top of his head down his back to the start of his tail, Buster’s purr rumbled louder and louder. After a few minutes his whole body thrummed like a fishing boat heading out to sea.
At bedtime Mr Larsen made himself a mug of tea. He poured a bit of milk into Buster’s saucer, and Buster twined lovingly around his legs. A splash of tea slopped onto the floor.
‘That was a close one, Buster!’ Mr Larsen said.
‘Meow,’ agreed Buster.
The old man turned to put the saucer down. He slipped in the spilled tea and crashed to the floor. Buster mewed and prowled around him, but Mr Larsen didn’t move.
Buster didn’t care about the spilled milk or the smashed saucer; he just wanted his man to wake up. He licked Mr Larsen’s face, nudged his hands and yowled in his ear, over and over, until finally the old man opened his eyes.
Mr Larsen tried to sit up, and fell back down – but Buster kept on licking his face with his raspy tongue until Mr Larsen was ready to try again.
Slowly, slowly, with Buster nudging and yowling every time he went back to sleep, Mr Larsen woke up enough to get his mobile phone out of his pocket and dial 000.
When the ambulance came with its sirens and lights, Buster sat by his owner’s head glaring at the people rushing into his hou
se.
‘It’s okay, Buster,’ Mr Larsen whispered.
Buster meowed with his ears flat and worried. He didn’t think it looked okay at all.
‘He saved my life,’ Mr Larsen told the paramedics as they lifted him onto a stretcher.
‘Good puss,’ they said, and before they wheeled Mr Larsen out of the house, the paramedics shut Buster into the lounge room to keep him safe.
Buster paced around the empty room, yowling as if his heart would break.
The next day there was a story in the local newspaper:
Cat Saves Owner’s Life!.
A year-and-a-half ago, Mr Edward Larsen rescued a cat from the Rainbow Street Shelter.
Last night, the cat returned the favour by rescuing his elderly owner. Mr Larsen, aged 89, fell in his kitchen, breaking his hip and losing consciousness.
Our reporters interviewed Mr Larsen from his hospital bed. ‘Buster wasn’t going to let me die,’ Mr Larsen said. ‘He licked my nose and yowled in my ears till I woke up enough to call 000. That cat is a hero!’
However, in a sad twist to the tale, when Mr Larsen’s son arrived from Sydney, the cat was missing. He is described as a large orange tabby cat. Anyone seeing him is asked to phone the Rainbow Street Shelter.
As Buster prowled the lounge room that terrible night of flashing lights and screaming sirens, he noticed that one window was open a crack.
Buster was very good at figuring out whether he could fit through a space. He knew exactly how big his head and body were compared to any sort of hole or open window. And he knew that Mr Larsen never left a window open wide enough for him to jump out.
But Buster wasn’t thinking – he was scared and desperate, and he wanted Mr Larsen.
Most cats that were scared and desperate would have hidden behind the couch or under a chair, but Buster wasn’t most cats.
Buster leapt at the window. He didn’t fit through the opening. Instead, he crashed right through the glass and landed on the lawn outside. He had one cut paw and a deep scratch across his head, but Buster didn’t notice. He started to run.
