A Kitten Called Tiger

by Holly Webb

  Ava wheeled round and hurried back into the house. Lucy and Bel had been in their room, she’d heard them giggling. But they knew Tiger was supposed to stay in the kitchen for the first few days! She bounded up the stairs and burst into their bedroom.

  “Go away! We’re busy!” Lucy said crossly but Bel looked nervous. She put a doll’s blanket over something in front of her – something that was moving!

  “You’ve got Tiger up here!” Ava cried. “You have! You know he’s supposed to stay in the kitchen – we’ve not even had him for a day!”

  Tiger peered out from underneath the blanket and Ava gasped. They’d been dressing him up. A doll’s sock was falling off one of his front paws and there was a hat balanced on one twitching ear.

  Ava scooped him up and cuddled him against her. “You mustn’t do that! He’s not a toy!”

  “How come you get to play with him and we don’t?” Bel demanded. “We were just having fun. He’s our kitten, too.”

  “You can play with him properly, with cat toys! But you shouldn’t dress him up like a doll.” Ava slipped the sock off his paw – the hat had fallen off already.

  “Give him back!” Lucy whined.

  Bel stamped her foot. “You’re not taking him, it isn’t fair!”

  “Oh yes, she is,” Mum said from the doorway. “You knew he wasn’t allowed to come upstairs yet. And what’s this about dressing him up? Take Tiger back to the kitchen, Ava, I need to talk to Bel and Lucy.”

  Ava carried Tiger downstairs, stroking him gently. “I bet you wish you could go back to Rosie’s house, where everybody was sensible,” she whispered. “I can’t believe my stupid sisters were dressing you up. They were probably going to put you in the doll’s pushchair, weren’t they?”

  Tiger nuzzled under her chin. He hadn’t liked Lucy and Bel pulling him around, although he had got to explore their room while they argued over which clothes to put on him and that had been interesting. So many things to clamber around and sniff and investigate. But he liked Ava’s calm, gentle voice, and the way she was stroking his back over and over.

  Ava sat down at the kitchen table, holding Tiger in her lap. She wasn’t holding him tight, and she was expecting him to leap down from her knee and go and find somewhere to hide. Probably he’d want to tuck himself away inside his basket – it was one of those soft furry igloo ones, so he had his own little cave to snuggle in. But he stayed, kneading up and down on her leg with his needle-sharp claws.

  “It’s a good thing I’ve got jeans on,” she whispered to him. “Are you OK? You’re not still scared?”

  Tiger turned himself round slowly and then settled down into a little heap on her lap. He looked around and spotted his feather toy lying on the floor close to his basket. Perhaps Ava would wave it for him some more? Then he slumped down again. No. He was too sleepy…

  Ava watched him, a huge smile on her face. He was going to sleep – on her lap. Surely that meant he was happy, even after Lucy and Bel had been so awful.

  Mum had explained to Bel and Lucy again that Tiger was only little and needed time to get used to them all. And that kittens never, ever, ever wanted to be dressed up. Ava wasn’t totally sure that her little sisters understood, though. Lucy definitely thought Tiger was a new and improved sort of teddy. Ava wasn’t sure what to do – maybe Lucy wasn’t old enough for a pet, after all? But if she said that to Mum and Dad, they might agree with her and decide to take Tiger back!

  “I’m going to tell Miss Daniels all about Tiger,” Bel said, swinging her book bag round and round as she and Ava waited for Mum and Lucy in the front garden. “And everybody in my class.” She stopped suddenly. “I could take in Tiger for Show and Tell!”

  “No!” Ava yelped.

  “He wouldn’t like it, Bel,” Mum said, locking the front door. “He’d be scared. But you could take in a photo?”

  Bel was about to argue when she caught sight of one of her friends coming down the road with her mum and started waving. “Mia!”

  Ava waved, too – her friend Jess was Mia’s big sister and they all often ended up walking to school together.

  “We’ve got a new kitten!” Bel told Mia proudly.

  Jess looked surprised. “Have you really?” she asked Ava. “I didn’t know you’d found one!”

  “We went to see a litter of kittens on Saturday and we brought him home yesterday. He’s called Tiger.”

  “Oh, lucky you…” Jess sighed. “I love our cats but they’re both a bit old and doddery. It’d be great to have a kitten to play with.”

  “You can come and play with Tiger,” Ava said. “Oh, hi, Megan!” Ava smiled as their next-door neighbour came out of her garden gate and then crouched down to stroke her dogs, Charlie and Max. “Are you going for a walk?” Ava loved the dogs. She sometimes went with Megan to walk them.

  Charlie and Max wagged their feathery tails and yapped with excitement as all five girls made a fuss of them – even Lucy reached over from her pushchair to stroke their ears.

  “We’ve got a kitten,” Bel told Megan.

  “I wonder if Charlie and Max can smell that? They’re very excited. Come on, you two. We’re a bit late this morning, we’ve only got time for a quick walk before I have to get to work,” Megan told the girls. “Have a good day at school!”

  “Bye!” Ava and Jess led the way round the corner to the alleyway that went past the woods. It went almost all the way to their school and Lucy’s nursery. It was a bit wild, with overgrown hedges and nettles and other weeds growing up round the big trees, but because there were no cars, it meant she and Jess could walk on ahead and their mums didn’t mind.

  “Oooh, look, blackberries!” Jess reached into the bush to pick a couple and passed one to Ava. “So, is Tiger ginger with stripes?”

  “No, he’s brown – golden brown, with really black stripes. And the tip of his tail’s black, too, like he dipped it in a pot of paint.”

  “Awww… Is he cuddly? I suppose he’s a bit shy still.”

  “He was when he arrived,” Ava agreed. “But he loves playing so much, he forgets to be nervous around us. And he’s really adventurous! When we first saw him at his old house he was on top of a bookcase and yesterday he climbed up the kitchen wallpaper and got stuck!”

  Jess giggled. “He sounds like he’s going to get into trouble!”

  Ava nodded. “I know. I love it that he’s so bouncy and full of energy but I’m a bit worried about what he might do next!”

  “Look, Tiger.” Ava put her hand through the cat flap and wiggled it about. Now that the kitten had had all his vaccinations, he was allowed to go outside. Ava couldn’t wait. She really wanted to see Tiger out in the garden for the first time. She was sure he was going to love having more space to explore.

  Jess had been right about the kitten being trouble. Tiger already went everywhere in the house – and that meant everywhere. He seemed to be able to squeeze into the smallest space and scramble up the tallest piece of furniture. He’d even managed to jump from the bookcase in Ava’s bedroom to the top of her bedroom door. Then he’d sat there, looking a bit confused, as if he wasn’t quite sure what he was meant to do next. Dad had lifted him down but Ava had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before he tried again. Tiger just seemed to love being high up.

  Ava let the cat flap bang shut again and looked at Tiger. He didn’t seem to be getting it. He stared back at her. He wasn’t sure if this was some new sort of game. Ava was good at playing with him – she would roll a ball around for ages, or bounce his cat-dancer toy up and down. But now all she seemed to want to do was bang at this strange hole in the door.

  Suddenly his ears pricked up and his whiskers twitched. He had caught a whiff of fresh air floating through the cat flap. The scent of outside, where he hadn’t been allowed to go. He’d tried to get out, of course, hovering behind people as they went into the garden and sneaking after them, but they always caught him. He’d even got as far as the back step once, when Lucy nearly fell over
and Mum was paying attention to her instead of watching the door. But then Mum had scooped him up while he was still staring out at the open stretch of grass.

  “Come on, Tiger! You can go out,” Ava told him, lifting the flap right up. “It’s your own special door. Charlie and Max have one just like it, so they can get out while Megan’s at work.”

  Tiger crept up to the cat flap and then jumped back as he saw Lucy peering through it from the garden.

  “When’s he coming out?” she demanded.

  “He was about to!” Ava said. “You scared him!”

  Lucy stomped away and Tiger poked his nose through the flap, looking out at the garden. It smelled so good, and he could hear birds scratching and fluttering in the bushes by the back door. He twitched his tail and hopped suddenly through the flap – so suddenly that Ava squeaked in surprise, and had to scramble up and open the door to follow him.

  “He’s out,” she called to Mum, who was pushing Bel on the swing. “Look at him!”

  Tiger prowled along the patio, stopping every few steps to sniff at a leaf or watch an ant scurrying between his paws. Then he walked into a patch of bright autumn sunlight, feeling its warm glow on his fur. He sat down for a moment, closing his eyes and letting the warmth soak in. Then he lay down and rolled over, his paws in the air. He blinked lazily as a bee buzzed past but couldn’t be bothered to leap up and chase it.

  Mum laughed. “He looks blissed out.”

  “It’s good, isn’t it?” Ava said, sitting down next to Tiger. “And now you can go out whenever you like,” she told him.

  “Not for too long this first time, though,” Mum said. “Remember what it said in the cat care book. We need to take him back inside for his tea, so he learns that it’s a good thing to come back home. We don’t want him to wander off and get lost. And we’ll need to keep the cat flap locked when we’re not around, at least to start with.”

  Ava nodded. “I don’t think he’s big enough to get out of the garden yet, though. Megan’s walls are too high and there’s no holes underneath, because she doesn’t want Charlie and Max escaping. And there’s the wall between our garden and the alleyway on the other side. Tiger’s not big enough to jump on to that.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be long,” Mum murmured. “He’s such a good climber.”

  “I know.” Ava sighed.

  “This is really nice, Gran.” Ava nibbled a piece of popcorn and snuggled up next to Grandma Shirley. “We should do this more often!”

  “Definitely,” her gran agreed. “We just have to persuade your mum and dad. It’s very special for them to have a day out together.”

  “Shh!” Lucy glared at them. “Don’t talk!”

  Ava and Gran exchanged a look. Because Lucy was the littlest, she seemed to think she had to be extra bossy.

  “Where’s Tiger?” Bel asked, in a whisper. “I wanted him to sit on me while we watch the film.”

  Ava smiled at her. “Do you want me to go and get him? He’s in his basket.”

  “Please!” Bel whispered back. Gran was smiling, too – she loved Tiger. She’d told Ava she thought he was the cleverest kitten she’d ever seen.

  Ava hurried into the kitchen but there was no stripey kitten in the basket. She looked around the room – she even checked the top of the door, just in case. Tiger seemed to find pawholds where she couldn’t even imagine them. He must have gone upstairs, she thought, or perhaps he was out in the garden. Now he’d been allowed out for a few weeks, they left the cat flap unlocked in the daytime so he could go out by himself. She opened the back door and leaned out, calling, “Tiger! Tiger!”

  She’d expected that he would leap out of the bushes by the back door. He loved lurking in there, watching the birds hopping about in the branches.

  “Tiger!” Ava called again. But there was no answering mew, only Charlie and Max barking in the garden next door. Barking a lot, actually, Ava thought, wondering what was the matter. Megan worked on Saturdays, in one of the department stores in town, so the dogs were on their own.

  “Hey, Charlie! Hey, Max,” she called over the wall. “Shh… What’s wrong?”

  It was as if the dogs didn’t even hear her. They just kept on barking.

  Ava bit her lip, suddenly worried. She dashed back indoors and up the stairs, checking all the bedrooms to see if Tiger was curled up on someone’s bed. But he wasn’t. Ava leaned out of Lucy and Bel’s bedroom window, trying to look down into Megan’s garden but the wall was in the way. She could only see the back end of the garden and she knew the dogs were nearer the house – she’d heard them close to the back door.

  Ava dug her nails into her palms, trying to stop herself panicking. She didn’t know that Tiger was in next-door’s garden. How could he be? He wasn’t big enough to get over that huge wall and there were no gaps that he could have squeezed through. It couldn’t be Tiger that Charlie and Max were barking at.

  Ava wasn’t completely sure, though. Not sure enough.

  Tiger had been right down at the bottom of the garden, stalking a blackbird. It had been cheeky enough to flutter down on to the grass right in front of him. The kitten had been so surprised he almost fell over his own paws but as soon as he realized what was happening, he sank into a hunting crouch. He had seen birds hopping about in the bushes before but never one so close up. He inched forwards, hardly breathing, creeping nearer and nearer. Then, all of a sudden, the bird spotted him and shot into the air with a frantic beating of wings. Tiger dived after it but the bird was too fast. It was gone before he landed, up into the scrubby lilac that grew against the wall.

  Tiger scrambled after the bird, and it squawked furiously at him and fluttered away over the wall.

  He looked up as it flew off, with his ears laid back. He had been so close. Tiger clambered the rest of the way up the lilac, on to the wall, but the bird had disappeared. Then he gazed around curiously. He had never climbed on to the top of the wall before. He was high up enough to see all along the garden – and into next-door’s garden. A whole new place to explore!

  He paced along the bricks, wondering if there were any other cats down there. A huge white cat had appeared in his own garden a couple of days before and hissed at him as though he wasn’t meant to be there. He had been furious and scared all at the same time. But then Bel and Ava had come outside and started shouting, and the white cat had dashed away.

  The new garden seemed quite still, so he sprang down on to the grass and began to wander about, sniffing curiously at the plants. He was just investigating the tiny pond next to the patio when there was a sudden bang, followed by an ear-splitting series of barks.

  Charlie and Max came shooting out of their dog flap, barking so loudly that Tiger just froze. He stood perched at the edge of the pond, trembling in fright.

  Tiger had seen the dogs before, out of the window – he’d even heard Charlie and Max when he was in his own garden. But he hadn’t known they lived here! He hadn’t realized that this garden belonged to them.

  Terrified, Tiger ran at last, racing towards the gate.

  “Ava, are you all right?” Grandma Shirley called up the stairs.

  “I can’t find Tiger!” she said, dashing down to Gran. “And the dogs next door, they’re barking like mad. Do you think Tiger could have got into their garden?”

  Gran looked doubtful. “Surely not … with that big wall? But then, cats really are amazing climbers…”

  “I know. I have to check, Gran, but I can’t see over the wall from the back windows, I’ve tried.”

  Ava hurried out into the garden and looked up at the wall helplessly. She’d never be able to see over it. It was more than two metres tall. Ava drew in a deep breath – the wall was just too big. Tiger couldn’t have jumped on top of it, could he? But then, he’d managed to jump on to her bedroom door… He might have managed it if he’d jumped on to something else first. She had to make sure.

  “Gran, can you hold on to this chair for me?” Ava asked, pushing
one of the garden chairs up against the wall. “I need to look over the top.”

  She stepped up on to the chair. “Oh no. That’s no use – it’s not tall enough.” She was still a long way from seeing into next-door’s garden.

  “Oh, Ava, be careful,” Gran gasped as she jumped down. “I don’t want to ring your mum and dad and tell them I’ve had to take you to hospital with a broken leg!”

  “I am being careful, Gran, I promise. But I have to see if Tiger is there…” Ava shuddered. “Charlie and Max are nice dogs, Gran, but listen to them. They sound so fierce. Look, do you think you can help me push the table up against the wall? I can get on the chair, then the table and then I think I’ll be able to see over the top.”

  Gran sighed. “I suppose there’s not much else we can do. I’m so sorry, Ava, I really don’t think I can climb up there.”

  “I’ll be fine, Gran, honest. Here, just push this for me.” Ava grabbed the edge of the metal table, dragging it towards the wall. “It’s coming!” With Ava pulling and Gran pushing, the table bumped and juddered up against the wall.

  “Why are you in the garden?” Bel was standing at the back door, with Lucy peeping round her.

  “Oh! Go back inside, you two!” Gran sounded harassed.

  “What are you doing?” Bel’s bottom lip stuck out. She was going to cry, Ava realized.

  “They won’t go back in,” Ava told Gran. “Not without having a real meltdown. We have to tell them what’s going on.” She turned to Lucy and Bel. “The dogs are barking a lot and I can’t find Tiger. I think he might be in Megan’s garden.”

  Bel stared at Ava, her eyes round with horror. “But they might eat him!”

  “Tiger!” Lucy wailed. “I want Tiger!”

  “I do, too,” Ava said, stepping up on to the chair. “So that’s why I’m climbing up here. Now, you have to be good and not cry.”