Paw Power

by Kitty Wells

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  About the Author

  Also by Kitty Wells

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Maddy has always believed in magic, and she has always wanted a cat. So when her tiny ceramic cats come to life, she thinks she’s the luckiest girl in the world!

  Maddy is thrilled to meet Greykin. But she’s got a tricky problem to solve. Can Maddy use her magic powers to take on the scary class bully?

  The Pocket Cats series is dedicated to all cat

  lovers, everywhere . . . including you!

  Chapter One

  MADDY CAREFULLY LICKED the last of the ice cream off her spoon, and glanced at her mother. Was now a good time to ask? She had been waiting for the perfect moment all day, but so far none had presented itself – not at the aquarium, or the toy store, or the zoo.

  Now her mum had the map of London attractions spread out over the café table, with Maddy’s little brother, Jack, peering over her elbow.

  “Let’s do the London Dungeon!” he cried, pointing.

  “I don’t think we’ll have time before our train,” said Mum, peering at her watch. She folded up the map and tucked it away in her bag. “How about a nice stroll through Hyde Park? Maddy?”

  “Great!” exclaimed Maddy, bouncing on her seat as Jack groaned. A stroll through the park – perfect! Jack would be running around like he always did, and she’d have Mum all to herself. She could ask her then.

  At first it seemed like Maddy’s plan would work. She waited until they were standing on a bridge over a stream, with Jack racing back and forth playing Pooh Sticks. Mum was leaning against the railing, smiling at the ducks.

  Maddy cleared her throat. “Mum?” she said casually.

  “What, sweetie?” said her mother.

  Maddy took a deep breath. “Well . . . Polly – that’s a girl in my ballet class – she has a cat called Fanta, and Fanta’s just had kittens, and everyone wants one, but Polly says I can have first pick once they’re old enough! Isn’t that great?”

  “Oh, Maddy—” started her mother.

  Maddy kept on in a rush, her voice pleading: “She says I can have it, Mum, so it won’t cost anything at all. There’s three boys and two girls, and they’re all ginger, and Polly says they’re so, so cute! Which would you rather have, a boy or a girl?” She looked hopefully at her mother.

  Mum shook her head. “Maddy, you know you can’t have a cat. Jack is allergic, remember?”

  Maddy had expected this. Her voice rose as she talked faster. “Yes, but – Mum, listen – Polly says that her dad’s allergic too, but he takes a special pill and then he’s fine! She’s going to find out what it is and tell me so that Jack can take it too, and—”

  “Maddy, no.” Her mother brushed a strand of brown hair out of her eyes. “Jack’s allergies are more serious than that. He has asthma, and cat fur makes it worse. Pills won’t help.”

  “But—”

  “No. That’s final.”

  When her mother said something was final, she meant it. Hot, babyish tears pricked at Maddy’s eyes. She had been so sure that she could have a kitten! She had already decided on one of the girls. She’d been going to call it Marmalade, and let it sleep at the bottom of her bed.

  “I’m sorry, love,” said her mum gently. “I know how much you want a cat.”

  “It’s not fair,” muttered Maddy, staring down at her feet. “Jack has his stupid hamsters.”

  “You could have a hamster too, if you wanted.”

  Maddy made a face. She liked most animals, but she couldn’t warm to hamsters. All they did was gallop about pointlessly on their wheel, or sleep in piles of sawdust.

  Jack drifted over, rattling a stick against the bridge’s railings. “What’s with you?” he asked Maddy, seeing her expression.

  “Nothing,” snapped Maddy, wiping her eyes.

  “Maddy was hoping to get a kitten,” their mother explained. “So she’s a bit disappointed.”

  “You can’t have a kitten. I’m allergic,” said Jack importantly.

  “Yes, I know!” shouted Maddy.

  She turned and ran blindly over the bridge, her trainers slapping the tarmac. Her mother joined her without a word, taking her hand. With Jack holding her other hand, they walked through the rest of the park and out into the London streets.

  Maddy trudged along in a daze of disappointment. In her imagination, she and Marmalade had been the best of friends for ages. Now Marmalade would go to some other girl, and be called something else entirely. The unfairness of it ached in Maddy’s chest.

  “Oh, look,” said her mother, pausing at the gates of a small square. “There’s an antique market going on. Shall we have a quick wander? We’ve still got time.”

  Maddy shrugged listlessly. The market was full of brightly coloured stands, but she couldn’t have been less interested in them at the moment. Jack didn’t look keen either.

  “Boring!” he moaned, tugging at Mum’s hand. “London Dungeon, Mum, come on.”

  “Just a quick look,” she said, steering them inside. “Two ticks, I promise.”

  Maddy and Jack grimaced at each other. Mum was mad about antiques; they’d probably never get her out.

  Maddy trailed along after her mother and Jack as they went from stall to stall. The market had lots of different ones, for such a little square. There were antique stamps, and postcards, and old-fashioned jewellery. One stand even had antique taps for your sink.

  Suddenly Maddy froze. There was a large blonde girl standing nearby with her parents, looking at old-fashioned toys. Though the girl was half turned away, Maddy could see her look of boredom, and the slight sneer curling her lip.

  Sherry Newton!

  Maddy’s heart felt like it had dropped to the cobbled ground. She quickly turned away, flipping through a box of antique postcards without noticing them. What was Sherry doing here?

  The girl and her parents moved closer. Maddy swung her long brown hair in front of her face, trying to hide behind it. Finding a classmate at an antique market was just the sort of thing Sherry and her friends might torment you with for weeks to come!

  Yawning, Sherry looked right at her. Maddy winced. Now the sharp blue eyes would narrow, and an evil smile would spread across Sherry’s face—

  Suddenly Maddy sagged in relief. The girl wasn’t Sherry at all. She was older, and her blue eyes were mild. She gave Maddy an uninterested look, and turned back to her parents.

  Maddy’s heart felt heavy as she pushed the postcards back into place. She was such a coward. Sherry Newton hardly even noticed Maddy at school, yet here she was seeing the class bully when she wasn’t even there!

  It was probably a good thing for Marmalade that the little cat would be going to someone else.

  Jack came darting back. “I’ve found something for you!”

  “What?” asked Maddy dully.

  “Come and see!”

  He dragged Maddy over to a stall she hadn’t noticed, in the corner of the square. Its awning cast a dark shadow over the mishmash of trinkets spread out across a dusty purple cloth.

  “Look – cats!” he crowed. “And these ones won’t make me sneeze.”

  Maddy scowled. Jack was pointing to a set of small ceramic cats. “Oh, ha, ha,” she said.

  Dodging her shove, Jack danced back to Mum, giggling. Maddy sighed as she looked at the cats. There were three of them, nestled neatly together like puzzle pi
eces, tails and paws entwined.

  As if she’d want fake cats! What was the point of that? But even so, Maddy found herself reaching for them, all thoughts of Sherry forgotten.

  “What is your business?” intoned a deep voice.

  Maddy started. From the shadowy depths of the stall a woman had appeared. She was swathed in gauzy purple robes that had tiny clinking coins on them, like a belly dancer’s skirt. Her hair was a deep blue-black shot with streaks of purest silver, and tumbled down past her shoulders.

  “I – I just wanted to look at the cats,” gasped Maddy. She glanced around quickly, and was reassured to see her mother standing a few stalls away, looking at copper pots.

  The woman smiled, showing a gold tooth. “Ah, the cats . . . of course.” Plucking them up from between a set of old spoons and something that looked like a shark’s tooth, she handed them to Maddy.

  Maddy examined them curiously. What a clever little set! There was a small black cat, a grey one, and a long-haired tabby with white markings. All at once her pulse quickened.

  Where the cats’ tails came together, they formed two curly letters:

  Maddy gaped. ML! Those were her initials: Maddy Lloyd. Looking more closely, she could see that the way the tails wound together was just a coincidence. Turned another way, they looked like a “W”. But still . . .

  She regarded the cats in wonder. They nestled in her palm as if they were meant to be there.

  “You have seen something, perhaps?” purred the woman. Her green eyes glinted.

  “Could I buy these?” blurted Maddy.

  “Perhaps, perhaps not,” said the woman, narrowing her gaze.

  Maddy blinked. “Um – well, I’ve been saving up my pocket money, so I’ve got ten pounds—”

  The woman’s long earrings jangled as she shook her head. “It is not a question of money. Give me your palm.”

  Before Maddy quite knew what was happening, the woman had grabbed her free hand and started tracing its lines with a long pointed nail. Maddy gulped as the scent of exotic spices tickled her nose. The woman’s hands looked older than the rest of her, somehow, with silver rings crowding every finger.

  “You are nine years old,” she announced, staring down at Maddy’s palm. “And you take ballet. You have always wanted a cat, and you wish to save the tigers in India when you are older.”

  Maddy’s mouth fell open. She’d been worried about the world’s tigers ever since her father told her they were near extinction – but she hadn’t told anybody that, not even her best friend Rachel!

  “Um – yes,” she squeaked. She saw with relief that her mother was now only two stalls away.

  The woman dropped Maddy’s hand, inspecting her closely. “Blue eyes, freckles . . . you are small for your age. And you think you are a coward.” She chuckled.

  Hot shame swept over Maddy as she thought of the girl who hadn’t been Sherry. “Um – is ten pounds enough?” she whispered, her cheeks burning. She fumbled in the pocket of her jeans. “I’ve got it right here.”

  The woman smiled. “No, my dear. Ten pounds is not enough.”

  “Oh.” Maddy held the note limply.

  “They have chosen you, I can see that,” continued the woman, nodding at the cats. “So the question is – what will you give for them that is of worth?”

  Maddy started to say that she didn’t know what the woman meant – but then all at once she did know. Setting the cats down carefully on the purple cloth, she delved into her pocket again.

  “Here,” she said, her heart thumping as she placed a coin with a star on it onto the counter. “It was my grandfather’s – he carried it all through the war. He said it was his lucky piece.”

  Maddy felt a sharp pang as the woman picked up the coin and turned it this way and that. Her grandfather’s lucky piece! But she knew, instinctively, that this would be a fair trade.

  The woman nodded in satisfaction, and tucked the coin away in her jingling robes. “A falus from Morocco. Very apt. They have seen Morocco many times, haven’t you, my loves?”

  Maddy realized with a start that she was talking to the cats! Before she could react, the woman had scooped them up and started wrapping them in tissue paper.

  Suddenly Maddy’s mother appeared. “What have you been buying, then?” she asked, squeezing Maddy’s shoulder.

  “Just . . . a set of ceramic cats,” said Maddy guiltily. She could never tell her mother that she’d given away Grandpa’s lucky coin.

  Mum smiled sympathetically. “Ceramic, eh? Good, no one’s allergic to that.”

  “She has excellent taste,” said the woman cheerfully, popping the cats in a paper bag. Suddenly she looked much more ordinary; not startling at all. Maddy stared. Had she only imagined the oddness of the encounter?

  Her mother moved on to the next stall, where Jack was busy pawing through a box of lead soldiers. The woman handed the paper bag to Maddy, who took it gratefully – but as she tried to draw her hand away, the woman grabbed her wrist with bony fingers.

  “You must greet them properly before you’ve had them twenty-four hours,” she hissed, her green eyes blazing like jungle fire. “Do not forget!”

  Chapter Two

  ON THE TRAIN journey home Maddy sat with the paper bag on her lap, her thoughts tumbling wildly. What had the woman meant – that the cats had “chosen” Maddy? She’d acted as if they could understand what she was saying!

  She must have been a bit mad, Maddy decided. Even so, she felt uneasy about the whole thing, and was relieved when her mother suggested a word game to pass the time.

  When the train finally pulled into their station, Maddy’s mother stretched. “Oh, it’s been a lovely day out,” she said. “Do you suppose your father’s burned our tea?”

  “Yeah, he’s nuked it!” shouted Jack.

  Maddy followed them off the train, clutching her paper bag. The episode in the antique market seemed almost like a dream now. She could hardly remember why she’d wanted the cats so much. They were only ceramic figures!

  What had she been thinking of, giving away her grandfather’s coin?

  All that evening, the paper bag sat on Maddy’s desk like a guilty conscience. Finally, before she went to bed that night, she slowly opened it and unwound the tissue-wrapped package.

  The three cats tumbled neatly into her palm. Sliding into her desk chair, Maddy experimented with fitting them together and taking them apart again. Their bodies felt cool and smooth, and made tiny clinking noises.

  Her spirits lifted a bit. They really were a lovely set – and the curly ML formed by their tails was as clear as before. Turning on her desk light, Maddy inspected the cats one by one.

  The grey cat was the largest. Its ceramic body was comfortably chunky: just the type of cat she’d love to pick up and cuddle, if it were real. It had bluish-grey fur, and golden eyes that looked friendly.

  “You’re nice, aren’t you?” murmured Maddy, stroking his grey head. Placing him gently back on her desk, she picked up the black cat.

  It was the smallest of the three: a slender piece of midnight with bright green eyes. Its inky face had a veiled expression that seemed to stare right back at Maddy.

  It’s a cat that has secrets, thought Maddy. The idea pleased her. Cats should have secrets; it’s the sort of creatures they were.

  Last, she picked up the long-haired tabby. Its face was a startled white mask over stripy brown markings, with dancing amber eyes. This cat looked like it had secrets too – but funny ones that it would share with you, if you asked. Maddy found herself smiling as she looked at it.

  Suddenly remembering what the woman had said, she lined up the three cats in a neat row, facing her. She wasn’t exactly sure what “greeting the cats” meant, but the woman had been so insistent that Maddy thought she’d better do it.

  She took a deep breath. “Um . . . greetings,” she said shyly.

  The cats’ painted eyes watched her. Go on, they seemed to be saying.

  “G
reetings,” repeated Maddy, more confidently this time. “I mean, hello! My name is Maddy – Madeleine Lloyd.”

  She stood up and bowed. Then, because she wasn’t certain whether a bow was the right thing when you were a girl (or when you were talking to cats), she attempted a curtsy as well. She was rather good at this because of her ballet lessons, though her nightdress didn’t have the right sort of skirt, and spoiled the effect a bit.

  Something else still seemed to be needed. Maddy thought for a moment, and then touched each cat briefly on its smooth head. “I’m very, very pleased to meet you,” she said.

  A strong, waiting silence seemed to take root and grow. It wrapped about the room, encircling Maddy and the cats. All at once there were hundreds of butterflies in her stomach. She stared at the cats, not daring to move.

  Nothing happened.

  Maddy let out a breath. Well, what had she expected? Suddenly she started giggling, and couldn’t stop. What would her best friend Rachel say, when Maddy told her that she had curtsied to a bunch of ceramic cats?

  Still smiling, she climbed into bed and switched off the light.

  The touch on her cheek was as light as thistledown, tapping her over and over. Maddy shook her head in her sleep. The touch paused, and then continued.

  Tap, tap. Tap. Tap, tap.

  “Mm?” she muttered drowsily.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Still half asleep, Maddy brushed her hand across her face . . . and felt something soft.

  She jolted awake with a shriek, lunging for her bedside lamp. A moth! A great big horrible moth was flapping about her room! At the same moment a grey streak leaped from her pillow to her bedside table, landing with a small, solid thump.