by Holly Webb
Alfie stared at him. He felt as though Oliver wasn’t understanding on purpose. “It won’t be my tree, will it?” he snapped. “It’ll be her tree now!” He stomped off, barging Oliver out of the way with his shoulder, and not caring if it hurt. It was Oliver’s fault for being so stupid.
Luckily, Oliver was thick-skinned, and just elbowed Alfie in the ribs at lunch time as a way of getting him back. “No girl’s going to get through all those brambles to the tree,” he pointed out. “You’ll just have to be careful to stay out of her way, that’s all.”
Alfie nodded gratefully.
But Oliver had underestimated the girl next door.
Alfie slid out into the garden when he got home, before Mum could mention homework, or watching Jess while she made dinner. Penguin was asleep in the ironing basket and didn’t seem to want to move, so for once Alfie set off down the garden alone. Even after Oliver had told him not to worry, he still felt miserable as he pushed the board back. Like it might be the last time. He wriggled through the gap, wormed his way along below the level of the brambles and hauled himself up into the tree. The bark was rough against his fingers, but he didn’t care. He settled himself on to his favourite branch and eyed the apple he’d been watching for the past few days. It was a sharp yellowish-green all over, with just a faint brownish flush. Almost perfectly ripe, he thought. And even if it wasn’t, he didn’t want to leave it, in case the girl could climb trees. He twisted it off the stalk, and it came away easily – it was ripe, then.
Alfie leaned back against the tree trunk and stared at the house. Mum hadn’t said exactly when Lucy and the girl were coming – but then Jess was teething, and she’d been having a screaming day. He’d ask Mum later if she’d heard anything. He bit into the apple thoughtfully. He would be like a spy in enemy territory. Penguin could be his scout cat. He grinned to himself at the idea of Penguin wearing a bulletproof vest.
“Did you know you’re stealing that apple?”
Alfie nearly fell out of the tree. The voice had come from up above him. He stared up, blinking against the sunlight filtering down through the branches.
Someone was sitting higher up the tree, astride the slightly wobbly branch that Alfie tended to avoid.
“In fact, you’re trespassing. This is my gran’s garden.”
Alfie opened his mouth to defend himself, and then shut it again. She was quite right. What on earth could he say?
“I bet she doesn’t mind,” he muttered weakly.
“Did you ask her?” The girl lay down along the branch to look at him better, and it bounced in a way that made Alfie’s stomach bounce too.
“You need to be careful with that branch,” he muttered. If she fell out of the tree while he was there, Alfie had a strong feeling that she was one of those girls who’d make sure he got into trouble for it.
“No, I don’t,” she snapped back. “I’m fine. Bet you couldn’t get up here.”
The girl wriggled her way along the branch, her blonde hair hanging downwards. She was wearing jeans and a pale pink T-shirt, now streaked with lichen all down the front.
“That branch isn’t strong enough at the end.” Alfie stood up, very carefully, wriggling his feet to the best place on the branch and hanging on to the one above him. She needed to get down. He held a hand out to her. “Come back down. You have to.”
“Get lost.” The girl smirked. She bounced up and down on purpose, and the whole tree shuddered. Alfie’s foot slipped, and his stomach slid sideways. He gasped. He was going to be sick. He loved the tree, and he was good at climbing, but he liked to be holding on tight.
He grabbed the trunk to steady himself and felt the apple slip out of his hand. Alfie didn’t want to be in the tree any longer. He grabbed the rope and flung himself down, grazing the side of his leg against the bark.
“Good! You run away! And stay out of my garden!” the girl yelled after him.
Her garden now, he noticed. Not even her gran’s.
But really, the only thing that mattered was that it wasn’t Alfie’s any more.
“This is Grace, everyone. She’s just moved here, and she’ll be joining our class.”
She stood up at the front of the classroom next to Mrs Cartwright, the long blonde hair now pulled back in two neat bunches. They made her look like a dog with long ears.
Alfie huddled down in his seat, hoping to avoid her eye. His leg still hurt, and he’d had to tell Mum he slipped on the path. But Mrs Cartwright was looking straight at him and smiling. “Alfie, I think Grace is living very close to you, isn’t she?”
Alfie nodded reluctantly. He couldn’t really do anything else.
“Lovely. Well, we’ll put Grace on your table, and you and Oliver and Asha and Sammie can look after her for the minute.” Mrs Cartwright ushered Grace towards Alfie’s table – why did they have to have an empty chair? Then she turned back to the whiteboard and started talking about their Romans topic again.
Grace stared at Alfie. Her eyes were bluish-green, he noticed, now that he wasn’t staring up into the sunlight.
“Hello, Alfie…” she said, her voice rather nastily sweet.
“Is that her?” Oliver muttered. “From next door?” Alfie hadn’t told him about the meeting in the tree – he was too embarrassed.
Alfie nodded. “You want that book for making your story plan in,” he muttered to Grace. “The blue one.” He’d only get into trouble with Mrs Cartwright if he didn’t look after her properly, however much he felt like directing her into the boys’ toilets.
She was staring at him as he turned back to the board again. Her eyes looked like the pieces of sea glass he’d picked up on the beach on their summer holiday. Hard and greenish and shiny. Worn away by years of water, but still bright. He had the pieces lined up on his window sill. He’d move them when he got home, he decided.
Luckily, she went off with Asha and Sammie at lunch time, and he didn’t have to do anything about her. At the end of the day, he came out of school heaving a sigh that seemed to leave all of him feeling lighter. He’d stay in the house this afternoon, he decided. Even if it was still tropical-hot.
His mum waved at him from the playground. She was standing next to a woman with short, spiky blonde hair and familiar bluish-green eyes. The woman was cuddling Jess.
Alfie slowed right down. Mum had gone and made friends with Grace’s mother.
How could she? It was treachery. But he supposed she didn’t know.
His mum was smiling as he trailed towards them. “Look, Alfie – this is Lucy, from next door.”
Alfie tried to smile, but it came out more like a wolf baring its teeth. Grace’s mother looked slightly surprised, but she still smiled back. “Hi, Alfie. It’s nice to meet you. Was Grace OK today?”
He nodded. “Um, yeah. She’s made friends with Asha in our class. Asha’s nice.”
“I’ve asked Lucy to bring Grace back to ours for tea,” Mum said, smiling brightly, in that way she had that suggested Alfie needed to sort his manners out.
Grace came walking across the playground towards them. Alfie thought she hesitated as she spotted him, but then she pasted on a smile. “Hi, Mrs Seton.”
Alfie blinked. She’d met his mum already then. It seemed as though she hadn’t said anything to her about the tree – or was she about to now?
Grace gave her mum a hug, and her mum explained about tea at Alfie’s. Grace nodded, and stuck her tongue out at Alfie when no one else was looking.
Alfie made a low growling noise, and then tried to look as though it was his stomach rumbling when his mum turned round and glared at him. He shrugged and looked innocently at her, but he could see she wasn’t convinced.
Back home, Alfie put the TV on. He wasn’t really supposed to watch it straight after school, but he reckoned with guests around Mum wouldn’t make a fuss. He and Grace sat at opposite ends of
the sofa, not talking, and pretending to watch the programme. He could hear Mum chatting to Lucy in the kitchen, just the odd word here and there. They sounded like old friends.
Grace was listening too. She scowled as she heard her mother laugh loudly at something Alfie’s mum had said. “I should make you pay for that apple you stole.”
Alfie gaped at her. “What?”
“A pound.”
“Apples don’t cost that much!” Alfie protested, realizing, too late, that he should have said he wouldn’t pay anything at all.
“Stolen ones do.”
“Oh, shut up,” Alfie snapped. It wasn’t a very clever answer, but he couldn’t think of anything better right now. Besides, she was just so annoying!
“Don’t tell me to shut up! I bet your mum doesn’t know you were in my garden.” Grace swung her bunches, smiling a superior smile.
“Yes, she does,” Alfie growled. But he’d gone scarlet, he knew it. He was a terrible liar. The tree was the only thing he’d ever been able to get away with, because Mum and Dad had never asked him about it.
He wished Penguin was there for him to stroke. He was probably asleep on Alfie’s bed.
“Alfie! Grace! Come and have some tea!”
Alfie stood up, racing for the door and nearly crashing into Grace on the way. They wrestled in the doorway for a minute, hissing insults, and Grace shot out towards the kitchen. Alfie followed her, glowering.
He could hear a series of light thumps on the stairs – Penguin coming down them with his funny lolloping jump. He’d heard Alfie’s mum calling too, and he knew what tea meant. Alfie’s frown faded, and he crouched down to stroke Penguin under the chin. The big cat purred hungrily, peering past him to the kitchen.
Feeling better now he had his sidekick, Alfie strolled into the kitchen. Mum had done pizza for tea, which was one of his favourites. He slid into a seat as far from Grace as possible, and Penguin took up his station by Alfie’s feet.
“Could you pour Grace some juice, Alfie?” Mum asked. She was giving him a look again. Alfie nodded, resisting the temptation to pour it all over Grace’s school dress.
Penguin’s face appeared at the side of his chair, looking hopeful. He specialized in a pitiful round-eyed stare that made him look as if he was starving to death, and he knew Alfie found it hard to resist.
Alfie sneaked a scrap of ham off his pizza and held it under the table, trying not to laugh as Penguin’s rough tongue scraped his fingers eagerly.
The problem with feeding Penguin at the table was that when Alfie did it once, it only made the cat beg for more. Insistent paws kept patting Alfie’s leg, and every so often Penguin would press his chilly little nose into the hollow of Alfie’s knee, making him wriggle as he tried not to laugh.
Mum and Lucy were too busy chatting to notice, and Jess was carefully shredding a piece of pizza into crumbs, but Grace was watching him, Alfie realized. He stared back at her coldly, and she dropped a bit of garlic bread on purpose, so she could peer under the table.
She came face to face with Penguin, and gasped. “You’ve got a cat!”
“Genius!” Alfie muttered under his breath. Then he added, “He’s called Penguin,” to earn himself some brownie points with Mum.
Mum smiled at her. “Yes, he was a stray. He arrived on our doorstep a couple of years ago. He’s lovely, but he’s a bit overweight, so try not to drop anything – he’ll be there in seconds!”
Grace nodded solemnly, pretending not to know that Penguin was hoovering up her dropped garlic bread that very minute.
Penguin prowled happily under the table for the rest of the meal, as Grace and Alfie competed to feed him the best bits of pizza. He followed them when they left the table, his whiskers glistening with cheese grease and his ears at a smug, jaunty angle.
Alfie and Grace went back to their places on the sofa, and he hopped up between them. Both of them wriggled closer to stroke him, and Penguin settled down purring, his eyes half closed.
Alfie watched Grace tickling Penguin behind the ears, and grudgingly admitted to himself that she knew cats. It was Penguin’s favourite place to be rubbed, and his purr was deepening into the low, sleepy noise he made when he was really happy.
He liked her!
It wasn’t fair.
Penguin definitely wouldn’t let just anyone mess with his ears like that. He’d clawed Alfie’s cousin Rosie’s hand when she’d tried it. Mum had been really cross, and made Alfie put Penguin out in the garden and lock the cat flap, even though it was pouring with rain. Alfie had sneaked out after a while and found Penguin sulking under a bush. They’d hidden out in the shed together, hunting spiders till Rosie and Auntie Jen had gone.
If Penguin was going to sleep with Grace stroking his ears, maybe she wasn’t that bad after all. Or maybe he was just so stuffed full of pizza that he’d sleep even if she was knitting with his tail.
“Penguin!” Alfie thumped up the stairs to check his room the next evening – Mum had a habit of shutting the door for tidiness’ sake and accidentally shutting Penguin in. But Penguin wasn’t mewing furiously behind his door, and he wasn’t even asleep on Alfie’s bed. Alfie thundered back down again, and out into the garden. It was very unusual for Penguin to be late for tea.
He wandered round the garden, checking Penguin’s favourite sunbathing places – the stone bench, and the wall next to the bird table, which combined sun and snacks (or so Penguin seemed to hope). Alfie had never actually seen him catch a bird from the bird table. But he liked to lie there watching while the birds twittered and muttered and complained about him.
No Penguin. Alfie stood in the middle of the tiny square of lawn, looking worriedly up and down the garden. Where on earth was he? Alfie usually fed him at about five, and it was past that now.
The garden seemed full of early evening shadows and strange bright patches, and suddenly Alfie whirled round, sure that someone was watching him. And laughing!
“Here, Harry. Have another one.” It was the slightest whisper, from over by the fence. No – the other side of the fence. There was purring too, Penguin’s strange low purr.
“Good boy. Is that nice?” Someone laughed, quietly, and Alfie seethed. It was Grace, of course. She had Penguin in her garden. And what was she doing calling him Harry?
Alfie grabbed a bucket that someone had left by the bench and crept over to the fence, turning the bucket upside down and standing on it, so that he could just see over.
It looked like Grace’s mum had already started trying to tidy up the garden. There was definitely more path than there had been. From his spy point over the fence, Alfie could see a flash of blue-checked dress through the brambles. Grace’s school uniform. And a white-tipped black tail was twitching excitedly next to her.
Alfie jumped down and raced to the end of the garden and the loose board – for once without even checking whether Mum was watching him.
He flung himself behind the shed and tried to dive through the loose board, desperate to get Penguin back.
Grace jumped up as she heard the creak of the board swinging back. “You’re not allowed in my garden!” she shouted.
“You’re not allowed to play with my cat!” Alfie yelled back. He’d somehow managed to get himself wedged in the hole; his elbow was caught, and he felt stupid and furious. “Penguin, tea time, come on!”
Penguin edged curiously around the clump of brambles, eyeing Alfie as though he’d never seen such a strange beast before.
“Are you stuck in the fence?” Grace giggled. “You must have had too much school lunch. I didn’t think anyone actually ate that disgusting turkey hotpot.”
Alfie wriggled desperately. He was so embarrassed. He was supposed to be telling her off, not making her laugh! His elbow was really hurting, and he couldn’t even work out how he’d managed to get stuck.
“You look so funny!�
�� Grace was standing there with her hand over her mouth, laughing at him. Alfie was sure that if he hadn’t been stuck he would have kicked her. He gave one more huge heave, backwards this time, and fell back through the fence, ripping his shirt sleeve and clutching his scraped arm.
There was a scrabble and a thump, and Penguin appeared on top of the fence, peering down curiously. He mewed and jumped down, nosing lovingly at Alfie. Alfie picked him up, a warm, saggy bundle of fur – Penguin was slipping through Alfie’s arms like a beanbag toy. But Alfie wasn’t going to let him go.
Grace slid the board back and watched him through the hole.
“Leave Penguin alone!” Alfie growled, hitching him up.
Penguin mewed reproachfully but didn’t wriggle.
“That’s a really stupid name for a cat,” Grace told him, her voice calm and sweet. Her school uniform looked pristine. Alfie wondered if he could manage to sneak back inside and hide his shirt somewhere.
Mum was going to make a huge fuss about the state of his clothes.
“It isn’t, and it’s none of your business what he’s called. You shouldn’t be calling him anything,” he snapped at her, backing out of the gap behind the shed.
He raced up the garden, Penguin dangling in his arms, and slammed the kitchen door behind him. Then he locked the cat flap. Penguin was his cat. That girl wasn’t going anywhere near him. Wasn’t it enough that she’d already had his tree?
“Alfie, bedtime!”
Alfie backed out of the understairs cupboard, scowling. “I can’t go to bed, Mum, I haven’t found Penguin. I haven’t seen him since after tea.”
