Kitten Smitten

by Anna Wilson

  It was a bit like the parking signs the town council puts up everywhere to stop people from leaving their cars parked by the side of the road for too long.

  From the street you could see into the shop, w here there were shelves and shelves of pretty cat and dog bowls, beds, toys, collars and leads (yes, even for cats!), and there was a separate area for food and accessories for smaller pets like rabbits and hamsters. The hamster homes looked more like fairground rides with their brightly coloured tubes and wheels. This place was more enticing to me than any sweet shop. And now I had a real reason to go in to buy something for my new and gorgeous kitten!

  The moment Dad and I walked in, we were greeted by a small brown dog with a scruffy cheeky face, wagging his tail so enthusiastically that his bottom was wagging too and I wondered with a smile whether he might take off like a small furry helicopter.

  ‘Hello!’ said a twinkly-eyed woman standing behind a surface that was covered in pet treats of every size, shape and colour. ‘Hey, Sparky! Basket!’ she added for the dog’s benefit, and pointed at his bed which was pushed up against the cash desk. The dog immediately did as he was told and went to lie down. ‘Sorry about that,’ the woman said, her grin widening, showing ultra-white shiny teeth. ‘He likes to say hello.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ said Dad before I had a chance to say, ‘Sorry, my dad’s not a dog fan.’

  WHAT? Dad normally freaked if a dog came and snuffled around his legs. But now he was grinning back and being charming and polite and asking what breed Sparky was (Border terrier, apparently) and looking, bizarrely, a bit pink in the face. What with the way he was behaving with Jaffa and now this sudden interest in dogs, I was beginning to wonder if I was living in a fantasy dreamworld of my own invention. I pinched myself hard and blinked.

  No change: it appeared that everything I was witnessing was actually real.

  ‘We’ve just acquired a small kitten – a stray,’ Dad was saying. ‘And, er, this might sound rather silly, but we don’t know what sort of equipment we need or what to feed her.’

  We? What was all this about ‘we’? I stared at Dad suspiciously. And what was wrong with his voice? He sounded all sparkly and chatty. Dad didn’t do chatty, unless it was about work. I was about to say something, but then I realized he was very definitely getting his money out, so I quietly pocketed the list I’d made earlier and kept my mouth shut. I would just have to put up with the weird voice and ultra-toothy smiles.

  ‘You could try one of these specialist kitten foods,’ the shop owner was saying. ‘Tiny kittens need something that’s easy to digest.’

  I smiled to myself as I remembered Pinkella’s ridiculously long list of dos and don’ts for Kaboodle and how he could only have Feline Good, the posh gourmet cat food in sachets.

  Dad let out the most ridiculous fake laugh. ‘Hahahaha! I know how they feel – get a bit of a gippy tummy myself sometimes!’

  I let my face fall into my hands. Oh. My. Word. What on earth was making Dad talk such a load of loony-bin twaddle?

  Then I heard another laugh – this time from the pet shop lady. ‘Tee hee hee! Yes, it’s awful what happens to your indigestion as you get older, isn’t it?’

  I rolled my eyes and slid away from the two excruciatingly embarrassing adults so that I could take a look around the shop and not have to listen to any more of their weirdo ramblings. I flicked through the leaflets on ‘How to house-train your new kitten’, and made a mental note to get Dad to buy something called ‘litter’. Then I realized there were a couple of hamsters in one of the multicoloured cages in the corner, stuffing their little cheek pouches full of muesli flakes and nuts. I remembered the time Kaboodle had got a taste for Houdini, one of my neighbour’s hamsters, and was soon lost in reminiscing and dreaming about what kind of chaos Jaffa might cause.

  Then the pet-shop owner’s voice cut into my thoughts. ‘You do need to think about house-training this little cat of yours.’

  I glanced up sharply to see Dad’s face cloud in horror. The woman laughed. ‘Don’t panic! It’s not as bad as having a dog, is it, Sparky?’

  The dog looked up on hearing his name and his tail was off again, banging against the side of his basket.

  ‘Cats leave their mums pretty well-trained,’ she went on. ‘But they do get a bit confused when they first arrive in a new place, so she’ll need a bit of a helping hand.’ She paused. Dad’s face went a darker shade of pink. ‘Oh, do you mean—?’

  The pet-shop lady blushed too. ‘Well, I, er – I could pop round and show you – if you like, that is – tee hee hee!’

  What?! I scooted back to Dad’s side. ‘It’s fine,’ I said firmly, fixing her with a glare. ‘We know about that – we need cat litter, right?’ Dad and this woman were getting far too friendly for my liking.

  Dad stammered, ‘Y-yeah. Do we?’

  ‘It says so here,’ I tutted, shoving one of the leaflets at him. ‘Honestly.’ I just wanted to get out of there before Dad asked the woman out or something gross.

  The pet-shop lady hurriedly grabbed a large bag of cat litter from a shelf behind her and heaved it on to the counter. From the picture on the packaging it looked like it contained a load of gravel.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ she said to me, her face tight as though she’d just tasted something nasty. ‘Your kitten will probably know how to use this straight away. Very clean animals, cats. Take the leaflet – it explains everything.’

  I felt my shoulders relax a bit.

  ‘Of course,’ she went on, raising an eyebrow at me, ‘once the kitten’s big enough to go outside, she’ll look for somewhere to do her business where she can scratch something over the mess – say, soil in a flower bed—’

  Nooooo! Just what Dad did not need reminding of – cats peeing in his plant pots! I started pulling at his sleeve to get him to just pay for everything and leave. But he was still listening to Miss Flirty-pants, who was going into far too much detail. ‘You’ll know if the kitten has peed as the litter will be a darker colour where she’s gone, and of course you’ll see if she’s pooed.’

  Whoa! Information overload! I shot a panicked glance at Dad. He was going to freak, wasn’t he?

  But he didn’t seem fazed at all. He was nodding all the time the woman was speaking, and just staring at her. In fact, I had the strongest suspicion that he hadn’t taken in a word of what she’d said.

  But I had. And now a horrible thought had started to form in my mind: what with all the over-friendly chit-chat between Dad and the pet-shop lady, I realized we had left Jaffa on her own for quite a bit longer than planned. What if she’d had an accident while we were out? I prodded Dad hard in the ribs and finally managed to drag him away.

  3

  Desperate Measures

  ‘Jaffa! Jaff-aaa!’ I called as we w alked in, lugging sacks of litter an d bags of kitten food down the hall. ‘Quick, Dad – shut the door! We don’t want her to run out into the road.’

  Dad closed the front door carefully with one foot, his arms full to overflowing with shopping, and looked around. ‘I wonder where she is?’ he said. ‘I suppose we should have thought of this – the house must be huge to her. We should have kept her in one room while we were out. Like Bex said.’

  ‘Bex?’

  ‘The – er – the pet shop woman. She was called Bex.’

  When had he found out that little bit of information?

  But a rustling noise from the kitchen distracted me from asking. There was a thud and a scrabbling sound. I dumped my share of the shopping and rushed in to see Jaffa on the floor, looking very dolefully and, if I wasn’t mistaken, accusingly, at me. Then my eyes were drawn to the kitchen table. The scene didn’t make sense at first. There were little scatterings of some white grainy stuff on the table and a trail of wet pawprints going in and out of it. The only other items on the table were two dirty mugs, which Dad and I had left there before going out, and the sugar bowl. It was the sugar bowl that was puzzling me the most. I was certain
it had been full of sugar earlier because I remembered Dad heaping a spoon and stirring it into his coffee that morning, but now it seemed to be full to overflowing with a strange yellowish liquid that, in my confused state, I thought might possibly have been washing-up liquid.

  ‘Dad? Why did you leave the sugar bowl to soak on the table?’ I called.

  Dad entered the kitchen. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Watch it!’ I called as he nearly stepped on Jaffa, who was skulking near a chair leg.

  Dad stopped abruptly in his tracks and teetered backwards, peering round the bags of cat litter as he looked out for the kitten. He couldn’t sustain this awkward pose and ended up losing his balance, dropping the sacks and causing Jaffa to rocket across to the other side of the kitchen like a mad March hare to try and hide under one of the fitted cupboards. She got stuck, her little bottom up in the air as she tried to decide whether to squash herself further under or pull herself back out. It reminded me of the Winnie-the-Pooh story I used to love when I was younger, where Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit’s doorway. I giggled while Dad scrabbled around to retrieve the bags.

  ‘Thanks for helping,’ he said sarcastically. Then: ‘What was that you said about the sugar bowl?’

  ‘Oh yes – it’s just a bit strange. Look at it,’ I said, gesturing vaguely at the bowl while keeping my eyes fixed on my cute little cat, wiggling her bottom in the air.

  ‘OH NO!’

  I whirled round. Dad was leaning over the table, holding the sugar bowl out at arm’s length, his face contorted with repulsion. ‘That is DISGUSTING!’ he cried, carefully lowering the bowl back down again.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘That!’ Dad said, jabbing his finger at the bowl.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ I said, shaking my head.

  Dad shuddered. ‘It looks like a case of desperate times calling for extremely desperate measures.’ I looked at him blankly. ‘Let’s just say that your new pet couldn’t quite wait for us to come back from the shops with a litter tray,’ Dad said with a heavy note of irony.

  ‘Wha—? Aargh!’ I backed away from the table.

  ‘Cat pee,’ Dad said, to emphasize a point already very well made in my opinion.

  ‘OK!’ I said irritably. ‘What do you expect me to do about it?’

  ‘Well now, let me see …’ Dad smiled and made a big show of having a think, scratching his head and rubbing his chin, taking his glasses off and giving them a good clean.

  ‘All right – I get it. She’s my pet, so I have to clean the cat pee out of the sugar bowl.’ Even as I said the words I realized how utterly bizarre they sounded. Who had ever heard of a cat using a sugar bowl as a loo? I gingerly picked up the offending article and then held it underneath as well with my other hand. There was no way I wanted to spill a drop of the stuff. I carefully moved away from the table and started a slow journey to the sink.

  Behind me, Dad let out a splutter of laughter.

  I whirled round in surprise and succeeded in sloshing a wave of sugared pee solution down the front of my best hoody. ‘AARGH! What did you have to do that for?’ I yelled.

  Dad was bright red in the face, gasping and wheezing with laughter now. He was pointing at me and then at Jaffa who was still squirming under the cupboard, and squeaked something which sounded like, ‘Tiny bottom.’

  I was not amused.

  I put the sugar bowl in the sink and ran out of the room to change my top and wash my hands.

  When I came back downstairs, Dad’s face had returned to its normal pinky-whitish colour and he had stopped shaking and heaving with hysterical laughter.

  ‘So you’ve come back down to Planet Normal then?’ I said, mustering as much sarcasm as I could.

  Dad grinned. ‘Sorry, but I just couldn’t shake this picture I had in my head of – of,’ he struggled to maintain control. ‘You know, of Jaffa perching over the sugar bowl, her tiny bottom … perfectly balanced … so as to aim right into the …’ He tailed off and the wheezing took over again.

  My eyes rolled into the back of my head. ‘For goodness sake!’ I snapped. ‘Where is Jaffa, by the way?’ I realized I’d left Dad in sole charge while I’d been out of the room, which in his present state was not an entirely sensible idea.

  Dad just shook his head, tears running down his face. Useless.

  Scrabble, scrabble!

  ‘What was that?’ I asked, spinning round to where I thought the sound had come from. It sounded as if it was above my head, but that couldn’t have been right.

  Scrabble, scrabble, scrabble!

  It was coming from above my head. I looked up. The only things above me were the ceiling, the light fittings and—

  ‘DAD! She’s on top of the cupboards! Quick – stop laughing, for goodness sake – she’s stuck! Get a chair or something. DAD!’

  Oh, that man was hopeless sometimes. I grabbed a chair and then because I wasn’t tall enough to reach the top of the cupboard, I climbed on to the work surface and stretched up to where Jaffa was peeping over the top of the cupboard where we kept the cereals.

  ‘It’s OK, Jaffa. I’m here. Just jump!’ I said, reaching forward and trying not to fall off.

  Those jewel-like eyes just stared and stared. Then Jaffa stretched her mouth alarmingly wide and did that silent mewing thing again.

  Dad hiccuped and dried his eyes. ‘Bertie, come down. You’ll fall—’

  Too late. I leaned back too far and slipped off the work surface on to the floor. Picking myself up with stars whirring in front of my eyes, I tried to tell Dad to do something useful and get a stepladder. But before the words were properly formed in my mind there was a soft thud and Jaffa landed on my tummy, walked up to my face and pushed her nose against mine.

  How could I be cross with such an adorably cute ball of fluff after that?

  ‘Wow, Jaffa!’ I breathed, gently stroking her sticky-uppy fur as she rubbed against my cheek. ‘Life sure is going to be interesting with you around the place.’

  4

  New Kid on the Block

  Jaffa kept us busy round the clock for the next couple of d ays, ‘missing’ her new litter tray more than once, getting stuck on curtain rails by using the curtains as ladders (Dad nearly lost his sense of humour over that), and falling asleep in the washing machine (only once, thank goodness). That had totally freaked me out. Dad had dumped a load of clothes on her and had been about to switch the machine on, when he’d spotted a small frightened face peering out at him through the door.

  It wasn’t until the morning of day three that I finally remembered to unplug my mobile from the charger and check my messages. I wasn’t that into using it, mainly because now my pet-sitting days were over, no one except Dad and Jazz had the number and Dad had said I wasn’t allowed to use it unless it was for emergencies. But Jazz had always ignored that fact and texted me constantly. And she got pretty cheesed off when I didn’t respond right away.

  So when I finally scrolled through my messages, I felt a sickening lurch of guilt as I saw that I had so many unread ones from Jazz that the inbox was full to bursting. And there were a gazillion voicemail messages from her too. She’s going to be seriously mad at me, I thought grimly as I took the plunge and called up her name from my address book.

  As usual she answered after the first ring. I dimly wondered whether she walked around with her phone permanently strapped to her ear, but pushed the thought aside and started talking at top speed.

  ‘Hey, Jazz. How’re you doing? Really sorry I’ve not been round this week, but you have no idea what’s being going on,’ I babbled.

  But Jazz had already interrupted and was talking at top speed herself. ‘Oh yeah? Well, you’ve no idea what’s been happening this end. It’s been, like, totally hectic,’ she announced.

  Typical. Even in phone conversations Jazz manages to be competitive.

  I was relieved she wasn’t angry, but that feeling was already being swallowed up by a sense of impending doom. What was she up to now?
‘OK, don’t tell me,’ I said. ‘You’ve just won the National Eurovision Search for a Child Superstar.’

  ‘Duh! You can’t be National and Eurovision,’ said Jazz. ‘And anyway, it’s got nothing to do with my inevitable rise to fame as a mega popstar singing and dancing act …’

  For once, I thought.

  ‘… yet …’ Jazz added, layering on the suspense.

  ‘What? Oh, listen, you can tell me later. Can you come round?’ I said. ‘I’ve got something mega cute to show you.’ I tried adding in a bit of suspense myself. ‘You are not going to believe it.’

  ‘O-kaay,’ Jazz said slowly. ‘No need to go all hyper on me. Hey – what do you mean, cute?’ she added quickly.

  ‘You’ll have to come round and see for yourself,’ I said in what I hoped was a tantalizing tone.

  Jazz sighed noisily into the receiver. It made my ear tingle. ‘All right, I’ll be there in five.’

  I grinned. Gotcha! I thought. The expression ‘curiosity killed the cat’ could have been tailor-made for Jazz.

  While I was waiting for my best friend to arrive, I put down some of the kitten food to try and tempt Jaffa to come out from under the radiator, but she was firmly wedged up against the skirting board and peering out at me with those huge glass-button eyes as if to say, ‘If you think I’m moving any time soon, you’ve got another think coming.’ Of course that was only my interpretation, as she still had not uttered a single peep of anything to me.

  ‘Let’s put the litter tray by the back door in the utility room,’ Dad suggested. ‘That way she might eventually get used to the idea that she has to go out to pee, rather than looking for other – receptacles!’ His shoulders started shaking with silent laughter.