Kitten Smitten

by Anna Wilson

  Dad didn’t notice my lack of response. He was wittering on, looking lovingly at the kitten as he spoke. ‘I was thinking about how we don’t know her age. While you were lazing around in bed I did a bit of surfing on the internet to get advice on what to do if you find a stray kitten.’

  ‘Jaffa’s not a stray!’ I protested, flinching at his comment about me ‘lazing around’ while he did research on my kitten. ‘I was given her.’

  ‘I know,’ Dad said, soothingly. ‘But Fenella didn’t know how old she was, did she? She made out that her cat had found Jaffa.’ He laughed. ‘I know she’s a bit bonkers, but she was quite clear that she didn’t know where Jaffa had come from. And anyway, on this website I was looking at, it says that as well as getting Jaffa inoculated against all kinds of lurgies, we need to make sure we worm her regularly. And then there are fleas and ticks, of course.’

  Dad handed me Jaffa and disappeared into the cupboard under the stairs in the hallway. He re-emerged with a cardboard box with a lid – it looked like a big shoe box. ‘This will have to do; it had my new wellies in it,’ he said, hastily puncturing some holes in the lid with a pair of scissors.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked in alarm.

  ‘Making some air holes. Right. Put her in, keep the lid on and hold on tight. We don’t want her getting out while I’m driving.’

  I did as I was told, a scowl fixed firmly on my face. Then I checked the box lid was on tightly and followed Dad to the car.

  Jaffa had looked so tiny when I put her in that cardboard box. She sat in the bottom staring up at me, her expression even more anxious than ever. I felt dreadful, like I was deceiving her, taking her to a place where a huge human was going to lean over her and stick needles in her.

  ‘Don’t worry, little Jaffa Cake,’ I crooned nervously through the sides of the box. ‘I’ll take care of you. We’re just going for a short drive. You hold on in there, now.’ At that precise moment, I was secretly feeling relieved that Jaffa and I were not on the sort of speaking terms I’d been on with Kaboodle. If Jaffa had been able to pick up on the nerves in my voice, she would have sensed right away that something horrid was about to happen to her.

  Dad opened the car door for me and I slid on to the back seat, clutching the box firmly to my chest. Then he reached across and strapped me in and I settled the box on my lap.

  ‘What’s up, Bertie?’ he asked, scrutinizing me before putting his key in the ignition.

  ‘Nothing,’ I muttered sullenly.

  ‘Are you worried about the vet?’ he persisted.

  I remained silent and stared out of the windscreen.

  Dad bit his lip. ‘I know it’s not nice, Jaffa having injections, but you know it’s for her own good, don’t you?’

  I felt my sulk begin to thaw around the edges. Poor Dad – it wasn’t really his fault I was grumpy. I was just all mixed up about Jazz going off like that and Jaffa being so silent on me.

  ‘It’s just – you don’t think she’ll freak, being shut up in the dark in this box, do you?’ I asked anxiously, glancing at Dad.

  He’d reversed out of the drive now and was concentrating on turning out of our road, but he smiled and said, ‘She’ll be OK. It’s not far to the vet’s. She needs to be contained, though; I don’t want her doing her James Bond act while I’m driving, shinning up the back of the seat and walking on the ceiling.’

  I couldn’t help letting slip a giggle at that image.

  ‘Secret Agent Double-0 Supercat reporting for duty, sir!’ Dad said, putting on a serious spy-type voice which made me giggle even more. ‘Claws sharpened and ready for action!’

  I glanced down at the box and wondered what the little cat was thinking. ‘What a pair of loonies,’ probably.

  Dad changed gear and sped up as we joined the main road. I felt a stab of alarm as Jaffa began sliding about inside the box, and I could hear her claws scrabbling desperately to try and get a hold on the cardboard.

  ‘Dad! Dad! Slow down!’ I cried, trying to steady her.

  ‘What do you mean? I’m only going at about twenty miles an hour!’ he protested. ‘The way this traffic is going—’

  ‘Well, it’s too fast for Jaffa,’ I told him. ‘She’s in a right state!’

  ‘We might as well walk then,’ he said impatiently.

  I knew that wasn’t an option: I wouldn’t be able to keep Jaffa in the box if we walked. Reluctantly I held on even more firmly, glad for the second time that morning that the little cat couldn’t tell me exactly what she thought of me.

  We got to the vet’s to find there was a huge crowd of people in the waiting room. At least the smaller animals were kept separate from the larger ones, I thought, as we were shepherded away from a room full of dogs of every colour, shape and size, all straining at their leashes and drooling and yapping at each other.

  ‘Looks like you were right about the lid,’ I said to Dad grudgingly.

  ‘Mmm,’ he nodded, eyeing the seething horde of dogs.

  I cautiously placed the box down on a seat. Jaffa had been hurtling around in a frenzy during the journey, and now she was bashing the top of the box so hard, it felt like she was trying to headbutt her way out of there. I held on tighter than ever and sighed as I looked at the large group of people waiting to be seen with their cats, guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters and – urgh! I shuddered as a sudden movement in a glass tank caught my eye. It was – it couldn’t be, could it—?

  ‘Oh my— Did you see that?’ Dad whispered, horror consuming his features. He was staring at the glass tank too, his eyes boggling out of their sockets.

  I gulped and nodded. ‘A snake!’ I mouthed.

  Dad and I exchanged incredulous looks and then stared resolutely at the floor. Every time the receptionist called for someone to go in to the vet, I prayed hard that it would be the snake’s turn so that I didn’t have to sit there, knowing I was sharing a room with it. But it seemed it had arrived far too early for its appointment, as a stream of other animals were called in first. I sneaked a peek at it only to look away again quickly. It had reared its head up and stared right at me, its forked tongue quivering, as though sizing me up for its dinner. I shivered. Did snakes eat kittens? I pushed the horrifying thought away and clutched the box closer to my chest.

  As I forced myself to look at the cuter animals in the waiting room, it suddenly struck me as odd that Jaffa had not uttered a single sound the whole time she’d been ricocheting around inside the box. I mean, you would have thought that being frightened and shut in like that might have wrenched at least a little mew out of her. Weird.

  I watched the hands move round on the clock and felt my head nod forward sleepily.

  ‘Jaffa Fletcher!’

  Dad jabbed me in the ribs, jolting me wide awake.

  ‘That’s us,’ he said out of the side of his mouth. ‘How ridiculous, giving a kitten a surname!’

  ‘She’s part of the family now, Dad,’ I teased, following him through the door.

  The vet was waiting by a high table in the middle of a small ultra-white room which reminded me of the dentist’s, except there wasn’t one of those black leather chairs that look like something you’d see in an evil master criminal’s torture chamber. There wasn’t much in the room at all, actually. Apart from the table, there was just a very stern-looking skinny woman in a white coat and a veterinary nurse in a green uniform who was about five times the size of the vet and looked so muscly and tough that I thought at first she was a man until I realized her uniform was a dress. Behind this terrifying pair were lots and lots of white cupboards that all looked the same. How would you ever remember where you’d put things? I wondered.

  ‘So this is – Jaffa?’ the skinny woman asked, as if the name left a nasty taste in her mouth. She gestured towards the box and curled her lip.

  I nodded. I was struck absolutely dumb. I was now in a real vet’s surgery with Jaffa, my own real kitten!

  ‘Let’s take a look then, shall we?’ the vet said
, carefully lifting the lid.

  Not carefully enough, as it happened.

  ‘Aiiiiiee!’ Dad yelled, as a streak of ginger and white shot out of the box like a firefly and went scooting round the tiny room, bouncing off the walls in an attempt to escape.

  I squealed in fright as I thought someone would end up stepping on her, and backed myself into a corner while Dad hopped nervously from foot to foot telling me to ‘do something’.

  Luckily, neither the vet nor the nurse seemed at all fazed, and in a swift pincer movement they swooped down on poor confused Jaffa and caught her.

  The vet lifted her up by the scruff of the neck in much the same way I had seen Kaboodle hold her just a few days ago.

  ‘Not so fast, you little scamp,’ she said sharply.

  ‘Ca-can I ask a question?’ I stammered. The woman was so scary, and all the white and the shining metal things everywhere made me distinctly nervous.

  ‘Hmm?’ the vet said impatiently, Jaffa still dangling in mid-air from her long rubber-glove-encased fingers like a specimen in a laboratory experiment.

  ‘It’s just – well, it might sound weird, and it might be totally normal but because I haven’t had a kitten before I don’t know, but—’

  ‘And your point is?’ the vet cut in. She was tapping her foot now, and the nurse was smirking at me.

  ‘I – well, is it normal for a kitten not to mew?’

  The vet snorted. ‘Of course it’s normal. This one’s only a few weeks old. Probably ten or eleven.You should have brought her in before this, of course, so that she could have her first jabs. She’s probably riddled with worms.’ Dad shuddered. ‘As for mewing, some kittens are very quiet at first, some are not. Her voice will develop sooner or later, and then you’ll probably wish she’d never started, she’ll make such a racket. Especially around dinner time.’

  I had a feeling this vet was not what you might call a ‘cat person’.

  Still, it was a relief to hear that Jaffa probably just hadn’t quite found her voice yet. It made me hopeful that she might one day communicate with me after all.

  The vet set Jaffa down on the black surface of the table while Dad chatted about how we’d been given her as a leaving gift by a friend and how we knew nothing about kittens. I tuned out and let him do all the talking as I was feeling too intimidated by the spiky white vet with her laser-sharp tongue to offer any information myself.

  I don’t think the vet would have taken any notice of me anyway. She certainly didn’t look as if she was listening to Dad. She had bent down so that she was at eye level with Jaffa and the pair were staring each other out. The vet kept her hand firmly on the back of Jaffa’s neck the whole time, but I didn’t think she needed to: Jaffa’s liquid eyes were fixed unblinkingly on the woman. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was: Jaffa the feline firework had met her match.

  ‘That’s better. I always win in the end, young lady,’ the vet told Jaffa. ‘Now we’re just going to check you over, and then a quick injection and you’ll be out of here.’

  I’m sure her eyes glinted wickedly as she said ‘injection’.

  The vet held her hand out to the nurse, who placed in it a small black object which looked like a pocket torch. Then the vet swiftly touched each of Jaffa’s ears with it.

  ‘Ears fine,’ she said. The nurse grunted and tapped something into the computer on the surface behind her.

  The vet then tipped Jaffa’s head back, so fast it seemed to take the kitten by surprise. Using her thumb and forefinger she squeezed Jaffa’s mouth open and glanced at the rows of needle-sharp white teeth.

  ‘Teeth fine,’ she said. The nurse grunted again and tapped away. ‘Syringe ready?’ the vet asked her.

  The nurse nodded and handed over a small metal tray with a syringe, the plunger pulled back and ready for action. I swallowed drily. The needle looked far too big for my tiny kitten. I wasn’t sure I could watch.

  The vet glanced at me sharply. ‘No fainting in my surgery!’ she said and pulled a grimace which I supposed was her attempt at a smile.

  I looked at Dad for reassurance and put out my hand so he could hold it, but he appeared to be fixated on something behind the vet’s back, and his face had gone a funny greyish colour.

  ‘Dad?’ I whispered.

  Hiisssss!

  My head swivelled at the unfamiliar noise.

  There, on the top of the white cupboards, sliding noiselessly towards the nurse at the computer, was the snake!

  I shrieked, one hand flying to my mouth, the other gesturing wildly at the scaly reptile. The vet had been about to insert the needle into a pinch of Jaffa’s flesh, but she jumped when I screamed and the needle slipped and went into Jaffa far too quickly.

  ‘Aaaaaooooooow!’ The poor little kitten’s eyes were bulging out of her face and she let out a strangled cry of pain and anguish. The vet held on to her firmly, all the colour draining from her as she followed my gaze.

  As for me, it was as if the snake had hypnotized me and turned me to stone. My head was spinning with confusion: Jaffa had finally found her voice! And, w hat’s more, there was a real live snake on the loose . . . Was any of this really happening?

  The vet let the syringe drop, commanded me through gritted teeth to hold on to Jaffa and then darted forward in a terrifying kung-fu-style action. She grabbed the snake with lightning speed, one bony hand around its sinewy body, the other immobilizing its jaws. I half expected her to utter a piercing ‘Haaaeeee-yah!’ or maybe to chop the snake in two with her bare hands.

  But she simply handed the snake to the nurse with terse instructions to go and find the owner, then calmly placed the syringe back on the tray and pulled off her white rubber gloves, saying, ‘There, all done,’ in a smug and satisfied tone.

  Thank goodness for that, I thought, some sensation returning to my limbs. Now let’s get out of this hellhole.

  I turned to Dad to ask him to help me with Jaffa.

  But he wasn’t going to be much use to me.

  He had fainted.

  6

  The Great Escape

  We got out of there eventually, with Jaffa hissing and spitting and sticking her legs out in all directions to make it as difficult as possible to get her back into the box. The vet’s reaction to Dad fainting was as brusque as her method of dealing with the snake: she threw a large mug of water in his face, gave him another mug of water to drink and told him to go and sit in the waiting room until he felt safe enough to drive.

  ‘Blimey, she was a tough cookie, that one!’ Dad said feebly when he at last felt strong enough to stagger to the reception area to pay the bill. ‘Not cheap either,’ he muttered, as he handed over his credit card with shaking fingers.

  I held my breath, waiting for what I was sure would come next: Not sure about this having-a-kitten lark . . .

  ‘Still, she’s a sweetie, little Jaffs, isn’t she?’ Dad said, grinning weakly. ‘Come on, let’s go home. I don’t know about you, but I need some food after all that excitement.’

  I let out a whoosh of relief and grinned too.

  ‘Will you keep an eye on Jaffa for the rest of the day?’ Dad asked as we drove home (more slowly than we’d driven to the vet’s, I noticed – Dad was clearly feeling more ropy than he was letting on).

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I won’t let her out of my sight.’

  ‘Only you heard what the vet said as we left? I must admit I didn’t quite catch all of it –’ No, still recovering from your fainting fit! – ‘but I’m pretty sure she said something about how cats go and hide after traumatic experiences, and I think it’s fair to say this trip to the vet’s counts as one such experience. I feel a bit like hiding myself!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I assured him. ‘I’ll take her up to my room. She can sleep on my bed.’

  But, as with a lot of things in my life, it didn’t turn out to be that simple.

  When we got home, Dad set about cooking us some lunch.

  I took Jaffa u
pstairs in the box and placed it on my bed. I carefully removed the lid and peered inside to see her looking at me with a definite note of reproach in her clear blue eyes. I could have sworn the corners of her mouth were turned down too, in a heartbreakingly sad expression.

  ‘Oh, little Jaffa Cake!’ I cooed, picking her up gently and holding her close to my chest. She felt stiff and unyielding as if she were solid with fright. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s been a horrible morning. But you’re safe at home now.’

  Jaffa relaxed a bit and I felt a slight vibration from her body. I pushed my hands away from my chest slightly so that I could take a good look at her.

  ‘Are you purring?’ She inclined her head slightly. Oh my goodness! Maybe I was getting somewhere at last. ‘Are you trying to talk to me, little one?’

  The vibrations increased a fraction. It was definitely the beginnings of a purr, although there was still no sound from her mouth.

  ‘Bertie!’ Dad was yelling up the stairs. ‘Can you come and lay the table, please?’

  I rolled my eyes at Jaffa. ‘Better do what the man says.’

  The purring went up a notch further. And a whole field of butterflies took off in my stomach. Was Jaffa finding her voice?

  I held her softly to me as I went downstairs to help Dad. ‘Dad, you won’t believe this, but Jaffs is purring!’ I told him. ‘Listen!’

  Dad came over and stroked the top of her head with one finger, the wooden spoon he was mixing the sauce with in his other hand. ‘Aw, that’s adorable! Hey – before I forget, we ought to write the next vet’s appointment down on the calendar.’

  ‘What?’ I started. Another appointment? I felt Jaffa tense in my arms.

  ‘Yes, you heard what she said as we were leaving, didn’t you? Honestly, Bertie, I was the one that fainted!’ Dad ruffled my hair in that annoying way he had when he was teasing me.

  I brushed his hand away irritably. ‘She’s not going back there,’ I said firmly.

  ‘She has to,’ Dad insisted. ‘That injection today was just the first. She has to have a couple of follow-up jabs in four weeks’ time.’