The Kitten Hunt

by Anna Wilson

  He shook his head at me. ‘And Mr Smythe – how much is that poor man paying for his hamsters to be looked after?’

  I couldn’t speak. My mouth had gone as furry as Kaboodle’s coat.

  ‘Two pounds,’ Jazz announced. Thanks for that, Jazz, I thought gloomily. ‘There are two hamsters, you see,’ she burbled, keen to make the point that everything was fair and above board.

  Dad squeezed his eyes tight shut and pressed the sides of his head with his fingertips as if he were getting a headache. ‘Well, Bertie, now this is all out in the open, you know what you are going to have to do, don’t you?’

  I nodded miserably. I did know, only too well. But Dad told me anyway. ‘You are going to tell Ms Pinkington that you are very sorry for taking her money and that you will not be offering your “services” again, and you will go and see Mr Smythe when he comes back and tell him the same thing. And you will not accept a penny from either of them. Do I make myself clear? Oh, and I suppose this explains all your mysterious phone calls? We ll, you can hand over your mobile right now. You obviously can’t be trusted with it.’

  This was excruciating. But I just nodded, fished in my jeans for my phone and made a determined effort not to catch Jazz’s eye. I could just about see her from under my mad hair. She was rubbing her fingers and thumb together furiously and mouth-ing, ‘She owes us!’

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Dad, pocketing my mobile and rocking back on his chair and folding his arms.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ms Pinkington,’ I said quietly. Then I sighed. ‘The thing is, Dad, I wasn’t doing it for the money.’

  Dad shook his head again,this time in complete disbelief. ‘You weren’t doing it for the money! What on earth were you doing it for?’

  ‘Tell him, Bertie,’ Kaboodle mewed.

  But I didn’t need any prompting from a kitten – from anyone, in fact. It was pretty clear to me that it was time to come clean.

  ‘I just want a pet,’ I said grumpily. ‘I’ve always wanted a pet.’

  Dad let out a long breath. ‘Why?’ he asked, leaning towards me. ‘What’s the big deal?’

  I shut my eyes. ‘You don’t get it, do you? I need someone – something – to keep me company, Dad.’

  I looked up to see that Dad had gone red and was looking very uncomfortable indeed.

  Pinkella went as pink as her floaty dress and stammered, ‘This – er – this obviously isn’t a good time for you. You need to talk things over as a – as a family. Kaboodle and I will leave you to it, won’t we, sweetums?’

  ‘Shame. I was rather enjoying myself,’ he purred, fixing me with a round yellow stare.

  He might as well have scratched me – how dare he enjoy all this! I vented my irritation on Pinkella. ‘Why are you home so early, anyway?’ I demanded. ‘You told me to look after Kaboodle for two weeks. It’s only been two days.’

  Under normal circumstances I would have been told off for speaking in that Tone of Voice, but these circumstances were so far from normal, we might as well have been standing at the North Pole in our underwear singing ‘God Save the Queen’.

  Pinkella fluttered her eye lashes rapidly, sniffed and said, ‘There was a change of plan. That’s what I was coming to tell you, before this – before your father . . . Oh, I may as well just tell you,’ she said, sniffing again. ‘The director who was doing the auditions for the film told me that I wasn’t right for the part.’ She hesitated. ‘And when I asked him why, he . . . he . . .’ Her face went into crumpled-up mode. ‘He said I was too – old!’ she whispered, her eyes wide in horror.

  Jazz caught my eye and mouthed, ‘And too pink!’

  The scowl on my face melted and I was overcome with a plummeting sense of guilt. Pinkella might be strange, but that didn’t mean I was glad the director had upset her so much.

  I grimaced to Jazz to keep quiet and said reluctantly to Pinkella, ‘Oh, that’s – er – that’s awful. I’m really sorry. So you didn’t get the part then?’

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on, Ms Pinkington—’ Dad offered.

  ‘F-Fenella,’ she hiccuped.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Dad.

  ‘Fenella – call me Fenella,’ she managed, before tears welled up in her mascara-ed eyes and began trickling into rivers of black down her face.

  ‘Right,’ said Dad. He looked as if he was wishing a natural disaster of cataclysmic proportions would occur right then and there in the kitchen and forcibly remove him from this embarrassing situation.

  ‘Bertie – we’ll talk about you later,’ he said to me hastily. ‘Why don’t you see Jazz home?’

  I sighed and nodded. And then I remembered Houdini and Mr Nibbles. ‘Er, can I ask you something?’ I asked Dad, eyeing Ms P, who was working herself up into a volcano of tears and snot.

  ‘Yes?’ Dad snapped.

  ‘Can I feed the hamsters before I come home? Mr S won’t be back till tomorrow.’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Dad said again, pushing a box of tissues nervously at Pinkella. Her weeping had increased alarmingly in volume. ‘But be quick!’

  I made sure Kaboodle wasn’t going to follow us. No chance of that – Pinkella had pinned him down firmly on to her lap with one bejewelled hand. He shot me a final pleading glance, but I was out of there too fast to hear him speak. Jazz and I ran out of the house, slamming the door behind us.

  We raced round to Mr Smythe’s, where Jazz cleaned out the cage while I kept hold of Houdini and Mr Nibbles. They scurried around in the palms of my hands and twitched their cute little whiskery noses at me.

  ‘Poor little guys,’ I crooned weakly. ‘You must be starving. I’m so sorry.’

  They squeaked and preened their faces and looked as sweet as ever. It was no good though, I just wasn’t as excited about looking after them as I had been before. I was too preoccupied with what Dad was going to say to me later, once Pinkella had gone home. And of course she would take Kaboodle with her. So that was that. No more having him all to myself. No more snuggling on my duvet in the night. The Pet-Sitting Service really was over, I realized, especially since I’d lost my phone now as well. I would not be getting any more calls and life would go back to being the same old boring, useless load of—

  ‘Hey, don’t, Bertie!’ Ja zz came over and gently took Houdini and Mr Nibbles from me. ‘It’ll be all right. Don’t cry.’

  I was making too much of a habit of this, I thought grimly through my tears.

  She put the hamsters safely in their clean cage, topped up their food,then gave me the kind of hug that only a best mate can. ‘Listen, this is all my fault. I’ve been a useless best friend from start to finish over this pet-sitting thing, and now I’ve landed you in it with your dad.’

  I shook my head and wiped my eyes. ‘Nah,’ I said as breezily as I could. ‘This is my mess and it’s up to me to clear it up.’

  We finished up at Mr Smythe’s and I walked Jazz home, before trudging slowly back to my place.

  I went round the back of the house, as I knew Dad would be in, waiting for me. The back door was open, and as I came closer I could hear voices.

  ‘Oh, you are a sweetie, Marvin,’ Pinkella was twittering.

  Pinkella was still in the kitchen with Dad! Surely she should have gone home by now?

  I don’t know what made me do it, but I crept quietly up to the doorway so that I could listen in.

  ‘So when shall we get together, Marvin?’

  I don’t believe it! I thought. He’s told her his pen name instead of his real one. I couldn’t help sniggering quietly at that. Hang on a minute, though – what did she mean, ‘get together’?

  I leaned in to get my ear as close to the door as possible.

  ‘Let’s see,’ I heard Dad say. ‘I’m not too busy at the moment –’ Not too busy? You’re always busy, I thought. – ‘I could do Friday after work.’

  ‘What about Roberta?’ Pinkella asked.

  ‘Oh, that’s OK. She’ll probably be wanting to stay over at Jazz’s anyway,’ s
aid Dad.

  My stomach turned to lead. What was going on? I shut the back door silently behind me and whizzed into the kitchen just in time to see Pinkella start in surprise.

  ‘Oh, Bertie!’ said Dad, going purple as he leaped up from the table and sent his chair rocking on to its back legs. ‘Blimey, you gave us a fright!’

  Us?

  Kaboodle was still on Pinkella’s lap, curled up like an apostrophe. He yawned extravagantly and stretched out his front legs when I came in.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘N-nothing,’ said Dad, a bit too quickly.

  ‘Nothing at all, sweetie,’ said Pinkella, grinning wildly and cradling Kaboodle in her arms.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Kaboodle indignantly. ‘I have no idea. I was having a lovely dream about hamsters though . . . ’

  ‘Don’t—!’ I warned him.

  ‘Don’t what?’ asked Dad, looking puzzled.

  ‘Oh, forget it,’ I snapped and shot Kaboodle a look which I hoped said, ‘You and I will have words later.’

  Pinkella blushed and flicking her hair back over one chiffony shoulder, she announced, ‘Well, it’s been awfully kind of you to look after Kaboodle so well, Roberta darling. I’ve left the money I owe you on the table, dear. No – I insist,’ she added, catching Dad’s eye. ‘And thank you, Marvin, for the tea. We’ll be off now.’ And she scuttled out of the back door clutching Kaboodle to her chest.

  I was left staring at Dad with my hands on my hips. ‘So?’ I demanded, once the Vision of Pink had disappeared in a cloud of fuchsia froth.

  ‘Tone of Voice!’ Dad said, scowling, which I couldn’t help thinking was a convenient way of avoiding answering me.

  I huffed loudly and made as if to flounce out of the room, but Dad caught me by the elbow and said, ‘You have got some serious thinking to do, yo ung lady, if you don’t want to find yourself grounded for a week. You have lied to me and put me in a very difficult and embarrassing position. You are lucky Fenella is such a kind and generous person –’What do you know about Fenella? I thought. – ‘and now you should go to your room. Surely you’ve got some homework to do or some reading or something?’

  Dad needn’t have worried. I was already on my way up the stairs. It was pretty clear he had not listened to a word I’d said in the past twenty-four hours. He didn’t care whether I wanted a pet or not, he didn’t care I had no one to talk to at home, he didn’t care that I was fed up with him never being around, and now he was agreeing to spend his spare time with Pinkella the Poodle instead of with me – HIS ONE AND ONLY DAUGHTER!

  Why had they agreed to meet on Friday – without me around?

  And more importantly, why did she and Dad jump apart as though they’d been electrocuted when I walked into the room? They’d only just met, for goodness sake.

  Surely my dad wasn’t . . . No.

  I shook my head rapidly to try and make the idea go away. But it wouldn’t. It had well and truly lodged itself in my mind.

  Was Dad going on a DATE with theVision of Pinkness?

  A searingly bright image filled my head of Pinkella and my dad walking into the sunset together with romantic music in the background and little bluebirds twittering around their heads as they gazed deeply into each other’s eyes.

  I wished the house would fall down on top of me and squash me flat.

  15

  A Purr-fect Spy

  The only way I could find out what Dad and Pinkella had planned for Friday night was to enlist the help of someone who could listen in without being noticed. And I figured that after the hamster incident, not to mention the many dead rodent incidents, Kitten Kaboodle owed me one.

  So I went to the window and called for him, hoping that he might hear me from across the road and come running. (And very much hoping that he would still want to talk to me now that Pinkella was back.) And then I climbed up on to my bed, lay on my front with my feet at the pillow end and waited. I watched the last wisps of the October evening light leak out of the sky and stared at the trees as they turned into shadows of their former selves. My mind wandered over the events of the past few days and I let my mind drift as I waited.

  Thud.

  A soft dark shape appeared on the ledge outside my window.

  I grinned and clambered down my ladder to let him in.

  ‘It was a little difficult to get away,’ Kaboodle murmured, rubbing his head against my arm. ‘Ms P was still quite upset about that dreadful director being so rude to her, so she needed a few more hugs than usual, and a friendly shoulder to cry on, so to speak. Howeve r, I heard you call – so, what’s the matter?’

  ‘We’re going to have to stop them.’

  ‘Stop who? From doing what?You’re going to have to be more precise,’ Kaboodle said.

  I tutted. ‘Dad and Pinkella – they’ve got a date on Friday night, haven’t they?’ ‘They have?’ Kaboodle asked. ‘You know they have! You were in the room when they were arranging it!’ ‘I told you, I was sleeping—’ ‘No. I don’t buy that. I know “you cats” only ever sleep with one eyeshut,’I said, my voice edged with sarcasm.

  ‘Ah,’ Kaboodle said. He washed a paw infuriatingly slowly and then said, at last, ‘Still, I don’t see how I can be of any help.’

  ‘Well, I do! You are in the perfect position to spy on them on Friday night. I want you to watch everything that they say and do and come and tell me about it. I don’t care if you have to come and tell me at Jazz’s. I don’t care if she thinks I’ve gone mad having a conversation with a cat. I need to know what’s going on and I need to be able to stop it. I cannot have Pinkella Deville going out with my dad!’

  ‘Why ever not?’ Kaboodle asked, puzzled. ‘She’s a lovely woman. Could do with a few tips on improving my diet, I’ll grant you, but other than that she’s kind, cuddly, concerned—’

  ‘And a complete nut-head!’

  Kaboodle tilted his little head to one side and flicked his ears forward. I could have sworn he was frowning at me. ‘Bertie Fletcher, I do not understand you.’

  Join the queue, I thought.

  ‘You say your dad’s lonely and all he ever does is work—’

  ‘I never told you that!’ I cut in.

  Kaboodle raised a paw as if to stop me. ‘You didn’t have to,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious.’

  ‘Don’t tell me – body language,’ I huffed.

  ‘That and my extraordinary powers of feline perception,’ Kaboodle agreed. ‘So, as I say, it’s pretty obvious you’re worried about your father, and now that he is showing interest in a perfectly lovely lady—’

  ‘Listen,’ I said sharply, not wanting to hear another word. ‘Pinkella may be lovely, but she is just not the sort of person I want hanging around my dad, OK? She’s fussy, and la-di-dah, and – oh, can’t you see it would be mortifying to have her turn into a permanent fixture in my life, floating around the place in all that fluffy pink rubbish and going on about everything being “gorrrrgeous” and calling me Roberta . . . .’ I tailed off angrily .

  Kaboodle eyed me carefully. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll report back on your father’s meeting with Ms P. But just do me one little favour – try not to get things out of proportion. There’s bound to be a simple explanation for all this.’

  Friday took its time coming. Friday usually does, of course, because it is the best day of the week – no homework to do in the evening, great telly, no alarm clock the next morning, and the whole weekend to look forward to. But this Friday was different. I was seriously concerned about my dad spending any time at all with that Profusion of Pinkness, let alone on a Friday night, which any idiot could tell you was a night for dating and going out with girlfriends and boyfriends.

  There had been a lot of worrying developments that week. Dad had been acting like a total weirdo – or, should I say, even more of a weirdo than usual. He had become ultra-dreamy, that’s the only way to describe it. He hadn’t even hassled me once about my homework,or checked my spel
lings or anything. Normally I would not complain about this, of course, but he was being just so . . . un-Dad-like. He would sit down to eat supper with me, for example, and he’d take up his fork to start twirling his spaghetti, and then it was as if he’d completely forgotten where he was or what he was supposed to be doing. He would sit there, the forkful of pasta hovering in front of his mouth, and he’d stare off into the distance. It would take quite a lot of me saying ‘Dad – Da-a-ad! Is there anyone there?’ and flapping my arms around in front of his face to get his attention.

  I was convinced all this dippy behaviour was because Dad’s mind was on other things. Other pink things.

  After school that day, I finally plucked up the courage to tell Jazz about my horrifying suspicions.

  ‘Jazz . . . I think . . . I cannot believe I am saying this . . . I ’m really worried Dad might have fallen in love!’ I spoke in hushed tones. ‘With . . . Ms P!’

  ‘Oh good grief alive, I hope not! She is one spooky lady!’ Jazz shrieked. ‘I reckon she is either completely off her rocker or she is an undercover agent for a secret organization and is posing as someone who is completely off her rocker. For a start, no one who is sane wears that much pink unless they’re two years old and still believe in fairies. And for a finish, that perfume is so strong I suspect it might actually be some kind of poisonous fumigation weapon that deals a slow but deathly blow to whoever comes near it.’

  I curled my lip and tutted. Jazz loves a good conspiracy theory. She was always going on about undercover agents and secret organizations and deathly weapons. She was convinced that half of the teachers at our school were spies. I kept telling her that they were all too boring and badly dressed to be super-slick double agents, but she wasn’t having any of it. She said that was the whole point and she said it again now.

  ‘You always think that spies are like the people in films and on the telly – that they’re all good-looking and dress in really posh clothes and raise their eye brows a lot,’ she went on accusingly. ‘But they are absolutely not like that. If they were, then everyone would know that they were spies and there’d be no point in them trying to go undercover. No, real spies are exactly like Pinkella – the most useless person in the world that you can think of on the surface, but underneath, they can speak thirty-two languages and are pretty mean with their fists.’