by Ann Bryant
“Bryony’s only going to check the loft one last time,” she told the others at lunchtime.
Everyone nodded and started telling me how sensible that was, and how I’d soon forget about Silver, and I realized they’d all been getting anxious about the number of times I’d risked going up there.
As it happened there was no opportunity to go up for the rest of that day, because there were so many people in Forest Ash on our floor. One of the Year Nines was ill and had a constant stream of visitors all afternoon and evening.
So it wasn’t till morning break on Monday that I finally managed to sneak along to the cleaning room and whizz upstairs. I couldn’t even wait till lunchtime, because this turned out to be the day that Sasha’s old school friend, Hannah, was coming for her introductory day. Mrs. Pridham knew about the connection between Hannah and Sasha and thought it would be nice for Hannah if we six showed her our dorm after lunch.
“I think she’s going to feel rather lost being the only one having her introductory day today,” she said, “and I’m sure she’d love to see a dorm and spend some time with you girls.”
Emily and I had exchanged a look when Mrs. P said that, because we were thinking that, if Hannah was with us, I wouldn’t be able to go and see if Silver was there, which was why I’d finished up rushing over to Forest Ash during morning break.
The first thing I noticed was that the mousetrap had gone. And after that I realized that the window had been fixed and was closed tight, which explained why it was hotter than usual.
So that was definitely it then. Silver couldn’t come back now and I may as well get used to the idea. I’d got into the habit of taking off my shoes and creeping as soundlessly as possible, but this time, although I took my shoes off, I didn’t make any real effort to tread carefully. I just walked across the loft, waiting for the disappointment to hit me.
“Silver…” It came out in a half-hearted voice. I didn’t even know why I was bothering.
But then my heart skipped a beat, because there he was, lying on his side on the pile of dust sheets, and I so wanted to bend down and pick him up and cuddle him and stroke him, but I knew I mustn’t do anything to scare him.
“Oh Silver! You’re here!” I said in a cracked voice, feeling my throat hurt because I was so happy.
He blinked at me slowly and didn’t move at all. I did, though. I went straight to the window and opened it. I didn’t want Silver to be trapped in the loft, and in this boiling hot atmosphere he might suffocate or something if he didn’t have a bit of air.
“There!” I said quietly. “That’s better, isn’t it!”
Still he didn’t move a muscle. And neither did I, because I was confused. There was something different about him. What was it? It wasn’t his face. Was it his body? Maybe he’d finally started to put some weight on with all the food I’d been giving him. I bent down and stroked him gently and he started purring straight away. I noticed he’d eaten the food from yesterday and drunk all the water too, so I quickly poured more into the tub and unwrapped today’s food package, then went back to stroking him. He slowly stretched and rolled onto his back. And that’s when I noticed definite teats on his chest, and gasped. Silver wasn’t a he at all, but a she!
Chapter Seven
“Ems, I think I’ve discovered something. Only I need you to check.”
My friends were waiting for me at the top of the little side lane that leads down to the humanities block where we were about to have history.
“What?” they all wanted to know.
“Was he there?” asked Nicole, looking excited.
I nodded. “Only I think…think…that he is a she!”
It took a moment for my words to sink in, then Sasha asked how I could tell. “I don’t know much about cats,” she said, blushing a bit, “but is it kind of…obvious?”
“The thing is,” I said, in my usual straightforward way, because I never feel embarrassed about things like this, “I think she’s got teats.”
Emily had set off towards the humanities block, following Nicole and Antonia, but she stopped suddenly and turned to face me when I said that. “Teats aren’t usually that obvious on cats actually, Bryony, unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh come on, Ems! What?” I was getting exasperated.
“I’ll come and look at her after school,” she promised.
I nodded. “Thanks, Ems. And…there’s something else…”
“What?”
“Mr. Monk’s fixed the catch so I opened the window, because I didn’t want Silver to be trapped. Also it’s boiling hot in there. She’d roast with the window shut.”
“What if Mr. Monk notices the window is open?” asked Izzy as we went into the humanities block.
“I don’t think he’ll go up there now he’s fixed the catch and taken the mousetrap away,” I replied.
“No, I mean, what if he sees it from outside?”
A little alarm bell rang somewhere deep inside me, but I ignored it as soon as I realized Mr. Monk would have to be round the side of the building looking right up to the roof to even notice the window.
We were about to troop into our history class when Mrs. Pridham came into the block with Hannah and smiled round at us.
“Oh good, I’ve caught you just in time. This is Hannah, girls, and she’ll be joining us at Silver Spires next year.”
“Hi!” said Sasha warmly. “I really like your hair! You look so different with it short!”
Hannah thanked her and gave us all a nervous half-smile. I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone look so anxious.
“We’re on a bit of a Silver Spires tour at the moment,” went on Mrs. Pridham in an over-the-top cheerful voice that she didn’t often use. I thought she was probably trying to make up for Hannah’s quietness. “But there’s a lot to take in, isn’t there?”
Hannah nodded, but didn’t say anything. She must have been really shy. She was wearing light-coloured cut-off trousers, a very plain brown and white top and soft brown shoes that were the nearest thing you can get to trainers without actually being trainers. I don’t usually notice what people are wearing but I did this time, because I was remembering how I’d struggled to decide what to wear this time last year for my own introductory day. Anna had thought I should wear a skirt but, as I never ever wear skirts normally, and the only one I’d got in my wardrobe made me look about seven and a half, I’d been dead against that. I’d wanted to wear jeans and trainers, and in the end we’d compromised on cut-offs and some shoes that were almost trainers.
The main thing you noticed about Hannah, though, was definitely her hair. It was even shorter than mine, and a lovely dark coppery colour, whereas mine’s almost black. I wondered whether she was a tomboy, like me, and was feeling out of her depth, because there were so many girls with long hair around the place, and everyone seemed so loud and confident. I knew that feeling and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.
“Okay, girls,” Mrs. Pridham was saying, still in her over-the-top bright voice, “I know you have to go into your next lesson now, but I’ll bring Hannah along to the dining hall at about ten to one, and then she can sit at your table, okay?”
“Yes, fine!” said Sasha straight away. She smiled at Hannah. “We’ll look after you, don’t worry.”
Mrs. Pridham beamed. “Great! And you’ll bring her over to Forest Ash after lunch and show her round?”
“Yes, of course!” said Sasha.
“Do you want some water, Hannah?” asked Izzy, grabbing a tumbler.
“Yes please,” said Hannah. She was so polite, even with Sasha.
Mrs. Pridham had brought her along to the dining hall, as she’d said she would, at ten to one on the dot. My friends and I were all in the lunch queue, and we’d asked Hannah what she wanted, because there was a choice of chicken or sausage salad, or you could have pizza and chips, or pizza and salad, and you could choose plain sliced bread or you could have
a roll.
“I’ll just have what you’re having,” said Hannah in her quiet voice.
“We’re all having different things,” said Emily.
“Have the chicken salad!” said Sasha. “It’s delicious.”
So that’s what Hannah did but I noticed she didn’t eat very much. I guessed she was too nervous. Between the six of us we asked her lots of questions and learned that she lived in a village called Rivers Mead that was about fifteen miles from where Sasha lives. She had two much older brothers, one at uni and one who was going to uni next year. She liked reading, writing poetry and stories and listening to music, and she’d never been to a boarding school before. By the time we got on to pudding she was definitely more relaxed, because she and Sasha had been discussing their old teachers at primary school, and she’d actually laughed when Sasha told us all that for the whole of Year One she’d thought her teacher, Miss Isworth, was called Mrs. Worth.
“Are you nervous about coming here?” Emily asked when she’d just helped herself to seconds of the pudding.
Hannah just nodded.
“You do get used to it quite quickly,” I told her. “I missed my family like mad at first, but then I met all my lovely friends, and just kind of got into a routine.”
“And the food’s really good here,” Emily changed the conversation dramatically. “Like this yummy rhubarb and honey tart! Made with home-grown rhubarb!” she added proudly.
Hannah smiled at that and we talked about the garden a bit until we’d all finished eating.
Back at Forest Ash, Mrs. Pridham asked Hannah if she’d enjoyed her lunch, then told her she was looking forward to having a nice cup of tea and a chat with her after she’d visited Emerald, so upstairs we all trooped.
Hannah seemed to love looking round our dorm. Sasha and Antonia were talking through every single little detail about where we kept things and what happened at night-time. But my mind was wandering back to Silver, and my ears were pricked up for any sounds that might be coming from above.
It was when Sasha was looking out of the window and talking about the ash trees in the distance that Hannah suddenly said, “What was that?”
Her face was very still and I could tell she was listening.
My heart raced as Emily glanced at me, and Sasha said, “I didn’t hear anything.”
“There it is again!” Hannah was looking up at the ceiling. She must have had amazing hearing because, like Sasha, I hadn’t heard a sound. Then suddenly she tensed up, crossing her arms in front of her and making them white where her fingers were digging in. “Forest Ash doesn’t have a ghost, does it?”
“No, of course not,” I said quickly.
“You’re not keeping it from me to stop me worrying, are you?”
“No, there’s definitely no ghost, Hannah, honestly,” Sasha assured her.
“But I’m sure I heard something.” She suddenly stopped and looked up to the ceiling again. “Wh-what is it if it’s not a ghost?”
Her eyes were glistening by then and Sasha gave her a hug. “It’s all right, Hannah.”
“I know I’m being stupid,” she gulped. “I’ve got myself in a state. I just don’t think I’ll be very good at living away from home. I must be the only girl in the world who’s so pathetic.”
“You’re not pathetic!” said Nicole.
“And you’re definitely not the only person to worry about boarding. Everyone feels homesick at first,” added Antonia.
“My mum always says it’s only fear of the unknown that makes us scared,” added Nicole.
A memory of what Katy had said at Pets’ Place suddenly flashed through my mind. She’d been talking about having her rabbit, Buddy, at school. It stopped me panicking at the thought of what lay ahead in this big unknown place.
“Do you have a pet you could bring to school, like a guinea pig or a rabbit?” I asked her.
She shook her head, but I wasn’t certain she’d even taken in what I’d asked her, because of what she said next. “There could be a ghost up there that you haven’t come across yet.”
I glanced at Emily and she nodded, knowing instantly how my mind was working.
“Hannah,” I said, “I’ll prove to you that it’s not a ghost. Come with me. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Sasha smiled and Izzy said, “You’re going to love this, Hannah!”
And I thought how lovely and understanding my friends were, not to mind that Hannah would be seeing Silver before they would.
“I’ll come too, for identification purposes!” said Emily, smiling mysteriously, which made Hannah’s eyes turn curious through her tears.
“Where are we going?” she asked as we walked along the landing.
“In here,” I said, diving into the cleaning room. “Quick! We’re not exactly supposed to be here.”
“Oh…are you sure…?” But she stopped mid-sentence and I saw a glimmer of fear come into her eyes as we started to climb the narrow staircase up to the loft.
“You have to creep really softly,” Emily told her.
Hannah nodded, clinging to us like a shadow.
“I’m going to show you what was making the noise you heard,” I whispered. “No one knows about it except us six. But you can share our secret.”
I didn’t think it was possible for anyone’s eyes to open as wide as Hannah’s did at that moment. We tiptoed across the loft and round the corner to where Silver lay contentedly on her dust sheets and Hannah gasped, then clapped a hand to her mouth as if even that gasp might have been too loud.
“Ah…she’s so sweet!”
I saw a completely different Hannah then. The frightened Hannah was gone. In her place was a gentle girl who was suddenly taken up with my precious cat, bending down and stretching out her fingers as Silver blinked at her slowly.
“What’s her name, Bryony?”
“Silver.”
“That’s a good name. Like Silver Spires. That means she truly belongs here.”
I smiled, then felt a stab of sadness knowing that could never happen.
“How did you find her?”
“We heard noises from our dorm, just like you did, and everyone thought it might be a mouse or a bird or something. But I thought it was too soft and smooth for a mouse, and I started imagining we had a Forest Ash ghost, so I came up here to investigate one day and I couldn’t believe it when I saw Silver. It’s like she’s chosen our loft specially. I…I haven’t told Mrs. Pridham, in case she shoos her away.”
“I wouldn’t have told her either,” said Hannah, nodding thoughtfully. “Except that Silver looks just like my cat did when she was pregnant.”
So then it was my turn to gasp. I turned to Emily, who hadn’t said anything so far.
She bent down and examined Silver carefully. “Yes, she is. That’s what I was going to say earlier, Bry – that teats only really show on cats when they’re going to have kittens.”
“Kittens?” It was a stupid thing to say. Obviously she wasn’t going to have puppies, but I was so surprised. “When?”
Emily shrugged. “I’m not sure. But she looks…settled. It could be soon.”
None of us spoke for at least twenty seconds while two thoughts twined around and around each other in my mind.
It would be so wonderful to have Silver and her kittens at Forest Ash.
Mrs. Pridham would go absolutely mad if she knew that a wild cat was living here in the attic; never in a million years would she allow Silver to stay.
Three loud taps that seemed to come from somewhere below nearly made me jump out of my skin. Hannah tensed up and her hand shot to her mouth. “What was that?”
Then it came again, exactly the same. And I suddenly realized it must be one of the others tapping something against the ceiling in our dorm as a warning.
“There might be someone coming,” I told Hannah. “Keep out of sight. If it’s Mr. Monk he won’t look round here.”
Hannah looked at her watch. “You don’t think th
e others are just warning you about the time?”
So then I looked at my own watch. “Yes, you’re right. I’d forgotten all about afternoon school!”
Back in the dorm, Emily told the others straight away about Silver being pregnant. They all seemed really excited about it to begin with.
Nicole was the first to lose her smile and turn serious. “What…will you do when the kittens are born, Bry?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, sighing inside. “Mrs. Pridham would never let us keep Silver or the kittens. That’s all I know.”
“Doesn’t she like cats?” asked Hannah quietly.
No one answered that question, because the truth was we didn’t actually know whether Mrs. Pridham liked cats or not, and an idea started to form in my mind.
“Hannah,” I began slowly, “Mrs. P said something about a cup of tea and a chat with you, didn’t she?”
“Yes, before I go home.”
“Well, I don’t suppose you could somehow get the conversation round to pets. I mean, especially if you have your own cat. Maybe you can discover what Mrs. P thinks about cats in general?”
“You’re a genius, Bry!” said Emily, slapping me on the back.
“Yes, she might turn out to be completely cat mad!” said Izzy, smiling.
But now I was picturing Mrs. Pridham’s flat with not a cat in sight. “At least you can suss whether or not she’s likely to blow a fuse when she finds out about Silver,” I said, sighing on the outside this time.
Hannah laughed lightly. “I’ll check out how she feels about kittens as well, shall I?”
Looking at her bright confident smile, I couldn’t believe the transformation from the girl we’d met earlier in the day who’d been so fragile with worry that it looked like the tiniest thing would make her crumple.
“We’d better get going to afternoon school!” said Izzy.
So we all piled out of the dorm and made our way downstairs.
“Before I go, I’ll let you know what Mrs. Pridham says about you-know-what,” Hannah whispered, when we were in the hall.
