Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Acknowledgements

  Read on for an extract from The Vets at Hope Green

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Charlie the kitten would do anything for his human. Just having recovered from a debilitating illness, eleven-year-old Caroline isn’t feeling her best, and the arrival of a new baby only makes her feel even more left out.

  So when Caroline decides to run away, Charlie follows, vowing to protect her at all costs. But, for such a little kitten, it’s a big and scary world outside the comfort of the cottage – how far will he go to save his greatest friend?

  About the Author

  Sheila Norton lives near Chelmsford in Essex with her husband, and worked for most of her life as a medical secretary, before retiring early to concentrate on her writing. Sheila is the award-winning writer of numerous women’s fiction novels and over 100 short stories, published in women’s magazines.

  She has three married daughters, six little grandchildren, and over the years has enjoyed the companionship of three cats and two dogs. She derived lots of inspiration for her books Oliver the Cat Who Saved Christmas and Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life from remembering the pleasure and fun of sharing life with her own cats. Sheila is convinced cats can understand Human and that we really ought to learn to speak Cat!

  When not working on her writing Sheila enjoys spending time with her family and friends, as well as reading, walking, swimming, photography and travel. For more information visit www.sheilanorton.com

  For my lovely family – including their cats!

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  OK, settle down, you lot. My friend Oliver here says you’re all desperate to hear my story, so please come out from behind the dustbins for a minute and stop fighting over that dead sparrow. Now, before we start, I know that some of you still think of me as a silly little tabby kitten who barely knows his tail from his whiskers, but I’ve had to grow up a lot during this summer, and you’ll understand why when you hear my story. Oliver, could you let my sisters sit next to you in case they get frightened? That’s right, Nancy. Yes, snuggle up to Oliver, Tabitha. I do feel a bit protective of you both, you see, even though we spend our lives living with separate human families. And if there are any really little kittens listening, or any scaredy-cats – sorry, I mean any cats of a nervous disposition – you may need to cover your ears with your paws at certain parts. No, Tabitha, I didn’t mean yet. I haven’t even started. I’ll tell you when we get to a scary part.

  Where should I begin? Well, I suppose I should start with the day I found out about the holiday. Of course, back then, before it all happened, I had no idea what a holiday was. The first I heard about it was when my human, Julian, came home from work one evening and announced:

  ‘Right. I’ve booked a holiday.’

  His female, Laura, just looked up at him, her eyes all cloudy with tiredness. I felt sorry for her, because I knew she hadn’t been getting much sleep. None of us had.

  ‘Oh, Julian,’ she said, sighing. ‘It’s a nice idea, but how on earth can we go on holiday at the moment? With all the bits and pieces we’d need to take for the baby?’

  Right on cue, the baby, Jessica, who was upstairs in her little white basket, supposedly asleep, began to mew at the top of her voice. You know the sweet, soft little squeaky noises we make when we’re new-born kittens? Well, trust me, this was nothing like it. Human kittens, as I’d now learned only too well, make the most terrible din you can imagine. They howl. Their little faces go red, their mouths open so wide they seem to fill their whole face, and they scream. It happens when they want milk, but it also seems to happen for no apparent reason, any time, day or night. No wonder poor Laura looked exhausted.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Julian said, throwing his jacket on a chair and heading up the stairs. I trotted up after him. He hadn’t said hello to me yet. I meowed at him a bit and jumped round his feet while he lifted Jessica out of her basket, but he just said, ‘Mind out of the way, Charlie. I don’t want to drop the baby.’

  The baby, the baby. It was all I heard about, these days! I mean, she was cute, I supposed, when she wasn’t yelling, but what about me? I wasn’t getting my share of cuddles anymore, and there had even been times when they’d forgotten all about my dinner. I’d had to walk round and round my empty dish so many times, calling for attention, I ended up getting dizzy.

  Still ignoring me, Julian carried the baby out of the little pink room where she slept and past the door of Caroline’s bedroom. Caroline, our big human kitten, had had what her father called a growth spurt recently. If she’d been a cat, I’d have said she was more or less fully grown, but humans seem to stay kittens for much longer than we do. She spent a lot of time in her bedroom, especially since the baby had arrived. I sneaked in there with her as often as I could. She was the only one who still seemed to have time to cuddle me.

  ‘Hello, Caroline!’ Julian called out, pausing outside her door and tapping on it gently. ‘Come downstairs, I’ve got something exciting to tell you.’

  I waited for her outside her door, and after a bit she came out and trudged down the stairs alongside me.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. She didn’t look like someone who was about to be told something exciting. In fact Julian was the only one looking remotely excited. As usual, nobody was telling me what was going on so I just had to listen carefully to their Human chat and try to pick up some clues.

  ‘I’ve booked us a holiday,’ Julian said again. He smiled, obviously pleased with himself. He’d been standing jiggling the squawking baby in his arms, and now he placed her on Laura’s lap so that she could feed her.

  ‘Oh, cool!’ Caroline said, brightening up. ‘Where are we going? Is it Florida? One of the girls at school went there last year.’

  ‘Florida?’ Julian echoed, staring at her. ‘No, of course not. We can’t go somewhere like that with a three-month-old baby.’

  ‘Oh.’ Caroline’s mouth turned down again. ‘Typical. Everything’s about her now.’

  ‘Caroline!’ Julian said, giving her a warning look. ‘That’s not true, at all—’

  ‘So, where are we going?’ she interrupted.

  ‘Mudditon-on-Sea.’

  There was silence. Even baby Jessica was quiet now she was being fed. Caroline just stared back at her father, while Laura shook her head as if she couldn’t quite believe it.

  ‘But it’ll be lovely!’ Julian said, looking from one of them to the other. ‘I’ve booked us a beautiful holiday cottage for the whole of August.’

  ‘The whole of August?’ Caroline gasped.

  ‘Yes! Look,’ he said, turning to Laura, ‘I know how hard it’s been for you. The pregnancy wasn’t easy, the Caesarean left you exhausted, and the baby’s been hard work—’

  ‘How can you possibl
y take a whole month off?’ Laura said.

  ‘Oh.’ Julian sat down next to her, his smile fading. ‘Well, I’m not, exactly. I’ll just spend the first week with you all, then of course I’ll have to come back.’

  ‘And go back to work.’

  ‘Yes, but I’ll come down for weekends. You can enjoy the sea air, darling, and get lots of rest.’

  ‘Rest? In a self-catering cottage?’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll still have to do everything, Julian, the baby won’t stop being demanding just because we’re at the seaside, and you won’t even be there to help.’

  ‘And I’m not coming!’ Caroline said, her face all red and cross. ‘I don’t want to spend the whole school holiday at boring Mudditon-on-Sea. My friends are all planning stuff. Going into town on the bus and going to the cinema and things, and I’ll be the only one not around!’

  With which she stomped back upstairs and slammed her bedroom door.

  Julian got to his feet, looking upset.

  ‘Leave her,’ Laura said. ‘She’ll come round.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, spreading his paws out helplessly. ‘I’ve got it all wrong, haven’t I? I’d better cancel it.’

  ‘No, don’t.’ She looked up at him now, smiling. ‘Sorry I wasn’t more excited, love. I’m just so tired, I can’t think straight.’

  ‘I thought it’d be a nice surprise. We all need a break. Things have been so tense recently. I’m worried about Caroline, she’s looking pale and sad all the time, and she keeps shutting herself away upstairs. I thought the sea air would do everyone some good.’

  ‘I know. It is a nice idea. I’m sure we’ll have fun.’

  Her smile looked a bit strange, like she didn’t really mean it. Julian went upstairs again to get changed, and I jumped up on the sofa next to her. She looked at me over the top of the baby’s head.

  ‘Not really my idea of fun, Charlie,’ she whispered. ‘On my own with a crying baby and a sulky girl who doesn’t want to come. But what can I do? I don’t want to hurt his feelings.’

  I meowed back at her and she took one hand away from the baby to pat me gently on the head. But like all humans, she didn’t understand Cat, so she didn’t know I was trying to say something very important to her: ‘What about me? Who’s going to look after me while you’re away? Doesn’t anyone think about me anymore?’

  The next day, when Julian had gone to work and Caroline was at school, Laura’s friend Nicky came round with her baby, Benjamin. Benjamin was a lot bigger than our Jessica, and was now managing to stand on his back paws and do a funny sort of walk for a few steps before he fell over. It beats me why humans bother with all that effort of walking on two paws. What’s the point? I’ve tried it, several times, but it just doesn’t work. It seems like the most unnatural thing in the world.

  I liked Nicky. She always made a fuss of me, playing with me and scratching me on the head and under the chin just the way I like, making me purr with pleasure.

  ‘So, is Caroline excited about it?’ Nicky asked when Laura had finished telling her about the holiday.

  ‘No. She’s not happy at all.’ Laura sighed, shaking her head. ‘She told Julian she doesn’t want to come and she’s hardly spoken a word to either of us since. She’s gone off to school in a huff this morning.’

  ‘Well, I suppose a whole month is a long time. She’ll probably miss her friends. She’s getting to an age where her friends are just as important to her as her family.’

  ‘I know. And of course, she’s already cross enough about September when she’s going to a different school from her friends in the village. I really hope we’re doing the right thing, Nicky, sending her to the private school. It’s been so nice seeing how she’s made friends now, after all that time off being so lonely while she was ill.’

  That was before I came to live with them, but I knew all about it from Oliver, because he used to visit the family before I was born. Caroline had been very poorly, and apparently Laura had been her nurse until Julian decided he wanted her as his female.

  ‘She’ll come round. She’ll make new friends easily enough once she starts at St Margaret’s,’ Nicky said, and Laura sighed again.

  ‘I do hope so. We’re quite worried about her, to be honest. She seems so tired and listless all the time these days. Almost everything I say, she snaps my head off. I asked her to tidy her room a few days ago and she said “You can’t tell me what to do, you’re not my mother.”’

  ‘Oh dear. That must have been hurtful.’

  ‘Well, I guess she must still think about her mum. It’s only natural, even though Caroline was quite little when she died. I’ve never tried to take her place.’

  ‘I know. And she does love you really, Laura. Perhaps she’s just feeling tired. It’s the end of term – all the kids are probably ready for a break.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. Anyway she’s got her check-up at the hospital next week. We’re going to ask her consultant to run some tests.’

  ‘Really? You’re that worried?’ Nicky took hold of Laura’s paw. ‘You don’t think the leukaemia has come back?’

  ‘That’s what we’re frightened of, obviously,’ Laura said quietly. ‘It’s hard not to fear the worst. She’s only been in remission for a year.’

  Nicky put her arm round Laura. I could tell I wasn’t going to get stroked anymore so I jumped down and ran off to play outside. As you know, my house is the one they call The Big House, so I have a lot of lovely grounds within my territory, a lot of borders to patrol to make sure none of you lot sneak in without my permission. It’s quite a responsibility. It was a lovely warm day, with all sorts of wonderful scents in the air, and dopy insects and birds out of their trees and bushes, so I was having fun jumping around, chasing my shadow in the sunshine, and I must have been gone longer than I thought.

  When I finally returned, they were all home. And to my disgust, nobody took the slightest notice of me again, because there was another argument going on.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re going to do that!’ Caroline was saying crossly to her father. ‘How could you? He’ll hate it!’

  ‘No he won’t,’ Julian said. ‘It’ll be like a holiday for him.’

  Oh, more talk about holidays. I didn’t want to hear it. I just wanted my dinner. I meowed loudly at them all, walking around them and flicking my tail.

  Laura looked down at me, frowning.

  ‘Perhaps I could ask Nicky if she and Dan could look after him,’ she said. ‘Although it is a whole month. It’s a bit much.’

  I stopped meowing abruptly. Were they talking about me?

  ‘No. I’ve said, he can go to the cattery,’ Julian said. ‘He’ll be fine.’

  The cattery? I felt my fur begin to stand on end. Oliver had told me about that place. I’ll never forget the story, it’s haunted me ever since. You really want to hear it, Nancy? Well, it was apparently our father – Oliver’s friend Tabby – who was sent to the cattery once, when his humans went away. He said it was the worst experience of his nine lives. He was kept in a cage, day and night, with just a bed and a litter tray. And although there were lots of other cats there, he couldn’t see them, he just smelt their fear and heard them crying. He wasn’t allowed out to hunt, and although he was fed regularly he felt too stressed to eat much. Apparently the humans who looked after him there were friendly, and gave him plenty of strokes and cuddles, but he didn’t know whether to trust them or not, and had no idea whether he was ever going home again. He had nothing in the cage that smelt of home or his humans, and by the time they finally came back to collect him he was so upset he wouldn’t have anything to do with them for days – he went off on his own and they thought he’d run away. Of course, eventually he gave in because he was so hungry, but Oliver said it took him a long time to get over it.

  Yes, it’s a horrible story, isn’t it? So, as you can imagine, when I heard the cattery being mentioned, I let out a long, mournful cry of distress. Caroline dived on me and picked me up, holding me
tight. Her eyes looked all wet.

  ‘That’s just great,’ she said, although I didn’t think it was, at all. ‘Not only are you taking me away from all my friends for a whole month, just before I have to say goodbye to them forever to go to that stupid new school – but now you’re even taking my cat away from me! It’s so unfair!’

  I agreed. It was. I didn’t want to go to the cattery. I wondered if I should run away before they took me there. Caroline started to cry, and I joined in.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ said Julian. ‘What do you want me to do? We can’t take him with us.’

  ‘Can’t we?’ Laura said quietly. She put a paw on Julian’s arm. ‘It might be a better option.’

  ‘How?’ he demanded. ‘You can’t just take a cat to a strange place. He’ll run off and get lost. Is that what you want?’ he asked, turning to Caroline.

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘I don’t want any of it! I don’t want to come! I’ll stay at home with Charlie.’

  ‘Julian, I’m sure we could manage it,’ Laura said. ‘He’s been neutered, so he’s not so likely to stray.’

  ‘But we’d still have to keep all the doors and windows shut the whole time – and in summer too! It’s just not realistic. He’ll get out and get lost.’

  ‘We’ll have to make sure he doesn’t.’

  Laura and Julian were looking at each other. I could tell they were more worried about Caroline being upset than about me suffering the stress of the cattery, but just thinking about being shut in one of those cages, I let out another loud yowl of distress and finally Julian gave a little laugh – the type that sounded like he wasn’t really amused – and said:

  ‘All right, all right. I give in. We’ll take him with us.’ He turned to Caroline again. ‘But you’ll have to play your part in keeping him safe.’

  ‘I will,’ she said. She nuzzled my head with her cheek and I purred happily. Thank goodness. No cage. ‘I will, because Charlie’s the only one around here who cares about me.’

  With which she carried me upstairs to her room and we lay on her bed together.