Kitten Cupid (9 page)

Dad came out of the kitchen to welcome Bex while I rocketed up the stairs and cupped my hands around the bundle of spitting fury that was my kitten before she could take it into her tiny orange head to disappear under a wardrobe somewhere.

‘Jaffsie is not likin’ that nasty doggy!’ she hissed.

‘You’ve got to trust me on this,’ I urged. ‘I won’t let Sparky anywhere near you. You can stay in my room all night – I’ll even bring you your tea. Meanwhile Sparky will guard the back door, and if anything even
tries
to get in, he will deal with it. By this time tomorrow, there will be no more nasty doggy, and, more importantly, no more nasty scary monster taking your food and making a mess, OK?’

At last Jaffa stopped hissing and put her claws away. I fetched a soft plumped-up cushion and put it in the middle of my bed and told her it was a special cushion just for her. Then I promised I’d be up a little later to check on her. I think she must have worn herself out, because as soon as she’d got herself comfy on the cushion she curled up in a ball, tucking her head under her tail, and fell asleep.

I had a sudden unwelcome thought as I was going down the stairs: what if Dad and Bex were having a cuddle? It would be excruciatingly embarrassing if I walked in on them. I supposed they did kiss and cuddle – that was what boyfriends and girlfriends did, wasn’t it? Even if they were old? It made me shudder. I mean, I wanted Dad to be happy and everything, but I couldn’t help feeling it would all be a lot easier if Bex was just a good friend.

I decided that the only thing to do was to give them fair warning that I was coming, so that if they
were
having a cuddle they would have time to stop before I entered the room. So I started coughing really loudly and singing the first song which came into my head, which unfortunately was, ‘Who let the dogs out? Woof! Woof! Woof-woof!’ How totally weird can you get?

I needn’t have worried. Bex and Dad were sitting at the table, drinking coffee and chatting quietly, and Sparky was curled up at their feet. Until he heard me, that is. He leaped up as I entered the kitchen and banged his head on the table and then started barking and slobbering all over again.

‘Are you all right?’ Dad asked, over the racket Sparky was creating. He peered at me curiously. ‘You weren’t coughing like that earlier. I hope you’re not getting a cold so early on in the term.’

‘Not a great choice of song either!’ Bex said wearily. ‘Down, Sparky!’ she commanded, shooting her dog a scarily withering look, which silenced him immediately. He put his tail between his legs, lowered his head in an impressively shameful expression, and crawled back to his place under the table, whimpering quietly.

‘Wow,’ said Dad in mock admiration. ‘I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of you.’

‘No chance of that. Tee-hee!’ said Bex, batting her eyelashes at him.

Get me a bucket, I thought. But I just coughed again and said, ‘Ahem! Shall we move Sparky into the utility room now?’

Bex managed to drag her eyes away from Dad for a millisecond and said, ‘Yeah, sure. We’ll sort out your intruder problem once and for all, won’t we, Sparky-boy?’

Sparky did not take kindly to being shut in the utility room, especially when he smelt the delicious creamy chicken curry Bex was cooking for tea, and he whined when we shut the door on him. But he soon quietened down and we heard him snuffling around the room for the treats Bex had hidden for him.

We took our plates into the sitting room and got comfy on the sofa, all three of us in a row. Bex had brought round a DVD about a couple who got a dog who was really badly behaved, but who they loved to bits. It was hilarious the kinds of things the dog got up to – like diving out of the car window while the couple were driving along, chasing a cat over all the fences in the neighbourhood, and crashing into everyone’s parties and barbecues and even into someone’s swimming pool. I was really enjoying it and it certainly took my mind off Jaffa.

Then out of the blue, the film turned into a romantic comedy! There was this toe-curlingly awful bit where the couple actually started
kissing.
URGH and double-URGH! I could almost
feel
Dad and Bex thinking lovey-dovey thoughts towards each other. I closed my eyes, scrunched my toes up inside my slippers and sat on my hands, tensing my arm away from Dad and wishing the sofa would swallow me up.

CRASH!

SQUEAL!

HOOOOOOWWWL!

What a racket . . . I opened one eye to see what was going on. But it wasn’t the dog in the film who was making the noise.

HOOOOOWWWWL!

‘Sparky?’ Bex had leaped from the sofa and was dashing towards the kitchen, where it sounded like a herd of elephants had crashed into the house, knocking a few doors down and a few bits of furniture besides.

‘What the . . . ?’ Dad jumped up as well, knocking over his empty plate and sending his drink flying.

I followed as Bex shouted, ‘Sparky! Sparky? Are you all right, boy? It’s OK, Mummy’s coming!’

By the time I got to the utility room, Bex was sitting on the floor, cradling the poor pooch in her arms, her cheeks wet with tears. The room was a total bomb site. Even the events of the past few days hadn’t prepared me for this level of devastation. The ceiling light was swinging to and fro as if something had been hanging from it, cupboard doors were teetering on their hinges, and every available surface was covered in cleaning products, cat food, washing powder and damp laundry.

But none of this was as bad as what had happened to poor old Sparky. He had blood trickling from a gash on his face and he was whimpering in fright, cowering in Bex’s arms as though he’d just seen a ghost. Or a monster.

‘This is worse than we thought,’ Dad said grimly. ‘I’ve a good mind to call the police.’

Bex shook her head, and said through her tears, ‘No point. It must be a wild animal. A fox or something.’

‘Oh, Sparky,’ I said sorrowfully. ‘I’m so sorry, boy.’

‘At least we know it’s not Jaffa,’ said Bex, putting on a brave smile.

‘That’s true,’ said Dad. ‘From the looks of poor Sparky here I have to say she’s had a narrow escape so far. We’re going to have to block up the cat flap to keep Jaffa safe.’

Too right, I thought. And she’s going to have to talk to me now, surely. If the intruder was vicious enough to upset Sparky this much, we had to find out who or what it was.

T
he next morning I had a lie-in, relieved it was Saturday at last. When I woke up it took a minute for me to recall what had happened the night before. I lifted my head and was comforted to see Jaffa sleeping soundly, curled into a neat comma at the foot of my bed. I lay back, replaying in my mind the noises Sparky had made, and shuddering at the memory. I knew Dad was probably right about keeping the cat flap locked. But the longer I lay there, staring at the ceiling, the more I felt myself needing to know who or what this intruder was, rather than simply shutting it out. I owed it to my little kitten to get rid of this monster once and for all, if only to make it up to her for not believing her in the first place, when she had insisted she was not to blame.

I got up and took a shower, the water as hot as I could stand it, the roar of it filling my ears. I fumbled with the slippery shampoo bottle and washed my hair vigorously. So how was I going to catch the culprit and teach it a lesson? The only way I could think of solving this was to stay up all night, camped out in the kitchen.

Yeah, like Dad was going to let me do that, I thought, wincing as shampoo trickled into my eyes. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to anyway. If Sparky had been scared out of his wits, what’s to say I wouldn’t be too? I pictured the nasty scratch he had received and winced again.

I towelled my hair dry and pulled on some jeans and a T-shirt – ah, the bliss of not having to wear that uniform! My mobile was flashing; I assumed Jazz had sent me a text telling me how the auditions had gone. But it was Fergus.

Hey! Missed you yesterday. Wanna come round?

My heart did a funny fluttery skip-and-a-hop into my throat. It would be good to have a chance to spend time with Fergus without Kezia around.

‘Da-ad!’ I yelled as I hurtled downstairs.

Silence.

He wouldn’t have left the house without waking me, would he? I called again as I made my way down the hall.

He hadn’t gone out. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, a mop in one hand, a bucket in the other. He looked at me grimly.

‘Oh no . . .’ I whispered, shaking my head.

‘Oh yes, I’m afraid so,’ Dad said.

‘But you locked the cat flap, I saw you,’ I protested.

‘Unfortunately it seems our intruder is not put off by the simple addition of a lock,’ he said. He gestured with his head towards the utility room. ‘Take a look.’

‘Oh . . . !’ My skin prickled horribly as I stared at what had once been a fully functioning cat flap. The plastic door was hanging loosely by a thread, and the red lock had popped off and was lying pathetically on the floor.

Dad had followed me in. ‘Thank goodness Jaffa was sleeping on your bed last night,’ he said. ‘I dread to think what the . . . whatever-it-is would have done if it had got hold of her after bashing its way in here. All I can say is, it must be really desperate, because there’s blood on the flap, look!’

I took a step nearer and saw that Dad was right: red streaks stained the edge of the plastic door. The creature had hurt itself, and I’m ashamed to say that I was almost pleased. Served it right if it was going to come crashing into our home, terrorizing my kitten, stealing her food and even attacking poor Sparky.

‘What are we going to do, Bertie?’ he asked, running his hand through his already ruffled hair. ‘At least the whatever-it-is hasn’t been able to get upstairs. I don’t much fancy our chances against it either!’

I shuddered. ‘We need help, that’s for sure,’ I said. ‘I was just going to go over to Fergus’s after breakfast. I’ll ask him if he’s got any ideas. Remember they used to have a cat, so maybe they’ve gone through this kind of thing too.’

‘Hmm,’ said Dad doubtfully. ‘Worth a try, I suppose. Where’s Jaffa now, by the way?’

‘Still shut in my room.’

‘Best place for her for now,’ Dad said. ‘Right, well, I’d better get on. I’m taking Bex out shopping,’ he said, suddenly looking sheepish. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

I grinned. ‘No, Dad. I don’t mind.’ I gave him a hug. ‘I like Bex, you know that. She’s nice. And she’s been brilliant with Jaffsie.’ I guiltily recalled her mercy dash to school earlier in the week – for my benefit she had even kept that from Dad. ‘I’ll either be at Fergus’s or round at Jazz’s place. See you later.’

After munching my way through a piece of toast, I quickly texted Fergus to say I was on my way. Then I hunted out a pair of trainers and pulled them on.

Another good thing about Dad spending time with Bex, I thought as I crossed the road to number 15, was that he was too wrapped up in his own life to tease me about Fergus any more. When I first met Fergus, Dad was always flashing me a cheeky grin and raising his eyebrows knowingly whenever I mentioned his name. I had worked out quite a while ago that the best way of dealing with this kind of behaviour was to shoot Dad a particularly withering look and then turn my back on him, but now I didn’t even need to bother.

I rang the doorbell, quickly running my hands through my hair, squaring my shoulders and holding my head high. Not for Fergus’s benefit, by the way. It was Fiona, his mum, who made me feel like a total scruff-bag. She and I got on well enough these days, but she had this way of sizing me up, looking me up and down with a slightly sniffy air to check out what I was wearing. This irritated me as well as making me feel uncomfortable, as until I’d met her I’d never been bothered about being scruffy: it was just the way I was. But she was always so immaculate. I was convinced she looked perfect even when she woke up first thing in the morning. Maybe she slept on her back with her hands by her sides, like Sleeping Beauty, and didn’t move a muscle all night . . .

I was biting back a smirk at this image when the door opened. It was Fergus’s dad.

‘Oh, hi!’ I said, knocked off balance. I hadn’t expected Gavin to be at home. He was away so much with his work that I hadn’t seen him for ages. He was in the music business, a fact Jazz had been ultra-speedy in wheedling out of Fergus when they had first met. He had always seemed lovely – friendly and cheery, and quiet too. (Not much like his wife!) I had long ago decided that Fergus might
look
a lot like Fiona, but he had definitely got his personality from his dad.

‘Hello, Bertie,’ he said, his face lighting up with a warm smile. ‘Lovely to see you! I’ll call Fergus. He’s listening to music in his room – probably got his headphones on with the volume turned up so loud he won’t have heard the door!’

At that moment, Fiona came clip-clopping down the hall on her dainty heels, saying, ‘What is it, Gavin darling? I’ve got to shoot out in a sec to see that– oh, it’s you, Bertie darling,’ she said, catching sight of me just in time to plaster on one of her children’s-TV-presenter smiles. ‘Come in, come in.’ She stiffly held out one arm in as welcoming a gesture as I was ever likely to get from her and looked pointedly at my trainers. I took them off and left them neatly by the mat, as was expected of anyone who entered the hallowed shrine of Mrs Fiona Neat-as-a Pin Meerley.

Gavin rolled his eyes at me from behind his wife’s back and then winked.

Fiona showed me into her pristine monochrome sitting room. Not for the first time this habit of hers struck me as rather formal – at my house everyone automatically headed for the kitchen. I sat down nervously on the edge of one of the white armchairs, anxious as always to avoid leaving any mark. As I fiddled with the hem of my T-shirt, Fiona arranged herself neatly on a white sofa opposite me, patting the seat next to her for me to come and join her. She was rather like a cat herself, I thought, as I watched her smooth her already perfectly coiffed hair and arrange her skirt. I shyly moved to sit beside her.