Authors: Anna Wilson
Kitten Wars
For Lucy and Thomas,
who are very happy you’ve
come back to us, Jet!
Contents
A Change of Heart
F
irst of all, let me get one thing straight. My dad never liked cats. And when I say ‘never’, I mean ‘never ever’. He was
the sort of man who would hiss, spit and shout if a cat had the audacity to enter our garden.
‘Nasty creatures,’ he’d say. ‘And they dig up the bulbs and do their business everywhere.’
Not that Dad was much of a gardener, as I was constantly pointing out whenever a cat dared to use one of the plant pots on the patio as a public loo.
‘You’re not exactly into gardening, Dad, so what does it matter?’
‘It matters, Bertie, because I’m never going to get the chance to be “into gardening”, as you put it, if every time I plant so much as a single puny snowdrop, a cat comes
along and chucks the bulb over its shoulder and pees in the hole it’s left behind.’
I gave Dad my usual response to anything ridiculous that he said: I rolled my eyes. As if cats went around chucking things over their shoulders! Anyone with half an ounce of brain knew that this
kind of thing never happened.
Even someone like me, who had once been friends with a cat who talked.
Yes, OK, so now you’re thinking
I’m
the loony in the family. Well, that’s where you’d be wrong, because I
was
able to talk to this particular cat. Or
rather, he was able to talk to me . . . What I mean is, no one else seemed to be able to understand him the way I did. His name was Kaboodle and he was quite a character – and that’s
putting it mildly. From the day he catapulted into my life to the day he softly padded away, he created nothing short of chaos wherever he went.
But I’m getting ahead of myself here. The thing is, Dad had always disliked cats so much that I had to come up with the brainwave of setting up a pet-sitting service, so that I could at
least look after someone else’s cat even if I wasn’t allowed one of my own. And that’s how I met Kaboodle. His owner, Fenella Pinkington (an actress and lover of all things pink)
lived opposite us and asked me to look after Kaboodle whenever she was away. In fact, Pinkella (as I called her, but only in my head – I’m not that rude) was my first ever pet-sitting
customer. And thanks to Kaboodle trying to
eat
the only other pets I got to look after, she was pretty much my last. So I suppose you’d be forgiven for thinking that my dad must have
been right about cats all along and they were nothing but trouble.
Wrong.
As Kaboodle was always fond of telling me, ‘You humans will never understand the feline species.’
Even though he seemed to leave disaster in his wake, in the end Kaboodle made sure that Dad and I were much better off than when we’d first met the crafty little cat. Kaboodle turned out
to be the friend I needed while my dad was too busy stuck in his dead-end job to pay me much attention, and it has to be said that it was thanks to Kaboodle that Dad eventually landed the job of
his dreams: writing plays that actually got performed on a real, live stage!
In fact, Kaboodle and Pinkella became so much a part of our lives that when they decided to move away, Dad had been as sad as I was. Which is possibly why he didn’t immediately throw a
wobbly about Kaboodle’s leaving present: a tiny, fluffy, orange and white kitten. For me. To keep.
So that’s how Jaffa came to live with us. Pretty little Jaffa Cake: my very own marmalade cat.
When Kaboodle arrived with the tiny bundle and plonked her down on our front step I held my breath for so long I nearly stopped breathing altogether.
‘I know how much you are going to miss me,’ he drawled airily, while Dad and Pinkella exchanged their fond farewells. I couldn’t help grinning through my tears. Dear little
Kaboodle, as immodest as ever. ‘So I thought you might appreciate some company. Her name is Perdita but you will no doubt want to change that . . .’
She was, apart from Kaboodle, of course, the cutest, most heart-scrunchingly gorgeous kitten I had ever imagined, let alone actually
seen
in real life. She looked up at me with her
alarmingly clear light blue eyes and frowned in a worried sort of way, as if she knew there might be a possibility of Dad telling her to get lost. Those eyes could melt icebergs, I’m telling
you.
In fact they managed to melt something even more immovable – Dad’s heart. Before I could think of any arguments to persuade him to say ‘yes’ to me having a cat of my own,
Pinkella was cooing, ‘Isn’t it
sweeeeeeet
– Kaboodle’s brought you a goodbye present!’
Dad winked at me as if to say, ‘What a loony!’ and said aloud, ‘It’s very kind of you, Fenella. Bertie’s always wanted a cat of her own. So, Bertie, what are you
going to call her?’
‘I – sorry, what was that you just said?’
‘What are you going to call the kitten Fenella’s brought you?’ Dad repeated.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or start crying again. I felt as though I could do both at once. Kaboodle had well and truly got one over on Dad. He wasn’t going to say no to the
kitten now he thought it was from Pinkella. I shot her a quick look just to make sure she wasn’t about to blow it, but she just smiled.
Could it be that I was really seeing my biggest dream come true?
I scooped up the little orange ball, whispered a quiet thank you to Kaboodle, thanked Pinkella out loud and carried the fluffy creature indoors while Dad said a final round of farewells to
Pinkella.
The first thing I did once I was on my own with the kitten was to lift her up to my face and say softly: ‘Welcome to your new home! I hope you and I are going to be friends.’
The kitten stared back at me with those huge, crystal-clear eyes.
I tried again, ‘So, Kaboodle said you were related. Said you were called Purr-something? But he was right – I think I’m going to have to change that, I’m afraid. I
can’t even remember it properly. Do you mind if I choose you a new name?’ I remembered how grumpy Kaboodle had been about humans just ‘assuming that they could do what they wanted
with us felines without asking’.
But the kitten gave only that unnerving wide-eyed innocent stare as an answer.
I was feeling a bit stupid now. ‘I – er – I guess I was thinking that if you and Kaboodle are related, you can probably talk too. I know cats don’t talk unless
they’ve got something really important to say, and I know we humans are not that great at being observant, cos Kaboodle was always telling me that . . .’ I tailed off. I was babbling
now and starting to feel embarrassed as well as stupid. I glanced at the kitten in desperation.
Stare, stare, stare.
‘Oh well, I s’pose it’s a bit freaky, being taken away from your mum and dumped on a stranger’s doorstep. Maybe you’d like something to eat?’ A surge of panic
hit me as I realized I had no idea what tiny kittens ate. Kaboodle had not exactly given me a list of instructions like the ones Pinkella had when I’d been left in charge of him.
The marmalade bundle gave that worried frown again, then opening her tiny mouth she showed a full set of needle-like teeth and made as if to mew. But no sound came out. It was unbearably sad to
look at, as if she were frantically trying to tell me something but just couldn’t. It was all there in her eyes: anxiety, and a lost look that tugged at me dreadfully.
I stroked her gently and made soothing noises. ‘There, there, little one. Don’t worry. You’ll be safe with me. I’ll get you something nice to eat.’
The front door banged; the kitten and I jumped. She sank her claws into me and clung on while I winced and tried hard not to yelp so I didn’t frighten her even more.
Dad burst out laughing when he saw us. ‘Ha! Making her mark already, is she?’
I scowled. ‘Very funny, Dad. I think she thinks I’m a pincushion.’
‘She’s cute though, isn’t she?’ His face crumpled and his eyes went shiny.
My jaw dropped and it had nothing to do with the fact that the kitten was giving me acupuncture. Something weird had happened to Dad. His face had that gooey expression on it that normal people
reserve for babies and small furry creatures. No surprise there then, seeing as I was holding a small, furry baby animal. Except that this was DAD, for goodness sake – the same Dad who had
always made it quite clear that the day a cat moved in to live with us would be the day he moved out.
‘Er – are you feeling OK?’ I asked him, finally succeeding in prising the kitten’s claws from my skin and settling down in a chair so that I could hold her more
comfortably. She immediately leaped from my lap and bounced over to Dad.
He scooped her up in his big square hands and cooed, ‘I’m feeling just fine. And how are
you
feeling, little kitty?’
My eyeballs rolled so far back I could almost see the inside of my brain. Great. Dad had gone loony and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, I had finally been given a cat of my own only to
discover that she preferred my dad to me.
Dad glanced up. ‘So, like I said – what are you going to call her? I guess it has to be something to do with her colour. She’s really gingery, isn’t she? Not many other
colours in her fur . . . You know, I think it’s quite unusual to get a ginger female. They’re normally tomcats. Hey! What about “Ginger Snap”?’
I bristled. Dad was
not
going to name her! ‘No way! That’s too, er, snappy.’ I frowned. ‘She’s too soft for a name like that.’
‘You’re right. And anyway, she’s more marmalade than ginger, like
Orlando the Marmalade Cat
,’ Dad said wistfully. ‘I used to love that story.’
‘I am
not
calling her Orlando.’ My voice rose with irritation. ‘Imagine shouting that down the road! Jazz would never let me get away with it.’
‘All right. So . . . something orangey,’ Dad mused. ‘What about Tango?’
‘Listen,’ I said sternly. ‘She’s
my
kitten – I get to choose the name. Kaboodle said— I mean,’ I interrupted myself hastily. ‘I – I
was thinking of Jaffa Cakes and Jaffa oranges – so maybe just . . . Jaffa?’
‘Jaffa,’ Dad repeated, trying it for size. ‘Yes! I like it.’ He laughed and stroked the little kitten’s head as she re-emerged from her self-made hidey hole in his
elbow. ‘I think she likes that too – she’s smiling!’
I jumped up and ran over. Her mouth was turned up a bit at the edges. Was she really smiling?
‘So, little one, you like the name? Little Jaffa,’ I whispered, putting my face close to hers. But however eager I was to hear something, it did not look as though this little kitten
was going to talk to me. She wasn’t even purring. She was completely silent.
Dad and I spent the next couple of hours playing with Jaffa, cuddling her and watching her sleep. And she sure liked to sleep. One minute she’d be charging around the
living room floor, chasing a bit of string, the next she’d be collapsed in a heap, fast asleep on the spot.
‘This beats working any day!’ Dad chuckled, as he let Jaffa run up and down his arms. She seemed to have decided that Dad was a giant playground and that his shoulders were the
safest place to sit.
I know it sounds weird, but even without being able to talk to her, I could tell she had a completely different personality from Kaboodle. He had been pretty self-contained: the sort of cat who
was very sure of himself and absolutely certain that everyone other than him was not worth bothering with. He didn’t really need me at all. In fact, it was more like the other way round.