Smudge the Stolen Kitten (6 page)

Chapter Seven

Smudge was still hiding in the long grass, wondering what to do. He was dreadfully hungry. If he was at home, he was sure it would be teatime. A bowl of crunchy biscuits, or perhaps some of the meaty stuff he really liked. The thought of food made him more determined. He had to go home. He crept out of the clump of grass, and
looked around the alleyway worriedly. He had no idea if he was close to Olivia’s house or not.

Perhaps he could call for Olivia? But then, he was still very close to the house. What if that boy heard him?

He took a few steps down the alley, his fur prickling. The air felt strange, and it was making him edgy. He carried on, hoping desperately that he would see some sign of Olivia. Wouldn’t she come and look for him? Now he was further away from Rob’s house, he risked mewing hopefully. But no one was around to hear him.

A large raindrop landed suddenly on his nose, and he jumped back in surprise. It was followed by another and another, and in seconds Smudge’s
fur was soaked and clinging to him. The rain was followed by a strange eerie flash that seemed to split the dark sky and then a rolling boom of thunder. Smudge shot across the alley to the tumbledown garages, looking for a place to hide. They were all locked up, but he spotted a hole, where a brick had come loose, and squeezed himself inside. There was another crash of thunder. Startled, he jumped back, bumping into a pile of boxes and paint tins, which fell clattering all around him.

Smudge scampered away with a terrified squeak. When he looked back, he saw that a heavy wooden box had fallen right in front of his hole. He was trapped.

He sprang forward, frantically mewing and clawing at the box, but it was far too heavy for him to move.

At last he stopped scrabbling, and sat back, exhausted. He wove his way through the dusty darkness, round the piles of boxes and bikes and all sorts of rubbish that was stored in the garage, hoping to find another hole. But he couldn’t find even the tiniest gap.

Miserably he settled down on a pile of old dust sheets. It was cold, and he was starving, and he wanted to be on Olivia’s lap on the sofa. Sadly, he snuffled himself to sleep.

“Look at the rain,” Olivia whispered, peering out of the living-room window.

Mum came up behind her, and hugged her. “I’m sure he’s tucked himself away somewhere safe. We’ll find him tomorrow.”

“He’s only ever been out in the garden with us.” Olivia turned to look at Mum, her eyes wide and worried. “He’s never been out in the rain! And the thunder’s so scary, he must be terrified.”

“Like you,” Ben muttered from her doorway. But he didn’t seem to be putting much effort into teasing her. He sounded too miserable to bother. He came over to the window, and stared at the rain. “Rob’s dad phoned just now. He’s asked all the neighbours to look out for Smudge, but he had to stop looking and come back inside – he said he couldn’t see anything, it was raining so hard.”

Their dad came in, carrying the phone. “Olivia, it’s Lucie on the phone for you.”

Olivia took the phone reluctantly. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to talk to Lucie or not. She desperately wanted to tell someone how angry she was with Rob, but at the same time she
didn’t want to have to say that Smudge was missing.

“Hi, Olivia! Mum says I can come round to yours tomorrow, if you like. Would that be OK with your mum?”

“I don’t know…” Olivia whispered, her eyes prickling with tears.

“Oh, are you going out?” Lucie’s voice was disappointed. “I was hoping we could play with Smudge. I really want to see him!”

Olivia sniffed, and then sobbed. “He’s gone!”

There was a confused silence on the other end of the line. “You mean, he had to go back to the Rescue Centre?” Lucie said at last.

“No. You know Rob was coming for tea with Ben – he took him.”

“Rob Ford stole your kitten?” Lucie sounded as though she didn’t quite believe it.

Olivia gave a cross little laugh. “I know it sounds stupid, but he really did! He even owned up to it. But then Smudge tried to get away from him and climbed out of his bedroom window, and now we don’t know where he is!”

“What are you going to do?” Lucie whispered in horror.

“We’re going to look for him tomorrow – Mum says it’s too dark to go round there now. But he could be anywhere, Lucie. And it’s a horrible night.”

“Can I come and help you look? I bet my mum will come too. The more
people the more chance there is we’ll spot him,” Lucie suggested.

For the first time since she’d realized Smudge was gone, Olivia felt a little bit better. “Would you really help look?”

“Call me tomorrow and let me know when,” Lucie told her firmly. “We’ll find him.”

“OK,” Olivia whispered. “Thanks, Lucie. See you in the morning.” She put the phone back in its cradle. “Lucie’s going to come over and help us look,” she explained to Mum and Dad.

Dad nodded. “That’s nice of her. Look, I think you should go to bed. You’re only sitting here making yourself feel worse. And we want to get up early and go and look for Smudge.”

Olivia nodded, and went up to her room, but she didn’t think she’d be able to get to sleep. And when she did, she was sure she was going to dream about Smudge all night. Smudge lost and all alone, and wondering why she hadn’t come to find him.

She lay in her warm bed, listening to the rain drumming on the roof outside her window, and hoping that Smudge was tucked away somewhere safe. But he could be anywhere, she thought worriedly, turning over, and huddling under her duvet. What if they never found him? What would they say to the people from the Rescue Centre? Debbie had said they would call in the next few days to see how they were getting on, and whether Smudge was settling in. They would have to tell her that they had lost him! Or actually, that a stupid, selfish, idiot boy had stolen him.

Olivia thumped her pillow. At least being angry with Rob had stopped her wanting to cry. She wondered if someone could be sent to prison for
stealing a kitten. Rob certainly deserved it. Dreamily, she imagined Rob in handcuffs, and herself standing there, with Smudge purring in her arms, watching as the police led him away.

It seemed so real. For a moment, she could hear Smudge purring, she was sure. But it was only the rain, beating against her window.

Chapter Eight

Smudge woke up, shivering. Although he had huddled himself into the pile of dustsheets, it was freezing inside the garage. He felt so cold he could hardly move. At last he stood up gingerly, stretching out his paws and fluffing up his fur to keep himself as warm as possible. He was sure that he was colder because he was so hungry. The last food
he’d had was the sandwich in that boy’s bag yesterday afternoon, and now he felt horribly empty.

It was getting light. There were dirty, greyish windows at the top of the walls, just under the roof, and a little watery sunshine was fighting its way in. Somehow it made Smudge feel more cheerful, even if it wasn’t making him much warmer. In the light he could see that the garage was full of piles of old junk – bits of cars and bikes, piles of pots of paint, and lots of dust. Last night it had just been strange shapes that wobbled when he scurried past them. It was all a lot less scary in the daylight.

He jumped down from his pile of dust sheets, his legs still stiff and achy
from the cold, and started to search for a way out. Last night, with the rain pouring down, the garage had at least been a shelter. Now it was stopping him going home to Olivia, and he was determined to escape. Surely now it was lighter he would be able to find another hole somewhere? Smudge made his way along the wall, sniffing and nudging at the concrete blocks.

Edging round the side of a large box, his whiskers twitched hopefully as he spotted a little light coming through a crack at the bottom of the wall. He nosed at it eagerly, and then his whiskers drooped again. It was such a very small gap. But he had to try. The rest of the walls were made from solid concrete blocks, but here
one of the blocks seemed to have broken, and it had been patched up with a metal sheet on the outside. If he wriggled into the dark gap between the blocks, there was a tiny hole. Perhaps if he clawed at it for a while, it might give way?

Smudge scrabbled hopefully, his tiny claws making an eerie screeching noise against the rough metal sheet. He scratched and scraped for what seemed like ages, till his claws ached, but when he stopped and pressed his nose against the hole, it didn’t seem to have got any bigger at all…

“Olivia! What time is it?” Dad moaned.

“Um, half-past five. You said we’d get up early and go straight round to Rob’s!”

“I meant more like seven…” Dad murmured wearily.

“Go back to bed until half-past six,” 
Mum added. “We can’t go and wake up Rob’s family this early.”

Olivia sighed. She supposed Mum was right. But she had been lying awake since five, watching her bedroom get lighter and lighter. As soon as it seemed to be light enough to search for a kitten, she had got up.

She mooched back into her room, and lay down on her bed. She wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep. Instead she grabbed a notebook from her bedside table, and started to make a list of things it would be useful to take with them on the search.

A torch, in case they had to look anywhere dark, Olivia thought. Under a shed or something like that. Smudge’s favourite snacks. He really
liked the little heart-shaped chicken ones. Olivia had done a taste test on five different sorts, and he always went for the chicken ones first. If he was stuck up a tree or anything like that, he would definitely come down for them.

What else? Olivia chewed the end of her pencil. A ladder? She wasn’t sure Dad would want to carry one around.

“Oh, you’re awake!” Mum put her head round Olivia’s door. Olivia gazed up at her. Of course she was! How could she go back to sleep?

“Can I get up?” she asked eagerly.

Mum nodded. “Yes. But we’re not going anywhere until you’ve had some breakfast. Just a quick bowl of cereal, that’s all,” she added, seeing Olivia was
about to moan. “If you eat, you’ll be able to hunt for him better.”

Olivia dressed quickly, and then ran downstairs to gulp down the bowl of cereal that Mum insisted on. Then she fetched the torch and the snacks, and stood by the front door, waiting impatiently for Mum and Dad and Ben.

“What about Lucie?” she asked Mum, who was putting on her coat.

“I’ve texted her mum. It’s still only seven-thirty, Olivia, I didn’t want to get her out of bed. But I’ve told her where we’ll be; she can call my mobile if she and Lucie want to come.”

Dad gave an enormous yawn. “Everyone ready?”

They met Rob’s dad halfway down Rob’s road, crouching down to look under a big wheelie bin.

“No luck yet then?” Mum asked.

He shook his head. “Not yet. But he can’t have gone far. I’m really sorry about this. Rob feels terrible. He’s looking further up the road with his mum.”

So he should!
Olivia thought. But being furious with Rob didn’t really help.

She and Ben and Mum and Dad set off up the road, calling and peering over fences. Olivia kept shaking the treats, hoping to see a little grey kitten dash eagerly towards her, like he did at home.

Half an hour later, they were back outside Rob’s house, and everyone looked rather hopeless. Especially Rob. It seemed as though he’d been crying,
and Olivia almost felt sorry for him.

“Not a sign,” Dad said, frowning. “And none of the people we asked had spotted him.”

“Should we go further? The next street?” Rob’s mum asked doubtfully.

“Oh, look!” Mum pointed down the road.

“What is it? Can you see him?” Olivia gasped.

“Sorry, Olivia. It’s Lucie, down at the end of the road, with her mum.”

Lucie came runninng up the road as soon as she spotted Olivia. “We’ll find him,” she promised, seeing her friend’s miserable face and hugging her tightly.

“I’m sure we will,” her mum agreed, as they reached the little crowd
outside Rob’s house. “There’s lots of us looking now.”

Everyone was still discussing where to look next.

“He couldn’t still be in your garden, hidden away?” Olivia suggested.

“We looked. We really did,” Rob mumbled.

But his mum nodded. “We did, but if Smudge was frightened, he might have hidden himself. Maybe if Ben and Olivia went and called him? It’s worth a try, anyway.” She led them down the side of the house and into the back garden, and went inside to make some tea for everyone.

“Smudge! Smudge!” Olivia shook the cat treats again and again, and Ben jingled Smudge’s favourite ball.
Lucie walked around the garden searching under all the bushes. But Smudge didn’t appear. The garden was so quiet and empty.

I don’t think we’re ever going to find him
, Olivia thought, staring sadly at the house. She knew Smudge had been here just last night, but he hadn’t left even the tiniest clue. “Is that your window?” she asked Rob, who was lurking on the patio. She could see football stickers on a window that looked desperately high up. Had Smudge really climbed out of there?

Lucie gulped. “That’s so high!”

Rob nodded miserably. “I think he must have jumped into that tree.”

The girls went over to look at it. It was a plum tree – they could see the
odd fruit still left at the top of the branches. It filled the gap between the house and the fence, and some of the branches spilled over the other side.

“What’s over there?” Ben asked, trying to scramble up and grab the top of the fence.

“Just some old garages and stuff. There’s an alley that runs from the road behind ours,” Rob said. “But the fence is really solid. He couldn’t have got under it. He must have gone round the side of the house and out the front.”

But Olivia stared at the tree and the fence, thoughtfully. “What if he didn’t go under the fence? Couldn’t he have gone
over
it?”

“Of course not, look how tall it is…” Ben trailed off. “Oh! From the tree!”

Olivia nodded. “How do we get round there?”

Rob lead them round the side of the house, and Ben popped his head through the back door to explain they were going to look in the alleyway.

“We’ll just be five minutes,” he said quickly, and they vanished into the alley before anyone had time to stop them.

“Why didn’t we think of it before?” Rob muttered, as they hurried off. “We just thought he must have gone out the front way.”

The alley ran along halfway between Rob’s house and the one next door, but they had to go into the next street to get into it. It was very narrow, with a row of tumbledown old garages – and
lots of hiding places for a kitten.

“Smudge!” Olivia tore the treats packet open with her teeth, and shook out a handful.

Inside the garage, Smudge was pacing up and down by the hole in the wall. He had to keep trying – he had to get out! He scraped determinedly at the metal sheet, ignoring his sore paws. Then his ears pricked up suddenly as he heard the sound of a familiar voice. Was that Olivia? Had she come to find him? He scrabbled furiously at the wall again, trying to show her where he was.

“Hey, what was that?” Lucie said suddenly. “Something scratching!”

Everyone froze, holding their breath, waiting for the sound again.

“I can’t hear anything!” Ben hissed.

“Shh! Listen, there it is again!” Lucie whispered.

Olivia jumped, dropping half the treats on the ground. “I heard it too! It must be him. Smudge, where are you?” she called.