The Kitten Hunt (3 page)

I think that shiver was what made me put a notice through the door. Whatever it was, there was definitely a voice inside me saying that I should get to know that kitten better – even if it
did mean having to put up with Pinkella patting my hair and calling me Roberta.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I could be quite a good business woman. In fact, I could have gone on that programme on the telly called
In the Line of Fire,
where
you have to present a new idea for a business and if you are good the man with the grey hair and the face like an angry potato says, ‘You’re hired!’ and if you are rubbish, he
says, ‘You’re fired!’

Maybe if I entered my pet-sitting idea on the programme I could get on it, I thought. It would be fun even if I was fired, as then I could say, ‘Well, who cares? Your face looks like an
angry potato.’ It would give me a lot of satisfaction, actually.

One of the things that made me excited about the Pet-Sitting Service was that it would mean I would get some calls on my mobile, which I was now keeping glued to my side at all times. I had not
received any calls for a long time as I had not been allowed to
make
any calls myself for over a year. This was all because of the incident with the first phone bill. Apparently I had spent
enough money chatting to Jazz to feed a family of five for a month – Dad’s words, not mine, in case you hadn’t guessed. So I was only allowed to use it for emergencies from then
on, such as if I was going to be coming out of school late or if Dad needed to tell me that he would be late back from work. But after the incident with the phone bill I was not allowed to use it
to call my friends (especially Jazz) or text anyone. And seeing as Dad had never once called me on it and I had never once called him, I hadn’t really seen the point in having it up until
now.

As soon as Jazz had been released from her many weekend commitments (ballet followed by tap followed by piano followed by singing – you’d never have guessed she wants to be a
celebrity pop-star-singer-songwriter when she grows up, would you?) I went round to hers to tell her everything.

‘It’s
such
a cool idea, Bert!’ she said, hugging me and jumping up and down, which made my face squish uncomfortably into the zip on her hoody.

‘Yeah,’ I said, prising her off. ‘You want to help?’

‘You bet!’ Jazz cried, punching the air and swivelling round on the spot in one of her so-called funky dance move s. ‘Sooo, who d’you reckon will call first? I hope
it’s that lady with the guinea pigs. I loooove guinea pigs!’ she squealed, sounding a bit like one herself.

‘Which lady with the guinea pigs?’ I asked, feeling a bit miffed that I had not known about a lady with guinea pigs in our street. But Jazz wasn’t listening – she was
whirling round her room, jabbering away about all the animals we’d soon be looking after and how much money we’d be making.

I kept glancing at my phone, which I’d put on Jazz’s bed so that I would hear it clearly when it rang. It was bound to ring soon, wasn’t it? Of course it was, I told myself. In
fact, now that I was on course for being Pet-Sitter and Business Wo man of the Year, my phone was going to be ringing so much I might actually have to buy
another
one to keep up with the
demand.

T
hree whole days went by and no one called. I was jittery with nerves So was Jazz, which made me even more jittery as she kept asking, ‘You
will tell me the
moment
someone calls, won’t you?’ Every time the house phone rang I jumped, thinking it was my mobile This shows just how agonizingly jittery I really was, as
the two phones do not sound remotely the same: my phone has a weird ringtone on it that Jazz recorded, which is her voice shouting,
Yay, Bertie! Yay, Bertie!
like some kind of manic American
cheerleader (She did it for a laugh one break time. I don’t know how to get rid of it, and Jazz won’t get rid of it for me.)

‘It was such a lame plan in the first place,’ I said to Jazz on Day Three, slumping into her purple beanbag with the stars on. ‘I don’t know why I thought I could change
my life overnight with some stupid babyish pet-sitting idea.’

‘Hey, don’t get stressy!’ Jazz said, sounding, if I may be so bold, quite stressy herself. ‘Maybe the neighbours haven’t gone through their post yet. We get so many
pizza leaflets and stuff. Mum just chucks them all on the side and goes through everything at the weekend.’

‘Oh, huge amounts of thanks for your undying support, dear friend,’ I said sarcastically. ‘So my leaflet is like junk mail, you mean?’

Jazz ignored me and carried on pacing up and down her room, ticking off possible reasons for our neighbours’ non-communicativeness. ‘Or maybe no one needs a pet-sitter right now.
It’s not the holidays yet. Maybe they’ve pinned your notice up and they’ll call you when they need you.’

I huffed and puffed and took out all my grumpiness on Jazz, which was unfair, but luckily for our friendship Jazz is pretty good at putting up with my moods (i. e. ignoring them), and
double-luckily I didn’t have to keep up the grumpiness for long as someone finally called the next afternoon.

Unfortunately it was at a very inconvenient time and completely took me by surprise. This was mainly because it was the one day when Dad had actually offered to pick me up from school rather
than making me take the bus.

‘What the—?’ Dad leaped about a mile and a half out of his seat and the car lurched dangerously to the right, causing the traffic coming in the other direction to swerve and
honk noisily at us. A man leaned out of his car window and shouted and made a sign with his hand that was definitely not a friendly kind of sign.

‘It’s just my phone,’ I said, rummaging in my bag and trying to push down the excited and flut-tery feelings in my tummy and smother them with a layer of calmness instead.

‘Your
what
?’ Dad snapped, glaring at me in the rear-view mirror.

‘My phone – you know, that extremely modern invention which allows humankind to converse with other members of the species from a distance while— I’d better answer
it,’ I said hastily and not at all calmly. ‘Hello?’

‘Hello, sweetie!’

I froze.

‘Hello?’ the voice continued. ‘That is Roberta Fletcher, isn’t it?

No,it’s BERTIE Fletcher, I screamed inside my head, all tangled up with panic and annoyance and confusion.

‘It’s Fenella Pinkington, your neighbour from over the road?’

I’d kind of guessed that, SWEETIE. Why on earth was
she
calling?

‘I’m ringing in response to your imaginative business idea . . . ’ She paused. ‘The Pet-Sitting Service?’

Of course – the kitten! My tummy clenched itself into a ball as tight and spiky as a baby hedgehog.

‘Ye-es?’ I said hesitantly.

‘Well, darling, I was wondering if you might like to come and meet my little kitty-cat.’ Pinkella wittered on in my ear while I was quietly freaking in my seat. How was I going to
talk about my Pet-Sitting Service right that instant with Dad listening in?

‘I was wondering if you’d be free—’ Pinkella continued.

‘Oh, right, sorry . Wrong number,’ I said quickly, and cut her off.

Darnation and hell-busters! I was in a right state. Why did she have to call while I was in the car with Dad? This was my one and only call from a true and genuine client wanting my Pet-Sitting
Services, and I’d just gone and put the phone down on her! Even if it was Pinkella Deville, I still wanted her custom – especially since she was the only person to bother replying to my
advert and double-especially since she was the owner of that seriously cute, ink-splodge-to-die-for kitten.

‘Bit odd, you getting a call,’ said Dad, glancing at me in the mirror again, his eyebrows raised in a suspicious expression.

‘Hmm,’ I said, in a non-committal way, looking out of the window.

‘Why have you even got your phone on anyway? I’m the only person with the number and I’m right here. You should turn it off to save the batteries. Unless . . . You and Jazz
haven’t been calling each other again, have you? What on earth have you two got to talk about that’s so important you need to call each other every moment of every day? You’re in
school together the whole time, for heaven’s sake. I bet you’ve been texting too. I t’ll cost a fortune! You know that phone is only for emergencies.’

I slouched in my seat and rolled my eyes. ( No wonder he worked on the
Daily Ranter
, I thought. He
was
the daily ranter. No, make that the
hourly
ranter.)

‘Yes, Dad,’ I said wearily. ‘I mean, no, Dad. I mean . . . ’

I was not really listening to him as I was surreptitiously saving Pinkella’s number so that I could call her back later. Meanwhile my brain continued whirring into a head-spin. What would
I say? I had been quite rude, cutting her off like that.

I know! I had a flash of inspiration. I’d tell Pinkella it was
Jazz
who had answered the call because she had taken my phone home instead of hers by mistake.

Dad parked the car, and I scuttled inside and up to my bedroom for some privacy.

‘Don’t you want a snack?’ Dad called after me.

‘In a minute – need the loo!’ I called back, and veered into the bathroom to put Dad off my scent. I needn’t have worried though – Dad was already disappearing into
his study to get on with yet more work.

But for once, I didn’t care.

I shut the bathroom door and locked it just in case and then sat down on the edge of the bath. I took a deep breath and then turned my phone back on. I called up Pinkella’s number on my
screen and pressed the green dial button. She answered on the second ring.

‘Hello?’

‘Er, yes, hello – erm, it’s Bertie Fletcher.’

‘Oh, hello, Roberta,’ said Pinkella, sounding puzzled. ‘That’s funny. I tried ringing you a few minutes ago and the person who answered told me I’d got the wrong
number.’

‘Ye-es,’ I faltered. ‘That was my, er, my assistant, er, Jasmeena.’ I used her full name as it sounded more serious than ‘Jazz’. ‘Well, she’s more
of a friend than an assistant, but she assists me, you see,’ I warbled, wincing and thinking what an utter nut-brain I sounded.

‘Oh dear, sweetie! If you take my advice, you’ll get yourself a new assistant – one who knows a thing or two about assisting! Heeeheeeheee!’ she twittered in that
tinkling titter of hers. Even her voice sounds pink, I thought.

‘Yes, I – I’m thinking of doing just that,’ I said, feeling a bit of confidence return, and putting on the most professional voice I could under the circumstances.
‘So, how can I help you, Pin— Ms Pinkington? I hear that you received one of my leaflets?’ I hoped my more businesslike tone would stop her from thinking I was actually a bonkers
person who could not be trusted with looking after a used tea bag, let alone her beloved cat.

‘Please, call me Fenella, sweetie,’ she tinkled. ‘Yes,I was simply
thrilled
to get your leaflet – it came absolutely in the nick of time. You see, I’m due to
go away for a couple of weeks and I was starting to get into a teensy bit of a panic about poor little Kaboodle here. Isn’t that right, Kaboodle?’

At that point I heard a very loud purring noise right in my ear. I nearly dropped the phone.

‘There! Did you hear that, sweetie? Kaboodle agrees with me!’ said the worryingly insane woman on the other end of the phone. ‘You see,’ she continued, as I shook my head
sadly, ‘my previous cat, Pusskins, God rest his soul, used to have a room at the gorgeous cat hotel in town – do you know it?’ She broke off to blow her nose.

Oh no. She’s going to start blubbing down the phone about her old dead cat, I panicked. ‘Er, no, no I don’t,’ I said, hastily adding, ‘but I’m sure it’s
lovely.’

‘Yes,’ sniffed Pinkella. ‘“Purrfect Heaven” it’s called. It’s just off the high street, behind that hairdresser’s with the lovely fuchsia
curtains. Of course, poor Pusskins has gone to the real purrfect heaven in the sky now . . . Anyway, I’m getting off the point,’ she sighed and blew her nose again.