Paws and Whiskers (5 page)

‘You really truly have tickets, Leonie?’ she asked cautiously.

‘Really truly, I promise,’ I said.

‘Then OK, yes please!’ said Julie.

So we went to pick her up on Saturday morning, Mum and Jumbo and me, and then we all got the train to London. Jumbo was wild with excitement because he loves trains, and he kept tapping on the carriage window and shrieking, ‘Look, there’s a
train
!’ whenever he saw one. He saw one all too frequently, and even Julie was a bit sick of him by the time we got to Waterloo. Then we went to a big building on the South Bank – and when we got inside, we saw a great long queue, all the way up the stairs, of girls waiting to see Jenna Williams.

‘Oh goodness, look at all those girls!’ said Julie. ‘Come on, we’d better find the end of the queue.’

‘We don’t have to wait, do we, Mum?’ I said.

‘Apparently not,’ said Mum, and she had a word
with one of the ushers in charge of the queue.

‘Oh, yes, so you’re Leonie!’ said the usher. ‘Jenna told me to look out for you. Come this way. She’s in the Green Room signing some books.’

Julie was watching with her mouth open. ‘You actually
do
know Jenna Williams!’ she gasped. ‘Oh my goodness, is she
really
your granny?’

‘No, not really – but she signed herself Granny on her email, honestly,’ I said. ‘Oh heavens, my tummy’s gone all funny! I’m really going to meet her!’

‘I feel a bit wobbly too!’ said Julie. ‘I’m scared!’

‘Harry and I think you two are daft,’ said Jumbo. ‘Jenna Williams is just a boring lady who writes books with lots of words. There are no pictures of trains in any of them.’

Julie and I raised our eyebrows at each other. Then we were ushered into a side room, and we felt so weird we actually held hands, clinging to each other. There was Jenna Williams sitting in a corner, signing a huge pile of books. It really was the actual Jenna Williams with her short hair and her earrings and her black clothes and her fancy boots. She smiled when she saw us.

‘Hello, girls!’ she said, looking at both of us. ‘Leonie?’

‘Yes,’ I said, in a little mouse squeak.

Jenna winked at me. ‘Well, come and say hi to your granny then!’ she said.

Julie gasped. I giggled.

‘It’s OK, Jenna. I told Julie I was just fibbing and she understands,’ I said.

‘I’m so sorry our Leonie was so daft, Miss Williams,’ said Mum. ‘She gets a bit carried away sometimes.’

‘It shows she’s got a vivid imagination,’ said Jenna. ‘Perhaps you’ll be a writer like me when you grow up, Leonie.’ She smiled at Julie. ‘What do
you
want to do for a career?’

‘I love animals so I think I’d like to be a vet,’ said Julie. ‘But you have to be a right old brainy box, so maybe I’ll work in a dog rescue shelter.’

‘Ah yes, you run the famous Pet Girls Club,’ said Jenna. ‘Do you think Leonie could be a proper member if I grant her part ownership of my Lulu?’

‘Where
is
Lulu?’ I asked excitedly.

‘Ah, she’s having a little nap at the moment,’ said Jenna. ‘Come and have a peep.’

She led us to a corner of the room where there was a big plush navy basket. There, curled up on a soft furry cushion, was a small grey kitten, her head resting on her paws.

‘Oh, she’s beautiful!’ I whispered.

‘She’s so cute!’ said Julie.

‘Can we play with her?’ asked Jumbo.

‘In a minute, when she’s woken up properly and got used to you. Perhaps you’d like to stroke her very gently, Leonie?’

I knelt down carefully beside Lulu’s basket and touched her tentatively with just the tips of my fingers. Her eyes opened and she peered up at me, showing me her little white face. I stroked her neck and she gave a wriggle – and then when I stroked her properly she started making little noises in her throat. I bent closer.

‘She’s purring! She likes me!’ I whispered.

‘Of course she likes you,’ said Jenna. ‘You own a little bit of her. Which bit would you like? Her tail? Her funny whiskers? I know – how about one of her little white paws?’

‘That would be absolutely perfect!’ I breathed.

After a few minutes Lulu jumped right out of her basket, and then we could all join in, throwing a toy mouse for her and playing a game with feathers on a stick. We fed her too, and she golloped up her saucer of chopped-up chicken and lapped at her water bowl. She tried putting her tiny paw in the water and splashed me, which made us all laugh.

Julie took heaps of photos on her mobile phone,
including a lovely one with Lulu on my lap, and Jenna sitting beside us, her arm round me. She signed a copy of her new book for me, and one for Julie too – and promised Jumbo that she’d try hard to put a train in her next book specially for him.

Then it was time for Jenna to go on stage to do her talk. She gave us all a hug and told me to email her again to let her know how I was getting on. We went to listen to her talk, sitting in special reserved seats right at the front – and then at the end an assistant carried little Lulu on stage to wave her paw at everyone.

‘That’s
my
paw!’ I said.

It was the most wonderful day of my life. The next Monday at school was pretty special too. Julie took her mobile phone and showed Keira and Emily and Rosie and Harpreet and Anya all the photos she’d taken.

‘Look, here’s one of Leonie with Jenna Williams and Lulu,’ said Julie proudly.

‘Then . . . is Jenna Williams
really
her granny?’ asked Keira.

Julie hesitated. She’s not really the sort of girl who tells fibs. ‘I’m not allowed to say,’ she said, smiling mysteriously.

She put her arm round me and we marched off together. I don’t know whether they’ll let me back in the Pet Girls Club. I don’t care. I have Julie as a best friend and Jenna Williams as a pretend granny, and I own a little white paw of the sweetest kitten in the world.

If you have a pet cat, you’ll know they have an extraordinary ability to disappear. One minute they’re right in front of you, stretching or yawning or idly washing themselves – then you read a few sentences of your book and glance up again and they’ve completely vanished. You look in all their favourite places around the house: the back of the sofa, the cosiest chair, the pile of ironing, under or on top of your bed, but they’re not anywhere.

You wonder if they’ve sneaked out through the cat flap into the garden, so you go and look in every bush and peer up every tree, and they’re not there either. So you repeat the whole process several times, and there’s not the faintest trace of your cat. You sit down again, heart beating fast, trying not to worry but worrying anyway, in case your cat has managed to trap itself in
the basement or a neighbour’s garage or has somehow strayed onto the road. And then, suddenly
, there
is your cat, right in front of you, miaowing nonchalantly, appearing again out of nowhere.

I’ve often thought cats might have the ability to make themselves invisible – but until I read
Catwings
by Ursula K. Le Guin I’d never thought that they might be able to
fly.
I absolutely love this story about four American kittens, born into a bad neighbourhood, who grow little furry wings and soar up into the air to get away from growling dogs – although the owl is a more frightening enemy.

I’ve checked my kitten Lily’s back very carefully just in case she might be sprouting tiny furry wings. There’s no sign of them so far – but you never know!

CATWINGS

1

Mrs Jane Tabby could not explain why all four of her children had wings.

‘I suppose their father was a fly-by-night,’ a neighbor said, and laughed unpleasantly, sneaking round the dumpster.

‘Maybe they have wings because I dreamed, before they were born, that I could fly away from this neighborhood,’ said Mrs Jane Tabby. ‘Thelma, your face is dirty; wash it. Roger, stop hitting James. Harriet, when you purr, you should close your eyes part way and knead me with your front paws; yes, that’s the way. How is the milk this morning, children?’

‘It’s very good, Mother, thank you,’ they answered happily. They were beautiful children, well brought up. But Mrs Tabby worried about them secretly. It really was a terrible neighborhood, and getting worse. Car wheels and truck wheels rolling past all day – rubbish and litter – hungry dogs – endless shoes and boots walking, running, stamping, kicking – nowhere safe and quiet, and less and less to eat. Most of the sparrows had moved away. The rats were fierce and dangerous; the mice were shy and scrawny.

So the children’s wings were the least of Mrs Tabby’s worries. She washed those silky wings every day, along with chins and paws and tails, and wondered about them now and then, but she worked too hard finding food and bringing up the family to think much about things she didn’t understand.

But when the huge dog chased little Harriet and cornered her behind the garbage can, lunging at her with open, white-toothed jaws, and Harriet with one desperate mew flew straight up into the air and over the dog’s staring head and lighted on the rooftop – then Mrs Tabby understood.