Cat Kin (31 page)

His fur ruffling in the breeze, Rufus lay draped along the arm of the bench, surely the most uncomfortable bed he could have chosen other than the barbeque itself. Supporting a
column of shimmering air, the grill rocked on its legs as Peter Maine turned the chicken wings.

‘That one’s mine.’ Stuart prodded the brownest one with a fork.

‘Hands off,’ said his father. ‘These have already been reserved.’

‘Stuart, you’ll be burnt,’ warned his mother.

Huffing, Stuart trudged back to his wheelchair.

‘It’s not fair being the youngest. You always have to wait your turn. I wish I was an only child.’ He stopped, appalled in the sudden silence. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry, I
didn’t mean…that was horrible.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Tiffany. ‘Anyway, I know exactly how you feel.’

Stuart looked relieved. Then he scowled. ‘Oi! Now you’re being horrible!’

Tiffany fetched her food off the barbeque. Her dad smiled, kissing her on the forehead for the fifth time since lighting the charcoal briquettes.

‘We’re so glad to have you back, Truffle,’ he murmured. ‘Whatever any of us say.’

‘Dad! Don’t call me that.’ Reddening, Tiffany glanced over her shoulder.

‘Hotdog, Ben?’ Peter grinned.

‘Cheers.’

Tiffany’s eyes glittered in an
if-you-ever-mention-that-name-to-anyone-you’re-dead
kind of way. Ben filled his face with roll to keep the laughter in. Peter looked at him
seriously.

‘Mr and Mrs Gallagher,’ he said. ‘Your son probably saved my daughter’s life. I won’t ever get tired of saying that. You should be proud of him.’

‘We know,’ said Dad, taking Mum’s hand. ‘Don’t we?’

‘You did a great thing, Ben.’ Gently Mum drew her hand back.

‘If you hadn’t called that helpline,’ Peter went on, ‘well…I’m not even going to think about it. It’s thanks to you that the police found
her.’

‘Not that it matters,’ said Tiffany’s mother, ‘but how did you know where she was?’

Ben made a big show of chewing.

‘I told him the day before,’ said Tiffany. ‘I’d heard a stray cat mewing near the old factory. I said I was going to see if it was trapped.’

‘Right.’ Ben picked up the cue. ‘I guessed she’d been there. So I called Safeline and told them.’

‘Thank goodness they followed it up,’ said Mum. ‘The police never took as much notice of me, did they, Ben?’

‘He turned on the old Gallagher charm.’ Dad nudged her. Mum smiled, a bit thinly Ben thought, and went to look at the sizzling kebabs.

Ben followed Tiffany into the corner of the garden where Rufus drowsed on his bench. The loud music from the kitchen stereo masked their conversation.

‘So how’s it going?’

Tiffany shrugged. ‘Weird.’

‘Yeah. It’s funny. What exactly do your folks think happened?’

‘Fran told them something about warring criminal gangs and some kidnapping racket. Fran’s the officer who I let find me,’ Tiffany explained.

‘And the police believe that?’

‘Probably. Even if John Stanford tries to tell them the truth, they won’t swallow it. Fran says he’s got a criminal record as long as a street. Ten years ago he was Jacques
Saint-Claude, selling people chateaus in France that didn’t belong to him. They’re almost sure his real name is Jaeger Straubhaar. Either way, when he comes out of hospital the German,
French and British police will be fighting over him.’

‘And what about…’ Ben felt reluctant to say the name.

‘They found Cobb.’ Tiffany picked at her chicken wing. ‘There wasn’t a scratch on the body. The cats never touched him. Fran wouldn’t talk to me about it, but I
overheard her saying that she’d never seen anyone who’d truly died of fright.’

Ben gulped at the shandy Dad had made him. It was too strong. He heard Stuart arguing over how many burgers he was allowed in one bun.

‘You should have let me stick around,’ said Ben. ‘I know you wanted to keep everything secret but…I’d have liked to watch the police trying to round up fifty-odd
jungle cats. What did they do, call in London Zoo?’

‘I asked them about that.’

‘And?’

‘Fran looked at me funny. Like she thought I was ill. They didn’t find any cats in there, Ben. Not a single one.’

‘What?’ He said it too loudly. Cathy Maine turned to look at them. ‘That makes no sense,’ he whispered.

‘Lots of things make no sense,’ said Tiffany. A strange smile appeared. ‘How did the cats escape in the first place? Who let them out?’

‘But…’ Ben was floundering. ‘You said…Cobb shot her. You saw it happen. You told us Mrs Powell was dead.’

‘I asked about that, too.’ The sparkle in Tiffany’s eyes didn’t fade. ‘I asked the police to look in the cold room at the back of the factory. I begged them to.
Fran told me to rest and not get upset. All they found in that meat locker was sides of beef, going bad. Someone had disabled the freezer unit.’

Ben struggled to get his head round it all. ‘That stuff about cats and nine lives…it’s not really true.’

‘No. But they can fall out of high-rise flats. Get trapped in washing machines. Have car wheels go right over them, and still recover.’

‘Yeah, look at me. Beaten up, thrown down a lift shaft, fallen off a crane, and I didn’t even get a sick note for the first day of term.’

‘Bad luck. I’ve got two weeks off.’

Ben had to laugh. He checked to make sure they weren’t being overheard.

‘So Mrs Powell is alive?’

‘That’s what I believe,’ said Tiffany. ‘She must have used Pur. I tried it myself when I was hurt, to get my strength back. She’d be a lot better at it. Maybe good
enough to keep from bleeding to death.’ She chewed on a thumbnail. ‘I went round her flat but no-one was there. The thing is, neither was Jim.’

‘He might have wandered off.’

‘No. She took him. Just like she took the big cats. I’ve no idea how she did it, how she made them follow her and escape detection like that…but I think there were lots of
things she could do that she never told us about.’

Ben watched his parents, sitting on garden chairs placed slightly apart.

‘After getting us into ten kinds of trouble, she just melts away into the night, without even saying sorry. Nice.’

Tiffany sucked her empty glass. ‘I’ll miss her.’

Ben would too. The subject was suddenly painful and he forced it away.

‘Something else I don’t understand. That Panthacea.’

Tiffany nodded. ‘I know…’

‘If those pills were only vitamins with new labels on, how come they worked on your brother?’

‘Maybe—’ Tiffany paused. ‘Maybe because we believed they would. Maybe because my mum and dad stopped quarrelling at Stuart’s bedside. Because we were all happy for
a change. And so he got better. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing, would it?

‘Suppose not.’

‘He’s not cured, you know,’ said Tiffany. ‘Even taking those tablets he had bad days. They just didn’t bother him as much.’

‘What’ll he do now? No more ONO, no more miracle pills. Even if they were fake.’

‘Oh, he’ll get by,’ said Tiffany. ‘The world’s never going to be perfect, is it?’

That was true. Mum and Dad were still chatting to Tiffany’s parents, but they were hardly saying a word to each other. Ben had been so sure they would get back together. For a time it had
seemed like it might happen. Yet it hadn’t. All this heartache and they were still as far apart as ever. What did he have to
do?

‘I meant to tell you,’ said Tiffany. ‘We’re re-starting the pashki classes on Thursday. The others are keen.’

‘Who’s going to teach them? You?’

‘Both of us could. To start with. We can find out more stuff on the internet. You really have to search for it, but it’s there. We’ve only just scratched the
surface.’

‘So to speak.’

‘Daniel says his dad might hire us a room somewhere, so long as we tell him that the class is actually Tae Kwon Do. What do you think?’

Ben sat on the bench. Sleepiness had come over him.

‘Mrs Powell trained us for a reason,’ said Tiffany. ‘She’d want us to carry on.’

‘A reason. Right.’ Ben looked at Mum, laughing and joking with Cathy Maine. The bruise he’d made on her cheekbone was no longer visible, but he could still see it. He would
always see it. Glaring at a dying dandelion, he wished for a moment that he’d never heard of Mrs Powell.

Tiffany laid a hand on his, and he knew that she understood.
I’m scared too
, the touch said. Her other hand stroked Rufus’s coat for reassurance. Ben considered the cat,
lying on his impossibly narrow bed, a picture of bliss. There was smoke, thumping music, a barking dog next door and fleas twitching in his fur, but in spite of all this Rufus had found a
moment’s pure peace, before the next rain shower or lawnmower came to disturb him. Perhaps that was enough. As much as anyone could hope for.

‘I think your brother’s feeling left out,’ said Ben. Stuart sat by himself, shoveling spilled onions back into a hotdog.

‘I’m going to eat till I’m sick,’ Stuart announced as they approached. ‘And then I’m going to eat some more. It says they’re best taken with
food.’

He popped something in his mouth and gulped it with ginger beer. Ben spotted a jar by his side.

‘Hey…’ Then Tiffany trod on his foot. Peering at the jar’s label, Ben read:
Paradise Supplements. Everyday Multicomplex formula.

‘It’s the same stuff as Panthacea,’ explained Stuart. ‘Tiffany found out the company’s been taken over so it’s got a new name. Still tastes horrid,
though.’

Ben glanced at her. Tiffany gave a little shrug. Had she done right? She didn’t know, and nor did he. You could say it was still a kind of deception. But things were never going to be
perfect.

Orange flashed in the corner of his eye. Rufus was disappearing over the fence, already off again on some mysterious mission of his own. Stuart seemed tired as he toyed with a strange pack of
playing cards.

‘What’s the game?’ Ben asked.

‘Superhero Top Trumps,’ Stuart mumbled. ‘It’s no fun anymore ’cos I always win.’ His face lit up. ‘Don’t suppose you two want to play?’

Tiffany smiled and knelt on the grass in front of him, looking, just for a second, remarkably like a contented cat.

‘Deal,’ she said.

Bree McCready and the Half-Heart Locket

ISBN 978-1-905537-11-2 (paperback, RRP £6.99)

Twelve-year-old Bree McCready has a mission: she has just one night to save the world!

It starts when a clue inscribed on a Half-Heart Locket leads Bree and her best friends Sandy and Honey to an ancient magical book. With it they can freeze time, fly and shrink to the size of
ants.

But they soon discover the book has a long history of destruction and death. And it’s being sought by the monstrous Thalofedril, who will stop at nothing to get it.

Using its incredible powers, he could turn the world into a wasteland.

Bree, Sandy and Honey go on the run—hurtling off city rooftops, down neck-breaking ravines, and through night-black underground tunnels—to keep the book out of his lethal hands.
Little do they know that the greatest danger of all lies ahead, in the heart of his deadly lair…

Can Bree find the courage to face this terrifying evil, and to confront the secrets of her tragic past?

Punchy and exciting, this is a thrilling page-turner from a dazzling new talent.