Kitten Catastrophe (14 page)

‘Just shut up and hold on to that . . . that
animal
while I try to calm Jaffa down,’ I ordered.

Jazz glared at me. ‘I thought you
loved
animals, Bertie. Just because Cupid has been a naughty boy, there is no need to be nasty to him. He needs love and attention just as much as Jaffa. And I am not letting him out of my sight. We need to be together.’

‘OK, so how do you suggest we organize things tonight then?’ I said bitterly, keeping one eye on Jaffa and one on Cupid. Maybe I’d go so crosseyed my eyeballs would explode, I thought angrily. That would add a nice dimension to the night. ‘I am NOT having that BULLY in my room. And I don’t think your mum would take kindly to you turning up in the middle of the night with a stray moggie under your arm,’ I added pointedly.

‘Will yer stop calling me that?’ Bob growled.

‘Well, what should I call you then?’ I shouted, forgetting myself in my anger.

Jazz didn’t notice though. She was too busy shaking her head and curling her lip at me in disdain. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘I don’t think Cupid and I
want
to share a room with you when you’re in this kind of mood anyway. I’ll kip on the sofa. Cupid can keep me warm, can’t you, my little squidgy-kins?’

I let out a whoosh of air and threw my head back in exasperation. ‘ANYTHING,’ I roared, ‘for a bit of peace and quiet and sanity around here.’

T
he next morning I found Fergus in the kitchen, clearing up the remains of the meal from the night before. He had swept up the fragments from the broken plate and had even put the kettle on and laid the table for breakfast.

‘Least I could do.’ He smiled bashfully. ‘I couldn’t help thinking you might like a hand. And I’m not sure you’re going to get any help from Jazz. She just stormed out into the garden, after I tried to explain that she would have to let us find a home for the cat.’

‘What?’ I mumbled blearily. My brain was not fully in gear yet after the disrupted night I’d had. Even once Jazz and Bob-Cupid had finally gone downstairs, my poor traumatized kitten had refused to come down from the curtain pole and it had taken a lot of persuading to stop her hysterical mewling. I was bushed. I rubbed my eyes and ran a hand through my hair.

Fergus leaned the broom he was using against the edge of the table and grabbed the dustpan and brush. As he knelt to gather the small pile of rubbish he’d swept up he said, ‘The thing is, I know your dad
thought
the cat belonged to a family who’d moved away, but I was thinking that we should at least put up posters or something. Just in case. I mean . . .’ He hesitated. ‘I remember how upset
you
were when Mum took Jaffa in, thinking she was a stray.’ He looked up at me.

I let slip a small smile. Of course,
I
knew that Dad’s presumption had been correct, because Bob – sorry,
Cupid
– had said as much himself. He had been abandoned by his owners. I just wasn’t sure I wanted his new owner to be my best friend. For a start it would mean he would be living a bit too close for comfort. What if he took it into his head to keep on coming round to terrorize Jaffa whenever he felt like it?

I decided to play along with the poster idea.

‘Yeah, you’re right. We probably should make some posters.’ I yawned and stretched. ‘Give me that.’ I gestured to the dustpan full of grot. ‘I’ll get rid of it and you make some tea. When Dad gets down we can hatch a plan.’

‘What’s this? Not another plan?’ Dad had emerged, looking as rough as I felt: his hair sticking up in freaky clumps and his eyes baggy with lack of sleep. He was cleaning his glasses on the edge of his pyjama top and blinking like a tortoise coming out of hibernation.

Fergus busied himself with the mugs and tea bags, probably embarrassed at the sight of Dad in his PJs. I cringed – couldn’t he at least have pulled on jeans and a T-shirt? ‘Er, yeah, we were just talking about finding out who B— the cat’s real owners were,’ I said. Go and get dressed! I shouted at him in my head.

Dad peered at me and then put his glasses on. ‘Ah, that’s better,’ he said. ‘I can see who I’m talking to now . . . Blimey, Bertie, you look a sight!’

‘Huh!’ I retorted. ‘You can talk.’

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Fergus said, a bit too loudly.

Dad’s face changed abruptly from miffed-with-his-daughter to chuffed-with-his-guest. ‘That would be lovely, Fergus,’ he beamed, managing nevertheless to shoot me a narrow-eyed look at the same time. He pulled back a chair and plonked himself down, yawning again.

‘So,’ I said, carefully taking a mug of tea from Fergus. ‘Are you sure that cat belongs to the Morrises?’

Dad shrugged, gulping his scalding tea. His glasses steamed up. He swallowed painfully and then said in a rasping voice, ‘Not one hundred per cent sure.’

‘Fergus thinks we
need
to be certain,’ I said.

‘It would be awful if we found him a new home while all the time there was a family out there missing him like crazy,’ Fergus added.

He immediately looked sheepish as Dad raised his eyebrows and piped up in a teasing tone, ‘Would it? Would it really? OK,’ he said, suddenly serious again. ‘I’ll ask Bex to help out. She can put up posters in her shop and around town, and we can do our bit in the neighbourhood. Now . . .’

He jumped up and went to rummage in the drawer where we keep odd scraps of paper and a jumble of pens and pencils. He pulled out pen after pen, scribbling on some paper until he found one that worked. ‘Really must sort this drawer out,’ he muttered. Finally he came back to the table with a pink ballpoint pen resplendent with a flashing fairy on the top. I rolled my eyes.

‘So, what should we say?’ Dad asked, looking from Fergus to me.

Fergus chewed his bottom lip and then said, in a tight voice that was clearly bursting with barely held-back laughter, ‘Erm . . . “Cat found. If you don’t want it, we know a girl who does”? That’s Jazz, I mean,’ he added hastily, catching the horrified look on my face.

Dad frowned. ‘I think we’ll have to do a bit better than that. Bertie?’

‘How about “Aggressive, deranged beast found terrorizing beloved family pet – come and get it now before we take it to the Cats and Dogs Home”?’

I had been expecting a curt telling-off from Dad about my Tone of Voice, but instead his eyes lit up. ‘Cats and Dogs Home!’ he exclaimed. ‘Of course! That’s what Bex suggested last night.’ He glanced at the kitchen clock. ‘I’ll give them a call and tell them we’ve found a cat. They don’t need to know the gory details. Meanwhile, you two can figure out the poster.’

He went to find the phone book while Fergus and I argued over the wording. We were so deep in discussion that we didn’t see Jazz come in from the garden with Cupid in her arms.

‘What are you doing?’ she snapped.

I whirled round guiltily. ‘Nothing!’ I lied.

Fergus looked up at Jazz from under his floppy fringe. ‘Well – we are doing something, obviously,’ he burbled. ‘Just nothing that you need to, er, get involved with.’

Jazz made a good attempt at giving us one of her you-two-are-complete-numpties looks while juggling with the wriggling and obviously pretty heavy cat.

‘Tell the babe to put me down a minute, can’t you?’ Cupid growled at me. ‘I need to pay a quick visit to the flower beds, if you get my meaning.’

‘Now, Fluffykins,’ Jazz gushed, ‘why is my baby being such a wriggle-puss? Oh,
what
is the matter, Mr Snuggly?’

I coughed. ‘I think ‘Mr Snuggly’ needs a little wee-wee.’

Not that I was keen on him digging up half the garden. He was such a massive meathead of a cat, I was sure he wouldn’t be discreet about where he chose to do his business, and if he trashed the garden Dad would freak. But I couldn’t say any of that to him without Jazz and Fergus thinking I’d gone fruit-loop-bananas crazy. I chose to give Cupid a good hard ‘Paddington stare’ instead, hoping that would convey my feelings.

Cupid seemed to get the message. ‘Don’t lose your rag, girl,’ he snarled. ‘I’ll tidy up after. I’m not an untamed beast.’

‘Riiiiight!’ I muttered sarcastically.

‘OH!’ cried Jazz, finally reacting to what I had said. ‘Of
course
he needs a wee!’ She picked him up again and looked wildly around the room. ‘And, er, where should I take him?’ she asked helplessly.

‘I would probably try outside, like where you’ve just
been,’
I said to the ceiling.

‘And make it snappy or I’ll ‘ave an accident,’ said Cupid.

While he was doing his business outside, Jazz turned to me, all misty-eyed, and said, ‘I’m going to take him home and ask Mum if I can keep him.’

I felt a cold sensation grip my insides.

At that moment Dad came in. ‘Well, I called them and they said they hadn’t had any calls regarding a large male cat.’

‘You called who exactly?’ Jazz said, her voice icy with suspicion.

Dad faltered. ‘The . . . the Cats and Dogs Home. You told Jazz, right?’ he said, looking at me with a worried frown.

‘Haven’t had a chance,’ I muttered.

‘THE CATS AND DOGS HOME?’ Jazz yelled, hands on hips, chin jutting forward in outrage.

Dad put out one hand in a calming gesture, as if holding back a wild beast.

‘Now Jazz, don’t overreact. You must see that we have to try to find the cat’s owners.’

Cupid came crashing back in to see Jazz in full throttle, gesticulating and arguing with Dad and pleading with me and Fergus not to make the posters.

‘What ’ave you said to ’er?’ Cupid demanded, baring his teeth at me, his fur bristling.

I took advantage of the mayhem and bent down to talk to this brute of an animal. ‘Now you listen to me,’ I hissed at him. ‘I haven’t said anything. This is all your fault. First you come uninvited into my home, trash the place and bully my kitten, and now you’ve got your claws well and truly into my best mate. If I were you, I’d make a break for it while no one’s looking and find your way back home. Now.’

Cupid hissed back at me. ‘You don’t get it, do you, Frizz-ball?’ he said menacingly. ‘I told you already – I ain’t got
no home to go to.
The guy with the glasses and the mad ‘air was right. It was the Morrises what used to feed me and that. And now they’ve gone. Vamoosh. Fade to grey – got it? They disappeared without so much as a ‘see you around’ and left me to fend for myself. Typical flippin’ humans, if you ask me. You’re all the same, just out for your own interests. Except my beautiful babe there.’ He ran over to Jazz, turning on the motorized purring, and wound his way in and out of her legs. ‘This one’s different. She knows what a cat needs.’

I was boiling with fury. Jazz knew nothing about cats! And this cat knew nothing about Jazz.

‘Well,’ I said, through gritted teeth, ‘you’re not going to be hanging around long enough to find out just how much she does or doesn’t know,
mate
, cos if we find out it’s true and the Morrises really have left you, that makes you a stray, so we’re taking you to the Cats and Dogs Home. Now, do
you
get it”?’

Cupid arched his back and bared his fangs at me like an angry snake. But I was not going to let this bully intimidate me in the same way he had Jaffa.

‘Bertie! What have you done to poor Mr Squidgy Pusskins?’ Jazz swung the horrible cat up into her arms, where he immediately turned into a purring fluffy cuddly ball once more.

‘I thought you said his name was Cupid,’ I mumbled, folding my arms in annoyance. ‘If you can’t even make up your mind what you’re going to call him, I hardly think you’re the right person to give him a new home.’

Fergus was shaking his head. ‘And anyway, how do you think your mum will feel if you come back from a sleepover with a huge fat cat in your arms and announce he’s going to live with you?’

Jazz abruptly stopped her cooing and billing over Cupid-Mr-Squidgy-Fluffykins and looked at us, her features suddenly frozen with anxiety. ‘I hadn’t thought about that!’ she croaked. ‘Oh, my gorgeous kitty-cat – what am I going to do if I can’t keep you?’

‘Don’t listen to them, darlin’. You’ll think of something,’ Cupid assured her.

Jazz hesitated and was about to set Cupid down on the floor, but instead a smile slowly crept across her face and she looked at me, a dangerous twinkle lighting up her chocolate-brown eyes. ‘You know, Mum is more of a softie than you think. Remember how Tyson got her to let him have Huckleberry? If I just take Cupid home with me now and tell Mum the whole sad story, I reckon there’s no way she could bear to chuck him out,’ she said craftily. ‘And once Mum’s made up her mind about something, there’s no stopping her.’

‘Like mother, like daughter,’ I muttered. I couldn’t help thinking Jazz was being more than a little bit optimistic.

‘Sounds like a luverley family,’ Cupid purred, stretching up to rub his head against Jazz’s cheek.

Dad stepped in. ‘You know, if you think she wouldn’t mind you looking after him for a while, I have to say I think that’s the best option. And he does seem very fond of you,’ he added.

I glared at him.

‘What?’ he said, looking genuinely puzzled. ‘Someone’s got to look after him while we try to find out who his real owners are, and it seems a bit mean to take him straight to the Cats and Dogs Home if Jazz is set on caring for him.’

I curled my lip and was about to launch into a tirade about how mean Cupid had been to Jaffa and how if Dad thought I was going to tolerate him living on the same street as us then—

But Fergus cut in with, ‘Great idea. Come on, Bertie, you have to admit it’s the best plan. You can’t look after the cat yourself because of how he’s upset Jaffa. And the Cats and Dogs Home is a bit, well, grim.’

I laughed. ‘I don’t WANT to look after him, thanks very much. And as for grim—’

‘Right, that’s settled then,’ said Dad decisively. ‘I’ll come back with you, Jazz, and help explain to your mum if you like.’

‘Yes, please,’ said Jazz, shooting me a triumphant glance.

So the cat who’d been bullying my kitten was getting preferential treatment, and I got no say in things at all.

Thanks a lot, guys.