Kitten Catastrophe (18 page)

There was silence.

‘Did he just say
Danni Minnow
?’ a girl in front of me whispered. A gasp rippled around the hall like a Mexican wave and then, I don’t know what came over me, I shouted, ‘Whoooo!’ and stood up and clapped and cheered. Thankfully the people around me immediately leaped up too, and soon the whole school was cheering and stamping their feet.

At that moment Danni appeared from the wings of the stage, holding hands with Jazz! My friend was beaming so widely from ear to ear it looked as though her face might actually split in two. When the kids realized a pupil was up there on stage with Danni, the cheering and whooping started to die down and people began to whisper to one another curiously.

‘Hey, everyone!’ Danni called out in her famous drawl. The whispering went up a notch, and Jazz’s grin began to fade. I gulped. ‘I
said
, “Hey, everyone!”’ Danni repeated, lifting one hand up to the ceiling. Immediately there was a roar of ‘Hey, Danni!’ in response. Then Danni said, ‘And I want you all to say hi to my friend Jazz. She and I met this summer on the show
Pets with Talent.
Some of you may have seen it – great, wasn’t it?’ Calls of ‘Yeah’ and ‘Great’ went up around the hall. Danni nodded and continued, ‘Well, Jazz was my personal assistant for the whole time I was working on the show, and she was without doubt the best, most fun and funky person I’ve ever worked with. So, let’s hear it for Jazz!’

The school bellowed out a massive ‘Jaa-aazz! Jaa-aazz!’

My best mate’s cheeks flushed with pleasure. She smiled gratefully at Danni, who promptly enveloped her in a tight hug and kissed her.

Jazz left Danni to her talk after that. She had everyone riveted with her story of how she had made it from rags to riches and what life as a top celebrity was really like behind the scenes: apparently not all fun and laughter. Although I don’t think much of that part of the story got through to Danni’s besotted fans.

But the audience wasn’t so hooked on Danni’s talk that they’d forgotten about Jazz. As she pushed past people to come and sit with me, everyone turned and looked at her and whispered and waved. It wasn’t the first time Jazz had turned heads at our new school, but this time instead of everyone enjoying nasty rumours about her, they wanted to show her how cool they thought she was. I grinned at her and gave her hand a squeeze. ‘You’re a real star now, Jazz!’ I told her.

‘Thank you!’ she mouthed, her eyes shining with happy tears.

After the talk Danni was signing autographs and chatting with people, when Jazz, Fergus and I went to thank her.

‘Awwww, chicks! It was nothing,’ she cooed. ‘When Fiona told me you’d been bullied, Jazz, I sooo had to do something. You’re a gorgeous babe – and you’re my friend. And no one messes with Danni’s friends,’ she added, faking a mean face.

‘Er, hi,’ said a voice behind us.

‘Kezia!’ I breathed as Jazz whirled round to come face to face with her enemy.

Danni held out one elegant hand and, fixing Kezia with a barbed smile, she said, ‘Great to meet you, chick. And I think you know my good friends here?’

‘Yeah, er . . . ace talk,’ Kezia mumbled. ‘I was wondering, like, er . . . could I have a photo with you?’ she asked shyly, waving her phone limply.

‘Sorry, babe,’ said Danni. ‘I only do photos with
close friends!
She winked at Jazz and draped a protective arm around her.

I held my breath as a dark storm gathered across Kezia’s features. She wouldn’t talk back to Danni, surely?

But, flicking Jazz an awkward glance, Kezia turned quickly on her heel and scuttled off.

‘Ha!’ said Jazz, punching the air in victory. ‘Jazz one, Kezia NIL!’

‘You make sure that’s the way it stays, girl,’ said Danni, giving her a squeeze.

A
nd thankfully, that
was
the way it stayed. Jazz went home that day on a massive high, to find out that not only had she won one over on the bullies, but Cupid was hers for keeps.

‘Seems those Morrises can’t come and get me,’ he told me later. ‘Can’t or won’t, more like . . . They’ve moved to the other side of the world, would yer believe it? To a place called “Ors-trail-ya” or summin. And they ’ad the audacity to tell my Jazzie’s mum that my babe was welcome to me, cos as far as they were concerned I was a thug and a bully. Would yer credit it?’

I bit my lip. ‘Noooo,’ I said with barely concealed sarcasm. ‘How could anyone say that about a cute little heartbreaker like you, Cupid?’

Life really did calm down immensely once Jazz had got what she wanted.

‘You’ve got nothing to worry about now, Jaffsie,’ I told my little kitten once I had filled her in on the day’s excitement. ‘Cupid is so comfy in his new home that there is no way he’ll be coming round here any more.’

‘Well, me is relieved ’bout that, me can tell you,’ Jaffsie said, snuggling into my lap.

Dad was pleased things had all been sorted too. ‘Perhaps we can have a bit of peace and quiet around here now,’ he said that night at supper. ‘What with all your pet-sitting nonsense getting you into trouble, and then adopting Jaffa – only to find she kept running off – and then this breaking-and-entering stuff with Cupid . . . you must admit that life’s been more than a little “catastrophic” – ha ha haa!’ He laughed uproariously at his own pathetic joke.

‘Tee-hee!’ Bex joined in. ‘Oh, you are funny, Nigel,’ she cooed, leaning into him for a hug.

I rolled my eyes, but inside I was actually glowing. My best mate was happy again, my kitten was safe and my dad was beaming like a chimp who’s won the banana lottery on a rollover week.

If I had any worries at all, it was that once the excitement had faded Jazz might move on to her next crazy project, i.e. begging Fiona to let her do her
Cat’s Eye
programme. But luckily for all of us, Jazz’s bonkers idea had evaporated into thin air and was not mentioned again.

‘Maybe she learned her lesson,’ Fergus said when we were discussing it one day after school. ‘I mean, if she hadn’t got involved in the
Pets with Talent
thing, she never would have been picked on by Kez.’

‘Yeah, that and the fact that she’s so lurrrrrved up with Cupid. She
is
pretty distracted these days.’ I sniggered.

Fergus stared at the ground and shuffled his feet. ‘Yeah, everyone seems kind of paired up these days, in a way,’ he said carelessly.

‘What d’you mean?’ I shot back.

‘Well, there’s Jazz and Cupid, your dad and Bex and, er . . . yeah . . .’ He tailed off.

‘Hmm,’ I said thoughtfully.

It was true: Dad and Bex were definitely an item now, there was no denying it. Bex was round at our place more often than not. But somehow it had happened so naturally that I hadn’t really noticed. And now that I
had
noticed, I realized that I was totally cool with it.

‘So, like, d’you want to go to the cinema on Friday?’ Fergus said in a rush, still staring at the floor.

‘Er, yes,’ I said, finding the floor rather interesting myself, all of a sudden.

Well, what d’you know? Life never stops being full of surprises, does it?

Anna Wilson used to edit children’s books
until she discovered it was much more fun to
write them. She took a flying leap from being
an editor to being a fully-fledged author in
2008 and has never looked back (except when
she has tripped over something). Inspired by
her family, friends and pets, she writes funny
yet heart-warming novels which are absolutely
NOT based on any MORTIFYINGLY
EMBARRASSING incidents which have
happened to her in the past.