Kitten Wars (9 page)

‘
I’m going to look for Jaffa
,’ Jazz mimicked in a sing-song voice.

‘Yes, I am!’ I butted in before she could say anything about what a baby I was thinking about my kitten all the time. ‘And you know why? Because I care about her and I’m
worried about her and I don’t give a monkey’s about a new family or a “lush” boy or anything else at the moment, actually. She’s a tiny little cat out there all alone!
Anything could happen!’

‘Oh get a grip, Bertie!’ Jazz muttered, rolling her eyes.

I gasped. What was happening between me and my best friend? She had never been so mean or uninterested in me before.

I burst into tears and stormed out of the room, down the stairs and out of the back door. I was about to slam the door with a final dramatic gesture when I remembered that I needed to take some
keys with me. I whirled back into the utility room to grab them off the hook and came face to face with a very superior-looking Jazz.

‘Honestly, all this fuss over a kitten. You do know you’re overreacting, don’t you?’ she said pityingly. She shook her head as though I was a hopeless case. ‘I
guess I’ll see you later.’

Then waving her ridiculous long nails at me, she sashayed out of my house and back into her own much more grown-up and sophisticated life.

W
e didn’t find Jaffa. After we’d scoured the street, Dad said he’d go back and search every corner of the house just in case she
had got back in somehow. Bit unlikely, I know, but we were feeling pretty desperate.

In the end I had to admit defeat. I was hot, thirsty and hungry. I hadn’t had any breakfast, I remembered. I dragged my feet back home and made us some food.

‘You could always put a poster up in the street,’ Dad suggested through a mouthful of cheese sandwich. ‘Or leave a plate of something really tasty out by the back door,’
he added thoughtfully. ‘And you know what? I think I’ll go and get a cat flap today. Maybe she’s been trying to get back in and hasn’t been able to. What’s her
favourite food, d’you think?’

‘She loves tuna,’ I said feebly. ‘Well, she loves the tuna-flavoured kitten food we got from Paws for Thought. Maybe we could try leaving some real tuna out?’

Dad rolled his eyes. ‘OK. But don’t be surprised if you have half the cats in town crowding round the back door.’

Even I managed a weak laugh at that. I could just imagine what Kaboodle would say. ‘Fancy leaving tuna out for all the rabble to come and help themselves! Honestly, Bertie, you have no
idea how we cats think . . .’

So Dad went out to buy a cat flap (and have a good natter with ‘Bex’ as well, no doubt!) and I fetched a tin of tuna and set it down outside the back door.

My mobile rang early the next day. Jazz had reprogrammed the ringtone again. It had made me laugh when she’d done it, but the way I was feeling right now, it wasn’t
doing anything to lighten my mood.

‘You’ve got to come here – I’ve got so much to tell you. And show you!’ Jazz announced breathily, hardly giving me enough time to say ‘Hi’. ‘He
came round last night!’ I grimaced quietly to myself. I didn’t have to ask who ‘he’ was. And no sign of an apology from Jazz.

Still, I swallowed my sadness and told Dad I was going to Jazz’s.

‘We’ll continue the search for Jaffa,’ I said, hoping against hope.

But of course, Jazz had very different plans.

‘Quick, come upstairs – I don’t want Ty to hear us talking,’ she hissed, whisking me through the door so fast I nearly fell over my own feet. ‘He was a right pain
yesterday, shoving Huckleberry in everyone’s faces and butting into the conversation with stuff about guinea pig poo, like the total idiot that he is.’ She rolled her eyes as far back
as it was possible for them to go without rolling out of her head altogether.

Good old Ty! I wished I’d been there. Jazz didn’t notice my reaction; she was in too much of a tearing hurry to get me into her room. I almost tripped up the stairs. Once on the
landing, she whirled into her room, her head twisting from side to side as though she were being tailed by a gang of evil mafia guys, and then yanked me through the door by my elbow, catching me
off balance.

‘Hey!’

‘Shh!’ she admonished, her finger to her lips. Ty might hear.’ She closed the door quietly and firmly behind us and dragged a beanbag over to keep it shut – although I
didn’t think a beanbag would have much effect against the human cannonball that was Jazz’s younger brother.

Jazz whizzed over to the far corner of the room, plonked herself on the floor and gestured wildly at me to sit with her.

I slumped down next to her and caught a strong whiff of something.

‘Are you wearing perfume?’ I asked disbelievingly.

Jazz scowled. ‘Yeah. So? Anyway, listen – like I said,
he
came over with his mum.’ Her voice had dropped to a half-whisper.

There was no use in complaining or trying to change the subject. Jazz had that flashing look in her eyes and that wide-stretched smile she reserved for occasions of extreme excitement, like the
time her dance class had won the regional championships and she had been chosen to go up on stage and receive the cup.

‘And?’ I said, thinking I had to say something to show I was listening.

‘And you’ll never guess what!’ she replied, pausing dramatically in what would have been a build-up of tension. Except that as far as I was concerned, there wasn’t
any.

‘What?’ I replied.

‘His mum is a television producer and his dad works in the music business!’

Oh no! This was possibly the worst news I had had so far about this family. I could just about cope with the fact that they were living in Kaboodle’s old house and had set my best
friend’s heart aflutter with all the musical instruments they’d moved in with, not to mention their son, but now Jazz was telling me that the parents were her ticket to fame and
fortune! Well, that really put the lid on it for me. The new family had it all. I was out of the picture. Case closed.

I sat hunched over, elbows on knees and head in hands, and half-listened as Jazz burbled away.

‘The Meerleys know Pinkella from, like, ages ago? From when Pinkella was on TV all the time,’ Jazz was saying in that know-it-all voice she’d used the day before when
she’d told me their names.

‘Pinkella? On telly?’ I butted in. This was news to me, I thought irritably. She’d told us she’d been in films and plays and stuff, but on telly? ‘Since when?
I’ve never seen her in anything.’

‘Yeah, well, it was, like,
way
before we were born, wasn’t it?’ Jazz said impatiently. ‘Anyway, when Pinkella’s house came up for rent the Meerleys were the
first people she thought of. And this is where the REALLY cool stuff comes in,’ Jazz finished. She bounced up, grabbed a newspaper from her desk and opened it in front of me with a
flourish.

‘Da-daaah!’ she sang, beaming such an exaggerated smile I thought her face might actually split in two.

‘What?’ I asked. I was looking at a copy of the
Daily Ranter
, the paper that Dad used to write for. There had not been anything interesting to read in it when he had been
responsible for most of the articles and I could not imagine that there would be anything interesting to read in it now that he wasn’t.

‘Since when have you been a loyal reader of the
Ranter
?’ I asked, trying to sound cool while a wobbly feeling of unease seized my guts.

‘Fiona showed it to me. Read it!’ Jazz insisted, jabbing at the paper and thrusting it nearer.

the bold black type shouted.

Already I was not liking the sound of this.

Jazz pulled the paper impatiently out of my hands with a huff of exasperation and started to read out loud. I peered over her shoulder at the words.

‘Can you
believe
it?’ Jazz finished in a squeak. She had not drawn breath once, and now she was clutching her hands to her chest and gazing at the ceiling in
a dream-like stance, as if Prince Charming had just snogged her and made all her wishes come true. I shuddered.

‘Oh. My. Goodness!’ Jazz continued. ‘This has
so
got to be the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me. In My. Whole. Boring. Life! They’ll be here! In
our dumb old town where nothing ever happens to anyone. And Fiona is the producer! She knows Simon and Danni and . . . and oh, everyone!’ she finished in an exaggerated sigh, still gazing
upwards as if a host of heavenly celebrities were about to be lowered down through the ceiling on a glittery pedestal right in front of us.

‘Erm, yeah. It’s cool,’ I said quietly. Jazz always had this effect on me when she got overexcited about something. The louder she got, the quieter I became.

Jazz still hadn’t noticed my reaction. She was now jabbing her finger at the newspaper and saying, ‘So, what are we going to wear?’

What? Since when did
we
become involved?

‘Er, sorry?’ I stammered, playing for time.

‘What are we going to wear?’ Jazz repeated, suddenly sounding touchy. ‘Come
on
, Bertie. Get with the programme! Haven’t you worked it out yet? Fiona’s the
producer; I’ve met her; she likes me. I told her I was into the performing arts . . . Duh! It’s obvious, isn’t it?’

Oh dearie, dearie me with knobs on! Jazz was on a roll. And as usual it was all based on the assumption that, as ever, I would be happy to go along with her plans. It was always the same: Jazz
snapped her fingers and I was supposed to jump to it and do what she said. I was getting pretty fed up with it all, to be honest.

But of course Jazz had not noticed my total lack of excitement. ‘Tell you what, let’s make a list, right? You like lists, don’t you, Bertie?’ I flinched. She was talking
to me like I was her baby sister all of a sudden. ‘Here.’ She snatched a pad and pen from her desk and started scribbling and reading aloud as she wrote: ‘What – I –
Need – to – Dress – to – Impress . . .’ What was it with these false nails? A sudden rush of anger welled in my throat.