The Smallest Kitten

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

About the Author

Copyright

For twins – and parents of twins – everywhere!

Amina raced up the steps at the front of the animal shelter and twirled round and round in front of the door. “Come on!” she called to the rest of the family. “Zara! Hurry up! Don’t you want to see the kittens?”

Zara didn’t dash after her twin sister. She pushed her hand into Dad’s instead, holding on to him tight. She wanted to go and meet the kittens, of course she did. It was just that she was excited in a different way. She didn’t do dancing about like Amina did. Her excitement was all inside, but it was definitely there. She and Amina had been talking about this moment for so long – imagining meeting their very own kitten for the first time.

Zara slipped the hand that wasn’t holding Dad’s into her pocket, closing it around the folded printout that she’d been carrying about for days, ever since Mum had emailed the animal shelter to say they were interested in the kittens. Zara had got her to print one of the photos, so she could keep looking at it. It showed all three kittens snuggled up in a soft cat bed, two tabby ones mostly on top of a little black-and-white one. She didn’t seem to mind though. She looked quite comfy with a warm blanket of kitten on top of her.

“Excited?” Mum leaned over to look at Zara, smiling. “I know how much you’ve been looking forward to this.”

Zara nodded hard and smiled back, but she still didn’t say anything.

Up at the top of the steps, Amina was tugging open the heavy glass door…

When Mum and Dad had told the girls they would be able to go and see the kittens and choose which one they wanted to adopt, Zara had thought they’d only be allowed to look at them, maybe through a door into their pen. But instead they were taken to a special meeting room and James, the man who worked at the shelter, explained to them that they just needed to wait while he went to fetch the kittens.

“Do you think we’ll get to hold them?” Zara asked Mum hopefully as James hurried off.

Amina nodded. “Look! There are cat toys in that basket. I think we can play with the kittens.”

Zara looked round and saw a basket full of all different sorts of toys – balls, feathery birds, squishy mice… Just the kind of things she’d been thinking of buying with her pocket money, ever since Mum and Dad had said they could get a kitten when they’d moved to their new house.

Zara and Amina’s mum had recently changed jobs. She now worked at a hospital that was too far away for her to commute. It was a huge change for everyone – Amina and Zara would have to start at a different school too. But there were some good things about moving. Mum and Dad had always said their old house was too small for pets, and it was by a busy road. The new house had a garden and it was really quiet. Perfect for a cat. Amina and Zara were going to be ten soon – ten was definitely old enough to look after a pet, and they’d promised to help lots. Mum and Dad had promised they would contact the animal shelter as soon as they’d settled in. Even though it had only been a couple of weeks, it felt like a very long wait…

“Is he coming back yet?” Amina asked, bouncing up from her chair.

“It won’t be long,” Mum said, laughing at her.

Dad turned to the door. “I think I can hear them, actually.”

The girls stared hopefully at the door – and Dad was right. James eased it open and stepped through with a cat carrier. Tiny, squeaky, cross little mews echoed from inside, until James set the carrier down and opened the wire door, and then there was a curious silence. Amina and Zara exchanged a wide-eyed look and Amina slipped her hand into Zara’s. After all the waiting…

Two small tabby faces appeared at the door of the carrier and Zara caught her breath. Even Amina was too excited to speak – or perhaps she’d realized she needed to be quiet and let the kittens work up the courage to come out. The two kittens watched the room for a moment, their whiskers twitching. Then one of them padded out of the carrier – he was small enough that it was a big step down to the floor. He stumbled across the tiles to sniff at Amina’s sandals.

“Mum!” Amina breathed, her eyes shining. “Look! He’s tickling me!” She giggled and twitched, and the kitten play-pounced on the fabric flowers on her shoes. The second tabby kitten tumbled after the first one, eager to see what this exciting new game was.

James laughed and handed Amina a feathery toy. “Try this instead, otherwise your sandals might never be the same again.” He smiled at Zara and offered her the basket of toys.

Zara took out a squishy toy fish and sat holding it, wondering if the kittens would come and investigate her too. But they were too interested in the feather wand that Amina was bouncing up and down. The two kittens looked like wind-up toys, turning their heads every time she wobbled the feathers. Mum and Dad and Amina were laughing delightedly, and Zara laughed too, even though she felt just a tiny bit jealous. She didn’t want to take the kittens away from Amina – she only wished they’d play with her as well.

Then Zara glanced round, her attention caught by the smallest movement over by the carrier. Of course! There was another kitten! Zara had been so caught up watching the two tabby kittens that she’d forgotten about the little black-and-white girl. She was just stepping cautiously out of the carrier, trying to get down over the edge of the door.

Zara bit her lip as the kitten padded around with one paw, trying to work out how far down the floor was. She was definitely smaller than the tabbies and Zara was worried she might not be able to get out. But eventually the kitten bumped down on to the tiles and stopped to look around again. Zara didn’t know very much about cats – not yet – but she could tell the kitten wasn’t nearly as confident and bouncy as her brother and sister. Maybe she was shy?

Zara was quite used to people talking about her as “the shy twin”, or “the quiet one”. People said it all the time, even though Mum and Dad tried to tell them not to. Only a couple of days ago, Dad had persuaded Amina to walk down to the shops with him, while Mum kept Zara behind to have a “little chat”. Mum wanted to talk to her about the new school they were going to after the summer holidays, and about trying to make friends, and not letting Amina do all the talking. Zara had listened, of course she had, and nodded in all the right places and promised Mum she’d try. But it wasn’t as easy as that. At their old school, Amina had done all the friend-making, and Zara didn’t mind. It made things easier when Amina talked for her. Sometimes she did wish she had a best friend of her own though – as well as her twin, of course.

How do you make friends? Amina wondered as she watched the little black-and-white kitten tiptoe towards her. Perhaps it was just about being brave enough to go up to someone.

“Hey…” she whispered as the kitten paused to sniff thoughtfully at the lace of her trainer and then bat the trailing end with one paw.

The kitten stopped, staring up at her worriedly, and Zara stared back. She waited for the kitten to dash back to the carrier, but she didn’t. She was too interested in Zara’s shoelace. Carefully, Zara jiggled her foot. Not too hard – she didn’t want to hurt the kitten – but just enough to make her lace bounce up and down.

The kitten watched fixedly, her green eyes round – and then she pounced, flinging herself at the loose shoelace and scrabbling at it with all four paws.

Zara desperately wanted to laugh, but she held it in so she didn’t scare the kitten away. She just watched, grinning to herself, as the kitten stalked her shoelace over and over again.

After a couple of minutes, the kitten seemed to decide she wanted to explore a little further. She’d flung herself right on top of Zara’s trainer with her last leap, and now she wriggled and stumbled her way up Zara’s leg, her tiny claws hooking into Zara’s jeans.

Zara watched delightedly, hardly able to believe there was a kitten climbing into her lap. She stood on Zara’s knee for a moment, watching Amina playing with her brother and sister, and then she turned around and slumped down.

“Zara…” Mum whispered from across the room. “You found the other kitten!”

“She found me,” Zara whispered back. “She was playing with my shoelace.”

“Oh, look at her,” Amina said admiringly. “She’s so little and cute.”

“You know,” Dad said thoughtfully. “I wonder if these tabby kittens belong together, they seem such good friends. We only wanted to get one cat…”

Zara looked up at him, her eyes hopeful. “Please can we take this little one home?”

The kitten curled up at the back of the carrier. Hopefully she would be safe in here. Everything outside was strange and different. She couldn’t hear the noises she was used to – her brother and sister, the cats in the pens close by, even dogs a bit further away. There were no familiar smells either. She couldn’t smell any other cats at all. She didn’t remember being the only cat, not ever.

She didn’t like it. When she’d been put in the carrier she’d hoped to find her brother and sister again. They had disappeared a couple of days earlier, and the black-and-white kitten had been waiting anxiously for them to come back. She was sure they weren’t here though, she would have smelled them.

She pressed herself tighter against the back wall of the carrier, listening to the noises around. There were heavy footsteps, and lighter ones, and voices.

“Can’t we get her out?”

“I think we should leave it to her. She’s scared, Amina. You would be too. She’s only little.”

“I know… But it’s been ages. I want to play with her.”

“I expect she’ll come out when she’s hungry.” That was a deeper voice. “She just needs time. She was enjoying playing with us at the shelter the other day, wasn’t she, Zara? She’s a friendly little thing. She doesn’t know what’s going on right now. We don’t want to scare her any more. Let’s put some food down and let her come out when she feels like it.”

There was a sigh and then the first voice said, “I suppose.”

The kitten’s ears twitched as she heard a familiar sound – biscuits rattling against the side of a bowl. She’d heard that noise often at the shelter, when someone brought their food. She was hungry. Still nervous, but hungry… She crept a few steps forwards and caught the scent of biscuits, just like the ones she was used to.

“Just sit back a bit, girls. Give her a chance to come out without having to get too close.”

The voice sounded gentle and whoever was speaking wasn’t right up by the door of the carrier. The kitten approached the door and looked out cautiously. There were four people watching her – two girls sitting on the floor, someone else sitting by the table and another person standing up, putting away a bag that probably had the food in it. The food smelled so delicious. She measured the distance to the food bowl in her head. It was close – she could dart out and eat, and if anything frightening happened, she would whip straight back to the carrier where it was safe. She could feel all those eyes staring straight at her and she wasn’t sure about it at all.

The kitten hopped out of the carrier and hurried across to the bowl, bolting down the food as fast as she could, while keeping an eye on all the people in the room. They were still staring but they didn’t move and no one tried to grab her. The kitten began to relax, eating more slowly. At last, she finished the bowl of biscuits, licking up the crumbs and sniffing around hopefully in case there was more. But the bowl was definitely empty.

She sat back, eyeing the family thoughtfully and swiping a paw across her whiskers. They had fed her when she was hungry. It didn’t mean she trusted them, not yet – but it was a start. She finished cleaning her whiskers and looked at the girl she’d slept on, back at the shelter.

“Don’t stare at her,” the girl whispered to the other one, who was sitting next to her on the floor. “I don’t think she likes it.”

“How do you know?”

“I just don’t think she does. Please, Amina…”

“OK, OK.”

Both the girls looked down at the floor at exactly the same time and the kitten gave a little jump of surprise. They seemed to move in the same way, these two. Curiously she padded towards them, sniffing at their outstretched toes and then nudging the side of her chin against their feet. Both girls twitched and giggled, and the kitten darted back. But then they settled again and she went back to investigating. That big bowl of food had made her feel sleepy and she wanted to curl up somewhere soft and warm – a basket, or a lap, perhaps.

The first girl stretched out her hand and ran it very gently over the kitten’s back. That was nice. Soothing… The kitten hopped up on to her leg and kneaded at the girl’s soft skirt with her paws. There was a dip, a little hollow that looked comfy, and she settled herself into it, turning herself round and round until she was nestled into the gap between the two girls’ legs.

“I think we should call her Cola,” Amina said firmly. “Mum, don’t you think that would be a good name? She looks like a Cola.”

Zara looked lovingly down at the black-and-white kitten, who was now curled up in the soft igloo bed they’d bought from the pet shop. She and Amina had kept as still as they could when the kitten had curled up in between them, but eventually they’d had to move. Mum had scooped the kitten up and laid her gently in the basket, and she hadn’t even woken up properly. She’d made a snuffly little noise and huddled into the side of the cat bed. Cola was a cute name, but it didn’t seem quite right. And Zara wanted their kitten to be called something perfect.

“No.”

Amina swung round, her eyes wide with surprise. “No?”

“I don’t think she looks like a Cola. A cat called Cola ought to be all black. Our kitten’s got a white front and white paws.”

Amina still looked shocked but Mum smiled. “What would be a good name, then?”

“Maybe something that shows how little she is?” Zara suggested.

Amina shook her head. “That won’t work. Of course she’s little now, she’s only a kitten. But she’s going to grow, isn’t she?”

“I know that!” Zara could hear herself arguing, and it was very surprising, as though she was listening to someone else talk, a bit like watching a film. She almost never argued with her twin, it was just easier not to. Amina was louder and more confident than Zara – she always had been, even when they were babies, Dad said. Arguing with her twin just made Zara sad so she didn’t – unless it was really important. Like now. “But she was much littler than the two tabby kittens. I think she’s always going to be small, and she’s got really big, pointy ears too. They didn’t have those. So – so I think she looks like an elf. We should call her Elfie – no! Pixie!” She swallowed hard and saw that Mum was still beaming at her.

“That’s a very sweet name. She does look like a little pixie. I think it would suit her when she’s bigger too.”

“I like it,” Dad said.

“I suppose,” Amina agreed, even though she didn’t sound very certain. “It is cute… Oh, look, she’s waking up! Hey, Pixie-Cola…” She darted a look at Zara, as if she were daring her to argue, but Zara was too pleased that she’d made Amina listen to mind.

“She’s going exploring,” she murmured happily, watching as the kitten stretched and sniffed, and then began to wander slowly around the kitchen. She found the new litter tray they’d bought and weed in it, which was good, even though it was a bit yucky to think about clearing it out. Better there than puddles on the floor, though. Mum and Dad looked relieved.

“Oh, where’s she going?” Amina asked, watching as the kitten pushed her way under the trolley where Dad kept the vegetables. The kitten wriggled right underneath and then popped out again to explore the tiny space behind the recycling bin. After that she settled down behind the wellies by the back door for a few minutes. Amina giggled and nudged Zara. “She’s just like you.”

“What do you mean?” Zara blinked at her, confused.

“Hiding. You’re always doing it. Remember when you went and hid in the bathroom cupboard and fell asleep, and Mum got in a total panic?”

Dad snorted with laughter and Zara saw Mum giving him a cross look. She felt her cheeks burn. She did like to hide herself away in small, quiet places, especially if she was feeling sad or shy. She wished Amina hadn’t said anything…

Pixie crept out from behind the wellies and sat down on Zara’s foot with a huge yawn. Zara wasn’t sure how she could be sleepy again when she’d only just woken up, but then she had done quite a lot of exploring for someone so small. Carefully, she reached down and scooped the kitten up, snuggling her against her T-shirt. Zara wasn’t really sure if Pixie would stay but she’d liked being curled up on her and Amina before, hadn’t she? And right now, Zara felt sad and hurt, and she wanted someone to cuddle. Maybe the kitten wanted a cuddle too?

She did look a bit surprised for a moment, but then she yawned again and slumped over Zara’s arm, soft and saggy.

It was the nicest thing Zara could remember happening, ever.

Zara and Amina spent the last couple of weeks of the summer holidays getting to know Pixie and watching her explore the house. She loved their bedroom, and seemed to be happy to spend hours padding around underneath their beds, or wobbling across their duvets between the soft toys. She enjoyed watching the birds from their bedroom windowsill too. Zara thought that she was going to love going out in the garden when she was a bit older and she’d had her vaccinations.

Dad was keen to take Amina and Zara out to look around the town – there was a swimming pool and a cinema, even a bowling alley. But neither of the girls wanted to leave Pixie for long.

“She’ll be lonely,” Zara explained on their way back from getting their library cards. She had a huge pile of books and was planning to turn her duvet into a tent over the top of her bed and read them all. Maybe she could persuade Pixie into the tent too… The good thing about Amina being so bouncy and energetic was that she liked to dance around and get Pixie to chase her toys. Then once the kitten was properly worn out, she’d snuggle up and snooze while Zara stroked her.