The Homesick Kitten

Sammy retreated under the kitchen table, where he thought no one could reach him. He sat there all hunched up, glaring at Mum’s feet as she hurried around, opening boxes. More things that seemed familiar appeared – there were smells he recognized, smells of home. Why were all these home things here, when this was not home?

When Mum left the kitchen, pulling on the coat she’d left over the back of a chair, Sammy edged out after her, wondering if she was going home. Wasn’t she going to take him too? He mewed worriedly at her and Mum darted over to give him one last quick pat.

“Back soon, Sammy. I’m going to pick up Gran from the hospital and then get the girls from school. I’ve got to go, I’ll be late!”

She hurried out, banging the door hard behind her, and Sammy was left alone, staring around him in bewilderment.

At last he padded back down the hallway, peeping into rooms and sneezing at the dusty furniture. The house felt big, and empty, and wrong…

Harper wasn’t sure what to feel when she and Ava got out of school. She was excited and worried and sad all at once.

Her own room! She didn’t mind sharing with Ava that much – it was cute sometimes when her little sister wanted to climb into bed with her in the mornings. But she always had to put her precious things up on a high shelf, just so Ava wouldn’t mess around with them. It wasn’t that her sister meant to break things, she couldn’t help it, being little and a bit careless. But now there would be no more Ava deciding to borrow her best pens, just because they were there, and leaving the lids off. No more scribbled-on homework.

It was going to be nice getting to live with Gran too, especially now she needed extra help. They wouldn’t have to worry about Gran being lonely, or maybe having another fall with no one there to look after her. Gran was beaming at them from the front seat of the car – she looked so happy that they were all going to be together.

The flat, though… It was home. Harper wished the rental agency hadn’t wanted them to move out on a school day. Even though they’d been able to take things over to Gran’s ever since they’d decided on leaving, a few days before, it had still been a rush that morning, trying to wash and have breakfast in a flat that was almost all packed up. She didn’t feel like she’d had time to say goodbye properly.

At least she’d known what was going on, though. Poor Sammy must have been so confused. She nibbled her bottom lip, listening to Mum explain to Ava that yes, the movers had put her bed in her new room, and her dolls’ house, and her pirate outfit…

“Is Sammy OK?” Harper broke in, when Ava stopped asking questions to breathe. “Does he like it at Gran’s?”

Mum sighed. “Ummm, I think he’s a bit cross. He didn’t want anything to eat earlier on – but we have to give him some time to get used to a new home, Harper. Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Harper nodded, but she was still chewing her bottom lip. Mum loved Sammy, Harper knew that she did, but it wasn’t the same. Harper was the one who played with him most, and always came down in the morning to feed him. She groomed him and even cleaned out his litter tray. Sammy slept on her bed most nights now. She couldn’t help feeling that Sammy was mostly hers. She had to make sure he was OK.

When they pulled up outside the house, Ava bounced out of the car and twirled her way to the doorstep, obviously desperate to run and see her new room now it had her things in.

Mum unlocked the door and helped Gran inside, and they hung up their jackets on the hooks – they’d done that so many times before, but this time it was different. This was their home too, now.

Harper had hoped Sammy would come bounding towards her, like he usually did, but no little grey spotted cat raced down the hallway.

“He’s behind the basket, there,” Gran murmured behind her, and then when Harper looked up at her in surprise, she smiled. “I could see you looking around for him. Don’t worry, Harper. He’ll get used to the new place soon.”

Harper nodded, smiling back, and then she crouched down to peer round the basket. A small, cross, stripey face glared back at her. Harper really wanted to reach in and pick Sammy up, but she thought she’d better leave him to come out in his own time. He was grumpy already. He didn’t want to be grabbed.

“I could get you your tea,” she whispered to him, her voice soft and persuasive. “Would you like that?”

Mum looked round – she was halfway up the stairs, following Ava. “I put some food down for him before, Harper, one of those posh little tins. Maybe change it for something else? Perhaps he just wants his normal biscuits? I’ll be down in a minute, Mum. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

Harper nodded. And then realized she didn’t even know where the bag of cat food was, in Gran’s kitchen, and sighed. No wonder Sammy was upset.

“Come on, love.” Gran took her hand. “Let your mum sort Ava out. She’s got enough to worry about, I can manage putting the kettle on, and I’m sure there’s juice in the fridge. I could pour you some while you see where she’s put the cat food. And you can tell me what your day was like. I’d love that.”

Harper stood up, glancing back at the basket. Maybe she was getting worked up over nothing. Gran knew about cats and she thought Sammy would be fine.

“He’ll be here any minute,” Gran reassured her, as Harper opened cupboard doors, searching for the cat food. It was in the cupboard by the sink, just like it had been at home – Harper frowned at herself – at the old flat, she meant. She had to start thinking of this house as home now. They all did.

She pulled the bag out, hearing it rustle, and looked hopefully towards the hall. Yes… There he was by the basket – peeping round to check what was going on. Harper rustled the bag a bit more, on purpose, and then gave Gran a big grin of relief as Sammy came trotting purposefully down the hall.

Maybe everything was going to be all right?

“Sammy… Come on…” Harper crouched down by the table and whispered to the kitten. She’d been trying to distract him ever since she got back from school, but it was tricky. Sammy just didn’t seem to want to play like he usually did. She picked up one of his favourite toys, a little ball with a jingly bell inside it. Usually if she rolled it for him he’d race after it and leap on it, as if it was some sort of fierce monster he had to squish. Sometimes he even tried picking it up in his paws and ended up doing kitten juggling. He always made Harper laugh.

“Look, Sammy… I’ve got your ball,” she said, holding it up hopefully. Sammy was sitting by the cat flap, hunched up with his shoulder bones all poking out. He glared at her, although Harper could see he’d definitely noticed the ball. “Come on,” she said coaxingly, patting the ball against the kitchen tiles. “Look! I’m going to roll it for you! Come and see!”

Sammy’s tail twitched and Harper hid a smile. He wanted to chase it, she was sure.

She’d really hoped that after a week Sammy would be settling into their new home, but it just didn’t seem to be happening. He kept tracking round the house, as though he was searching for something, and he was totally confused by the stairs. He spent ages sitting next to the bottom step and staring up, and he hadn’t tried climbing them yet. Harper wanted so much to pick him up and take him to see her new bedroom, but she’d resisted. Sammy would get up there eventually, she told herself. It was just that she missed him curling up to sleep in the space behind her knees.

Sammy really didn’t like being shut indoors, either. He spent a lot of time sitting by the locked cat flap in the kitchen and banging it with his paw. Then he would look round at Harper accusingly. She usually managed to distract him with a toy or a treat, but she was pretty sure that while she was at school he’d spent a lot of his time scratching the cat flap and trying to get into the garden. Gran was still feeling tired and a bit wobbly after her fall, and she couldn’t keep getting up to come and fuss over him.

Harper could understand that Sammy didn’t like being shut up. She wouldn’t want to be indoors all the time, either, but they had to wait until he was settled in. Mum had looked it up and said she thought a week was long enough, so he’d be able to go out in the garden at the weekend, when someone could be with him to make sure he didn’t dash off and get lost.

At least now it was Friday afternoon and Harper could spend some more time with him over the weekend.

“Harper, have you finished your unpacking yet?” Mum walked into the kitchen, pushing her hair off her forehead with one hand. She’d been busy all week trying to get everyone settled, and keeping an eye on Gran, and going to work. Now she looked hot and harassed. Harper glanced up guiltily. She hadn’t put away much of her stuff at all – just a few clothes – the boxes were still piled up in her room.

“I was trying to cheer Sammy up…”

“I know, love, but those boxes have to go back to the movers, remember? Can you go and start doing it, please?”

“Can’t I do it tomorrow?” Harper pleaded. “I’ll have loads of time then. I nearly got Sammy to play with his ball a minute ago.”

“Except tomorrow you wanted to let him out in the garden,” Mum reminded her. “You’ll need to be out there keeping an eye on him, won’t you? He’ll be fine for now, Harper, and it’ll definitely cheer him up going outside in the morning.”

Harper sighed and headed upstairs. She knew Mum had been unpacking and tidying and working all day, but she’d been at school, which was work too. No one seemed to be worried about Sammy like she was. It just wasn’t fair.

Sammy padded into the living room, his tail twitching miserably. He’d been about to chase his ball, but then Harper had gone again, up the stairs. He didn’t like stairs, they felt different, and wrong… His home didn’t have stairs.

Gran was there, sitting in her favourite chair with a magazine, and she stretched out her hand to him. Sammy bumped his head against her fingers, but he didn’t leap up on to her lap. He still felt edgy, and confused, and cross – and even worse, he needed to wee. Back at the flat, he’d have used his litter tray, or popped out of the cat flap to the garden, but here it was more difficult. The cat flap didn’t work, however much he’d scrabbled at it, and his litter tray kept moving around. It had been in a corner of the kitchen, and then in a little room next door, and now he wasn’t sure where it had disappeared to.

He really needed to go. He clawed at the rug, over in the corner of the room away from Gran. It wasn’t the right thing to do, he knew that – but he couldn’t help it! What was he supposed to do, if they wouldn’t let him out? He glanced around guiltily and heard a worried gasp from Gran as he started to wee.

“Oh dear, don’t do that, Sammy…”

It was too late. Sammy scratched at the rug again and then scooted behind the sofa, feeling upset.

“Emma!” Gran struggled up from her chair, and went out into the hallway, leaving Sammy lurking behind the sofa. He could smell the wet patch he’d left on the rug and it smelled wrong, not like his litter tray. He shouldn’t have done it.

“What’s up? Are you OK?” Mum called down from the landing, and then Sammy heard her hurrying downstairs.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine, don’t panic, love. But Sammy’s had an accident.”

“An accident?” Sammy heard Harper’s voice, sounding sharp and worried. “Is he hurt?”

“Not that sort of an accident. He’s fine, but he did a wee on the living-room rug.”

“Oh no…” Mum sighed. “That’s just what we need.” She came into the living room and crouched down by the rug. Sammy watched her miserably. He could tell that she was upset. “Will this go in the washing machine? I’m so sorry, Mum. Honestly, why on earth would he do that?”

“It isn’t his fault!” Harper marched across the room to stand next to Mum, and Sammy flinched at her cross voice. Had he made her sound like that? “I told you he wasn’t happy!”

“That doesn’t mean he ought to go and wee all over the place!” Mum snapped back. “And don’t use that rude tone, please.”

“But I did tell you!”

“Harper!”

Ava appeared in the doorway and peered in. “Mummy, why are you shouting? What did Harper do?”

“Mind your own business!” Harper growled.

“I think it’s my fault,” Gran put in, and Sammy felt his prickly fur settle a bit. Mum and Harper seemed to be caught by her soft voice too, and they spun round to look at her. “I emptied his litter tray,” Gran explained. “I thought I’d freshen it up for him, but then I had trouble opening a new bag of litter with this silly cast on. I was going to ask you or Harper to help me, but it just slipped my mind. I left it on the counter in the utility room. So the poor little love didn’t have anywhere to go.”

“Oh…” Mum said.

Harper glared up at her. “You see! It wasn’t Sammy’s fault! I told you it wasn’t! I said he was upset!”

“Harper, just go upstairs, please. I don’t have the time or the energy to deal with you being rude. Upstairs! Now!”

Harper ran out of the room and Sammy watched her go, his ears flattened miserably. He could hear her stomping up the stairs – his whiskers shook with every thump. Where was she going? Why was everyone so angry?

Mum bundled the rug up carefully and walked to the door, stopping to open the window on the way. “I don’t think it went through to the carpet. If we air the room out, it should be OK in a little while. I’ll go and put this in the wash and sort out that litter tray.”

“I’ll make us some tea,” Gran said, following her out, and Sammy was left alone in the living room, shivering and sad.

Sammy stayed behind the sofa, listening to the voices and the footsteps heading off towards the kitchen. He felt utterly miserable. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be back at the flat, his real home, where everything was just as it was supposed to be. If he went home, there would be his food bowl and his water bowl and his litter tray, all in the right places, he was sure. He was so confused and worried that he thought Harper would be at home too – ready to play with him and let him snuggle up next to her on the bed. She wouldn’t be grumpy and loud, like she was here.

He had to get back home. Somehow.

The smell of the spoiled rug was still in the room, but there was another smell too. A fresh, bright waft of air, mixed with cars and damp pavements – an outside smell. If he could smell outside, Sammy thought, his whiskers twitching excitedly, then maybe he could get outside. He prowled across the room, following the smell, and then jumped up on to the back of the sofa to get a better view. Yes, there! The window was open – wide open!

Sammy hardly thought at all, he simply jumped, leaping to the windowsill and taking a deep sniff of outside. He was down in the flower bed below the window in seconds, loving the feel of the crumbly earth under his paws. He glanced back up at the window, wondering if anyone had noticed he was gone, but all was quiet. Sammy padded across the little front garden and slipped through the bars of the metal gate. Out on the pavement, he paused, sniffing thoughtfully. All he knew was that he wanted to go home – he hadn’t thought about how he was going to get there. But some instinct deep inside him was sure of the way to go. He knew where home was.

Sammy glanced back at the house one last time, uncertain for a moment, but then he scurried away down the pavement. He could hear cars rumbling by in the distance – and then one coming closer, along the street. He pressed himself back against the garden wall, feeling the buzz of the passing car under his paws. He had been out the front of his old home a few times, but he’d always preferred the network of gardens and alleys at the back of the flat. It felt quieter. Safer. He wasn’t used to cars and now his whiskers were tingling with worry. Perhaps he should go back – it would be easy to jump up to the windowsill and slip inside. Another car rumbled past…

Sammy shook himself impatiently. It didn’t matter. He would stay safely away from the cars. He knew his home was waiting for him and he was on his way to find it.

Harper lay on her bed with her face buried deep in her pillow. That way she could growl furiously about how unfair Mum was, and how unfair everything was, and how she wanted to go home, and probably no one could hear her. She kicked her feet against the duvet, drumming them up and down – and then rolled over with a sigh.

Mum had put that duvet on her bed the day they moved. She’d chosen Harper’s favourite cover, with the unicorn kittens. Her fleecy blanket was there too, folded up by her pillow, because Mum knew Harper liked to hold it while she was going to sleep. Mum had made sure the blanket was at the top of a box, ready for Harper on that first night at Gran’s house.

Gran… Harper sighed again. Gran really did need them. She’d seemed so happy this week, even though her arm was still painful. She didn’t seem as tired, either. She’d loved having Harper and Ava to chat to at breakfast, telling her all about school.

Maybe Harper had been a bit unfair too?

Mum was so worried about Gran and she’d had to pack their whole flat up, and in between doing all that she was on the phone sorting out changing their address with everyone, and organizing the movers, and letting the school know what was happening. It was a lot. Sammy weeing on the rug wasn’t actually the end of the world, but perhaps it had felt like it was?

Harper sat up, hugging her knees and wondering if she should go downstairs and say sorry to Mum. Someone needed to feed Sammy too – he was probably upset about weeing in the house. Harper went to the door, opening it quietly. She could hear Mum and Gran chatting in the kitchen, and they didn’t sound cross. She would go and give Mum a hug, and apologize.

Mum and Gran both glanced up as Harper came into the kitchen – Gran was smiling, but Mum looked worried and Harper’s stomach twisted inside her.

“I’m sorry, Harper. I shouldn’t have shouted at you,” Mum said.

“I came down to say that!” Harper went to put her arms round Mum’s shoulders and lean against her. “Are you really upset with Sammy? He didn’t mean to…”

“Of course not, it wasn’t his fault. I’m just a bit tired.” Mum sighed. “We should give him his tea, shouldn’t we?”

“I’ll do it.” Harper got the bag of cat food out and looked around, smiling, expecting to hear a thunder of tiny paws as Sammy came running. But there was nothing. He must still be really upset.