The Homesick Kitten

Harper nodded. That made sense. “I’ll make some more posters then. Or can I go and start putting them up?”

“And me!” Ava jumped up from the table.

“No, not on your own. I’ll be as quick as I can, I promise. I know it’s hard to wait, but it’s important to call the vets. Someone might have found Sammy already.”

“I’m going to make posters too,” Ava said, grabbing a piece of paper and starting to draw a kitten, but Harper followed Mum into the living room.

“Mum, can’t I just go down the street and put some of the posters up? It’s not far and I won’t cross the road.”

Mum sighed, looking at her phone and the list of numbers she’d written. “OK. But only as far as the end of the street, all right? Don’t go past the park.”

“I promise.” Harper nodded. She knew Mum was right, and someone might have found Sammy already, but she just couldn’t bear waiting any longer. She kept thinking of her kitten out there, lost and confused, and it made her stomach twist up inside her.

Harper stopped at the entrance to the park, wondering if she should stick a poster up on the fence. Lots of people would see it there, but she wasn’t sure how well the tape would work. She held the poster up against the wooden slats, frowning. Perhaps there was a noticeboard or something like that at one of the other gates.

“Are you all right, dear?”

Harper turned to see that an elderly couple with a dog had paused on their way out of the park. She nodded shyly. “I was going to put up a poster,” she explained. “Our cat’s missing. He’s a kitten really, a grey tabby kitten.”

“Oh!” The woman glanced out towards the road. “A silvery colour? With spots?”

“Yes!” Harper nearly dropped the posters. “Yes, he’s spotty! Have you seen him?”

The couple nodded at each other. “We did see a little cat. Petey scared him, I’m afraid,” the man told Harper. “He’s friendly, but the cat didn’t know that of course. We were back up the road that way and then the cat ran off, into one of the gardens, I think.” He pointed up the road towards Gran’s house.

“That was about fifteen, twenty minutes ago?” the woman put in. “I’m sorry we didn’t see exactly where he went.”

“But you saw him!” Harper smiled shakily. “Thank you! I’ll keep looking.”

“Good luck finding him!” the man called back, waving to her as they set off up the street.

Harper leaned against the fence for a moment. Sammy was OK! They’d seen him – a spotty silver kitten – it had to be him, didn’t it? She hurried back along the road, calling hopefully. “Sammy! Sammy, here, boy! Where are you?” She was sure that she’d see him darting out of a garden towards her any moment, but she went on calling and calling, and nothing happened.

He could have gone further up the street, Harper decided, especially if it had been a while. She ran along the pavement, stopping to peer over fences and under cars, always calling.

About halfway between the park and their house she saw something grey dart underneath a gate and she gasped excitedly, running to lean over and look into the garden. “Sammy! I’m here, Sammy, come on!”

There was a moment of silence and then a little face looked back at her from behind a tall fern.

It wasn’t Sammy. The cat looked a bit like him, but it had a white chin and paws, and it was mostly striped, with a few spots along its sides. It just wasn’t her kitten. Harper swallowed hard, gulping back her disappointment. She’d have to keep looking.

She was turning away from the garden when she realized the awful thing. The elderly couple must have got it wrong. They must have seen this cat. Young and thin and silvery tabby – it all matched.

No one had seen Sammy after all.

Under the bushes at the edge of the park, Sammy startled awake. He’d heard a voice he recognized. That was Harper, he was almost sure. She was here! She was calling him! He leaped up, racing to the edge of the path, and then checked, looking around for the dog. He remembered its bright eyes and the way it had snuffled after him so eagerly. Sammy’s tail fluffed up to double size again. What if it was still there, waiting for him? He was safe here underneath the bushes – out there he’d be in the open, with nowhere to hide. He crouched under the low branches, hesitating.

But he had to follow Harper’s voice. He couldn’t let home go again!

Sammy darted out on to the path and through the park gates to the street, hoping to see Harper looking for him. But no one was there.

Harper rubbed her eyes on her sleeve. She knew crying wasn’t going to do any good, but she couldn’t help it – she’d been so excited, so sure that she was about to get Sammy back. That extra little bit of hope from the elderly couple had been torn away, leaving her feeling more heartbroken than ever.

She would go back and see how Mum was doing with the phone calls, she thought sadly. Maybe there’d been some good news. Then she looked down at the poster in her hand and sighed. It had actually been a sensible idea to put one up at the park – so many people went through those gates. She just needed to find a better spot than the fence, that’s all. She’d do that now, rather than wasting the poster.

“I can’t give up,” Harper muttered to herself. “We’re going to find him. We have to.” But she wasn’t calling for him as she trudged back down the road towards the park. She wasn’t hoping, the way she had been before. She walked on with her head down, just concentrating on not crying.

She was unrolling the poster, ready to tape it to the litter bin by the gates, when she heard the mewing – high, frantic, excited mewing. She dropped the poster and the sticky tape, without even noticing that she’d done it. She looked around wildly, her breath caught in her throat – and a tiny silvery spotted cat came racing out from under the bushes by the park gates.

“Sammy!” Harper scooped him up into her arms. “They did see you! I thought – oh, it doesn’t matter! Where did you go? We have to get back and tell Mum. She’s calling everyone about you. Oh, I dropped the poster!” She scrabbled around to pick it up, while Sammy tried to climb inside her jacket and nuzzle her, purring and purring. Then she shoved the poster into the bin and whispered into the top of his furry head, “Let’s go home.”

The house still seemed a little bit strange – but Sammy was starting to feel as if he belonged. His litter tray was in a nice quiet corner now and his toys were scattered everywhere. A blanket that smelled like Harper was draped over the back of the sofa. He could stretch out on it and see the street, and watch the birds in the garden too.

When Harper had carried Sammy into the house, such a wave of happiness and relief had swept over him. He could feel them all loving him – Harper, Ava, Mum and Gran. He’d followed them around all day, even curling up in Gran’s lap under the table while they were eating lunch.

That night, as Ava and Harper had started up the stairs, Sammy had put one paw on the bottom step and mewed.

“He wants to go with you!” Mum had said to Harper, laughing.

“You’d better help the poor kitten out,” Gran agreed, and Harper had scooped him into her arms again and carried him up to bed with her. He’d investigated the bathroom while the girls were brushing their teeth and then followed them back into Harper’s room. He liked this room – there was a windowsill and he thought it might be sunny to sit on tomorrow. So many different places to explore up here. So many interesting smells.

Now he yawned and stood up, turning round a couple of times and padding at the duvet to get it just right.

“Is he OK?” Ava sat up in bed to look at him worriedly and Sammy nudged his nose against her cheek.

“I think so.” Harper smiled at her. “He does that, Ava, it’s all right. He’s getting comfy. Go to sleep. Mum said you could only come in with me if you promised not to keep chatting.”

Ava lay back down, and Sammy tucked himself into the nest of duvet between both sisters and started to purr. Some things were different, but this hadn’t changed. This was where he was meant to be, curled up with Harper and Ava.

Harper rubbed her hand gently over his ears and he heard her sigh sleepily. “Don’t worry, Ava. Sammy’s back home.”

LITTLE TIGER

An imprint of Little Tiger Press Limited

1 Coda Studios, 189 Munster Road, London SW6 6AW

Imported into the EEA by Penguin Random House Ireland,

Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D02 YH68

First published in Great Britain in 2022

Text copyright © Holly Webb, 2022

Illustrations copyright © Sophy Williams, 2022

A uthor photograph © Charlotte Knee Photography

e-ISBN: 978–1–78895–453–2

The right of Holly Webb and Sophy Williams to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.

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