Kitten Kaboodle (19 page)

‘You need something to keep your strength up,’Jazz assured me. So for the next hour or so, I was back to being a normal eleven-year-old, cooking with my best friend, laughing and
dancing to the music on the radio, while Tyson made the most of his parents having a lie-in and ate his body-weight in maple syrup – and smeared a load more of it over his face and in his
hair Personally I was on course to set the world record for the amount of chocolate spread to be consumed in one sitting (which kind of showed a fatal flaw in my previous statement that I was
‘not hungry’).

Eventually, though, the facts had to be faced. ‘I’ve gotta go, Jazz,’ I said, as we stacked the dishwasher and wiped the table. ‘Don’t forget we’ve got a ton
of homework, which might even possibly be worse than Dad being in love !’ I tried to joke, but it came out rather hollow-sounding.

‘Wooooo!’ Ty son jeered unhelpfully. ‘In LURVE!’

‘Shut up!’ Jazz barked, whacking him professionally on the back of the head. He went off howling to find their mum.

Jazz rolled her eyes at the sound of her little brother wailing and her mum complaining, then she put her head on one side and examined me carefully. ‘Listen, don’t get too stressy,
OK? I’ve got modern and tap later, but you will come and tell me what’s up after, won’t you?’ She put an arm round me and squeezed me to her.

‘Hmm.’

Dad wasn’t in when I got back. I ran through the house shouting for him, throwing open all the doors and even checking in the garden, not that Dad goes out there unless
he is forced into mowing the lawn because it is about to engulf the house like some hairy, green, house-eating monster.

I was beginning to panic. Dad is never out unless it’s something to do with work which he’s told me about a million times in advance. In any case, what on earth would require him to
do research on a Saturday morning at ten o’clock? Surely even Mrs Moany Miggins and her Sticky-Beak Brigade didn’t need interviewing about car parks at that time on a weekend?

I was about to run back to Jazz’s when there was a rustle in the leaves above my head and a pitiful ‘mew!’

I looked up. ‘Stuck again, are we?’ I cried, seeing Kaboodle balancing precariously on the end of a branch, which was sending showers of autumn-ye llow leaves cascading into my hair.
‘Hey! Stop jiggling the branch like that!’ I protested, shaking my head and brushing the leaves off me. ‘My hair’s enough of a nightmare without any further foliage
decoration, thank you very much.’

‘Sorry I’m sure,’ squeaked Kaboodle, his ears flat and his eyes wide with alarm. ‘And for your information, I am not stuck –’ Sure, you don’t look it at
all. ‘I have been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes, while you have been rustling around the garden like a demented hound on the scent of a rabbit.’

‘Charming,’ I snorted. ‘Why don’t you jump down then?’

‘All in good time,’ said Kaboodle, wobbling even more dangerously and holding on with his claws fully extended as if his life depended on it. ‘I have some news for
you.’

‘Right,’ I said, bracing myself. ‘Come on then, spit it out.’

Kaboodle waved his tail tetchily at me and bared his teeth as if he really was going to spit.

‘All right, all right! No need to be like that,’ I said. ‘Here, jump into my arms. I’ll catch you – promise.’

Kaboodle put his head on one side as if assessing the situation and then flung himself through the air, his four legs sticking out, coming towards me like a mini black furry kite tumbling out of
the sky.

‘Ooof!’ I caught him with some difficulty as his claws were still out. ‘Don’t scratch! There, you’re OK now,’ I soothed, stroking his back once he’d
settled himself in my arms.

Kaboodle started purring and washing a paw as if he had not been fearing for his life five seconds earlier, but merely taking an early morning rooftop stroll.

‘So,’ I said, ‘perhaps you could do me a favour now?’

Kaboodle stopped washing and looked up at me quizzically. ‘Yes?’

I came straight to the point. ‘Dad’s not here. I’m starting to think he might be at your place.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Kaboodle carelessly. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you. Your dad went over to Ms P’s early this morning and they are in the sitting room.’

He wriggled out of my arms, jumped nimbly to the ground and starting trotting off in the direction of the side path that led to the front of the house.

My jaw had dropped to below my knees and someone had superglued my feet to the ground.

Kaboodle glanced over his shoulder at me. ‘What are you waiting for? Come on!’

Somehow I managed to communicate to my feet that they should wrench themselves off the grass and move in Kaboodle’s direction, but my brain had gone into shut-down mode. I couldn’t
face thinking about what I was going to see if I followed Kaboodle across the road. Somewhere in the depths of my mind I made a decision to do as the kitten told me, and soon I was sneaking down
Pinkella’s side path and into her garden.

‘Leave this first part to me,’ Kaboodle instructed. ‘I will go in through the cat flap and act the cute little kitty-cat so as not to arouse suspicion. I’ll curl up
somewhere near Ms P and your dad so that I can watch and hear everything that is going on. How does that sound?’

I nodded and then hissed, ‘Just don’t get too comfy, Kaboodle. I don’t want you dozing off like you did last time.’ I gulped. My stomach was a churning mass of writhing
worms and I suddenly wished I hadn’t had that last pancake. ‘OK – in you go.’ I motioned towards the cat flap. ‘I’ll sit on the bench out here.’

Kaboodle stepped lightly into the house and was gone. I sat down. Then I stood up. I wished I’d brought a book or something. I wished I’d brought Jazz. I wished I hadn’t agreed
to follow Kaboodle here at all.

I paced around the garden, counting each step to try and distract myself. I glanced at my watch. Kaboodle had only been in there five minutes. What if he had to stay in there for half an hour
until he found out anything useful?

I didn’t think I could hang around any longer. It was doing my head in. I was just about to stomp off home and wait for Dad to eventually come back, when Kaboodle hurtled through the cat
flap as though someone had just set his tail alight.

‘I think you should come – NOW!’ he insisted.

‘Whoa! Hold on a minute!’ I shouted, holding a hand up to stop him. ‘You’ve got to tell me what’s going on first – I’m not charging into Ms P’s
uninvited only to discover her and Dad . . . well, her and Dad doing what exactly?’ I finished queasily.

Kaboodle was washing his chest furiously and refusing to meet my eye. Risking being scratched into oblivion, I scooped him up, catching him unawares. Cupping his little heart-shaped face in my
free hand I said, ‘Tell – me – Kaboodle.’

‘Oh dear,’ he mewed.

I waited, holding on to him as tightly as I could.

Kaboodle wriggled slightly, but gave up when it was obvious he wasn’t going anywhere without me. ‘OK, OK!’ he squealed finally. ‘But let go of me, can’t you?’
I did as he asked and he shook himself irritably. ‘Follow me.’

Kaboodle headed into the house and made his way to the kitchen. I tried to follow in a calm and collected manner, but inside my head I was scream-ing, ‘Let me at ’em!’

We appeared in the doorway of the living room in time to see my Dad on one knee, gazing adoringly at Pinkella while she gushed, ‘Oh my darling man! You are the answer to all my
dreams!’

And Dad replied, ‘No, no, Fenella – it’s you who has made this so perfect.’

A strangled exclamation halfway between a shriek and a sob escaped from my mouth and Dad tore his eyes away from Fenella to see me standing there, my jaw hanging open, my hands limp at my
sides.

‘Bertie!’ he cried.

I turned and ran back out the way I had come, nearly stamping on Kaboodle in the process and causing him to yowl in fright. I didn’t care though. I didn’t care about anything other
than getting away from the appalling scene I had just witnessed.

Dad had asked Pinkella to marry him, and she had just accepted.

Pinkella was going to be my new mum.

I
kept on running until I reached the park where I sat down on a bench and cried and cried and cried.

A few days ago, my only worry had been Kaboodle trying to make off with Houdini and Mr Nibbles as meals on wheels. Now Kaboodle’s owner was the one trying to make off with something: my
dad. And it was pretty obvious where this left me – out in the cold. No wonder that Pink Permutation had sucked up to me so much and asked me to look after her beloved pussy-wussy-catkins.
She’d had her eye on Dad all along. She had used me to get to him. She had—

‘Berrrrrtie?’

It was Kaboodle, purring like a hairdryer on overdrive and winding his way round my legs.

‘Go away!’ I shouted.

A passing man walking his dog gave me a funny look and then walked quickly in the other direction.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kaboodle said softly.

I sighed a wobbly tear-filled sigh and scooped Kaboodle up into my arms without waiting for an invitation. I knew none of this was his fault. I couldn’t speak, though –
couldn’t tell him what was going on in my mind. I was so confused. I ended up burying my face in his fur and breathing in that dark musky smell of his.

Kaboodle purred an even deeper purr and licked my cheek with his sandpaper tongue We sat there, saying nothing, until I began to feel hungry. I didn’t want to go home though, and I
didn’t have any money. I got up and motioned for Kaboodle to follow me. I needed to move around to stop myself from freezing solid.

We walked through the park. We must have looked odd, a girl taking a kitten for a walk, but my mind was on other things.

‘What am I going to do?’ I asked Kaboodle at last. I flumped down on to another bench and settled Kaboodle back on to my lap and stroked him, as much to keep myself warm as to pet
him.

‘You know, Bertie, one good thing could come out of all this,’ Kaboodle said.

‘Oh yeah?’ I snapped. He wasn’t going to try and convince me that Pinkella would be a good mum, like Jazz had the night before, was he?

‘Well, if your dad marries Ms P, you and I will be living together,’ Kaboodle purred.

I nodded quietly. That would be cool. But it didn’t make me change my mind.

‘Let’s go to Jazz’s,’ Kaboodle suggested, breaking the silence.

I must have looked surprised at this suggestion, because Kaboodle put his head on one side and fixed me with a serious look. ‘I hate to admit it but she’s going to be more help to
you than I can ever be,’ he added sadly ‘I can’t exactly offer you a place to stay or give you any food, can I?’ He was right. All I wanted right that minute was for my best
friend to give me a hug and tell me everything was going to be OK. Minutes later I plodded up the driveway to Jazz’s front door, shivering quite violently now rubbing my arms and stomping my
feet to keep warm. Kaboodle sat by me while we waited for someone to come to the door.