Kitten Smitten (19 page)

Mr Smythe chuckled in that dry, high-pitched way of his and blinked hard at me. ‘You are a funny girl, Roberta,’ he said. ‘I won’t let Houdini out of the
cage
– don’t worry. He can do his tricks
in
the cage, escaping from an old loo roll or margarine box – that kind of thing.’

I smiled stiffly. I could just imagine Fiona’s reaction to this idea . . . The man really was a loop-the-loop fruit-loop loony. ‘Sounds fun,’ I said and quickly made my
excuses.

When I told Fergus and Jazz about Mr Smythe later that week, Fergus roared with laughter. ‘Man! He sounds bonkers! That’s just the kind of thing that makes good telly, though.
Bertie, you’re a genius.’

Jazz bristled. ‘Yeah, well, I just think he’s weird. OK, who’s next?’

‘Mr Bruce?’ I suggested. ‘He’s got those two King Charles spaniels.’

‘Oh. My. Goodness,’ Jazz breathed, her hands flung up in mock horror. ‘You cannot
seriously
be thinking of letting that muppet enter with those Hounds of the Basketcase,
can you?’

I shrugged. ‘Might liven things up a bit,’ I said weakly.

Fergus chuckled. ‘Cool!’ he said. ‘Let’s go and see him right away.’

As we walked up to Mr Bruce’s front door, I felt suddenly sick with nerves. What if he slammed the door in my face? So far the only animals I had definitely managed to round up for Fergus
and his mum were Jaffa, the hamsters, Huckleberry and Sparky from the pet shop. (I had swallowed my pride and asked Dad to call ‘Bex’. Unsurprisingly, he’d been thrilled about
that.)

The second my hand touched the doorbell a riot of barking and scrabbling paws rocketed towards the front door. I took a nervous step back as I heard footsteps and a man’s deep voice
saying, ‘Down, Digby! Down, Buzz!’

Jazz rolled her eyes and stuck out one hip, shooting me a withering I-told-you-so look.

Fergus grimaced and held up crossed fingers.

The door opened slightly as Mr Bruce tried to restrain his two over-eager dogs.

‘Be with you in a minute!’ he shouted over the noise. ‘Down, boys!’ he yelled at the dogs, then opened the door a fraction more. ‘Just let me get these two on
leads,’ he said, peering out at me. He let the door swing to and was back in an instant, having clipped leads to the spaniels’ collars. When he opened the door properly I noticed he
looked rather hot and bothered. His forehead was shiny with sweat and he was a bit out of breath.

‘Sorry about that,’ he grunted, yanking back sharply on the leads to prevent the dogs from pulling him over. ‘Always get overexcited when the bell goes. Must train it out of
them,’ he muttered. Then he seemed to remember that I hadn’t said hello or anything yet and beamed at me, showing a set of rather vicious-looking teeth.

‘Ah, Roberta and Jasmeena,’ he said.

Jazz let out a loud sigh.

I frowned at her and said, ‘Yeah. Well, Bertie and Jazz actually.’

‘And—?’ he asked, nodding at Fergus.

I introduced him and was about to launch into an explanation of why we’d come round when Mr Bruce cut in abruptly. ‘Very well, very well— Heeeeeeel!’ he barked, yanking
his dogs’ leads fiercely.

The spaniels were straining harder than ever on their leads, practically choking themselves in their effort to get closer to me. I tried to take a good look at them, but they were panting and
jumping and pulling so much all I really took in was two long pink tongues and a lot of gross slobbery stuff coming out of the corners of their mouths.

Jazz had started muttering about having a lot to do and turned to leave, but Fergus restrained her and nodded at me encouragingly.

‘Er, how old are your dogs?’ I asked.

‘Only two,’ Mr Bruce said. ‘Bouncy brutes, aren’t they?’ He seemed very pleased with this comment, and gave a wheezy laugh.

‘Right. We ll, the reason I’m here is that we’re organizing a pet show, but . . .’ I hesitated. ‘Erm, I’m not sure that you’d be interested
actually,’ I said hastily, suddenly making up my mind that this was not a good idea, and backing away from the two slavering beasts. But Mr Bruce had caught sight of one of the posters that
Fergus was carrying and he started reading it, peering through his glasses awkwardly while still pulling hard on the dog leads.

‘Oh, my two boys will love this!’ he cried, when he’d finished reading.

‘I didn’t know you had children,’ I said, puzzled.

Mr Bruce squinted at me and then let out another creaky chuckle. ‘I meant these boys!’ he said, gesturing to the dogs. ‘It’s just the thing they need actually – bit
of an incentive to work harder on the training. Could do a little agility display for you, eh?’

I grabbed the poster from Fergus and mumbled something about leaving him time to think about it. Then quickly making our excuses, we ran off. Fergus and I were barely able to wait until
we’d reached the corner before a fit of hiccuppy giggles overtook us.

‘Oh, my two little fellas are simply spiffing!’ Fergus squawked, in an exaggerated impression of Mr Bruce.

‘Yes, yes, all tip-top and shipshape!’ I howled.

‘What is he
like
?’ Fergus cried, clutching his stomach and whooping as he tried to get his breath back.

Jazz was seriously unamused. ‘When you two have finished behaving like a couple of nursery school kids, perhaps we could get on with finding some more
suitable
entrants for this
competition?’ she said scathingly, wobbling her head at us.

That shut me up. I gulped, realizing the truth of what Jazz had just said. Mr Bruce was a loser, Mr Smythe was a nutcase . . . How had I ever believed this was going to work? I was silent all
the way home, wondering what mayhem I had unleashed.

T
he show came round far too quickly. A crippling sensation of unease seized me whenever I thought about it. The way things had been going for me
recently, I was convinced the whole thing had ‘MASSIVE DISASTER AREA’ written all over it in ten-foot-high capital letters. Even Fergus’s repeated assurances that it would all be
‘all right on the night’ were doing nothing to steady my nerves.

‘Thing is,’ I told him the day before the show, ‘if it all goes wrong, it’s going to be my fault.’

He shook his head at me affectionately, his russet fringe flopping over his face. ‘Don’t be so down on yourself, Bertie. It’s going to be brilliant. Mum will make sure it runs
like clockwork, Jazz will keep Simon and Danni happy just by being there and loving everything they say and do, and you and I – ’ he glanced away, running his hand through his hair and
grinning – ‘we’ll keep the animals under control. We’re a great team,’ he added bashfully.

That night, Jaffa jumped up on to my bed and curled into the crook of my arm. She fell into a deep sleep immediately, whereas I could not settle at all. No matter what Fergus said, my stomach
was churning and my mind was torturing me with images of Mr Bruce’s dogs trying to eat Huckleberry, or the hamsters, or Jaffa – or all three.

At least we’d got a few more entrants together. Dad had proudly told me ‘Bex’ had come up with a list of twenty other customers who she thought would bring their pets along, so
altogether it looked as though we had twenty-five entrants to tell Fiona about, including Sparky and Jaffa. At least something good had come out of Dad batting his eyelashes at that woman, I
thought with a sigh.

I hoped Fiona had been able to get more entrants through her contacts. She hadn’t been very communicative. And I wasn’t sure that in reality Simon Cow and Danni Minnow were going to
be the slightest bit interested either. Who was I kidding? They were coming to our town for the
WGT?
auditions, not some schoolgirl’s pet show.

I tossed and turned while my kitten snuffled softly on my duvet.

‘Jaffa?’ I whispered. ‘Can I talk to you?’

The tiny kitten snuffled in her sleep and put her paw over her face. My chest tightened at the sight of her. Whatever else happened, at least I had my Jaffa. She hadn’t run off at all
since we’d started planning the pet show. She seemed completely at home with me. And she had totally stolen my heart.

‘Jaffsie?’ I tried again.

‘Mmmm?’ she purred, opening one eye cautiously, and then stretched and yawned. ‘Me sleeping,’ she said grumpily.

‘I know,’ I said, stroking her downy fur, ‘but I can’t sleep at all tonight.’

‘Well, me is very sorry. But me
can
sleep and me going right back to sleep, right now!’ Jaffa said, closing her eyes firmly.

‘Hey! Just a minute!’ I said, picking her up and putting her on my chest so that her face was close to mine. ‘I just want to ask you something about tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow is tomorrow. Mum said,’ Jaffa said huffily. ‘And today is today. And right now me is sleepy. Me
told
Bertie this!’

‘OK!’ I said impatiently. ‘Just one minute of your time – that’s all I’m asking.’

Jaffa sighed noisily, opened one eye and said, ‘One minute.’

I tickled her gently behind one ear. ‘Thank you. So, I wanted to say, are you nervous about the pet show?’

Jaffa blinked slowly. ‘Nervous? Why should
me
be nervous?’

‘Well, it’s a sort of competition, the pet show. Sometimes people get nervous before competitions. And there’ll be other animals there that maybe you’ve never seen
before. I just wondered if you’d thought about it.’

‘Everyone always loves Jaffsie,’ she said. I’m sure she smiled as she said this. Cheeky little monkey! I thought. I wish I had her confidence. ‘So me is not worried about
nothin’. And,’ she said, opening her eyes wide and fixing me with that innocent gaze of hers, ‘if my Bertie there to look after Jaffsie, there be nothin’ to worry about
anyway.’

My heart lurched. ‘That’s right, little Jaffa,’ I whispered. ‘That’s right.’

It turned out that both Fergus and my little kitten were completely one hundred per cent right: there was nothing to worry about. I had not taken Fergus at his word when
he’d said his mum would run everything like clockwork – it was more like a military parade, if you asked me. That woman was as efficient as a whole army of ants. Fiona had sorted the
venue (the Pinkington Theatre which Dad and Pinkella had helped to renovate, and where the
Who’s Got Talent?
auditions were also to be held). She had also organized all the other
contestants and of course the TV crews and make-up people and the catering people who were needed to provide refreshments and snacks.

The only thing Fiona couldn’t control was Jazz. If I’d thought my best mate had been hyper during the planning of this thing, her behaviour on the morning of the show was
mega-ultra-super-hyper! She was like a jitter-bug with a sugar rush. She could not keep still, patting her hair, rearranging her bangles on her arm, pulling at her T-shirt, and squealing every time
she caught sight of a TV camera or a microphone.

‘You need to chill out, Jazz,’ Fergus told her. ‘Just be yourself. Danni and Simon are going to love you. Mum’s told them so much about you.’

‘Oh yeah, like what a freak I am and how I’m only eleven and—’ her face darkened as she realized she’d given away her real age.

Fergus raised an eyebrow at me and smiled knowingly.

‘Fergus is right, Jazz,’ I said, grabbing my funny friend and hugging her tight. ‘They’ll love you – just like we do.’

Of course they did! And weirdly, they seemed to love me too, which I was pretty surprised about. They weren’t nearly as diva-like as I’d thought they would be. Even Simon was
brilliant at chatting to us, joking and laughing and putting us completely at our ease. Danni even let us look around their mega black limo, which had a DVD player and a fridge stacked with
chocolate and drinks. I could certainly see why the celebrity life appealed to Jazz.

‘Can’t go anywhere without my candy bars!’ Danni drawled, offering us each a snack from the fridge. ‘Take a note of that, chick.’ She winked at Jazz, who
practically swooned on the spot.

Danni needn’t have worried about Jazz taking notes: she was taking notes on every single time Danni breathed. I grinned, bracing myself for many Danni-wannabe moments to come from my
star-struck best friend.