Ginger the Stray Kitten (4 page)

The rescue centre was in the next village. The girl at the reception desk knew about the kittens, and she smiled at Rosie’s eager questions.

“I’m sure you can go and see them,” she said. “We wouldn’t usually let people visit the kittens until we’d checked them over, but seeing as you already know them…” She led Rosie and her mum through to a room at the back, with large cat-runs in it.

Rosie spotted the tabby mother cat at once. She was prowling up and down the run, looking anxious.

“Oh, she really doesn’t like being shut in. And she must be upset that she’s not with her kittens,” Rosie said sadly.

The girl from the rescue centre nodded. “I know. But because she’s a feral cat we need to separate her kittens from her now, before they get too old. It’s so the kittens can get used to humans and to give them the best chance of settling in when they go to their new homes. They’re in that run at the end, want to see them?”

“Oh, yes… Come and see, Mum!” Rosie whispered, grabbing her mum’s hand and pulling her along.

“Oh, they are sweet!” her mum agreed, peering through the wire. “Look at that little black one!”

But Rosie was staring anxiously into the run. There were four kittens in the basket, curled up asleep – one black, and three tabbies. There was no lovely little ginger kitten.

Ginger wasn’t there!

Chapter Four

“Don’t cry, Rosie,” Mum said gently as they walked back to the car.

Rosie was trying not to cry, but there were just a few tears that she couldn’t seem to stop. She was thinking about what could’ve happened at the farm when the cats were caught.

Why hadn’t Ginger been with them?

Probably he’d found a sneaky way out
of the barn and slipped away. But why? Perhaps he’d just been frightened of the rescue centre people, but it was also possible that he had stayed behind at the farm to wait for her. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to go with the other cats because of her, because she’d been feeding him and playing with him.

She had read about feral cats on the internet and knew that they were good hunters, but Ginger was too young to hunt properly for himself. His mother would still have been catching food for her kittens, and showing them how to chase the mice in the barns. Without her to feed him, he might starve. Rosie nodded firmly to herself. She had to go back to the farm. She just had to find him, however long it took.

Rosie was determined to stop and look for the kitten the next day, but she and Gran got a shock when they reached the farm. Gran had come another way to collect Rosie from school, because she needed to go to the shops, and they both stopped in surprise as they came close.

“Goodness, that’s gone up quickly!” Gran exclaimed.

A huge wire fence was now surrounding the farmyard, covered in big notices about wearing hard hats, and no children playing on the building site. It was a building site already!

Rosie pressed her face up against the wire fence. The farmyard was deserted, with no sign of life at all.

“Can’t we go in and look for him?” she asked Gran.

“No, Rosie, look – it says no one can go in.” Gran sighed. “We’ll just have to keep coming by and hope we spot him – or perhaps we could ask the builders to keep an eye out. There’s no one here now, but I’m sure there will be soon, otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered to put the fence up, would they?”

Gran was right. The next day, a couple of men in yellow hard hats were wandering round the building site with a little machine that beeped, which Rosie and Gran guessed was some sort of clever measuring gadget. It took them ages to catch the men’s attention, but at last one of them came over.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Have you seen a kitten?” Rosie said nervously. “There were some cats here, and they were taken to a rescue centre, but we think one of the kittens ran away and…” She trailed off. “We just wondered if you’d seen him? A ginger kitten?”

“No, sorry.” The builder turned away. Rosie didn’t dare call him back, even though she wanted to.

“Could you keep an eye out for him, please!” Gran called, and Rosie squeezed her hand gratefully. She’d wanted to ask that, too.

They carried on walking, Rosie looking back sadly every so often. They seemed to be able to see that fence for ages.

“Don’t give up hope, Rosie,” Gran told her. “You never know.”

But Rosie couldn’t help feeling that her chances of finding Ginger were getting smaller and smaller. What if he had escaped before the fence went up. Maybe he wasn’t there at all!

Ginger was hiding between two hay bales in the barn, peering out occasionally, and trembling as the men’s heavy boots thumped past the door. Who were they? And why were they stamping and crashing round his home? He wished his mother and his brother and sisters would come back, but he was almost sure now that they were gone for ever. If his mother had still been here, she would have come to find him by now, wouldn’t she?

He had hidden in the barn when the men came to put the fence up, and he’d dashed back there again this morning when they returned. He didn’t dare do more than poke his nose out
occasionally to see if they’d gone. He was starving, and it was getting harder to find anything to eat in the bin bags by the farmhouse.

There were voices outside now. Were more people coming? He shivered. He wanted the farm to go back to being quiet and safe like it was before. He listened miserably, but then his ears pricked up. He knew that voice. It was the girl! She was there! Maybe she’d known he was hungry and had brought him some more sandwiches? He edged nervously round the barn door, the fur on his back ruffling up.

The men were still there, and the girl was talking to one of them. If only they would go, he could run over to her. Perhaps she didn’t know he was here. He mewed a tiny mew, hoping she would hear. But he didn’t dare call more loudly in case the men saw him.

No! The girl was turning away. She was going!

Rosie walked sadly away down the lane with Gran, leaving the kitten staring desperately after her.

The girl had gone, and Ginger didn’t know if she would come back. He felt so small and scared, and very, very alone…

Chapter Five

On Friday Gran was waiting outside school for Rosie as usual. It was spitting with rain, and Rosie was taking a while. She and Millie were among the last few to come out, and Millie had her arm round her friend.

“Rosie’s really upset about Ginger,” she explained to Rosie’s gran.

“I just don’t think I’m ever going to see him again,” Rosie whispered sadly.

“You mustn’t give up!” Millie said firmly.

Millie’s mum had come up and was giving Rosie a concerned look. “Is everything OK, Millie?” she asked, and Millie explained about Ginger being missing.

“Poor little thing,” her mum murmured. “Have you tried putting food out to tempt him, just in case he’s still around?”

Rosie lifted her head. “No! No, we haven’t, we should try that! Can we do that today, Gran? Oh no, I should have saved my sandwiches for him!”

“You could buy some cat treats in the pet shop!” Millie suggested.
“Sammy loves those, especially the salmon-flavour ones.”

“Please!” Rosie begged. “I’ll pay you back out of my pocket money, Gran.”

Gran smiled. “I think I can afford some cat treats. Come on then.”

“Oh, I wish I could come with you, but I’ve got dancing,” Millie said. “I’d love to see him. I bet he’ll come out for those cat treats.”

“Thanks for the brilliant idea,” Rosie told her gratefully, and she and Gran set off to the pet shop.

“Call me and let me know if you see him!” Millie yelled after them, and Rosie turned back to wave. Millie had understood at once why she was so upset. She adored her fluffy, white cat, Sammy. He’d been lost for a couple of days last year, and it had been awful.

Rosie chose the salmon treats, like Millie had suggested. Sammy was gorgeous and podgy and liked his food – Ginger was sure to like them, too. Then they walked quickly over to the farm. From a long way down the lane, they could hear banging and the rumbling sounds of big vehicles. Rosie and Gran exchanged a look and
speeded up to see what was going on.

The farm looked so different. The builders were knocking down the barn! A huge, yellow digger was thundering past them on the other side of the fence – even Rosie felt scared by how big and loud it was. How would a kitten feel!

“Oh no!” Rosie cried. “That’s where the cats all used to sleep.” She watched as the digger tore at the walls. She clung on to the wire fence, pressing her face against it so hard she could feel the wires marking her forehead, and looked frantically around the building site. She still couldn’t see the kitten.

“He’s not there, is he?” she asked, her voice shaking. “You don’t think he was in the barn, when they – when they started pulling it down…”

Gran stared through the fence at the builders and their machines, and sighed. “I don’t know, Rosie. He could just be hidden away somewhere because he’s frightened. It’s so noisy, he might want to come out, but he doesn’t dare.” She put her arm round Rosie.

“Try the cat treats,” she suggested gently. “Why don’t you scatter a few through the fence? Maybe the smell will tempt him.” She helped Rosie tear open the tough packet. “Goodness, I should think he’d smell that from miles away, they’re very fishy, aren’t they?”

The treats did smell very strong, and Rosie pushed a few through the mesh of the fence. Then they waited, watching the builders in their bright yellow vests and hard hats as they cleared away the broken pieces of wood that were all that was left of the kitten’s home. But there was no sign of Ginger – no long, white whiskers peeping out from behind a hay bale, no ginger tail flicking round the corner of the farmhouse. He was nowhere to be seen. After ten minutes of waiting and calling, Gran turned to Rosie.

“It’s starting to rain harder, Rosie. We’d better go, but we’ll try again. Maybe your mum will bring you over tomorrow or on Sunday. We won’t give up.”

Rosie nodded, feeling slightly better. She would never give up on Ginger.

Even though he was only across the farmyard, Ginger hadn’t seen them. He was lurking under the abandoned tractor, shuddering each time the digger crashed and clanged through his old home. He had run out as soon as the builders had come into the barn, and had been hiding here ever since. He was wet, cold and hungry, and now he didn’t even have anywhere to sleep!

As the barn was flattened, Ginger came to a decision. This wasn’t his home any more. It hadn’t been his home since his family had gone – he realized now that his mother wasn’t coming back. He needed to get away, and find somewhere new.

Perhaps he could go and find that nice girl with the sandwiches?

Rosie’s mum took her back to the farm on Sunday, and they stood by the fence calling for ages.

“Put some more cat treats down,” Mum suggested. “Then at least he’ll have something to eat.”

Suddenly Rosie gasped. “Mum, look!”

“What is it? Have you spotted him? I can’t see anything.” Mum peered through the fence.

“No, that’s it, I can’t see anything, that’s the point! The cat treats I poked through the fence on Friday, they’ve gone!”

“Are you sure?” Mum asked.

“Definitely. I was right here, so they should be just on the other side of the fence. Ginger’s been here, he’s eaten them! Oh, Mum!” Rosie beamed at her, feeling so relieved. She bent down to empty some more cat treats out of the packet.

“Rosie, what’s that?” Rosie looked up to see her mum pointing across the farmyard, down to the side of the farmhouse. “Can you see? It looks like something ginger, by the bins…”

Rosie jumped to her feet. Mum was right. Slipping along the side of the farmhouse was a flash of gingery fur. It had to be him!

But then the creature slunk out further into the yard, sniffing at the piles of wood from the barn. A gingery fox, with a bright-white tail tip.

“Oh no…” Rosie breathed. It wasn’t very big, but compared to a tiny kitten it was huge. “It might hurt Ginger, and oh, Mum, I bet it was the fox who ate the cat treats!”

Mum sighed and nodded. “I’m afraid it could well have been, yes.”

Sadly, they turned and walked away, Rosie blinking back tears. She had promised herself she wouldn’t give up, but it was starting to look hopeless…

That evening, Rosie’s mum was determined to cheer her up. A television programme they both liked was just about to start and Mum hurried upstairs to fetch her.

“Rosie!” she called, opening her bedroom door. “Are you coming downstairs? Oh, Rosie!”

Rosie was sitting huddled on the floor, leaning against her bed.

“Whatever’s the matter?” Mum asked, sitting down on the floor beside her. “You’re crying!”