Solomon's Kitten (18 page)

But it had the opposite effect on Max.

‘What the hell is there to laugh at?’ He shouted. ‘I’m busting a gut trying to salvage our belongings. What’s so funny?’

His words only sent Diana into a new bout of hysterical giggling, and encouraged Amber to move even faster, her tail wagging now, knocking medicine bottles off tables as she flew past.

‘I’m sorry, love,’ said Diana as Max’s furious face appeared at the door. ‘I know I shouldn’t be laughing . . . but Amber is so funny . . . don’t be
cross with her, Max. It’s better to laugh than cry.’

‘I’ll do the crying,’ said Max. ‘Our home is RUINED, Diana. Our daughter is missing. For God’s sake, woman.’

He did start to cry, sitting at the top of the stairs, but he refused to let the tears flow. Silently and painfully, he fought it, his shoulders shuddering with every breath. I ran to him and
looked right into his soul with my most concerned cat stare.

‘Tallulah . . . you lovely, lovely cat,’ he said, and caressed my fur with an unsteady hand. ‘What are we going to do with you and Amber? And, dear God, where IS my
daughter?

Max shut Amber and me in TammyLee’s bedroom, with a dish of water. Amber lay down across the door with a sigh of resignation, and I made a nest in the duvet and fell into
a restorative sleep.

It must have been mid-afternoon when the house began to shake. Amber was frightened of thunderstorms, and she crawled under the table and pressed herself against the wall, whimpering. It
wasn’t thunder, I knew that. Keeping myself hidden behind the curtain, I peeped out, alarmed to see a helicopter hovering just above the house. My ears hurt with the bang-banging of its
relentless blades, and, up close, the helicopter was enormous, deafening and intimidating.

My instinct was to hide like Amber, but I wanted to see what was happening. It felt as if the house was going to be blown to bits. I touched the window with my nose, and the glass was
vibrating.

The sky was blue now and the flood had settled into a vast sheet of water. I could see the reflection of the helicopter and the trees. Loud and scary as it was, I worked out that this iron giant
was actually under control. In the midst of the thunderous noise, there were voices, and they were calm, giving clear instructions to each other. I understood that a man in goggles and a helmet was
in the cockpit, and he was OK. Two more men, clad in bright orange, were in the side door, and one of them began to descend, on a string, like a spider!

Down and down he came, and stopped level with Diana’s bedroom window. Max was holding on to her tightly, and Diana was being brave, smiling and making jokes as the man fixed a harness
round her. She was whisked up into the sky, with the man in orange holding her firmly. She looked down at me as I sat in the window, and then she was lifted into the helicopter. Max went next, his
body rigid, his face grim as he was winched to safety.

‘What about us?’ I thought, expecting the men in orange to come back with a cat cage and lift me up there too, and Amber, and take us to a lovely place where TammyLee would be
waiting. I wanted her so much in that moment. I wanted her love, and the special way she talked to me and explained things, the way she’d put her face close to mine and call me ‘magic
puss cat’.

But it didn’t happen like that. A cold shadow of betrayal crept over me as they closed the door of the rescue helicopter. I meowed and scrabbled at the window. I wailed and cried, but the
helicopter rose heartlessly into the sky and set off at speed, carrying Max and Diana away from us. I watched until it was a tiny speck against the western sky.

They had left us behind.

Max’s words rang in my head. ‘Our home is RUINED.’ What did he mean? It seemed OK to me, except that there was water downstairs. I wondered where my food dish was.

Amber crawled out from under the table, still shivering. I tried to comfort her by winding myself round her legs with my tail brushing her face, but all it did was make her sneeze. My attempt to
tell her about the helicopter was a waste of time. She couldn’t get her head round it. She stood at the door, pawing it and whining, her tail hanging limp like rope. Her fur had mostly dried
except for her ears, and she was cold, and, like me, hungry.

Outside, the sun was setting and pink light reflected in the water. Amber wouldn’t talk to me, so I sat in the window and watched it getting dark. Boats were going up the flooded road,
laden with people wrapped in blankets. One woman had a cat in a cage and I could hear it meowing. The other cat I saw was all alone and clinging to a wooden table that was being swept along fast by
the surging water. I searched the sky, but the helicopter didn’t come back, and in the deepening twilight there were blue lights flashing everywhere.

It was the longest night of my life, thinking I’d been abandoned, wanting TammyLee, wanting my supper and the warm bright fire. Amber didn’t sleep either but stared at the door all
night, her nose twitching, and her tail didn’t wag once.

When dawn came, I noticed her looking up at the door handle and getting more and more agitated. She seemed to be hyping herself up for something she was planning to do. Then, cleverly, she got
the handle between her teeth and pushed it down. It didn’t work, but she tried again, and I ran to sit beside her and encourage her, thinking we could get down to the kitchen and find our
food. Amber growled and jerked the handle harder, and at last the door swung open. Amber dashed into Diana’s room, and came out again, looking puzzled. She ran up and down the landing and in
and out of the bathroom.

‘Max and Diana are gone,’ I said, ‘and TammyLee.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Amber. ‘They’re out there somewhere.’

She sat at the top of the stairs, sniffing the air and thinking.

‘Don’t go down there,’ I said. ‘It’s flooded.’

The water was deep. Stuff was floating around in it, and only the top of the sofa and table were visible. Sticks and straw had been washed in and was drifting around with lots of paper and
plastic bottles. We could see into the kitchen, and the window was open, and once Amber saw that, something even more terrible happened.

‘Don’t go . . . please,’ I begged, but Amber wasn’t seeing or hearing me.

With a sense of foreboding, I watched her pad down the stairs. She entered the water quietly, not with her usual joyful splash. She swam around in a circle, and looked up at me, and clearly she
was saying, ‘Goodbye.’

Devastated, I meowed and meowed, but Amber swam into the kitchen, and dragged herself over the worktop and out of the open window. Frantic, I tore back into TammyLee’s room, to see what
happened, and glimpsed the shine of Amber’s wet head as she swam across the flooded garden and into the swirling current that was the road. I meowed my loudest. What chance did a lone dog
have in that vast and swiftly moving flood?

Now I was truly alone.

I spent most of the morning meowing, going from one window to another, hoping to see someone who would notice me. Nobody was out there now – even the boats had gone, and
the helicopters were far away. I clung to a frail idea that Amber might come back, and I worried about my family. TammyLee was the one I ached to see.

Clouds gathered over the midday sun and soon it was raining again. Mist hung over the water, and the place looked desolate. The day was passing and I hadn’t been rescued. Starving hungry,
I ate some bread and cheese Max had left, but it upset me and I was sick. I missed being in the garden and thought that going outside would make me feel better.

‘You must help yourself,’ said my angel, and I flicked my tail in annoyance. But last time she’d said that, it had worked. I sat in the front window, thinking, studying the
flooded landscape for escape routes, wondering if it might be possible to go along the tops of fences and trees. First I had to find a way out of the house. Swimming was not an option. Meowing at
boats hadn’t worked. I studied parts of the roof visible from the window and noticed a skylight that was open just a crack.

I found it in the bathroom. The crack was too small, but if I got my paws up there and pushed, I could squeeze out. Jumping up was a challenge, especially from the floor. I clambered onto the
shiny lid of the loo, then onto the cistern, and from this narrow slippery perch, I planned my daring leap. I had to try. Focusing on the power in my back legs, and the sharpness of my claws, I
sprang up there. For a frantic moment, I hung with my claws dug into the wood. With all my strength, I lifted my hind legs, butted the crack with my head, and wriggled through. I was out!

It had stopped raining, so I walked up to the ridge of the roof to survey the landscape. Somewhere an engine was running, and I soon discovered it was a fire engine, sucking water out of a
nearby house. I sat on the roof and meowed, but no one even looked in my direction, and my cries for help were lost in the noise of the fire engine.

I was hungry, and thirsty, and cold.

Night came with frightening speed. Another night of being abandoned, this time on my own. Thinking the roof was not a good place to spend the night, I went back to the open skylight, intending
to attempt the jump back into the bathroom. But I made a dreadful mistake by putting my weight on the raised edge of the window and making it shut. My entrance was closed, and despite my efforts to
reopen it, it stayed closed.

With thick darkness and a chilly wind blowing, there was no choice but to spend the night on the roof, with no soft place to sleep, no food, no water, and no one to love me.

I pressed myself against the chimney on its warmest side. Cold and isolated up on the roof, I tried to conserve my energy by tucking my paws under my body and dozing quietly.
Staying calm was vital to my survival. No more meowing.

It ought to have been peaceful, but suddenly the roof tiles were vibrating, first from a loud clanking noise, followed by a steady rhythmic pounding, like footsteps. I could feel my eyes growing
big with fright. Was the roof somehow trying to shake me off into the water?

The rhythmic pounding stopped, and, in the expectant pause, I sensed a listening, and a beam of light came sweeping over the roof. Then, an unbelievable sound.

Someone was calling, ‘Kitty kitty kitty.’

A gentle, male voice, up there on the roof. It wasn’t anyone I knew, but from past experience, I assumed that ‘kitty kitty kitty’, meant me.

Someone had found me!

I peeped round the chimney and the light dazzled me. Whoever was holding it turned it off, and I stared down at a fireman in a helmet, his face looking up at me. He looked solid and reassuring,
obviously a cat lover.

My tail shot up, and my fur bushed out with joy. I couldn’t get to him fast enough. I slithered down the wet tiles, doing purr-meows in gratitude. A friend, a warm, human friend. It was so
comforting to lean against his chest and hear the slow heartbeat. I clung to his shoulder, and cried like a little kitten.

‘You’re a beauty!’ he said, appreciatively. ‘You’re gorgeous. Now you hang on to me and I’ll take you down. Trust me. OK?’

How could I not trust this cuddly fireman? I hung on, and treated him to my loudest purr as he took me carefully down the ladder. It didn’t even bother me when he put me in a cat cage. I
was being rescued!

The fireman waded a long way through the flood to a patch of higher ground. A fire engine was parked there, its blue light flickering, reflected in the water. Behind it was a van with a familiar
figure waiting at the wheel.

‘Got her. She’s fine,’ the fireman shouted. ‘Can you take her?’

‘I’ve just got room, my luvvy. Thank you SO much. You’re a star.’

She took the cage from the fireman, and looked in at me. ‘Tallulah! Hello, my luvvy. It’s me, Penny, the cat lady. Now don’t you worry, we’ll take care of you and find
your people.’

I was a lucky cat, and if I’d been a human, I’d have given Penny a box of Cadbury’s Roses like the one Max had given TammyLee for passing her exams.

The interior of the van was full of cat cages, and there was a cacophony of meowing and yowling. Black frightened eyes looked out, and most of the cats were extremely upset. I did a lot of work
in the back of that van, showing them how to be calm and telling them about the work of Cats Protection. As Penny drove up the hill away from the flood, those traumatised cats were looking at me,
their eyes hungry for reassurance. The worst was a Siamese with blue tormented eyes and the loudest voice I’d ever heard from a cat. ‘You’re upsetting everyone,’ I said,
‘and it’s no good wasting your energy on meowing. It won’t make any difference. Penny is a good and clever human. She’ll find your people for you.’

But the Siamese cat ignored me.

I thought Penny would take us to the farm with the cat pens, but she didn’t. When she pulled into a car park and turned off the engine, the yowling and meowing made eerie music ring
through the night.

Where were we?

She opened the back door and outside was a big building like a school, with the lights on and people milling about inside. I wished I could read the tall red words on a board outside. Penny
picked up my curiosity immediately and read them for me:

‘FLOOD DISASTER CENTRE.’

I could smell soup and bacon, and hear teacups clattering. From another part of the building came the smell of wet dogs, and the sound of barking. I listened for the particular bark I longed to
hear . . . Amber! . . . but no, she wasn’t there, I was certain.

‘Is Amber in the spirit world?’ I asked my angel, fearing that her answer would be ‘yes’.

‘No,’ she said, ‘not yet.’

‘Then where is she?’

‘She is lost.’

I thought of my wonderful dog being lost out there in the flooded landscape, and sent her a message: ‘Stay where you are, Amber, these kind people will find you.’ Somewhere she was
shivering and alone, like I had been on the roof. I hoped the power of my thoughts would help her not to give up.

A group of smiling ‘cat ladies’ came to the back of the van and carried our cat cages in a meowing procession in through brightly lit glass doors, and down a corridor. I was proud
that Penny, the Queen of Cat Ladies had chosen ME to carry.