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“He was about to!” Ava said. “You scared him!”

Lucy stomped away and Tiger poked his nose through the flap, looking out at the garden. It smelled so good, and he could hear birds scratching and fluttering in the bushes by the back door. He twitched his tail and hopped suddenly through the flap– so suddenly that Ava squeaked in surprise, and had to scramble up and open the door to follow him.

“He’s out,” she called to Mum, who was pushing Bel on the swing. “Look at him!”

Tiger prowled along the patio, stopping every few steps to sniff at a leaf or watch an ant scurrying between his paws. Then he walked into a patch of bright autumn sunlight, feeling its warm glow on his fur. He sat down for a moment, closing his eyes and letting the warmth soak in. Then he lay down and rolled over, his paws in the air. He blinked lazily as a bee buzzed past but couldn’t be bothered to leap up and chase it.

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Mum laughed.“He looks blissed out.”

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Ava said, sitting down next to Tiger. “And now you can go out whenever you like,” she told him.

“Not for too long this first time, though,” Mum said. “Remember what it said in the cat care book. We need to take him back inside for his tea, so he learns that it’s a good thing to come back home. We don’t want him to wander off and get lost. And we’ll need to keep the cat flap lockedwhen we’re not around, at least to start with.”

Ava nodded.“I don’t think he’s big enough to get out of the garden yet, though. Megan’s walls are too high and there’s no holes underneath, because she doesn’t want Charlie and Max escaping. And there’s the wall between our garden and the alleyway on the other side. Tiger’s not big enough to jump on to that.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be long,” Mum murmured. “He’s such a good climber.”

“I know.” Ava sighed.

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“This is really nice, Gran.” Ava nibbled a piece of popcorn and snuggled up next to Grandma Shirley. “We should do this more often!”

“Definitely,” her gran agreed. “We just have to persuade your mum and dad. It’s very special for them to have a day out together.”

“Shh!” Lucy glared at them. “Don’t talk!”

Ava and Gran exchanged a look. Because Lucy was the littlest, she seemed to think she had to be extra bossy.

“Where’s Tiger?” Bel asked, in a whisper. “I wanted him to sit on me while we watch the film.”

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Ava smiled at her.“Do you want me to go and get him? He’s in his basket.”

“Please!” Bel whispered back. Gran was smiling, too – she loved Tiger. She’d told Ava she thought he was the cleverest kitten she’d ever seen.

Ava hurried into the kitchen but there was no stripey kitten in the basket. She looked around the room– she even checked the top of the door, just in case. Tiger seemed to find pawholds where she couldn’t even imagine them. He must have gone upstairs, she thought, or perhaps he was out in the garden. Now he’d been allowed out for a few weeks, they left the cat flap unlocked in the daytime so he could go out by himself. She opened the back door and leaned out, calling, “Tiger! Tiger!”

She’d expected that he would leap out of the bushes by the back door. He loved lurking in there, watching the birds hopping about in the branches.

“Tiger!” Ava called again. But there was no answering mew, only Charlie and Max barking in the garden next door. Barking a lot, actually, Ava thought, wondering what was the matter. Megan worked on Saturdays, in one of the department stores in town, so the dogs were on their own.

“Hey, Charlie! Hey, Max,” she called over the wall. “Shh… What’s wrong?”

It was as if the dogs didn’t even hear her. They just kept on barking.

Ava bit her lip, suddenly worried. She dashed back indoors and up the stairs, checking all the bedrooms to see if Tiger was curled up on someone’s bed. But he wasn’t. Ava leaned out of Lucy and Bel’s bedroom window, trying to look down into Megan’s garden but the wall was in the way. She could only see the back end of the garden and she knew the dogs were nearer the house – she’d heard them close to the back door.

Ava dug her nails into her palms, trying to stop herself panicking. She didn’t know that Tiger was in next-door’s garden. How could he be? He wasn’t big enough to get over that huge wall and there were no gaps that he could have squeezed through. It couldn’t be Tiger that Charlie and Max were barking at.

Ava wasn’t completely sure, though. Not sure enough.

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