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“What is it?” Layla asked, in a worried voice.

Edie carefully pulled back the prickly branches and the two girls peered in.

“Oh no…” Layla whispered.

Under the branches of the hedge, dangling from the strands of barbed wire, was a limp little bundle of ginger fur.

The kitten could hear something coming. She didn’t know that she was hearing children’s voices – she didn’t know what people were, she had never met any. She only knew her mother, her brother and her sisters, and that they had left her here. She didn’t understand what was happening now. Could it be her mother coming back to find her? It didn’t sound like her mother. She moved softly, quickly, not like this – not with noise and heavy footsteps. The kitten wriggled a little, unsure whether she should try again to free herself before this strange thing came any closer. But she couldn’t move. She was trapped and every time she tried to pull herself away from the thing that was holding her, she felt weaker and weaker.

She needed help.

But if it wasn’t her mother, what was it? The kittens had heard foxes and other animals sniffing around outside the hollow tree where their mother had made her little den, but they didn’t know what the creatures were. They were so little that their mother was the only thing they really knew – the warmth ofher curling up around them, her milk and the gentle way she licked them clean.

It must be her mother coming back to find her, the kitten decided. Her mother wouldn’t abandon her like this. The kitten tried again to wriggle, and then mewed, as loud as she could. Find me, help me, take me home, I’m frightened!

Even though it was her loudest mew, the sound was still very faint. Hardly more than a squeak. She tried again, squeaking and tugging back against the wire as hard as she could. It bounced a little and she squeaked once more, with pain this time as the long fur on the back of her neck pulled and the wire pressed into her skin.

The noise was coming closer and she twisted her body, pulling to try and see what was making it, still calling faintly to her mother. But instead of a cat hurrying to rescue her, the kitten saw two frightened, wide-eyed faces. She wrenched at the wire again and the cut on her neck went deeper. It hurt and she sagged down miserably. She was terrified and so, so tired. She didn’t understand. All she could do was close her eyes and hope that whatever this was would go away and then her mother would come.

“A kitten!” Edie breathed. “I thought it had to be a bird…”

Layla nodded.“Is it stuck?”

“Yeah, poor little thing.” Edie wriggled a bit closer into the hedge, ignoring the thorny branches catching on her jacket and tangling in her hair. “I think it’s her long fur – she’s got it all tangled up in the barbed wire. Oh, poor baby, she’s actually cut her neck on it, too.”

“Can you get her out?” Layla asked. “Do you want me to lift up the wire or something?”

Edie sat back on her heels for a moment.“I’m just thinking. Maybe we should go and fetch my mum? She’ll know how to rescue the kitten without hurting her.” She looked worriedly at the tiny kitten, wondering what to do. What she wanted was to get her off the wire as quickly as possible. She seemed so small and fragile, stuck there, and the cut on her neck looked horrible. Edie’s mum and dad were both vets, so it wasn’t as if Edie hadn’t seen sick animals before. Quite often if no one was able to look after a sick cat or dog at the surgery, Mum or Dad would bring them home, and Edie loved the chance to fuss over them and pretend she had a pet of her own. But she’d never seen a creature look so feeble and so clearly in pain.

As Edie looked at her, the kitten opened her eyes– tiny round green eyes – and stared back. She mewed, or at least she tried to but no sound came out. She didn’t even have the strength left to mew, Edie realized.

“No, we need to get her out of there right now,” she muttered. “She’s so weak. We need to get her back home so Mum can have a look at her.” She reached tentatively towards the kitten, wondering if the little thing would scratch or bite – not to be nasty, just because she was so scared. But when Edie touched the clump of fur that was twisted up in the teeth of the wire, the kitten didn’t try to fight. She just shuddered a little and opened her mouth in another heart-breaking silent mew.

Edie tried to pull at the clump of fur, but it was stuck so tightly that it didn’t budge and she could feel the kitten flinching. “It’s no good, I’m only hurting her,” she whispered, looking round at Layla anxiously. “What are we going to do?”

“Scissors! I’ve got scissors in my pencil case!” Layla shrugged off her backpack and fished inside for her pencil case. “Here, look, and they’re nice and sharp. You can just cut the fur away.” She passed a pair of scissors to Edie and Edie leaned in closer to the kitten.

The tiny creature opened her eyes again, but when she saw Edie looming towards her, and the shiny blades of the scissors, she started to struggle.