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It sounded simple enough, but the field was enormous and the rain had left the grass soaking wet. By the time they were halfway round, the girls were drenched and feeling a bit hopeless. They hadn’t seen any sign of a mother cat or more kittens.

“What about those sheds?” Edie asked suddenly. The buildings were over on the far side of the next field near a copse of trees and looked like they’d been abandoned for a while – she could see holes in all the roofs.

“Do you think it’s OK?” Layla said doubtfully. “Mum always says not to go inside anywhere like that, in case it’s dangerous.”

“I know, my mum and dad say the same. We won’t go inside – we’ll just look around.”

“All right,” Layla agreed.

They worked their way round the corner of the big field to a gap in the hedge and then round the next field to the tumbledown buildings. They walked into a yard with old sheds on three sides.

“I think this used to be part of the same farm that our houses were in,” Edie said. “Mum said it was a machine store or something. But it’s really falling down.”

Layla peered carefully at the walls and the open doorways.“We could just put our heads round the doors,” she suggested. “That would be OK.”

The old sheds seemed to have been abandoned for a long time. They were almost completely empty, with just a few bits of dusty equipment here and there. But in the smallest and least falling down of the three buildings, there was a pile of old sacks, and on them was a gingery, furry bundle of kittens.

Edie and Layla forgot completely about being safe and never going inside abandoned buildings. They crept as quietly as they could into the shed, and crouched down by the squirming mass of fur.

“How many?” Edie whispered.

“Um, three, I think? No … four? It’s really hard to tell when they’re all on top of each other. No, it is three, look, that leg belongs to that one.” Layla pressed her hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh out loud and disturb the kittens. “They’re so sweet – oh, they’re wakingup! Sorry, kittens…”

The kittens were wriggling even more now, starting to climb on top of each other, so it was even harder to see which paws and tails went where. One of them was ginger like Barbie, but with shorter fur, and the other two were mostly black, but flecked and spotted with ginger.

“These have to be Barbie’s brothers or sisters,” Edie said. “Actually, two sisters and one brother, I think.”

Layla frowned.“You’re making that up!”

“I’m not! You know everyone thinks ginger kittens are boys? And actually, you can have ginger girl cats like Barbie, it’s just rarer? Well, I asked Mum to explain it to me again, and she said it’s super-rare to have a tortoiseshell boy cat. And two of these are tortoiseshell.” She pointedto the two kittens currently squirming on top of the ginger one. “And the ginger one is probably a boy.”

“Oh… OK. Well, whatever they are they’re gorgeous. And the tortoiseshell ones are so pretty. Look! This one’s got a ginger streak down her nose!”

“They don’t look like they’ve been abandoned, do they?” Edie looked around the shed. “This is a nest that their mum’s put them in, and they’re really plump and lively. She must be off hunting for food.” She turned to look out of the door. “I think Mum was right about what happened. Barbie can’t have wandered off from here and ended up caught on that fence, not by herself. Her mum must have had to move the kittens, but Barbie got stuck.” Edie’s voice shook a little. “Her mum had to choose between her and the others. She had to get her kittens somewhere safe.”

“She wouldn’t have been able to get Barbie off that wire either.” Layla sighed. “Wow. I wonder where she had to carry them from? And trying to do the journey four times with four kittens!”

“Every time she put one down to go and get the others, they must have been trying to wriggle away all over the place. She would have hated it. Poor cat, it must have been so horrible for her. Imagine having to leave your baby behind…”

“Layla, look…” Evie whispered, gently turning her friend round. “In the doorway.”

Watching them, frozen at the entrance of the shed, was a tiny black cat. She didn’t look big enough or old enough to have had kittens, Edie thought. She was so skinny and little, but she had the most beautiful golden-green eyes.

“Shuffle back!” Edie told Layla. “I think she’s scared to come in because we’re here.” Her mum had told her how shy feral cats could be. The kittens were too little to be scared but their mum wouldn’t want to come near people.

Slowly, carefully, the two girls wriggled back to the side wall of the shed, as far away from the kittens and the mother cat as they could get. Edie wished they could just leave, but the kittens’ mum was in the doorway. She had her ears laid back flat, and she was pressed against the side of the door as if she was terrified – but she didn’t run away. She was obviously desperate to get to her kittens.

“She’s shaking,” Layla whispered.