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Abi looked up in surprise. She hadn’t noticed their neighbour, Annika, opening her front door. “We’ve lost our kitten,” she explained. “Sorry about leaning over your fence – I was looking for her. She’s meant to be an indoor cat, you see. She’s deaf.”

“Oh no – well you’re very welcome to come into the garden and see if you can find her.” Annika stepped out on to her front path and crouched down to look around. “What colour is she?”

“She’s white and she’s really tiny.”

Annika looked up, her eyes widening.“A really little white cat? I think I saw her this afternoon!”

“You did?” Abi felt her hands tighten on top of the fence. “Where was she?”

“Running down the pavement. She was further along the road, a few houses down from the supermarket.” Annika frowned. “And she was definitely going that way.”

Abi stared at her. The supermarket was right at the end of the road. She had been hoping that Flower would be in Annika’s garden or possibly the next one along. How could Flower have gone so far? She must have been terrified, with all the cars speeding by on the busy road. “Wh-when was that?” she asked, her voice shaking a little.

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“Well, my shift finished at two,” Annika said. “So it must have been about half past, I guess.” She looked worriedly at Abi. “It might not have been her…” she added gently.

“Did she have blue eyes?” Abi asked, not sure whether to hope Annika would say yes or no.

“Ithink so… She was running, I didn’t see her for very long…”

“Thanks – I’d better tell Chris.” Abi turned to look for her stepdad but he was already walking back towards them.

“Did Abi explain, Annika? About our cat?” Chris asked.

“Annika saw her!” Abi burst out. “All the way down the road, going towards the supermarket!”

Chris turned round to look, and Abi saw him make a face without meaning to. He was thinking what she was thinking– that their road joined on to another one close by the supermarket, which was even busier. It definitely wasn’t somewhere a little deaf kitten wanted to be running about.

“Thanks, Annika. You’ve been really helpful.” Chris nodded to her. “Sorry to disturb you. We’ll go and look down there for her now.”

Abi slipped her hand into his as they walked along and Chris squeezed her hand.“We’ll find her, Abi,” he said firmly. “It’s going to be OK.”

Abi nodded. She wanted to think so too. But as the cars kept rolling by, she wasn’t so sure that her stepdad was right.

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“There must be a better way of looking for her,” Chris said, running his fingers through his hair and looking down the street. “This just isn’t working.”

They’d been out for over an hour now. Mum and Ruby had helped to start with but then Ruby got tired and upset and Mum had taken her home for a snack. Abi and Chris had kept on searching. Abi had even nipped back into the house for the tin they kept the kitten biscuits in, as she was sure Flower felt the vibrations when they shook them at home. There was probably too much going on for her to notice it out here but Abi was going to try everything.

“Mum could put a post about Flower on the school parents’ online chat,” Abi suggested. “The one where people ask about which day is swimming and what to bring for trips. Loads of people from school live on this road. Someone else might have seen her.”

“That’s a good idea,” Chris agreed. “There are lost cat websites as well – we can add her to those. And if she’s still missing tomorrow, we’ll make some posters.”

“Tomorrow?” Abi heard her voice go high and squeaky. She’d been sure that they would get Flower back that day. They had to. She couldn’t imagine her tiny little kitten outside on her own all night.

“We need to go home and have something to eat, Abi,” Chris said gently. “It’s nearly six and we haven’t spoken to anyone else who’s seen her. We can come out again after that but it’ll be getting dark soon.”

“She’ll be easy to see in the dark,” Abi said stubbornly, thinking of Flower’s pure-white fur.

“I know – it’s just so hard when we can’t call for her.” Chris looked around, frustrated. “She could be right here, waiting for us to find her.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Sorry.” He gave Abi a hug. “Come on. Let’s go and get some dinner. Mum sent me a text to say it’s ready.”

“OK. But I’m coming out to look again afterwards.”

Chris nodded.“We will.”

In the end, Ruby wanted Chris to read her a bedtime story and she was so miserable about Flower being missing that it was easier not to argue with her. So after Abi nibbled a bit of pasta, Mum went out with her to look again instead. She got a torch from the kitchen drawer because it was just starting to get dark.

They walked down the street, stopping to tap on gateposts and stamp their feet outside each garden. But no little white shape dashed out to meet them and Abi’s heart seemed to sink a little bit more with every house they passed. It was sitting somewhere on top of her stomach now and she felt sick with worry.