Charlie the Kitten Who Saved a Life

I had no idea what had happened there. But if I’d really had magic powers, there was one thing I was sure of: I’d have magicked myself back to my human family by now and would be sitting on Caroline’s lap, purring into her ear, and not caring if she spent all day every day looking at strange moving pictures on the television, just as long as I never lost her again.

The following day, we were walking past the pub at the harbour when we saw another strange thing. Inside the pub window was a big piece of paper with a picture of a cat on it and some large Human writing underneath. This time it was Tail-less who noticed.

‘Blinking codfish, Charlie!’ he meowed. ‘That cat in the picture looks just like you!’

Big, still feeling spooked by what we’d seen on the television screen, immediately crept up for a closer look.

‘It does look like you,’ he told me, almost accusingly, when he came back, ‘but I don’t think it is. That cat looks fatter, and more groomed, and it hasn’t got scars on its head or a nasty eye, like you.’

‘Right,’ I said. Even from a little distance, I could see it was true that the cat in the picture didn’t have my wounds.

Of course, I wasn’t sure exactly what I looked like, apart from what my humans, and other cats, had told me. Caroline had sometimes picked me up and held me in front of that shiny thing they call a mirror, and said things like ‘Ah, Charlie, look at you!’ – but all I could see was the little tabby kitten who always seemed to appear in the mirrors around the house, copying whatever I was doing. When I was very young, I thought he was another kitten who lived in the house, but Ollie soon put me right on that, explaining that he wasn’t real – he had no scent and if I tried to rub faces with him, all I’d get was the hard shiny surface of the mirror. I presume you all think the same as Ollie and I do – that the mirror cats are something like the pictures on television.

So the mirror cat in our house may, perhaps, have been a picture of me. If it was, then I had a good idea what I used to look like before I got lost and started living rough. Before I got badly beaten up by a gang of alley cats, almost lost the sight in one eye and apparently gained some scars that I supposed would last my whole nine lives. But I didn’t want to freak Big out any more than I’d done already.

‘OK. Obviously not me, then,’ I said.

We saw another picture, exactly the same, in the café window. Another one in the window of the fish and chip shop when we went scavenging that evening. Next day, there was one in the bookshop, one in the bread shop, and one in the window of the Chinese takeaway shop. When we walked back past the café, Shirley and Jean were sitting in their usual spot outside. I lingered behind the fence for a while to listen to their conversation, and Big waited for me. He didn’t mind me using my two friends as sources of inside information, as long as he was there to keep an eye on me and I didn’t venture too close.

‘It’s such a shame, isn’t it,’ Shirley was saying. ‘They must be so desperate to get him back. The pictures are going up everywhere.’

‘Yes. Well, of course, since it was on the News, everyone knows about that cat who chased the seagull away from the old lady. The family who put up the notices seem to be convinced it’s their cat, don’t they? They were staying here all through August, I heard – down at the Oversands end of the bay, in one of those rental cottages, apparently. The little girl’s inconsolable. There’s some story about her being very ill, and she seems to think it’s her fault the cat went missing.’

‘Ah, bless her, poor little love. And that’s her little cat in the picture, is it, Jean?’

‘Yes. Look, have you read it? LOST: CHARLIE. Young neutered male tabby. Last seen on 28 August in the Oversands area of Mudditon-on-Sea. Believed to be still in Mudditon. Microchipped. Reward for safe return. And it’s got a mobile number and email address. Apparently the girl’s father has been staying in Mudditon again since they saw the cat on the News – walking the streets, calling out for Charlie.’

‘Well, I do hope he finds him, for that little girl’s sake. If it is that same cat, of course. Tabby cats are two a penny, though, aren’t they? For a start, there’s our little friend who visits us here. He’s a tabby, and he looks about the right age, doesn’t he. And we did think he looked like the cat who was in the paper.’

‘Yes, but come on, Shirl – he’s much skinnier than this one in the poster, and so scruffy looking, poor little thing. He really doesn’t look like this cute kitten in the pictures, at all. To be honest, I wonder if the family are just clutching at straws. I’d be very surprised if the cat in these posters is the same one who chased the seagull.’