The Perfect Kitten

She sprang up on to the edge of the flowerpot and made a scrabbly jump on to the windowsill. Then she peered through the glass. There was the sofa… Flower mewed loudly in frustration and then pressed her nose closer towards the glass.

Abi was there! She was asleep, her head pillowed on the back of the sofa, on the other side of the glass.

Flower stood up on her back paws, mewing and mewing, batting at the glass with her front ones. She could see Abi – so why wouldn’t Abi wake up and notice her?

Abi was dreaming she was chasing down the road after her little white kitten, always just too far away to catch her before she disappeared. She was calling and calling, but all the time she knew it was useless – Flower couldn’t hear her. It was heartbreaking. Flower was so frightened. Abi could hear her mewing in the dream and the noise was frantic. Flower was racing so fast that her paws were thudding on the ground…

Abi blinked and sat up a little, dazed with sleep. She had been dreaming that Flower was lost. No… She swallowed miserably. That wasn’t a dream, her kitten really was lost.

She looked around, confused about where she was – and then she remembered. The litter tray outside. She had been trying to give Flower a scent to follow… Abi shook her head, trying to wake herself up properly. She hadn’t meant to go to sleep and she could still hear the mewing from her dream. It was even getting louder and she could hear the thumping paws too…

“Flower?” Abi stared. Her kitten was there on the other side of the window, paws scrabbling eagerly, her mouth wide open in a mew.

Abi jumped off the sofa, trailing her blanket, and raced for the front door, fumbling with the locks. At last she pulled it open and Flower darted in, purring. She stood up, patting at Abi’s knees with her little white paws until Abi picked her up and snuggled them both in the blanket.

Abi blinked as the landing light went on and the glow spread down the stairs.

“Mummy!” Ruby called from the top of the staircase. “Dad! Abi’s found Flower!” She stumbled down to hug Abi and stroke Flower’s nose.

“She came back,” Abi told her little sister. “She’s so clever – she followed her own smell. Oh, she must be hungry.” She tapped her mouth – the food sign they always used to show Flower it was time for a meal – and the white kitten stared back at her seriously. Then she lifted her paw and tapped it against her own mouth.

“She did the sign!” Ruby gasped.

“She can’t have done…” Abi looked at Flower and tapped her mouth again.

The kitten patted her own mouth with her paw and then wriggled out of Abi’s arms. She jumped to the floor and dashed into the kitchen to stand by her food bowl.

Abi grabbed one of the pouches from the cupboard and emptied it into the bowl and the two girls crouched by the food to watch Flower eat. Abi could hear Mum and Chris coming downstairs, and then Ruby dash out to tell them about Flower signing back.

“I’m so glad you found your way home,” she whispered to Flower as the kitten licked the last bits of food from round the edges of her bowl. “You’re so clever. But please don’t ever do that again. And we’ll be so careful too.”

Flower padded towards her and climbed up into Abi’s lap, licking lazily at one paw and sweeping it around her whiskers. Then she looked up at Abi with her huge blue eyes and began to purr.

Collect them all

Biography

COPYRIGHT

STRIPES PUBLISHING LTD

An imprint of the Little Tiger Group

1 Coda Studios, 189 Munster Road,

London SW6 6AW

First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2019

Text copyright © Holly Webb, 2019

Illustrations copyright © Sophy Williams, 2019

Author photograph copyright © Nigel Bird

eISBN: 978–1–78895–101–2

The right of Holly Webb and Sophy Williams to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved.

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

www.littletiger.co.uk

Excerpt From: Holly Webb, The Shelter Puppy.