‘Oh there you are.’ She put a saucer of kitty milk on the floor. ‘Here you are, sweetheart.’
I lapped and lapped, enjoying the creamy milk, even though there were lumps in it and flecks of dirt from the floor. Strength and comfort flooded into my small body. I cleared every last grain of it from the saucer, and sat back. I was so fat that my tummy swung from side to side when I tried to walk.
‘You WERE hungry.’
Watching me feed seemed to bring out a different side of Janine, a tenderness. I wondered why she didn’t treat Leroy as nicely as she was treating me.
Gingerly she picked me up and carried me over to the sofa. She slumped into the cushions and closed her eyes. I walked around on her spongy body, glad of a few moments of peace, away from Leroy. He had stopped crying and was bouncing his football harder and harder against the walls and floor upstairs. Every time it knocked something over, Janine tensed and her face, neck and shoulders went hard. Both of us were on alert. What would happen when Leroy came downstairs?
Chapter Four
THE OWL WOMAN
The next thing Leroy did that same day was the worst so far. In the small back garden, amongst the piles of discarded stuff, was a supermarket trolley upside down. Leaving me shut in the house, Leroy dragged it out of the brambles and wheeled it inside when Janine was upstairs.
‘Come on, Timba. I’m taking you for a ride,’ he said, looking at me with one bright eye. The other one was swollen shut from Janine’s frenzied attack on him. He picked me up and lowered me carefully into the wire trolley. I didn’t like it in there. My paws slipped between the wires and I couldn’t stand up. It was uncomfortable.
‘You want something to sit on, Timba?’ he asked – nicely – and took my answering meow as a yes. He grabbed a red-and-white tea towel from the kitchen, folded it, and put it in the trolley. He sat me on it, but it was still uncomfortable. I didn’t like it and tried to climb out. ‘No, Timba. It’s too high for you,’ Leroy said, and kept me there. He looked up at the stairs, and listened. ‘Mum’s asleep,’ he whispered. ‘I’m taking you out in the sunshine.’
He opened the front door very quietly, and pushed the trolley out into the street.‘I got a key, Timba,’ he said, and showed me a shiny thing on a string around his neck. He closed the door and I sat still on the red-and-white tea towel, sniffing the afternoon air and distant, familiar smells of grass and honeysuckle. There was the sky above me and the sun was warm on my fur.
For a few minutes I was OK and might even have felt happy, but Leroy started to run, the trolley bouncing crazily over the rough pavement. Shaken, I clung to the tea towel, meowing in fright.‘Stop, please stop!’ Crying now, I sent him that desperate thought, but he didn’t get it. At the end of the street he stopped by a portly red letterbox. He picked me up and held me against it, pushing my head into the black slot. ‘That’s where you post letters, Timba,’ he said. I wriggled and kicked with my back legs skidding on the shiny red paint, terrified he was going to drop me into that hole. I twisted round and looked at him, and my eyes must have been black with fear.
‘Don’t be scared, Timba,’ he said. ‘I’ll look after you.’
He put me back in the trolley, swung it round and raced down the road, scooting with one foot and smiling at the fun he was having. I clung on, now terribly distressed, my little body bruised from the hard wire. Up and down the road we went, wilder and wilder, with Leroy shouting and laughing.
Until suddenly there was alarm in Leroy’s eyes. He stopped still, looking at a hand clutching the trolley. An old lady who looked like a furious owl stood blocking the pavement.
‘What do you think you’re doing, young man?’ Two spots of angry red burned on the owl woman’s plump cheeks. ‘Where did you get that trolley?’
‘It’s me mum’s.’
‘No it isn’t. That belongs to Tesco. It’s got “Tesco” on it. And SURELY that isn’t a kitten you’ve got there!’
‘It’s my kitten.’
‘POOR little darling.’ She reached in and tenderly lifted me out, ignoring Leroy’s protests. I hurt so much that I made funny little meowing noises in my throat. I was already weak, and this ordeal had made me worse. My strong back legs felt tired, my ears rang painfully, and my paws were sore.
‘You poor little angel!’ The old hands were woody, like tree roots, yet they shone. Healing hands, I thought, amazed … I’ve found a human with healing hands. I leaned against the woman’s vast bosom, which was draped in layers of flowery cotton. Her eyes switched from compassion to disapproval when she looked at Leroy.
‘It’s my kitten,’ he said again.
‘Well, are you trying to kill it?’ the owl woman thundered and Leroy looked shocked.
‘No. I was only taking him out in the sunshine.’
‘But it’s hurting a young kitten to be banged about on that dreadful trolley. He must be bruised all over. He’s stunned and bewildered. Why are you treating him like this?’