Vati didn’t look convinced. He sat there looking tired, his black whiskers drooping. He crept into the corner of the sofa and went to sleep. I was disappointed. Something was wrong with Vati. He hadn’t eaten much, he wouldn’t go out, and he refused to play with me. I was bursting with energy, but I curled up beside him, and put my paw over his slim body. I purred, but Vati was silent, his sweet face peaceful. In his sleep he stretched out an elegant paw and curled it around my neck. That made me so happy that I didn’t move and we slept blissfully entwined as we had always done.
‘How sweet is that?’ exclaimed Angie when she discovered us there. ‘Will you look at these darling kittens, Graham?’
I opened one eye and saw her taking a photo of us on her mobile.‘Poor little Vati … he’s exhausted,’ she said, and I remembered how I had slept for three days in the vet’s place. I’d been physically, mentally and spiritually tired. Maybe it was the same for Vati.
In the morning he seemed OK. But after breakfast he went straight back to the corner of the sofa and sat with his paws bunched under himself. Angie had gone to work, and Graham strode past us on his way to the music room. I braced myself for Vati getting a fright when the‘singing’ started. Today it was particularly loud, and it made me shudder. Vati must have heard it, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He seemed to be in a dream.
He wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t play.
Eventually he got down from the sofa and crept around the floor, his whiskers twitching as he went to and fro. It was odd behaviour, I thought. I coaxed him into the garden and he did exactly the same thing … creeping over the lawn, but stopping now and again to sit staring at the ground and listening.
‘What ARE you doing?’ I asked, going up to him and putting my face close. To my utter astonishment, Vati hissed at me and batted me crossly. He didn’t want me! Unabashed, I tried again, and got another swipe.
‘Leave me alone,’ he snarled. ‘You’re breaking my concentration. I need to do this.’
Miffed, I tried to demonstrate my progress with climbing the apple tree, made a mess of it and crashed to the ground, but Vati went on doing what he was doing.
As the shadow of the blue-grey wings hung over the lawn and the big bird again descended, I was desperate to warn Vati. A heron, Angie had called it. I fled to the doorstep thinking Vati would follow, but he didn’t. The heron stood at the edge of the pond, his dagger-like beak poised in the air, his sharp eyes staring.
I couldn’t believe what Vati was doing.
‘Vati … NO!’ I sent him the thought, but he ignored me and continued padding towards the heron … WITH HIS TAIL UP.
You’ve got it all wrong, Vati, I thought. I’ve only just found my brother, now I’m going to lose him again. And I waited for the terrible yellow beak to snatch my brother and fly off with him into the sky.
Vati was so cool. He sat down next to the heron, both of them keeping perfectly still for a long time. Just once I saw Vati look up at the heron, and he looked down at Vati. It was as if they were smiling at each other. Then stillness again, until Vati leaned forward to look into the pond. At the same time the heron stabbed down with his long beak. A shower of water glittered in the sunlight and the heron rose into the sky, a bright orange fish flickering in his beak. He flew away with it, on slow wings, water dripping from the fish.
Vati turned his sleek head and looked at me, pleased with what he had done.
In a burst of joy we trotted towards each other doing purr-meows, and at last Vati wanted to play. He arched his back and leaped sideways, and we chased each other all over the garden. Vati was incredibly agile and beautiful. He could leap and twizzle round and make a face at the same time. He shot up the apple tree and impressed me by turning neatly and doing a flawless jump down to the lawn. I was proud of him.
I’d never before had so much fun …
Tired from our wild game, we sat together on the sunbaked doorstep.
‘What were you doing creeping around like that, Vati?’ I asked.
‘Don’t you know?’ he said, and studied me with mystic eyes. ‘I was checking out what was happening under the ground.’
‘What do you mean?’
Vati gave me a pitying look.‘Follow me,’ he said, and took me on a tour of the lawn, according to Vati. ‘Exactly here is a sleeping badger – I can feel his energy. He’s deep down, and the entrance to his home is under that summerhouse … and he’s lonely. His mate was killed on the road, and he loved her …isn’t that sad?’
I was speechless. Vati was only a kitten like me, yet he had so much knowledge. My respect for him grew as I followed him around the lawn.
‘Here is an ants’ nest,’ he said next. ‘And the ants told me how frustrated they are because, every time they try to build a mound, a noisy lawnmower comes and chops it off.’
We sat watching the ants scurrying around. One was carrying an egg. I’d never noticed them before.