When we finally saw the White Lions onscreen, we were awed. They looked so sumptuous and huge, powerful but relaxed. We cats were proud. Proud to belong to the global family of cats. The White Lions had come to change the world … but so had we, and we had one more job to do … for Angie.
‘She’s lonely,’ I said as the two of us gazed into the embers of the fire. ‘We’ve got to do something.’ I thought about the journey I had made through the forests and across the shiny river. Was I too old to try again? And how would Vati cope?
He picked up my thoughts immediately.‘Don’t even think about it, Timba.’
‘I’ve got to fetch Graham,’ I said. ‘Whatever it takes.’
‘No, Timba!’
But I got up and stretched, ate the rest of my supper, and headed out through the cat flap into the moonlit garden. Facing south, I searched the sky for the brilliance of that star on the lion’s paw. My tail quivered. I saw the star. And that homesick longing filled my heart. I wanted my old home. I wanted Poppy, and the apple tree. But most of all I wanted Angie to be happy again.
I had to fetch Graham.
I remembered the maze of streets, the field of cattle, and the endless magical forest.
I set off down the road to the south.
Vati pelted after me and sprang in front of me like a dragon cat. His lemon-green furious eyes confronted me on the moonlit pavement. He wasn’t going to let me go.
I sat down and felt my angry tail swishing to and fro over the tarmac. If my little brother thought he could stop me, I’d beat him up. My ears went flat, my fur bristled, and I hissed at Vati. To my astonishment he hissed right back at me, and the hiss lingered in the air between us. I tried to dodge around him, but suddenly Vati turned into a wild, hooky-looking demon. Even without his claws, he towered overme, the white moonlight glinted on his teeth, the orange street lights glazed the fur along his spine.
I hesitated. I wasn’t scared of Vati. In a way I was proud of him. He hadn’t got claws, but somehow he’d made himself strong enough to challenge me. He believed in his own power. And judging by the speed and sting of the swipe he gave me with a long whip of a paw, he was going to use it. On me!
Instead of fighting back, I sat there and looked at him until he calmed down. We studied each other’s eyes. ‘I won’t let you go, Timba,’ he said. ‘There is a better way.’ Still focused on my journey, I looked at him in silence, thinking I could sneak away later while he was asleep.
‘There is a better way, Timba,’ he repeated. ‘Just because you are in a physical body you don’t have to settle everything physically. Why go on that long journey when you can use your cat power?’
I stared at him. Cat power? All I’d done for the last few years was roll around on the hearth rug, purr and eat. People kept saying I was too fat.
‘Follow me,’ said my streamlined, velvet-coated, assertive brother, and he led me through the front garden and round the side of the house to where the old stone glittered in the starlight. We sat down, side by side, facing south. ‘Talk to me,’ I said, fearing Vati was going into one of his mysterious trances.
‘Remember the golden roads?’ he said. ‘We’re on one, right now … you used to sit here, Timba, when we were apart, and I heard every one of your messages, even though I didn’t answer. I heard you. I saw you. And I felt you!’
The mist cleared from my mind, and I remembered the great white Spirit Lion who had come to help me at those times. The remembering was a nice feeling, like coming home. So I stayed close to Vati, our bodies trembling a little as we picked up the energy of the golden road.
‘You do the purring,’ said Vati, ‘and I’ll send the message. We’re a good team. We’ll send Graham a message.’
I don’t know how many hours we sat there on the golden road in the moonlight, but suddenly I could feel sadness. A grey emptiness, a yearning, and it was coming from Graham. He wasn’t singing. The lid of the piano was shut. Graham wasn’t moving. He was slumped in his armchair, staring into space. The way Vati had been. Numb.
For three days nothing happened. Except that Vati was now the boss, not me. He’d kept me firmly inside, out of the rain that wrapped the house in veils of pearl and silver. Angie came and went, and cuddled us, and watched the laptop for news of Leroy. I ate and slept, and rolled on the rug.
It must have been a weekend, because on the third day Angie got ready to go to work. Her mood was ominously dark as she stacked the children’s books and crammed them into a bag. I perched on the table and looked at her. I felt anxious. Something was going to happen. I could feel it through my fur. So strongly that I thought it justified an amplified extended-meow.