Then, TammyLee came running. She was crying out loud and yelling swear words at the fleeing boys.
‘Poor, poor Tallulah!’ She scooped me up and held me against her warm body, against the vest with the green dragon on it, and my soaking fur was dripping down her jeans. She couldn’t stop crying, and Amber sat beside her, with water streaming from her coat, whining and offering her paw.
‘Thank you, Amber. Thank you. You are a brilliant dog,’ sobbed TammyLee, and she carried me quickly back to Max and Diana, and wrapped me in a warm towel.
‘Those bastard pig boys dropped her from the bridge,’ she wept. ‘How COULD they? How could they hurt Tallulah? She didn’t do anything wrong.’ TammyLee ranted, while I lay, shocked, wrapped in the towel on Diana’s lap. Her voice rose to a scream. ‘What is WRONG with the world? I don’t want to stay in it. Why has some pig of a boy got to ruin the nicest day we’ve had for ages? They won’t get away with it. I’ll find the evil little jerks and chuck them in the river. In fact, I’ll bloody drown them. I’ll …’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, girl!’ snapped Max. ‘And stop being a drama queen.’
TammyLee turned on him:‘Don’t you dare start on me. Don’t you criticise me for caring. You can’t tell me what to do. I’m old enough to quit school and get a job. Then who’s gonna look after Mum?
Max went white.‘I do know that,’ he said, tight-lipped. ‘This is not an appropriate time to raise major issues.’
I lay there, wishing they would be quiet. TammyLee was more upset than me. Diana put a kindly hand on her daughter’s back as she raged and sobbed.
‘Please try to calm yourself, sweetheart. Tallulah needs us to be quiet and help her recover. She needs healing, not revenge.’
TammyLee calmed down instantly, and Max walked away, tapping at his mobile phone.‘I’m ringing the police,’ he said. ‘Not that they’ll be interested,’
‘Yes, do that,’ said Diana, ‘but we must focus on this poor cat. We need to get her home, and call the vet.’
‘Tallulah’s not strong,’ said TammyLee, and her hand was still shaking as she touched me, ‘because of what she went through, and look how small she is inside all that fur. Darling cat. I love her so much, Mum, I’d die for her.’
‘I know, I know.’ Diana was smoothing me with the towel, and TammyLee knelt on the ground beside the wheelchair, drying my face and ears with a tissue. All I felt was deep gratitude for being loved like this.
‘She’s purring, Mum! Listen to her.’
At home, TammyLee sat in the garden with me on her lap, helping me recover from my ordeal. The warmth of her body, and the heat of the late-afternoon sun soaked into my bones, and my fur was soon dry and silky, though it smelled of the river. I did a lot of purring, but TammyLee couldn’t stop crying.
‘For goodness’ sake, girl,’ said Max impatiently. ‘The cat’s all right now, surely? You’ve been sitting there blubbing for two hours and there’s work to be done.’
‘I’m not moving. Tallulah needs me. And don’t call me “girl”.’
The flow of healing energy from her hands came to an abrupt end, as if Max’s voice had turned a switch. It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed the deadening effect he had on TammyLee’s spirit. She glared at Max, who stood at the kitchen door with a potato in one hand and a knife in the other.
‘Can’t you get supper for once?’ TammyLee snarled. ‘Or have you got to watch the boring old news? Again!’
‘No. As it happens, I’ve got to do boring old work to earn us boring old money to buy boring old food and pay boring old bills!’ shouted Max. He dropped the potato and it rolled, wobbling across the patio. I watched it, thinking about playing with it, and Max noticed the change in my body language.
‘There you are. Look at her. She wants to play again.’
‘No, she doesn’t.’ TammyLee scooped me into her arms and stood up. ‘I’m taking her upstairs. And you don’t need to PEEL POTATOES, Dad. Just get the chips out of the freezer, like the rest of us do.’
‘You treat that cat like a child,’ complained Max. My gaze emanated disapproval as I was carried upstairs. He couldn’t know how much that hurt TammyLee. How could he, when he didn’t know she’d lost the child she could have loved?
TammyLee put me down on her duvet and wound a fuzzy scarf round and round me like a bird’s nest. ‘You stay there, Tallulah. I’ve got to put Mum to bed.’ She sighed. ‘Meow if you want me.’
I watched her go into Diana’s room, and I wanted to follow her. But the warmth of the scarf was so sumptuous, and the rainbow colours of it seemed to be whirling round me. I was giddy, and the pain in my bruised kidneys was hard and sharp, as if Dylan’s fingers were still clenched around my spine. Without TammyLee there, I was suddenly afraid. What if he had damaged me? What if I couldn’t eat or pee? With that thought came an aftershock of pure misery. Why had that boy wanted to hurt and frighten me?
I sent out a telepathic scream to my angel, and she was there instantly, weaving her light into the rainbow scarf as she floated over the duvet.