My fur ruffed out, my eyes must have gone black with terror, and my pulse raced. But Amber didn’t stop. The howling went on and on, like a warning siren.
Too petrified to move, I watched the water in the garden. I saw Max’s sandbag wall sag and burst open, and a torrent of brown water surged towards the house with an unforgettable roar. It burst through the cat flap in a plume of froth, swept across the kitchen and into the hall.
Amber stopped howling and barked. She spun round and lolloped through the water and up the stairs, leaving me paralysed with terror on the windowsill.
I watched in horror as my food bowl, still with some bits in it, floated by, along with the leaves and litter the water was bringing in. I watched the brown tide, foaming at the edges, glide into the lounge and under the sofa, swirling around the chair legs, soaking the carpet. It picked up TammyLee’s fluffy slippers and sloshed them against the wall. Then it reached the fireplace and steam rose, hissing from the embers.
‘What the hell is the matter with that dog?’
I heard Max getting up, his feet creaking across the landing.
‘Oh, my GOD. Now we have got problems.’
He dived into the bedroom and grabbed a mobile phone, tapping it urgently and listening.
‘Damn it. The lines are jammed.’ He did a lot of cursing, and finally spoke to someone. ‘Our house is flooded. The water’s pouring in, and my wife is disabled … and my teenage daughter has gone missing.’
He didn’t say, ‘Our cat is marooned on the windowsill.’ I was, and the water was creeping up the wall, deeper and deeper. I clung there, watching Max, who was now downstairs and paddling around, grabbing armfuls of stuff and chucking it on the stairs. I was afraid that in his frenzy, he wouldn’tnotice me, so I meowed loudly; in fact, I wailed. He waded over and picked me up. Phew!
‘Poor Tallulah,’ he said as I clung to his shoulder. He carried me to the stairs and put me on them. ‘Go upstairs, go on. Shoo!’ He clapped his hands which wasn’t helpful to an already frightened cat.
Miffed, I crouched on the top step, watching Amber, who was trying to convince Max it was a game. She was charging up and down what was left of the stairs, grabbing some of the things he was chucking up there, and carrying them into Diana’s room in her mouth. She grabbed books, papers, shoes and gadgets, even a telephone with its wires trailing. She got that tangled up in the banister rail, and tugged at it until Max shouted at her. She left it swinging in mid-air and seized a coat by its hood, dragging it round the corner intoDiana’s room.
An amazing sound rippled through the house. Diana was laughing! It relaxed me straight away and I ran in to see her with my tail up. What Amber had done was awesome, in my opinion. In the midst of a crisis, she’d managed to make Diana laugh. It made me feel better.
But it had the opposite effect on Max.
‘What the hell is there to laugh at?’ He shouted. ‘I’m busting a gut trying to salvage our belongings. What’s so funny?’
His words only sent Diana into a new bout of hysterical giggling, and encouraged Amber to move even faster, her tail wagging now, knocking medicine bottles off tables as she flew past.
‘I’m sorry, love,’ said Diana as Max’s furious face appeared at the door. ‘I know I shouldn’t be laughing … but Amber is so funny … don’t be cross with her, Max. It’s better to laugh than cry.’
‘I’ll do the crying,’ said Max. ‘Our home is RUINED, Diana. Our daughter is missing. For God’s sake, woman.’
He did start to cry, sitting at the top of the stairs, but he refused to let the tears flow. Silently and painfully, he fought it, his shoulders shuddering with every breath. I ran to him and looked right into his soul with my most concerned cat stare.
‘Tallulah … you lovely, lovely cat,’ he said, and caressed my fur with an unsteady hand. ‘What are we going to do with you and Amber? And, dear God, where IS my daughter?
Max shut Amber and me in TammyLee’s bedroom, with a dish of water. Amber lay down across the door with a sigh of resignation, and I made a nest in the duvet and fell into a restorative sleep.
It must have been mid-afternoon when the house began to shake. Amber was frightened of thunderstorms, and she crawled under the table and pressed herself against the wall, whimpering. It wasn’t thunder, I knew that. Keeping myself hidden behind the curtain, I peeped out, alarmed to see a helicopter hovering just above the house. My ears hurt with the bang-banging of its relentless blades, and, up close, the helicopter was enormous, deafening and intimidating.
My instinct was to hide like Amber, but I wanted to see what was happening. It felt as if the house was going to be blown to bits. I touched the window with my nose, and the glass was vibrating.