The Mystery Kitten

For Hannah

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Copyright

It was a very strange way to start Christmas, Elsa thought. School had finished the day before and she felt like they should be making cards or doing Christmassy cooking. Instead she was dashing about trying to remember which box she’d put her purple cardigan in and where her tiny china cats were.

The whole house felt empty – just boxes and boxes waiting to go in the removal van later that morning. Her bed was still in the room she shared with her sister Sara, but she’d slept in a sleeping bag last night because all the sheets and duvets and pillows were packed.

It was exciting, but scary too. The new house was a long way away – two hours’ drive. Dad was starting a new job after Christmas and Elsa and Sara would be going to new schools.

Everything was new.

“Elsa, how are you doing? All packed?” Dad put his head round the bedroom door. He looked so happy, Elsa thought. Though maybe a bit stressed too. The last few days had been really busy.

“I think so.” Elsa turned round slowly, inspecting the odd, bare bedroom.

“Are you looking forward to having your own room at the new house?” Dad grinned. “No more moaning about Sara’s clothes being everywhere.”

Elsa nodded. She’d wanted her own room for ages. But now it was finally happening, she didn’t know how it would feel to sleep on her own every night. When Sara went to sleepovers it was always really weird without her.

“Come on downstairs, sweetheart,” Dad told her. “You need to have some breakfast. It’s going to be a long day.”

Elsa followed him, but as Dad headed down the stairs she stopped for a moment in the doorway of her room, looking back. “It will be good,” she told herself, crossing her fingers. “It will…”

The kitten stumbled over the dusty floorboards mewing crossly. He was hungry and he didn’t know where everyone had gone. He’d fallen asleep half wrapped in an old dust sheet in the far corner of the attic. He liked it there – his four brothers and sisters squirmed and stomped and wriggled so much that sometimes it was good to sleep a little further away.

Usually his mother came and shooed him back to the nest she’d made for them in a box of old clothes, but this morning he’d woken up on his own. The attic was freezing and the kitten shivered miserably as he wandered around looking for his family. He stumbled and sniffed and mewed, but there were no kittens hiding behind the boxes, or waiting to leap from under the battered old armchair.

Everyone had gone.

The kitten stood gazing at their old nest – he could smell his mother and the other kittens. He could even see the dips and hollows where they’d snuggled down the night before. He scrambled unhappily over the torn edge of the box and squirmed into a ragged jumper, trying to warm himself up.

One of his brothers or sisters had dropped a bit of cooked chicken that their mother had carried upstairs for them, and he could smell it. He nosed it out eagerly and gobbled it down. Then he lay curled up in the jumper and waited for his mother to come back to him. He knew she would come back soon. He was sure.

Elsa sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, looking around her new room. It was so big! When they’d come to view the house, the room had been full of furniture. It had been hard to imagine what it would be like with her things in. Dad had promised she could help him paint the walls, but there was a lot of other stuff that needed doing first.

“I think your room might be bigger than mine.” Sara put her head round Elsa’s door and squinted, obviously trying to measure it in her head.

“I’m not swapping,” Elsa said swiftly. She loved her room already and she wasn’t letting Sara have it. She had plans for it. Purple paint instead of the faded old wallpaper, and maybe some fairy lights. She could have those now if Dad gave her an advance on her pocket money.

“It’s OK.” Sara grinned. “I like mine. It’s got loads of shelves and an old fireplace. It’s cool.”

“Have you done any unpacking?” Elsa asked, looking at the pile of boxes in front of the window. She’d put some of her clothes away, but that was all.

“The lot,” Sara said smugly and Elsa sighed. She ought to get on with unpacking her things, but every time she opened a box, she started thinking about their old house and her friends…

“The garden is great,” Sara said, threading her way between the boxes and going to look out of Elsa’s window. “We could definitely have a dog now we’ve got a proper garden. I’m going to keep working on Dad.”

“You can’t see the garden, it’s dark,” Elsa muttered. Sara really wanted a dog, but Elsa wasn’t sure. She had a feeling that if they got a dog her sister would always be dragging her out on long walks before school. But she did like the idea of snuggling up on the sofa with a gorgeous furry puppy.

“I can see bits of it,” Sara insisted. “And next door’s got a trampoline – did you notice? So they must have children too.”

Elsa nodded hopefully. Maybe they would go to the school she was starting at. She was in Year Five, but Sara was eleven and at secondary school, so Elsa wouldn’t have her sister with her. She couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like, walking in on her own. She shook herself and got up to open a box. It was harder to worry about things when she was busy.

“Help me put this lot away?” she asked Sara pleadingly, but her big sister rolled her eyes.

“Not a chance. Sorry.” She smirked at Elsa and whisked out of the room.

Elsa sighed and unfolded the top of a box. It was actually quite fun, working out where to put everything. She just had to think of it as a new start.

They had pizza for dinner, but Dad had nearly finished sorting out the kitchen and he said they’d start cooking normal meals again soon.

“When we’ve found the cookie cutters you could make some of those gingerbread stars to hang up,” he suggested. “And we need to get a Christmas tree.” He smiled at Elsa. “That’ll be fun, won’t it? We could have it in front of the living-room window.”

Elsa nodded and tried to smile back. She’d been really upset when Dad had first told them they needed to move, for his work. She hadn’t wanted to leave her friends – it just didn’t seem fair. She was mostly used to the idea now, but Dad was still worrying about her.

“You’re falling asleep,” Dad said a few minutes later, taking a drooping slice of pizza out of Elsa’s hand. “You go on up. I’ll come and say goodnight in a minute.”

Elsa yawned and nodded, but once she was out in the hallway, the pleasant sleepy feeling seemed to fade away. This house was so much older than their last one. It had odd creaky boards and patches of shadowy blackness that the lights didn’t reach. As she put her foot on the first step, she heard a weird little noise, like scrabbly claws…

She scurried up the stairs in a sudden panic, feeling as though something might be behind her. Was something watching her? Then she hurled herself through her bedroom doorway and scrambled into bed, panting and hugging her knees. If she was curled up small, whatever was following her up the stairs might not see…

After a minute or two, Elsa shook herself. Of course there hadn’t been anything behind her. But there was something about this house. Something strange – as though she and Sara and Dad weren’t the only ones here.

Elsa flinched a little as she heard voices downstairs, and then there was a rush of footsteps and Sara called, “Night, Elsa!” as she came past. Elsa caught her breath, and then giggled and went out to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She was tired, that was all. She’d been half asleep and not thinking straight. Everything was fine. It would all be fine.

By the time her dad came up to check on her, Elsa was fast asleep.

She woke up much later, clutching her duvet in panic. The room was so dark – much darker than the room she and Sara had shared before, where there was a street light right outside. This room was velvet-black and she couldn’t see a thing.

What had woken her? Elsa peered around, her breaths coming fast, as if she’d been running. It was like that weird moment on the stairs all over again.

“Dad’s only across the landing…” Elsa whispered to herself. She could wake him up in seconds. She just had to get out of bed…

Above her head something scratched and pattered – and then cried out.

Elsa burrowed down under her duvet, pulling it over her head to make a safe little tent. She wasn’t going anywhere…

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Sara said, rolling her eyes.

“How do you know?” Elsa glared at her. Sara always thought she knew everything. Elsa wasn’t sure she believed in ghosts either, but there was definitely something going on.

“Because it’s nonsense! You were just having a nightmare, that’s all.”

“Dreams can feel very real when you’re in them,” Dad agreed. “But the house doesn’t seem spooky now, in daylight, does it?” He was looking worried. He and Elsa and Sara had talked a lot about people dying, as the girls’ mum had died when Elsa was two. Dad definitely didn’t believe in ghosts. He’d told them so.

“What about when I was going up the stairs?” Elsa pointed out. “I wasn’t asleep then. How could that weird noise have been a nightmare?”

Sara yawned and stretched. “It was probably the floorboards squeaking. Or the water pipes.”

“That’s quite likely.” Dad nodded. “The house is a bit old and creaky.”

Elsa jabbed her fork at her scrambled eggs. Sara sounded right, but Elsa still wasn’t sure. There had been something, she knew it. Something watching … waiting. Creaky boards were all very well, but somebody had to walk on them to make them creak, didn’t they?

Sara glanced up suddenly, her face worried. “You don’t think it was a rat, do you?”

“It could have been.” Elsa wrinkled her nose. Maisie, her friend from school – her old school, she reminded herself – had two pet rats. They did scrabble and scratch around. She loved Maisie’s rats – they were cuddly and funny – but she wasn’t sure about the not-a-pet kind. Not living in her house.

“Dad! Rats!” Sara was looking horrified now. She really didn’t like rats or mice. Elsa had tried suggesting that rats would be good pets after she’d met Maisie’s, but Sara had flat-out refused to ever, ever, ever have them in their bedroom. Dad hadn’t been very keen either, but he’d said he’d think about guinea pigs, once they were settled.

“I’m sure if there were rats, the previous owner would have told us,” Dad said. “Don’t panic, you two. It was probably just a creaky board or the water pipes, like Sara said.”

The kitten woke up from his nap and poked his nose out from under the old jumper, looking hopeful. Was his mother back? Was there more food? His whiskers shivered and twitched as he waited for his brothers and sisters to leap on top of him and lick him and nibble his ears. He wouldn’t mind, not this time. His ears pricked up as he listened, ready to jump out and run to his mother…

But there was no one else in the attic.

The kitten’s ears flattened slowly and he sniffed, trying to follow the fading scent of his mother and the rest of the litter. He scrabbled frantically at the old clothes, nuzzling under the layers as if he might find them at the bottom of the box. But there were only jumpers and scarves, and the box was cold.

Whatever the noise was that had woken him, it had come from downstairs. The kitten wriggled out of the clothes again and stumbled over the side of the box on to the floor, padding over to the doorway.

Whenever he’d tried to go through the door before, his mother had always shooed him back. Sometimes she’d even picked him up in her mouth, dragging him to the safety of the box nest. But his mother had been gone for so long this time, he was starting to think she wasn’t coming back.

The kitten stood there, listening and sniffing the air. He could hear footsteps and voices coming from somewhere. Would there be food too? He was now so hungry that his stomach hurt. He was sure he could smell food. He edged forward a little and looked out on to the tiny landing at the top of the attic stairs. The smell was even stronger out here. There was definitely food down there.

Determinedly, the kitten padded across the landing to the top step and eyed the mountain of stairs below.

Elsa went back upstairs after breakfast to finish her unpacking – it was better than helping Dad get all the kitchen plates and mugs out of their bubble wrap.

She stood by the window for a few minutes, looking into the garden and wondering if she might see the children from next door. But it was a bit cold to be out on the trampoline, she supposed.

She’d started arranging the pinboard from her old room yesterday, pinning on photos of her old friends. The board was on the floor with photos scattered all over it, as well as cards and notes from Maisie and Lara and the others. She sat down in front of the board and picked up the little box of pins – Maisie had given her some cute ones as part of a goodbye present, with stars and flowers and hearts on the top.

Elsa sniffed. She missed everyone so much already. Even if the trampoline did mean there were children living next door, it wasn’t ever going to be the same as her and Maisie and Lara. They’d been friends since nursery.

Then she frowned down at the board – it looked different. The photo of her and Maisie and Lara that she’d had in the middle was pushed off to the side, and the card from her teacher was on the floor under her desk.

For a minute Elsa thought it must have been Sara, but her sister wouldn’t do that. Sara knew how upset she’d been about moving schools – Sara was sad about leaving her own friends too. She and her sister argued loads, but they were never mean to each other.

Elsa shivered. Dad and Sara had almost convinced her at breakfast. Rattly water pipes and squeaky boards, that’s all it was. No ghosts. Now she wasn’t so sure. Something had come in and messed up her board. Elsa looked over her shoulder at the door. She could hear Sara playing music in her room and Dad was downstairs – everything seemed so normal. There couldn’t be a ghost moving things around in her bedroom.

Could there?

Something scuffled under her bed and Elsa yelped, scrambling back towards the door. She was expecting some kind of monster to come leaping out at her, or a greyish misty presence, or maybe a spookily pale girl in a nightie…

Instead there was a squeak. A tiny, frightened sort of squeak.

Whatever the ghost wanted, it sounded even more frightened than she was, Elsa decided. Very, very slowly she crouched down and peered at the space under her bed. She was tense, ready to spring up and run if there was some horrible creature under there – or even a cornered, angry rat.

Staring back at her were two glowing yellow-green eyes. In the shadows under Elsa’s bed it almost looked as though they were floating. For a tiny fraction of a second, Elsa remembered a scary story that Lara had told on their class sleepover about a yellow-eyed goblin that climbed on your back in the middle of the night and stole your breath away – and then she blinked and her eyes got used to the shadows and she saw what it was.

There was a kitten under her bed. A tiny, furry, frightened black kitten.

“Where did you come from?” Elsa breathed. “Oh, don’t be scared…” she added as the kitten flinched back into the shadows. “It’s OK. I’m friendly. I wonder who you belong to.” Then she frowned. “Maybe you don’t belong to anyone. Was it you making all those strange noises?” It would make sense – the scratching and scrabbling could definitely have been kitten claws, and the squeaky little cry too. “Oh, kitten, we thought you were a rat…”

The kitten peered out at her anxiously, its eyes all black in the darkness now, with just a hair-thin rim of gold. It was very small and skinny, Elsa realized. So small that she wasn’t sure it should be out on its own.

“Where’s your mum?” she murmured. Then she nibbled her bottom lip. The kitten must have belonged to the previous owner of the house, an old lady. She’d told them she was moving because she couldn’t manage the stairs any more. She’d seemed so nice. Elsa couldn’t imagine her abandoning a kitten, but how else could the poor little thing have been in the attic?

“You must be starving,” Elsa whispered, wriggling backwards and getting up slowly so as not to scare the kitten. “Just stay there a minute, OK? I’m going to get you something to eat.” She slipped out and tiptoed downstairs, wondering if Dad was still in the kitchen. He’d said something about trying to mend the dripping tap on the sink. She wasn’t sure she could argue for a snack, not just after breakfast, and she really didn’t want to tell Dad there was a kitten in her bedroom. Not yet anyway.

Luckily, her dad was unpacking books in the living room and didn’t hear her creep past. It looked like he’d got distracted and started reading, which was good news. He wouldn’t be coming to check on her for ages.

Elsa opened the fridge as quietly as she could, holding her breath as the door creaked, but there was still no sound from the living room. She grabbed a slice of ham, although that didn’t seem enough for a hungry kitten. A cat wasn’t going to want grapes, or a yogurt… Then she remembered Gran telling them that her cat Poppet’s favourite food was cheese. Elsa broke off a chunk and grabbed one of the plates that Dad had been unpacking, then she padded silently back past the living room. The stairs gave a huge groaning creak when she was halfway up and Elsa froze, but nothing happened – Dad must be deep in his book.

At last she slipped back into her room and crouched down to look for the kitten again. It was still huddled against the wall under her bed, and when it saw Elsa it shifted worriedly and pressed itself even further back.

“Are you hungry?” Elsa whispered. “Look what I’ve got. Do you like cheese? Or ham?” She showed the plate to the kitten and then tore off a bit of ham and held it out. Was she imagining it, or did the kitten’s huge black ears flicker with interest?