Kitten Wars Read Free

sometimes
with a toy puppy in it. The kennel was painted green with pink pawprints all over it and it had this funny little sign beside it which said:

    It was a bit like the parking signs the town council puts up everywhere to stop people from leaving their cars parked by the side of the road for too long.
    From the street you could see into the shop, where there were shelves and shelves of pretty cat and dog bowls, beds, toys, collars and leads (yes, even for cats!), and there was a separate area
for food and accessories for smaller pets like rabbits and hamsters. The hamster homes looked more like fairground rides with their brightly coloured tubes and wheels. This place was more enticing
to me than any sweet shop. And now I had a real reason to go in to buy something for
my
new and gorgeous kitten!
    The moment Dad and I walked in, we were greeted by a small brown dog with a scruffy cheeky face, wagging his tail so enthusiastically that his bottom was wagging too and I wondered with a smile
whether he might take off like a small furry helicopter.
    ‘Hello!’ said a twinkly-eyed woman standing behind a surface that was covered in pet treats of every size, shape and colour. ‘Hey, Sparky! Basket!’ she added for the
dog’s benefit, and pointed at his bed which was pushed up against the cash desk. The dog immediately did as he was told and went to lie down. ‘Sorry about that,’ the woman said,
her grin widening, showing ultra-white shiny teeth. ‘He likes to say hello.’
    ‘That’s OK,’ said Dad before I had a chance to say, ‘Sorry, my dad’s not a dog fan.’
    WHAT? Dad normally
freaked
if a dog came and snuffled around his legs. But now he was grinning back and being charming and polite and asking what breed Sparky was (Border terrier,
apparently) and looking, bizarrely, a bit pink in the face. What with the way he was behaving with Jaffa and now this sudden interest in dogs, I was beginning to wonder if I was living in a fantasy
dreamworld of my own invention. I pinched myself hard and blinked.
    No change: it appeared that everything I was witnessing was actually real.
    ‘We’ve just acquired a small kitten – a stray,’ Dad was saying. ‘And, er, this might sound rather silly, but we don’t know what sort of equipment we need or
what to feed her.’
    We? What was all this about ‘we’? I stared at Dad suspiciously. And what was wrong with his voice? He sounded all sparkly and chatty. Dad didn’t do chatty, unless it was about
work. I was about to say something, but then I realized he was very definitely getting his money out, so I quietly pocketed the list I’d made earlier and kept my mouth shut. I would just have
to put up with the weird voice and ultra-toothy smiles.
    ‘You could try one of these specialist kitten foods,’ the shop owner was saying. ‘Tiny kittens need something that’s easy to digest.’
    I smiled to myself as I remembered Pinkella’s ridiculously long list of dos and don’ts for Kaboodle and how he could only have Feline Good, the posh gourmet cat food in sachets.
    Dad let out the most ridiculous fake laugh. ‘Hahahaha! I know how they feel – get a bit of a gippy tummy myself sometimes!’
    I let my face fall into my hands. Oh. My. Word. What on earth was making Dad talk such a load of loony-bin twaddle?
    Then I heard another laugh – this time from the pet shop lady. ‘Tee hee hee! Yes, it’s awful what happens to your indigestion as you get older, isn’t it?’
    I rolled my eyes and slid away from the two excruciatingly embarrassing adults so that I could take a look around the shop and not have to listen to any more of their weirdo ramblings. I flicked
through the leaflets on ‘How to house-train your new kitten’, and made a mental note to get Dad to buy something called ‘litter’. Then I realized there were a couple of
hamsters in one of the multicoloured cages in the corner, stuffing their little cheek pouches full of muesli flakes and