Kitten Wars

Kitten Wars Read Free Page A

Book: Kitten Wars Read Free
Author: Anna Wilson
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nuts. I remembered the time Kaboodle had got a taste for Houdini, one of my
neighbour’s hamsters, and was soon lost in reminiscing and dreaming about what kind of chaos Jaffa might cause.
    Then the pet-shop owner’s voice cut into my thoughts. ‘You do need to think about house-training this little cat of yours.’
    I glanced up sharply to see Dad’s face cloud in horror. The woman laughed. ‘Don’t panic! It’s not as bad as having a dog, is it, Sparky?’
    The dog looked up on hearing his name and his tail was off again, banging against the side of his basket.
    ‘Cats leave their mums pretty well-trained,’ she went on. ‘But they do get a bit confused when they first arrive in a new place, so she’ll need a bit of a helping
hand.’ She paused. Dad’s face went a darker shade of pink. ‘Oh, do you mean—?’
    The pet-shop lady blushed too. ‘Well, I, er – I could pop round and show you – if you like, that is – tee hee hee!’
    What?! I scooted back to Dad’s side. ‘It’s fine,’ I said firmly, fixing her with a glare. ‘We know about that – we need cat litter, right?’ Dad and this
woman were getting far too friendly for my liking.
    Dad stammered, ‘Y-yeah. Do we?’
    ‘It says so here,’ I tutted, shoving one of the leaflets at him. ‘Honestly.’ I just wanted to get out of there before Dad asked the woman out or something gross.
    The pet-shop lady hurriedly grabbed a large bag of cat litter from a shelf behind her and heaved it on to the counter. From the picture on the packaging it looked like it contained a load of
gravel.
    ‘You’re quite right,’ she said to me, her face tight as though she’d just tasted something nasty. ‘Your kitten will probably know how to use this straight away.
Very clean animals, cats. Take the leaflet – it explains everything.’
    I felt my shoulders relax a bit.
    ‘Of course,’ she went on, raising an eyebrow at me, ‘once the kitten’s big enough to go outside, she’ll look for somewhere to do her business where she can scratch
something over the mess – say, soil in a flower bed—’
    Nooooo! Just what Dad did
not
need reminding of – cats peeing in his plant pots! I started pulling at his sleeve to get him to just pay for everything and leave. But he was still
listening to Miss Flirty-pants, who was going into far too much detail. ‘You’ll know if the kitten has peed as the litter will be a darker colour where she’s gone, and of course
you’ll see if she’s pooed.’
    Whoa! Information overload! I shot a panicked glance at Dad. He was going to freak, wasn’t he?
    But he didn’t seem fazed at all. He was nodding all the time the woman was speaking, and just staring at her. In fact, I had the strongest suspicion that he hadn’t taken in a word of
what she’d said.
    But
I
had. And now a horrible thought had started to form in my mind: what with all the over-friendly chit-chat between Dad and the pet-shop lady, I realized we had left Jaffa on her own
for quite a bit longer than planned. What if she’d had an accident while we were out? I prodded Dad hard in the ribs and finally managed to drag him away.
     
3
Desperate Measures

    ‘J affa! Jaff-aaa!’ I called as we walked in, lugging sacks of litter and bags of kitten food down the hall. ‘Quick, Dad –
shut the door! We don’t want her to run out into the road.’
    Dad closed the front door carefully with one foot, his arms full to overflowing with shopping, and looked around. ‘I wonder where she is?’ he said. ‘I suppose we should have
thought of this – the house must be huge to her. We should have kept her in one room while we were out. Like Bex said.’
    ‘Bex?’
    ‘The – er – the pet shop woman. She was called Bex.’
    When had he found out
that
little bit of information?

    But a rustling noise from the kitchen distracted me from asking. There was a thud and a scrabbling sound. I dumped my share of the shopping and rushed in to see Jaffa on the

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