Mum and Dad had tried to convince Darcy that she was wrong and that Charlie loved their house, but it was harder and harder to do that when he still hadn’t come home. And he didn’t … all night.
“He hasn’t even got his collar on,” Darcy sobbed at bedtime. “We never remembered to go to the pet shop and get him a new one. It’s been days since he’s had a collar. If he has found another home, the people probably think that he’s a stray because they’ve never seen him with one.”
“I wish he was better at keeping them on,” Mum said, sighing.
Darcy gave a damp sort of laugh. “It isn’t that he’s bad at keeping them on, Mum. He takes them off on purpose. He’s too clever. He rubs them against the chair legs until they come off.” Her voice shook with tears again and Mum hugged her tight. How could their clever, gorgeous, perfect kitten not want to be theirs any more?
Later that night she heard Mum and Dad talking when she went downstairs to get a drink of water. They were in the living room and they didn’t know she was there. Darcy sank down on the stairs and listened, peering through the banisters.
“Do you think Darcy’s right?” Dad was asking. “Someone else has adopted him?”
She heard Mum sigh. “It’s possible, isn’t it? We have neglected him a bit – I just hadn’t realized… But to be honest, Dave, I’d rather he’s being fussed over by someone than… Well, people go so quickly along this road and he’s only little. Cats are terrible with roads, they can’t tell how fast the cars are.”
“Someone would have come and told us if he’d been hit, surely. Oh – except he hasn’t got his collar on.”
“Exactly,” Mum said grimly. “But hopefully anyone who picked him up would have taken him to the vet and they’d scan his microchip. They’d ring us.”
“Mmmm. I suppose he could be shut in somewhere… A shed, maybe, or a garage.”
Darcy didn’t want to listen any more. She crept slowly back upstairs to bed, but after that it took ages for her to get to sleep. She lay there, imagining Charlie trapped in a dark shed, mewing and mewing for her to come and let him out. Or frozen in the headlights of a car… That was too horrible. She buried her head in her pillow, trying not to think about it.
She still woke up early the next morning, though. They all did. Last night they’d walked up and down the road, peering over fences and walls and calling for Charlie. They’d asked all the neighbours they’d seen, but no one had spotted a kitten. They just had to keep trying, Dad said firmly. He had to be somewhere.
“We ought to find a photo of Charlie and make a poster,” Mum suggested.
“Oh! Can we do it now?” Darcy asked, jumping up. She’d been trying to eat a piece of toast because Mum had said she must eat something, but it just wasn’t going down.
“You hardly ate anything last night…” Mum started to say, but then she shook her head and sighed. “Actually, I’m not very hungry either. All right. Let’s look through my phone for a good photo.”
Darcy and Will peered over Mum’s shoulder, looking at photos of Charlie. There were so many – Charlie splayed out on the sofa, legs everywhere; Charlie sitting in a cereal bowl Mum had left on the table; Charlie asleep with his nose in his food dish. Darcy felt her eyes prickling with tears again – she had to stop! It was no use crying, it wasn’t going to help them find their kitten. She sniffed hard and pointed to a photo of Charlie staring out hopefully. He must have been waiting for his tea or maybe a treat. It showed off his lovely big yellow-green eyes and his tabby and white colouring.
“Yes, that’s a good one,” Mum agreed. “I’ll download it on to my computer and we’ll make it into a poster.” She went to turn on the computer and Darcy followed her.
“What are we going to say?” she asked Mum. “I mean, if we think someone might have adopted Charlie, what we really want to say is ‘Give us our cat back!’. But I suppose we can’t…”
“We don’t know for sure that is what’s happened,” Mum pointed out. “Though it does seem likely. What about this?” She typed quickly and then leaned back so Darcy could see.
“It’s perfect,” Darcy agreed.
Mum added her mobile number and printed out twenty copies. “We’ll start with these. If we don’t hear anything, perhaps we should do some little ones to put through all the neighbours’ doors.”
Darcy nodded, swallowing hard. It had just hit her that they were really going to put up these posters – people were going to look at them and think, Oh, I must keep an eye out for that poor little cat. Of course that was a good thing, but it was horrible they had to do it. She had walked past so many posters just like this one and felt sorry about the poor lost cat and the sad owners, and now they were the sad owners.
“We’re going to keep looking as well, though, aren’t we?” she said to Mum. “We only did our road yesterday. We ought to go round to Thirsk Way too, and the one where our gardens back on to theirs – Barrett Close, isn’t it?”
“We will, don’t worry,” Mum said. “We can look all morning, but then we’ve got to take you to your football match.”
Darcy stared at her. She had completely forgotten about the football match! She shook her head. “I can’t! Not when Charlie’s missing, Mum. I just can’t. Please will you tell Mrs Jennings I can’t go?”
Mum looked at her worriedly. “I’m not sure we should do that, sweetheart. You’re part of a team. You’ll be letting everyone else down.”
“I won’t – it will just mean Emma gets more of a chance to play. Honestly, she’ll be really pleased. Don’t you see? I stopped looking after Charlie properly because I was so caught up with the football team. I was practising all the time and not bothering to play with him. But now I don’t care if I never get to be in the team again, if only we can find Charlie and he’s safe.”
Mum sighed. “OK. Maybe I won’t tell Mrs Jennings exactly that, but hopefully she’ll understand.”
Charlie had meant to go home – after a little while. After he’d given Darcy and Will time to calm down and stop shouting. When they were arguing it made the fur on the back of his neck rise up and it hurt his ears. He’d never bitten Darcy or Will, he’d never wanted to, except sometimes when they were yelling at each other and the anger seemed to be in the air all around them. Then it made him want to nip their ankles. It was better just not to be there.
When the old lady came home with a couple of shopping bags, she’d laughed to see him curled up and snoozing on her rug. She crouched down with an effort, rubbed his ears and spoke softly to him, telling him how beautiful he was and what nice company.
“There I was feeling quite lonely and now you’ve come to see me,” she murmured.
Charlie sat up and purred, pushing his head affectionately into her stroking hand and twining himself around her.
“It’s a good thing I picked up a few more of those food sachets, isn’t it? Are you hungry, little one?” She stood up and Charlie followed her eagerly into the kitchen. He was hungry. And after he’d eaten he was sleepy and it was so nice to curl up on the old lady’s lap on the sofa. He would go back later on, under the fence and over the wall, back to Darcy and Will… But the flat was cosy and quiet and somehow, he just didn’t.
Darcy listened to Mum’s end of the phone conversation with Mrs Jennings – she sounded very apologetic. She kept saying how much Darcy loved football, it was just that this was important and everyone was very upset.
At that point, Darcy put one of the sofa cushions over her head. It was too weird listening to Mum describe how miserable she was. It made her feel even sadder. The more people who knew that Charlie was missing, the worse it felt. And now loads of people were going to know, Darcy thought, sighing into the dusty fabric of the cushion.