How to Survive Your Magical Family E-Book

Clare Rhoden

• Herausgeber: Odyssey Books
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 264

Beschreibung

How to Survive Your Magical Family

Leseprobe

How to Survive Your Magical Family

CLARE RHODEN

Copyright © Clare Rhoden 2022

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Published by Odyssey Books in 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

www.odysseybooks.com.au

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

ISBN: 978-1922311436 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1922311443 (ebook)

Cover design by Elijah Toten

Also by Clare Rhoden

The Chronicles of The Pale Trilogy

The Pale

Broad Plain Darkening

The Ruined Land

The Stars in the Night

Contents

I. Toby

1. The street cat incident

2. A dog person

3. Cat names

4. My dad Felix

5. Magic

6. Maggie Khan

7. Frankie Says

8. A murder of crows

II. Mia

9. The bus incident

10. The emergency department

11. What Frankie knew

12. What magic really is

III. Toby

13. What hate looks like

14. The worst exam of my life

15. Her bizarre answer

IV. Mia

16. The trail to nowhere

17. The rescue teams arrive

V. Toby

18. Katkin is overmatched

19. The crow cave

VI. Mia

20. Kidnap phase two

21. Orsa ruins everything

22. Waiting next door

23. Helen and Rain have an idea

VII. Toby

24. The trouble with Orsa

25. The way home

VIII. Mia

26. Orsa’s next ploy

IX. Toby

27. To fight another day

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Share your thoughts with us

PartOne

Toby

Chapter1

The street cat incident

WEDNESDAY

A particular way with cats was the only magic I got from my father. I was mostly a dog person, so cat magic wasn’t all that much use to me. My sister Helen scored a whole heap of practical skills. Making traffic lights change green, checking how much food was in the fridge, imagining a parking spot into existence, or turning off the iron after she’d left home, that sort of thing. But I was stuck with this really boring, but completely reliable, skill. I could charm any cat to come to me.

Any cat.

Bashed-up old street-wise tom cats, pretty little Persian kittens, world-weary ginger dams, mad-skittish Ragdolls, and fat, haughty Scottish folds, you name it. Yes, big cats too. I didn’t even have to sweet-talk them; I just showed up at the zoo or the range. Lions and leopards, cheetahs and jaguars, panthers and tigers. From inside their perfectly created so-called natural enclosures, they came as close as they could get to me and rubbed their foreheads against the nearest wall. If the wall hadn’t existed, they’d have pushed their heavy skulls against me, begging me to pat them.

As I said, not a very useful piece of magic. I tended to avoid cats in general and zoos especially. Cats just reminded me that my father handed down only the shabbiest, least profitable iota of magic that any wizardling could want.

Sadly, the feeling was not mutual. Cats kept coming to me.

So, the night we were driving home through the rain, and my sister braked hard to avoid the collision in front of us, it was no surprise that the first thing I saw was a tossing bundle of feline fur. The car that hit the cat stopped for a few seconds. I could almost hear the driver sighing with relief: Phew, only a street cat—that’s what she was thinking. She felt just bad enough, or was maybe just squeamish enough, to steer around the raggedy mound of road victim before she sped off.

My sister Helen yelled obscenities at the other driver. She was so good at swearing that you could be forgiven for thinking it was a magical skill, too. Then she flicked on her hazards and blinked a couple of times, in that focused kind of way, into her rear-vision mirror. I looked out of the back window. Sure enough, the flashing blue light of a police vehicle was pulling up behind us. With our safety from other drivers secured, we both stepped out onto the wet road. At least the rain had eased a bit.

Helen went directly to the mangled cat, which was mewling like every banshee of Ireland in an eerie-noise-making contest. As I feared, it was a new young mother, stupidly trying to take her kittens one by one across the four-lane highway. A back-up chorus of kittens was wailing from the verge. By the time I looked down, three pathetic scruffs of wet fur were grabbing at my ankles.

‘See to them, would you, Toby?’

Sometimes I resented the way Helen took charge. Usually I was just grateful to her. This time, it was a bit annoying because that was exactly what I was about to do. I didn’t always need to be told, but it wasn’t worth arguing about.

I bent down to gather the shivering kittens. They were so small that they fitted into one of my hands. I bundled them inside my t-shirt, tucking it securely into the waistband of my jeans, where they huddled in a ball of wet fur that soaked through the material in no time. I knew that looked ridiculous, but at least they were safe.

Their frantic mother was another story. I squatted down beside Helen, who was trying to contain the stricken animal. The skinny black cat batted at her, claws drawn. The fourth kitten was still in her mouth, crying pitifully.

‘What do you think?’ I didn’t like the look of her lying there in such a strange, twisted position.

Helen shook her head. ‘Poor love, her back leg’s broken. She’s in such a lot of pain. I can’t do anything until she lets me touch her. Toby, speak to her.’

I looked over my shoulder at the police constable, who’d come to see how we were getting on while his colleague directed other drivers around us. In general, it wasn’t a good idea to talk to cats when someone outside the family was listening. Helen, who pretty much always knew what I was thinking, stood up with a smile at the policeman and took him a half-step away. I went down onto one knee, bending low until I made eye contact with the cat.

‘Tenner,’ I whispered to her, ‘your kittens are all safe. Let me have Littlest, let him join his littermates. I’ve got them all here, tucked in my pouch. Pink and Footsie and Wart, they’re all safe with me.’

Okay, so I could read cats’ names too. I blamed my dad. His middle name was Felix, which was the only other inheritance I got.

And by the way, no cat ever called itself Felix.

Tenner stopped in mid-screech. She stared at me hard and then blinked. I saw the fear in her eyes fade, and with a sigh she released her ferocious grip on Littlest. I scooped him into my shirt too, where he clutched his siblings energetically, making a good few claw marks on my belly as he did.

I whispered to Tenner. ‘Your leg’s broken, little mother. My sister can heal it and stop the pain, but you have to let her touch you. Think you can do that?’

Tenner was panting. You too, she sent to me, twitching her nose.

‘Okay.’ I laid two fingers gently on her side. ‘Helen, can you help me lift this cat?’

‘Sure.’ Touching the policeman confidingly on his shoulder, Helen explained that we would take the cats to the nearest veterinary practice. Then she came back to us. Crouching beside Tenner, she placed her palm on the cat’s side and gave a strident whisper: ‘Ready! Set! Gone!’

Tenner started, her skin rippling up and down the length of her, before she leaped to her feet. All four of them, sound as could be. I grinned, standing in time to take Tenner’s bound into my arms. I could sense the relief and the joyous communion as mother cat and kittens fumbled to smell each other through my shirt. We headed back to Helen’s car, where I set the little family into the footwell of the passenger seat, resting on the old crocheted blanket from the back. I was carefully placing one foot on either side of them when Tenner looked at me, her eyes glinting green and hard.

One more.

‘One more? Tenner, you only have four kittens.’

Catlike, she just stared at me. ‘Helen, wait a moment,’ I said, backing out of the car. ‘I just need to have a look around.’

My sister, bless her, was never uncooperative just for the fun of it. ‘Sure, Tobes. I’ll just move the car off the road. Then I can wave goodbye to that cute police guy.’

While she drew the sedan over to the side of the carriageway, I walked slowly along the wet verge, scanning the asphalt where Tenner was struck, listening for any mewing. There was no sound other than the slick swishing of tyres on the rainy road as the traffic sorted itself back into its usual pattern. There wasn’t even any blood. In the gutter, though, was a silver bracelet.

The bracelet was pretty battered and bent, but it looked like solid silver. I considered picking it up. It had a charm clipped on it, in a kind of round shape. But I was searching for something alive, so I walked right on, scanning the verge. Nothing. I turned back toward the car.

Passing that shining bit of silver again, I could see that the round charm was actually in the form of a cat, and the bracelet was more of a bangle and not so battered as I first thought. When I turned to look at it a third time, the round cat charm was seated upright on top of the bangle, looking directly at me.

I gave in. I’m not my father’s son for nothing. Okay, cat plus charm plus silver equals magic. Though why Tenner thought this was a kitten …

I picked up the bangle.

Oh. It wasn’t a bangle at all. As I reached toward the silver, a shining pulse ran through it and I suddenly had my arms full of tabby cat.

The bangle wasn’t just a bangle. It seemed that Katkin (her full name is Katerina, but she likes the short form) had been looking for me for quite a while, magicked inside the bracelet. Tobias Felix was the person she’d been looking for, and as soon as she rippled back into cat form, her voice started in my head.

Tobias Felix, do you know how lucky you are? Tobias Felix, do you know how magical you are?

Well, maybe now I did.

Chapter2

A dog person

I’ve always said that I was really a dog person, but our family never had a dog. There were never any dogs in my life, really. But I liked them because I never needed to avoid dogs the way I tried to keep away from cats and zoos. Dogs never embarrassed me by bouncing up to me or barking at me or following me. Not like any nearby cats, which rushed over to me, meowed loudly to get my attention, and did that trippy-flippy, self-satisfied feline trot as they came after me whenever I tried walking away. Then, likely as not, they’d stretch out a paw and hook their claws into my jeans, or even my ankle.

Cats could be demanding. Even before I walked back to Helen’s car, Katkin was taking charge.

We should sit in the back. Tenner needs room for her kits.

I saw no reason to disagree with this. Maybe living with Helen made me amenable to following orders, or maybe I immediately recognised Katkin’s superior sense of what the stressed road victim needed. In any case, with Katkin perched half-way up my shoulder, I opened the back door.

‘What’s up?’

‘Another cat. Tenner told me,’ I said.

She gave a huffing noise and crunched through the sedan’s gears more quickly than they appreciated, diving into a small space in the oncoming traffic. As usual, there were no complaints from the other drivers. Helen and my father often told me that everyday magic—the useful sort, that is—was just a matter of good timing and paying attention to signs and signals that other folk ignore or don’t notice. Helen had this down to fine art and drove around town and bush, freeway, and avenue with what looked like the utmost unconcern. She was good at holding complex conversations as she motored along, and this time was no exception. Once she was settled, she fixed my eyes in her rear-view mirror.

‘Another cat? Tenner?’

Katkin batted her head repeatedly against my chin, purring loudly. Hello hello hello, she chanted. Hello, Tobias Felix! Hello!

‘Tenner is the little mother cat. This one is, um …’

‘What, Tobes? Another kitten? The father?’

Katkin turned and stared at the back of Helen’s head, motionless for a few seconds, before she returned to rasping her head against my chin. Father! she said good-naturedly. Wait till we get home. I’m too beautiful to be anyone’s father.

‘Are you? I haven’t even seen you yet.’

Katkin nestled into the crook of my neck. So happy! she said, and promptly went to sleep.

‘Tobes?’

It was difficult to bring my mind back to my sister’s questions. ‘Sorry, Katkin was talking to me. This cat, I mean, the extra one. Katkin. Tenner’s kittens are Wart, Pink, Footsie, and Littlest. Littlest is the biggest one, the one she was carrying.’

‘Cat names make no sense.’

‘They do to cats.’

‘Huh.’

We drove for a while in companionable silence, the windscreen wipers making the only noise. Katkin slept on, every now and then flexing her claws into my t-shirt. In the fitful light of the street lamps we passed, I saw that she was a silvery-grey tabby, quite small for a fully grown cat, and that she had at least one white paw. It was hard to tell, but I couldn’t see that she was in any way remarkable. Katkin looked like an ordinary, common-or-garden domestic short hair. I couldn’t see her face, because that was tucked under my chin, but I imagined huge lambent eyes, delicate whiskers, neatly defined black stripes, and a sweet pink nose. I later found all this to be true, except that Katkin’s nose was black.

Helen sighed. ‘So, stop smiling at that cat and tell me more.’

I grinned at her in the mirror. ‘I will, but I want to talk to Dad first.’

‘Oho!’ Helen said in her best wizardly voice. ‘Do I detect the fragrance of magic in the air?’

‘Later, sis, okay? Now, what are we going to do with Tenner and family? You told that cute police guy we’d take her to the vet.’

‘Yeah, he was cute, eh?’ Helen changed lanes, heading for the southbound exit. ‘I think home first. It might be that Tenner has her own plans. Another matter we’d better consult Dad about. And Flax, I guess.’

‘Yep. For sure.’

Flax is my father’s cat, a huge Maine Coon, and the only cat in the world not very interested in me. But then, if you had my father’s complete affection, you wouldn’t be on the lookout for other sources, either. My dad’s whole love was everything any creature, animal or human or spirit, could wish for.

As we turned into the long driveway that led to our house, I wondered what my father would say about our decision to bring home five stray street cats, let alone one magic bangle cat. Then Dad’s thoughts about Tenner and the kittens receded from my mind. I started to wonder what Flax would say about Katkin.

Chapter3

Cat names

Helen never understood cat names. She regularly rolled her eyes when I spoke about the neighbour’s cats as ‘Wit’ or ‘Fall’—she always called them what their people have named them: Loki and Ewok.

I kept telling her that cat names had meanings, quite important ones, even though I’d never totally worked out the logic they use. There was one type of name that Miss Tan, my English teacher, would say is irony: Tenner’s largest kitten being called ‘Littlest’, for instance.

There was also a literal side that sometimes felt really heavy-handed, and that Miss Tan would definitely have circled in red if I put it in an essay. I would have bet, for example, that Tenner was either the tenth kitten of one litter, or the only kitten of her mother’s tenth litter. Our neighbour Mr Miller’s cat Wit (Loki) was white (a literal name), but I’d never understood the cat logic behind the name of his other cat Fall (Ewok). It was something to do with honey, Fall said, but it still didn’t make much sense to my un-catlike thinking. At least I knew the right name to call him.

Helen, who was very like our mother in many ways, had only the smallest affinity for cats, and my father sometimes teased her about that. However, she had such a breadth of practical magics that the teasing didn’t amount to much.

Dad never teased me. There was nothing to joke about in a wizardling with no wizardry. He was much more likely to look at me with resigned acceptance and a minimum of interest, unless he was giving me one of his ‘just pay attention, magic is not that hard’ lectures. At those times, he sometimes spoke with animation and enthusiasm. But Dad had pretty much given up trying to develop my imperceptible-if-not-completely-absent latent powers. I was pretty much shut out of their magic conversations, sitting around like a film extra with no lines to speak.

A slightly bored look was the most congenial of the responses I ever had from my dad’s cat Flax. Most days, Flax walked past me as if I didn’t exist. Mind you, he didn’t care much for my sister Helen either. He just treated us both as if we were part of the house fixtures and fittings, not worth a second look. Any ordinary bird alighting in the garden was of much more interest to him, and that would just get a passing glance. The only thing Flax cared about was my dad.

But all of that changed when I pushed open the front door with my shoulder, cradling Katkin under my chin. An enormous, champagne-coloured ball of fluff hurtled madly into the hallway. Flax.

He came to a halt, his claws ripping across the floorboards, right at my feet. For the first time I could remember, he looked me straight in the eyes, his own wide yellow orbs sparkling with excitement. Then he spoke, his deep voice resounding in my head, the first time I’d ever heard it. It wasn’t quite a shout, but every syllable pounded out its own exclamation mark.

WELL! DONE! YOUNG! STER!

I was so stunned that I almost dropped Katkin. At the internal boom of Flax’s voice, she pulled her head out from under my chin and made that unmistakable squirm cats do when they want to be put down. Yes, the quite painful one that involves launching themselves away by claw power. She landed neatly beside Flax and they touched noses. Flax! I heard, and Katerina!

They pressed their foreheads together, and though I could sense there were words passing between them, I was shut out of the discussion. Then Flax peered around my legs and lifted his nose in a dismissive gesture. I understood immediately that I had to go back to the car and help Helen with the street cat family.

Helen was bending over the passenger footwell, speaking gently to Tenner, but the little mother cat was having none of it, her mouth opened in a snarl, her skin-and-bone body tensed to attack. Helen looked up with relief.

‘Oh, there you are! She won’t let me near.’

‘It’s okay, I’ll get them.’

Tenner subsided at the sound of my voice, but I could tell she was pretty stressed out. It was always best to take things slowly when you had a distraught cat in your vicinity. If you valued your eyes and your skin, that was. I squatted beside Helen but made sure my weight was leaning back, away from the furry family.

I spoke calmly. ‘Now then, Tenner, we’d like to take you inside our house. We can get you dry and warm and fed, and then you can feed the kits.’

Not going inside.

‘Nobody will hurt you.’

Not inside. Danger.

‘Not here, I promise.’

‘What is going on?’ Helen asked, a little impatiently. She was, after all, standing huddled in the rain. ‘Can you manage? Should I get Dad?’

‘If you want to,’ I answered, smothering a surge of resentment that Helen thought I couldn’t handle one small, needy cat. I stamped down on my annoyance because it was important to stay calm in the face of Tenner’s fear. I kept my voice low. ‘I think I can convince her.’ Even though I hadn’t been very convincing so far. ‘She’s scared, you see. Maybe she’s had a bad time inside a house.’

‘I’ll get Dad.’ Helen shrugged her parka hood higher and hurried toward the open front door.

I sighed. ‘Tenner, I want to help you. Your kits are cold and hungry. Let me help.’

Stay here. A small pause, and then she said in an even smaller voice: Scared.

‘I promise you’ll be safe. Nobody will harm you.’

Tenner hunched her shoulder, turning her face away. I saw her shiver, a convulsion of cold and fear. My heart clenched, pity and anger roiling under my surface calm. Someone had hurt this little cat, badly. I resisted the temptation to put my hand out to her and instead let out a soft, easy breath. A little triangle face pushed out from under Tenner—Littlest, the big and hungry kitten, wanted warm and he wanted eat. Tenner pointed her little black nose at me.

Frightened. Hungry.

‘I’ll look after you, I promise. Nobody will harm you. You’re safe with us.’

Trap.

‘No, no trap. You can leave anytime you like. There’s a cat door, I’ll show you. Just let me lift you—you don’t need to move. I’m going to pick up this blanket with you on top. With everyone on top. There!’

Cradling my unwieldy armful, careful not to tip the kittens off their perch, I got slowly to my feet, trying to keep a perfect balance. Suddenly, my father’s hand was on my back, steadying me.

‘Good work, Toby,’ he said. ‘Bring her inside. That’s one brave little cat you have there.’

Tenner twisted her head to look at him over my shoulder as we walked slowly into the house. I could sense the anxious tension in her body, and she shuddered uncontrollably as we passed through the doorway. My father seemed to understand her fears—of course he did—and he left the door standing wide open. There was no sign of Flax or Katkin. Instead, a cosy cat basket was set against one wall, with bowls of water and shredded chicken meat nearby. Though I wasn’t expecting such a welcome for my street cat family, it didn’t totally surprise me. My sister Helen, and my father. Always with the right thing at the right time. They were an awesome duo.

I made no comment, but lowered myself to my knees so I could place the fur-full blanket into the basket. As I moved away from her, Tenner’s eyes went wide and her limbs stiff, and for an instant I thought she was going to bolt for the door. Cautiously, my father dropped to one knee, a few feet from her, and made a hushing sound.

‘Rest easy, little mother. You’re safe here. We’ll let you alone awhile. Eat, drink, look after those kits of yours. They’re beauties. Call Toby if you want us. You are welcome to come and go as you please.’

Tenner blinked, testing the comfort of the cat-bed, then looked out the open door. The kittens began fussing, and with a little shiver, she turned her attention to them.

My father stood, unhurriedly, and pulled at my elbow. ‘Toby,’ he said, ‘we need to talk.’

Chapter4

My dad Felix

Redmond Felix Dartin, my father, said ‘we need to talk’ whenever he had something horrible to tell me or to ask me.

As far as I was concerned, ‘we need to talk’ equalled ‘you’re not going to like what I have to say’.

I followed him into the kitchen with a sinking heart. Part of me wanted to stay in the draughty hallway with the street cats, but I went without a word. I was preparing myself in case he planned to deliver any bad news about those same cats. If he intended to shepherd them back onto the street once they were warmed and fed, then I had a good mind to go with them. Well, as long as Katkin would come with me.

Then I started to worry about where Katkin had got to, but as we pushed through to the toasty warmth of the kitchen, I could see her curled in front of the Aga, right near Helen’s feet. Flax was sprawled on the easy chair in the corner, contentedly washing his immaculate self, one shapely hind leg pointing skyward. Neither of them took any notice of us as we came in. I slid into a chair behind the table, and my father went over to the bench where Helen was preparing some food for dinner.

‘Sandwiches?’ he asked, disapproving surprise in his voice. ‘I thought you were going to buy us something special on the way home.’

‘We never got to the shops,’ said Helen. ‘The car in front of us had an accident, in case you hadn’t noticed.’ She pointed her buttery knife over her shoulder in the vague direction of the hallway.

‘Huh. Didn’t Frankie leave us anything?’

Frankie was our house manager, accountant, gardener, and cook all in one. He worked at our place four days a week and generally ran the whole family. We needed him because my father was too busy and too important to deal with everyday things, and Helen had just started her articles, so she was busy too. But even before that, ever since my mum left, someone had been here. We had six different nannies before we found Frankie, and they were all hopeless in different ways. Frankie had been with us for four years now, and I for one hoped he stayed forever. Dad and Helen relied on him, too.

Helen made an impatient sound. ‘This is Frankie’s day off, you might remember, if you took a moment to think. That was why we were going to buy something, right? If you’re not happy with sandwiches, perhaps you’d care to get us something. I’m sure I don’t mind waiting.’ She folded her arms, buttery knife and all, and began to step over to the table.

‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Helen, we don’t need amateur dramatics in the kitchen.’

Helen turned her nose up in an exaggerated look of disdain and returned to her task. ‘You should count yourself lucky. Not every old orthopod gets his dinner handmade by an up-and-coming lady lawyer.’

‘Not so much of the old, madam!’ my father retorted, turning back to me.

I was always, always astonished by the sniping way Helen and my father spoke to each other. However much it made me squirm, they appeared to enjoy it. Every now and then, they had a total screaming argument, and they seemed to enjoy that too. Both of them were black-belts in the art of the snide remark and the cut-to-the-quick piece of truth you never wanted to hear. My dad, especially, knew exactly which words hurt most. I noticed, though, Helen’s clever tactics: her gentle mention of her successful career, and her reminder that as a respected and eminent orthopaedic surgeon, my father ought to behave professionally. Professionalism was a byword with him.

It’s not that I didn’t love my dad, or that he was a difficult person, or that he didn’t love me. I knew for a fact that, in any contest for difficult-ness, I would win hands-down. It was maybe the only thing I’d ever be better at than he was. I was ‘reserved, solitary, watchful, and distrustful’, according to my school reports. At other times, I knew I could be downright sullen, rude, and obstructive, as my family told me often enough.

Of course, I had perfectly good reasons to be like that, and besides, that was who I was. Mostly.

It didn’t help that I actually knew, despite what I mumbled in his direction now and then, that Dad loved me and was always looking out for me. I just didn’t always like his way of doing it.

Anyway, while they bemoaned the sad reality of toasted sandwiches for supper—something that suited me fine—I tried my best to imagine an argument that would counteract what I was sure my father would say: that the street cats would be happier and freer if we let them go their own way, that we shouldn’t try to impose our ideas of good living on them, that we have no right to interfere, that they are almost feral—and surely not house-trained—and so on and so on. He would say they couldn’t live here.

Just like he said ten years previously: ‘Your mother can’t live with us anymore.’

That time, I never worked out if saying can’t had meant that she wasn’t able to live here, or that she wasn’t allowed to. And of course, I never asked.

I pushed that memory aside and tried to concentrate on the search for good reasons why it would be perfectly suitable for Tenner and her kittens to live with us, but I hadn’t got far with it when Dad dragged out the heavy wooden chair across from me. He dropped into his seat with all the authority of a principal, folding his hands before him.

‘Toby,’ he said gravely, ‘I want you to tell me everything that happened.’

Helen interrupted. ‘Dad! Leave him alone. I already told you everything.’

‘I’m not talking to you!’ my father snapped. He got cross when Helen tried to get me out of trouble. ‘This is important. Let the boy answer for himself, just for once. Tobias! Tell me in your own words.’

I gripped my hands together on the table in front of me. Taking a deep breath, I started at the beginning. ‘Helen picked me up after Art. Class was running later than usual, so she didn’t have long to wait. It was bucketing rain. We went toward the shops, but then we saw the car in front of us run over a cat. The car drove off, but we stopped to see if we could help.’

For the first time, I looked up. My father was watching me intently. ‘Go on.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Um, Helen made sure there was a police car to protect us from the traffic. The cat had a broken leg. We said we would take it to the vet.’

My father held up a hand. ‘Whoa. You’re missing a fair bit of detail right there. Tell me exactly.’

I frowned, trying to remember. ‘Helen went to the cat first. It was on the road, on the driver’s side. I followed her, and three kittens jumped out of the verge and pretty much climbed up my leg.’

My father nodded thoughtfully.