Kitten Cupid (18 page)

The school bellowed out a massive ‘Jaa-aazz! Jaa-aazz!’

My best mate’s cheeks flushed with pleasure. She smiled gratefully at Danni, who promptly enveloped her in a tight hug and kissed her.

Jazz left Danni to her talk after that. She had everyone riveted with her story of how she had made it from rags to riches and what life as a top celebrity was really like behind the scenes: apparently not all fun and laughter. Although I don’t think much of that part of the story got through to Danni’s besotted fans.

But the audience wasn’t so hooked on Danni’s talk that they’d forgotten about Jazz. As she pushed past people to come and sit with me, everyone turned and looked at her and whispered and waved. It wasn’t the first time Jazz had turned heads at our new school, but this time instead of everyone enjoying nasty rumours about her, they wanted to show her how cool they thought she was. I grinned at her and gave her hand a squeeze. ‘You’re a real star now, Jazz!’ I told her.

‘Thank you!’ she mouthed, her eyes shining with happy tears.

After the talk Danni was signing autographs and chatting with people, when Jazz, Fergus and I went to thank her.

‘Awwww, chicks! It was nothing,’ she cooed. ‘When Fiona told me you’d been bullied, Jazz, I sooo had to do something. You’re a gorgeous babe – and you’re my friend. And no one messes with Danni’s friends,’ she added, faking a mean face.

‘Er, hi,’ said a voice behind us.

‘Kezia!’ I breathed as Jazz whirled round to come face to face with her enemy.

Danni held out one elegant hand and, fixing Kezia with a barbed smile, she said, ‘Great to meet you, chick. And I think you know my good friends here?’

‘Yeah, er . . . ace talk,’ Kezia mumbled. ‘I was wondering, like, er . . . could I have a photo with you?’ she asked shyly, waving her phone limply.

‘Sorry, babe,’ said Danni. ‘I only do photos with
close friends!
She winked at Jazz and draped a protective arm around her.

I held my breath as a dark storm gathered across Kezia’s features. She wouldn’t talk back to Danni, surely?

But, flicking Jazz an awkward glance, Kezia turned quickly on her heel and scuttled off.

‘Ha!’ said Jazz, punching the air in victory. ‘Jazz one, Kezia NIL!’

‘You make sure that’s the way it stays, girl,’ said Danni, giving her a squeeze.

A
nd thankfully, that
was
the way it stayed. Jazz went home that day on a massive high, to find out that not only had she won one over on the bullies, but Cupid was hers for keeps.

‘Seems those Morrises can’t come and get me,’ he told me later. ‘Can’t or won’t, more like . . . They’ve moved to the other side of the world, would yer believe it? To a place called “Ors-trail-ya” or summin. And they ’ad the audacity to tell my Jazzie’s mum that my babe was welcome to me, cos as far as they were concerned I was a thug and a bully. Would yer credit it?’

I bit my lip. ‘Noooo,’ I said with barely concealed sarcasm. ‘How could anyone say that about a cute little heartbreaker like you, Cupid?’

Life really did calm down immensely once Jazz had got what she wanted.

‘You’ve got nothing to worry about now, Jaffsie,’ I told my little kitten once I had filled her in on the day’s excitement. ‘Cupid is so comfy in his new home that there is no way he’ll be coming round here any more.’

‘Well, me is relieved ’bout that, me can tell you,’ Jaffsie said, snuggling into my lap.

Dad was pleased things had all been sorted too. ‘Perhaps we can have a bit of peace and quiet around here now,’ he said that night at supper. ‘What with all your pet-sitting nonsense getting you into trouble, and then adopting Jaffa – only to find she kept running off – and then this breaking-and-entering stuff with Cupid . . . you must admit that life’s been more than a little “catastrophic” – ha ha haa!’ He laughed uproariously at his own pathetic joke.

‘Tee-hee!’ Bex joined in. ‘Oh, you are funny, Nigel,’ she cooed, leaning into him for a hug.

I rolled my eyes, but inside I was actually glowing. My best mate was happy again, my kitten was safe and my dad was beaming like a chimp who’s won the banana lottery on a rollover week.

If I had any worries at all, it was that once the excitement had faded Jazz might move on to her next crazy project, i.e. begging Fiona to let her do her
Cat’s Eye
programme. But luckily for all of us, Jazz’s bonkers idea had evaporated into thin air and was not mentioned again.

‘Maybe she learned her lesson,’ Fergus said when we were discussing it one day after school. ‘I mean, if she hadn’t got involved in the
Pets with Talent
thing, she never would have been picked on by Kez.’

‘Yeah, that and the fact that she’s so lurrrrrved up with Cupid. She
is
pretty distracted these days.’ I sniggered.

Fergus stared at the ground and shuffled his feet. ‘Yeah, everyone seems kind of paired up these days, in a way,’ he said carelessly.

‘What d’you mean?’ I shot back.

‘Well, there’s Jazz and Cupid, your dad and Bex and, er . . . yeah . . .’ He tailed off.

‘Hmm,’ I said thoughtfully.

It was true: Dad and Bex were definitely an item now, there was no denying it. Bex was round at our place more often than not. But somehow it had happened so naturally that I hadn’t really noticed. And now that I
had
noticed, I realized that I was totally cool with it.

‘So, like, d’you want to go to the cinema on Friday?’ Fergus said in a rush, still staring at the floor.

‘Er, yes,’ I said, finding the floor rather interesting myself, all of a sudden.

Well, what d’you know? Life never stops being full of surprises, does it?

‘Where do you get your inspiration from?’

Whenever I tell people I am a writer, this is what they often ask me. Some people seem to think that inspiration is a special kind of magic that comes to writers out of thin air while they are sitting at their desk, staring at a blank screen or a clean sheet of paper. But the answer is actually much more straightforward than that: inspiration comes from watching and noting down what happens around you in your life.

When I finished
Kitten Smitten
I wanted to write another story about Bertie and Jaffa. For ideas, I thought back over the various adventures that my cats, Inky and Jet, have been through in the five years they have been living with us. Now, as those of you with pets will know, funny things happen all the time when you are living with animals. And sometimes scary things too . . .

When Inky and Jet were still quite small, a scary thing happened to them. They were bullied, just like Jaffa is in
Kitten Cupid
, by a bigger, tougher cat. At the time, we lived near a couple of farms, and some of the cats on those farms were pretty frightening beasts – not at all like my pampered moggies. If you are a farm cat you sometimes have to fend for yourself and, er, get your
own
dinner, if you know what I mean, and that can make you into a bit of a toughie. The cats in our neighbourhood could be really fierce, and it wasn’t long before one of these menaces found out that he could ‘break and enter’ our house through the cat flap. He was soon tucking into Jet and Inky’s food, using our utility room as if it was a drive-through takeaway restaurant! And did Jet or Inky put up a fight when the intruder appeared? Not a bit of it! They were far too worried about what he would do to them, and always hid whenever the bully appeared.

In the end I got fed up with putting out food only to find it had been gobbled up by the Bully Cat, so I lay in wait for him one evening. He usually scarpered before I managed to get hold of him, but this time I just sat and waited quietly. I needed to teach that cat a lesson he would not forget . . .

He normally crashed in around teatime, and sure enough he arrived on the dot, the minute I had put the food out. I waited until he was face down in the cat dish, guzzling and chomping away, then I crept up behind him and –

SPLASH! I chucked the entire contents of a watering can all over him! My children thought it was very cruel, but he never came back – and anyway, I reckoned he deserved a soaking for being such a meanie to my own cats.

So that is where I got my inspiration for Bob/Cupid: of course I changed the story to create what I hope is a funnier tale – and one with a kinder and happier ending!

There is one other element of
Kitten Cupid
which comes from a true experience: Inky really did force her way through a locked cat flap. We had shut her into the house to stop her from running off, because she had to go to the vet the next morning and she always seems to have a sixth sense about this. She has been known to disappear for the whole day when she’s due to go, and this time we were not taking any chances.

The next morning, when it was time to put her in the cat box, we opened the utility-room door to find the cat flap hanging from its hinges, the locks broken and clumps of black fur and smears of blood around the edges. We were so worried – we thought the Bully Cat might have come back or that, even worse, a fox or badger might have got in and terrorized Inky. We spent all day looking for her to no avail.

Finally, at the end of the day, Inky appeared in the garden, cool as an ice pop, with a look on her face as if to say, ‘You didn’t really think you could fool me, did you?’

“We had the last laugh though – she had to go to the vet right away because she had a small cut on her head from the broken cat flap and she needed antibiotics as well as the injections we had booked her in for in the first place! Daft cat.

If you would like to know any more stories about my pets, or if you have any questions for me, why not take a look at my website: www.annawilson.co.uk, or my blog: www. annawilsonbarkingmad.blogspot.com, where you can leave me a comment. And if you would like to write to me, you can email me at: [email protected], or send a letter to:

Love
Anna
xxx

PS Don’t forget to enclose a stamped addressed envelope if you want me to return any pictures you send me!

Also by Anna Wilson

Kitten Kaboodle
Kitten Smitten
Puppy Love
Pup Idol
Puppy Power

And chosen by Anna Wilson

Fairy Stories
Princess Stories

First published 2000 by Macmillan Children’s Books

This electronic edition published 2010 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-0-330-53478-9 PDF
ISBN 978-0-330-53477-2 EPUB

Text copyright © Anna Wilson 2010

The right of Anna Wilson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Visit
www.panmacmillan.com
to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.