The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

someone, Lauren, I say sternly. Even I know that. A person to stroke you and tell you nice things and get annoyed with you sometimes.

‘I have you.’

That’s true, I say, in surprise. I hadn’t thought. I tickle her strongly with my tail and she laughs. Luckily, I am an optimist and I think we’re going to need that.

Lauren sighs, the way she does when she’s about to say something I won’t like. ‘It has to be you,’ she says. ‘When the time comes. You know that, right, Olivia? You have to do it. I can’t use the body.’

Do what? But I know.

She doesn’t answer.

I won’t, I say. I can’t.

‘You have to,’ she says sadly. ‘Or Ted will put us under the ground like the other kittens.’

I think about all those little girls. They must have sung songs too, and had pink barrettes and played games. They must have had families and pets and ideas and they either liked swimming, or didn’t; maybe they were afraid of the dark; maybe they cried when they fell off their bikes. Maybe they were really good at math or art. They would have grown up to do other things – have jobs and dislike apples and get tired of their own children and go on long car rides and read books and paint pictures. Later they would have died in car wrecks or at home with their families or in a distant desert war. But that will never happen, now. They are not even stories with endings, those girls. They are just abandoned under the earth.

I say, I know where he keeps the big knife. He thinks no one knows, but I do.

She holds me tight. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers, and I feel her breath in my fur.

Suddenly I cannot bear to wait. I’ll do it now, today, I say. Enough.

I leap up onto the counter and stand on my hind legs. I open the cupboard. At first I can’t believe my senses. It’s not here, I say. But it must be. I nose in and search the dusty interior. But the knife is gone.

‘Oh.’ I hear the deep wound of disappointment in her voice and I would do anything to make it better. ‘Don’t worry about it, Olivia.’

I’ll find it, I tell her. I swear, I’ll find it …

She gives a little sound, and I can tell she’s trying not to cry. But I feel her tears running hot through the fur on my cheeks.

What can I do to make it better? I whisper to her. I’ll do anything.

She sniffs. ‘You probably can’t,’ she says. ‘You would have to use the hands.’

I’ll try, I whisper even though the thought of it makes me ill.

The cupboard under the stairs is dusty and smells pleasantly of fatty engine oil. There are dusty rugs piled in the corner, a stack of old newspapers, part of a vacuum cleaner, boxes of nails, a beach parasol … My ears are wide and alert, my tail raised with expectation. This is just the kind of place I love. I sniff the delicious trickle of black oil that runs across the floor.

‘Focus, Olivia,’ Lauren says. ‘I hid it under those newspapers.’

I nose into them and I smell something that is not newspaper. Bland, smoother. Plastic.

‘It’s a cassette tape,’ Lauren says. ‘Pick it up. No, that won’t work, use your hands. You don’t really have paws.’ Her frustration rises. ‘You live in my body. We are a girl. Not a cat. You just have to realise that.’

I try to feel my hands. But I can’t. I know the shape of myself. I walk delicately balanced on four velvet paws. My tail is a lash or a question mark, depending on my mood. I have eyes as green as cocktail olives, and I am beautiful …

‘We don’t have time for all this, Olivia,’ Lauren says. ‘Just pick it up in your mouth. You can do that, right?’

Yes! I take the cassette gently in my jaws.

‘Let’s go to the mail slot, OK?’

OK!

On our way past the living room I see something that makes me stop for a second.

‘Is something wrong, Olivia?’ she asks.

Yes, I say. I mean … no.

‘Then hurry up!’

I nose the mail flap open. The metal is heavy and cold on my delicate velvet nose. The outside world smells of dawn frost. White light hits my eyes.

‘Toss the cassette out into the street,’ Lauren says. ‘As far as you can.’

I jerk my head and throw the cassette. I can’t see anything, but I hear it bounce.

‘It went into the bushes,’ Lauren whispers. I hear the dismay in her voice.

Sorry, I say. Sorry.

‘It was supposed to land on the sidewalk so someone could find it,’ Lauren says. She starts to cry. ‘How will anyone find it there? You wasted our chance.’

I feel terrible, Lauren, I say. I really do!

‘You aren’t trying,’ she says. ‘You don’t want us to get out. You like it here, being his prisoner.’

No! I say, agonised. I don’t, I want to help! It was an accident!

‘You have to take this seriously,’ she says. ‘Our lives depend on it, Olivia. You can’t go on pretending you don’t have hands. You have to use them …’

I know, I say. For the knife. I’ll practise. I won’t mess up again. I nose her and rub my head against her where I feel her in my mind. You rest now, I tell her. I’ll watch. We curl up on the burry orange rug and I purr. I feel her beside me, inside me. She gives a deep sigh and I feel her slip gently down and away into the peaceful dark. My tail is filled with worry. Lauren never likes to talk about after, when we’re free. I have a bad feeling she doesn’t care about being free. Worse – that she doesn’t want to be alive. But I will help her. I will keep us safe.

She has enough to deal with, so I didn’t mention it, but the weirdest thing just