A Cat Called Mikey

By Sarah Mills

Cats! Love em or hate em, they have a way of insinuating themselves into your affections and into your life.

Retired schoolmistress Josephine Reid hated cats. Nasty, flea-ridden, bird-murdering pests she wouldve preferred to share her home with vermin than one of those loathsome creatures. So when her grandchildren found a lost kitten in her garden and begged her to look after it for them until they had a suitable home for it, Josephine was appalled. Reluctantly, she agreed on condition that the arrangement was purely temporary.

However, it took a great deal longer than anyone expected before the children were able to offer their kitten a home, during which time initial animosity gave way to tolerance and finally a tentative bond, growing stronger as time passed, formed between ex-school mistress and cat, only to be broken when the family moved to their new home with a garden.

Appalled by the realisation that herself and the cat, christened Mikey by the children, were about to be separated, Josephine is forced to confront her feelings and admit she has grown fond of the creature, though she realizes she has little choice but to let him go.

Mikey, however, has other ideas!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496979384

Sarah Mills

Sarah Mills has been writing stories since childhood, mainly about animals, which she loves. She had a serial published in My Weekly in the eighties, and is presently working on a series of stories set in a fictitious village. She has a lively interest in people as well as animals and creating characters and writing about them is a lifelong passion. However, being a full-time writer has always seemed an impossible dream, as has, until recently, publishing a book, as apart from that one success in the 1980s all Sarah’s stories and articles have been rejected by publishers. Undaunted, she has carried on doing what she loves and now that she has retired from a lifetime of office work she is hoping to be able to devote more time to her dream of becoming a writer. Sarah is the divorced mother of two adult sons, a grandmother, and is presently living in the Midlands.

Book preview

One

I didn’t want a cat. I’d never wanted a cat. They wreck your house, bring in fleas and I don’t like the way they deal with birds. I am definitely not a cat person. So my house was a blissfully cat-free zone. Until one day last autumn…

It was baking day. My eldest son and his family were due to visit for the weekend so I’d planned my menus, done my shopping and was now busy baking tea loaves, cakes and an apple pie in readiness for their visit. I’d just filled a cooling tray with cupcakes for my granddaughters to ice and decorate and popped two tea loaves into the oven. The apple pie was steaming nicely on the oven top and I was clearing up. After wiping fresh cake and pastry crumbs with a dry cloth from the kitchen table into my cupped hand I opened the back door with my other hand to go and deposit them onto the bird table in the garden and tutted with annoyance as a gust of chilly wind blew dirty brown leaves onto my clean kitchen floor.

I’ll deal with you in a minute, I muttered crossly at them, closing the door behind me to prevent any further invasions of my cosy sanctuary. Outside in the garden autumn leaves from the apple and cherry trees blew across the lawn and after depositing my crumbs on the bird table and wiping my hands down my apron I hurried back inside to deal with the marauders. Sweeping the leaves up from the kitchen floor, I added them to the pile on the doorstep that had blown there when the door was closed and was just about to sweep the pile off the step into the yard when something stopped me and I took a closer look. This pile of leaves had eyes. As I stared at the eyes which were staring up at me, a tiny sound issued from the pile of leaves which, with a rustling movement, rearranged themselves to reveal a very small kitten nestling in their midst. The tiny creature struggled to its feet and shook the remaining leaves from its furry back. Then, with a final glance up at me and a wary glance at my broom it staggered over the threshold into the warmth of the kitchen.

For a few seconds I was too stunned to react, then my natural instincts took over. Shoo, I shouted at it, pushing the broom menacingly towards it. You can’t come in here, go on, get out. The words were accompanied by small sweeping movements of the broom towards it in an attempt to persuade it back out into the yard. Instead of turning tail, however, and legging it back through the open door as I expected, the tiny creature scrunched itself up against the light oak door of the kitchen unit behind it and looked up at me with huge pleading headlamp eyes that seemed far too large for its little furry face. Mew, it said piteously, obviously being too small yet to even meow properly.

Defeated, I propped the broom against the pantry door and sighed. Now what was I going to do? I hurried outside myself in the hope that (a) it would follow me or (b) there’d be somebody outside in the lane looking for it. Foiled on both counts. There was no sign of the kitten emerging through the door behind me and the lane outside was deserted.

Leaning on the gate, I cursed my own personality. I’d moved to this bungalow in a quiet, leafy village, looking for peace and quiet after my retirement from teaching at a large comprehensive school in the nearby town. I’d downsized somewhat from the large family house we used to live in now the children were grown and living with their own families in various locations up and down the country. I had purposely not mixed with the neighbours, preferring my own company and had even been guilty of not answering the door and keeping away from the windows when any of them called, so they would think I was out. The failure and subsequent breakdown of my marriage when the children were small was perhaps testament to the fact that I was not a team player, I functioned better on my own and I needed my own space.

Oh, I didn’t mind baking a cake when a flyer came through the door about a coffee morning being held in respect of some charity or other, and I would put a couple of pounds in the collecting box when I took the cake to the address on the flyer, but I would always have some excuse ready for why I could not stay to chat. Staying to chat was not my thing. I had my book club and my knitting circle back in the town, but that was different—we were there to talk about a specific subject, so no general chat was required. Where general chat was concerned, I just felt I had nothing interesting to say, so the best thing was to say nothing at all.

I’d managed to keep myself to myself for the best part of a year now and I was loving every minute of it. My retirement was everything I’d always dreamed it would be after all those years of working and bringing up children. I established a routine for boring domestic chores, getting all those jobs done in the mornings, and in the afternoons I could put my feet up with a cup of tea and a good book or The People’s Friend and either read or watch television.

There was nothing I enjoyed more than pottering around my home and garden; I had my book club and knitting circle to go to and one of my four children and their families visited for a weekend just frequently enough to prevent me from becoming bored. What more could a person possibly wish for? Well, right at this moment, to be honest, I would’ve been grateful for a single person, any person, who might possibly be able to shed some light on the ownership of this kitten, presently doing who knew what in my lovely new kitchen. I glanced up and down the lane again but there was nobody—all the residents of neighbouring properties being presumably at work or at school, so sighing gustily I retraced my steps back into the house.

The kitten was still there, where I’d left it, by the unit and for a few seconds more we just stared at each other again. Then inspiration struck. Hurrying through to the lounge I fetched a saucer from the sideboard cupboard, which I then filled with milk from the fridge and a drop of boiled water from the kettle, to take the chill off the milk, and then placed the saucer outside close to the step having wafted it past the kitten’s nose first, so he would understand what it was. For a few seconds more, the kitten stared at me. You’re a scruffy little blighter, I thought, and so mucky it was impossible to tell what colour its fur was supposed to be. Then slowly the little creature moved away from the unit and peered round the open back door, from where the saucer of milk was clearly visible. Slowly, slowly, with nose stretched out in front, it edged towards the saucer and stepped gingerly down the step and out into the yard. Geronimo, I breathed in triumph, shutting the door firmly behind it. Right, where was I?

The cooker pinged, reminding me to take the tea loaves out, and the grandfather clock in the hall chimed 12 o’clock noon-lunchtime. Humming happily now a perplexing problem had been solved, I made myself a tuna sandwich and a cup of tea and took them through to the lounge. I had adopted the habit of eating my main meal in the evening as during the summer months I liked to take a sandwich or salad lunch outside and eat al fresco at the white wrought iron table and chairs by the pink rose hedge that I had bought with my retirement cheque on finishing work. As it usually cools down in the evenings in England I found it more convenient to eat my dinner then in the comfort of my dining room, looking out at the garden through the patio doors, or even in the lounge from a lap tray whilst watching TV. However, the days had now grown too chilly to sit outside at any time of day, so I made myself comfortable in the lounge with my tea and sandwich and Loose Women on the television.

A very pleasant hour passed and then, as the programme finished, I collected up my dirty pots and returned to the kitchen to wash them up. A small and plaintive meow floated through the back door, which I tried to ignore. You don’t live here, I informed the door decisively as I set about making a shepherd’s pie. The family were due to arrive about teatime so I wanted to make sure that a meal would be all ready for them when they came.

By the time my son’s navy blue car pulled up in the driveway outside and he and his wife and two excited children spilled out, the table was set and the pie and veg almost cooked. There’d just be time for a quick catch up before we ate. Five-year-old Amy and three-year-old Molly came running into the house whilst their parents unloaded suitcases from the boot. They were waving paintings with one hand and intricate concoctions of card, glitter and glue with the other. I made this for you Grandma and I did this for you at school, they cried.

Wow, they’re fantastic, I exclaimed, accepting these offerings with genuine delight. You’re very clever girls. Is that a spaceman?

No, Grandma, it’s you, Molly explained, taking her painting out of my hands and handing it back the other way up. Oh, I can see it is now—how silly of me, I was looking at it the wrong way round. And is this a Chinese lantern? Amy nodded sombrely. Look, it’s got a real handle sellotaped on so you can hold it properly.

So it has, and so much glitter I can use it as a Christmas trimming, it’s so sparkly.

I then admired Amy’s picture, which she explained to me was my new house with a path leading to the front door, a gate and a picket fence. The garden was ablaze with multi-coloured flowers whilst a bright yellow sun and white clouds decorated the cobalt blue of the painted sky. Clearly a lot of work had gone into this project and Amy had become very proficient at drawing flowers.

I then admired Molly’s cardboard creation, trying desperately hard not to get it wrong again. This is brilliant Molly. Is it a spaceship? I enquired tentatively.

No, it’s a tree, said Molly, then took her handiwork from me and examined it again. No, it is a spaceship, my granddaughter amended obligingly.

Amy was looking at her painting again and rubbing the dried glue above the chimney with her thumb. Grandma, she began. There was cotton wool stuck on here for smoke, but it came off in the car.

Oh dear, did it? Never mind poppet, it’s still a brilliant picture, I consoled, breaking off to greet my son Stuart and his wife Hazel as they appeared in the hall with the suitcases.

A ping from the cooker announced that dinner was ready so greetings over and suitcases deposited in bedrooms, we all sat down to eat. The shepherd’s pie and apple pie went down well and afterwards there was time for a chat over a cuppa before Amy and Molly were taken through to the bathroom to be bathed and got ready for bed.

Whilst Hazel and I bathed the girls and Stuart washed up the dinner pots, I asked Amy how she was getting on at big school. Molly attended