"Very funny!" Mandy said. "Of course I’m okay. It’s just a special day, that’s all." She’d fed her rabbits and done her morning chores at Animal Ark. Simon, the nurse, had come in to look after the animals and take temperatures and give medicines. Now she was free to go.

"School trip?" Dr. Adam took a guess as Mandy unlocked her bicycle padlock and put on her bike helmet. He got no reply. "New boyfriend?"

"Ha, ha!" Mandy said. "No time now, Dad. I’ll tell you later." She set off up the driveway, her long legs pedaling like mad. She waved at her mother.

"What’s the rush?" Dr. Emily Hope rolled down her car window.

But Mandy had already sped by, under the wooden sign, "Animal Ark, Veterinary Clinic." She took one look back at the old stone cottage with its modern vets’ extension to the rear, then she pedaled hard again.

"She’s up to something," Mandy heard her mother say. "She’s got that determined look on her face."

Mandy knew they wouldn’t have a clue what she wanted with the old newspapers. But she ignored them and charged up the lane toward Welford village. She’d keep her mystery until evening, after her mother came back from her round of visits to the sick cats, dogs, goats, and hamsters that made up the busy practice of Animal Ark. She gave her mom and dad one last wave before she turned out onto the road. "See you later!" she yelled.

"This is it! This is the big day!" Mandy greeted her friend James Hunter. As usual, his straight brown hair flopped onto his forehead, and his glasses sat halfway down his nose.

"Hi," he said. "Do you realize I’ve dragged myself out of bed half an hour early to meet you outside this rotten store?" He was breathless from pedaling. "My dad nearly dropped dead with shock!"

"Come on!" Mandy said, ignoring his protests. "Let’s go and see!"

Mandy and James rode their bicycles out of Welford on the two-mile stretch into Walton. Past all the sleepy cottages and wide-awake farms with their collie dogs at the gate, she never once stopped chattering.

"It’s going to be today, I know it!" She had a feeling about these things. James nodded and panted to keep up. "I’m so excited I can hardly wait!" The ground sped by under their wheels. "She’s been looking for a warm, dry place, and that’s always a sign! Anyway, she refused her food yesterday." James nodded again in agreement. "I did see her on the custodian’s porch yesterday after school, behind the stack of logs. She’s a very smart cat!"

They pedaled down the final hill. Mandy’s short hair blew back in the wind. The new one-story houses of Walton greeted them, spick-and-span. Walton Moor School lay behind the housing development, another new building that backed onto open countryside. Mandy and James rode through the gate into the deserted playground.

Mr. Williams, the custodian, strode through the yard, setting out parking cones for the garbage truck. It was Thursday, trash collection day. "Morning!" Mandy called, with James running to catch up. But Mr. Williams was a man of few words. He ignored her greeting.

"Shh, now!" Mandy warned James. They’d left their bikes locked up in the shed and came up behind the custodian’s house. "We don’t want to disturb her." Carefully they peered over the beech hedge, neatly trimmed by Mr. Williams. They scanned his pink rose bushes and the porch at the back of his house.

"Mandy," James dared to whisper, "does Mr. Williams know about this?" He was cleaning his glasses on his school sweater. "I mean, what will he say if he finds us snooping around on his porch?"

"He won’t mind," Mandy whispered back. How could anyone mind about animals? "Mrs. Williams sometimes puts out food. I bet that’s why Walton has chosen their porch to have her babies on!" Mandy’s face shone with excitement.

"Walton?" James didn’t realize the cat had a name. It was small, black and white, and rather ordinary. As far as he knew, it was a stray. But then, Mandy had kept details about the cat pretty much to herself up till now.

"I named her after the school," Mandy said. "According to Mrs. Williams, she just turned up on the main doorstep one night, dumped inside a plastic bag with tiny airholes to breathe through. Can you believe it? People can be so cruel!"

Mandy could feel the prick of tears in her eyes even now. "She was only a young cat, and someone just dumped her!" She sniffed and tried to pull herself together. "She would’ve died if I hadn’t come along early next morning and gone to the teachers’ room for some milk for her. She was really neglected. I had to build her up." She squared her shoulders. "Anyway, that was six weeks ago. She’s the school cat now, only a sort of half stray. So it’s up to us to look after her!"

With that, Mandy eased open the back gate in-

to the Williamses’ garden. "Walton! Walton!" she coaxed, bending low and looking under the raised porch into the dark space there. James peered up onto the porch itself, behind the stack of logs. No cat.

"Walton!" Mandy called, a bit more loudly.

A black-and-white shape trotted across the long shadows of the lawn and over the flower bed; a round, heavy shape, nearly as wide as she was long, with a low belly. James spotted her first. "Mandy, look!" he said.

Mandy breathed a sigh. They’d gotten here in time. "Hello, Walton," she said. "Here’s a nice, comfy place for you to give birth to your lovely kittens, see?" She climbed the porch steps. The cat followed. Mandy delved into her bag and pulled out the old newspapers. She showed them to Walton and let her sniff them. "See, nice and warm and dry!"

Then she and James banked up some of the logs to make a sort of den for Walton. They lined it with the newspapers, carefully overlapping them in thick layers. "See!" Mandy said again.

Walton brushed against Mandy’s bare legs. She tilted her head up toward the special bed of logs and newspaper. Her delicate nose and whiskers seemed to approve, for she climbed, slow and heavy, up onto the ledge.

"It’s in the sun, nice and warm," James said. "Good idea!" he grinned at Mandy, then blushed. In the distance, the morning bell sounded. "Was that the bell?" he asked clumsily. Then he shot off for homeroom before Mandy could reply.

"You hear that, Walton?" Mandy said. "That’s the bell. I have to go." But she felt the strong pull that the cat had over her. Perhaps it was because she, Mandy Hope, age thirteen, of Animal Ark, Welford, Yorkshire, England, was very like Walton, the school cat. They were both adopted. Her own parents had died in a car crash, too early for her to remember them, and Adam and Emily Hope had taken her in. Now she would do the same for Walton.

Softly she stroked the cat, then she caught hold of herself. "I’ll stop fussing now and leave you to cope." She knew animals liked privacy at this time. "No one will bother you, and I’ll be back later to see how you’re getting along." Quietly she backed down from the porch, then quickly she cut across the garden, through the gate, and over the asphalt of the playground. The second bell had rung.

Mr. Williams, in his padded green vest, his old corduroy trousers, and his big laced boots, crossed paths with Mandy as she ran into school through the main door. As usual, he only grunted, head down and grumpy. Mandy thought it was best not to say anything to him about Walton and her arrangements for the birth. Leave it till later. Even Mr. Williams’s heart would melt once he saw Walton’s kittens nestling on his back porch!

Mandy rushed into class. She tried, and failed, to concentrate all the way through math, geography, and English.

* * *

At half past three James was waiting for Mandy at the lockers. "Ready?" he asked. Animals were the most important thing in James’s life, too.

Dodging the crowds, they sprinted together up the slope to the custodian’s house. Mandy could hardly breathe, she was so excited. This was Walton’s big day!

"Walton!" Mandy called, opening the gate and crossing the lawn. They turned the corner up onto the porch. Mandy half closed her eyes. There Walton would be, tucked up in her newspaper bed, shielding her new kittens! She couldn’t wait!

She opened her eyes. The bed was empty! Clean and dry and quite empty. Mandy looked at James. They felt the bottom of the world fall out.

"Where is she?" James gasped.

Mandy shook her head. "It’s today. I’m sure it’s today." She couldn’t understand it. She’d seen enough cats giving birth to kittens at Animal Ark to know just how they looked when the great day came. Mandy and James stood on the porch, confused and alarmed.

"Listen!" Mandy said. The Williamses’ back door stood open in the afternoon sunshine, and Mandy was sure she’d picked up a sound from inside. A tiny, high-pitched squeaking sound!

James stared at her. "What is it?"

Mandy stepped across the kitchen threshold. "Mr. Williams?" she whispered. "Mrs. Williams?"

The kitchen was neat and clean, scrubbed to perfection. Its lace curtains shone pure white. Its black-and-white tiles looked like an advertisement for floor cleaner. But it was empty. The squeaking noise was slightly louder. "In here!" Mandy said.

They tiptoed into the empty room.

"It’s still very muffled," James said. He looked inside cupboards, trying to find the noise.

They looked under shelves, behind the vegetable bin, but still the noise escaped them.

"Walton!" Mandy called gently.

But Walton, wherever she was, didn’t want company. Only the muffled, faint squeaking continued. Mandy followed it until she finally tracked it down.

There was a laundry basket in the corner of the kitchen, by the washing machine. It was an old-fashioned straw one with a lid. Mandy put her ear to it. The squeaking came from inside!

Gingerly she lifted the lid. It was dark and warm in there. The high-pitched noise rose to a wailing chorus. Mandy adjusted her eyes to the darkness and peered inside. She saw the black-and-white patches of Walton’s fur; she saw the cat’s eyes glint as she looked up. Obligingly, Walton lifted a paw and shifted sideways. "Look," she seemed to be saying, "four perfect kittens!"

Mandy could just make them out – four tiny curled-up things, grey and blind. Skinny, helpless creatures. She thought they were the most beautiful things she’d ever seen!

"Aren’t they wonderful!" Mandy breathed, as James came to look over her shoulder.

He saw their blunt little faces and blind eyes.

"Ye-es," he said. He clearly needed more time to get used to them.

"Oh, but they are!" Mandy cooed. She touched Walton gently under the chin. "Good girl!" she said. The kittens squeaked louder in protest at the light and the cooler air. Mandy gave in and replaced the laundry basket lid.

And then their luck ran out. Someone crossed the porch and filled the kitchen doorway. He was tall, bulky, and his feet made a noise across the wooden floor of the porch. "Amy?" he called. He paused, wiped his feet, then stepped into the kitchen.

"Mr. Williams! Um, hello!" Mandy said feebly. James stood alongside her, straightening his school tie, trying to look braver than he felt.

"What the heck!" Williams bellowed with shock. "Amy! Where are you? What the heck!" he said again.

His wife came tottering through from the front room. She was slightly deaf, slightly nearsighted. "Don’t shout, Eric," she sighed. "I can hear perfectly well without you having to shout!"

"Oh, can you?" her husband fumed. "I’ll bet you heard these two prowling around in here perfectly well, too!"

Mrs. Williams sighed again. "Sit down, all of you," she said. "Everybody sit down while I make us a cup of tea!" It was clearly her cure for everything.

Mandy and James sat down as they were told, as far away from Mr. Williams as possible, while his wife made the tea. "Well!" he said over and over. "Can’t a man even call his house his own anymore?"

"Oh, shush, Eric!" his wife said, giving him his Favourite mug and a butter cookie. "Just give them a chance to explain!" She was little and skinny, half his size, but Mandy and James could see who was boss. "Well, then," Mrs. Williams smiled sweetly at Mandy. "I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation!"

"There is," Mandy agreed. She looked wildly at James for help.

"The cat had kittens!" James blurted out.

"In your laundry basket," Mandy finished off.

"What!" Mr. Williams shot to his feet. He backed off into a corner.

"Wait!" Mrs. Williams went to investigate. She lifted the basket lid and peered inside. "It has," she confirmed calmly. "It had kittens, all right."

"On my best shirts!" Mr. Williams stammered. "It had kittens on my best shirts!"

"Calm down, Eric!" Mrs. Williams shook her head. "It’s only a stray cat!"

"Only!" The custodian rolled his eyes in helpless anger.

"She won’t do any harm," Mandy broke in. "They’ve very clean animals. She won’t leave any mess!" She tried to reason with him. "If you just leave her and the kittens there in peace for a few days, they’ll soon be on their feet. Then you can make them a better place – a cardboard box, for instance. Just line it with newspaper and put it out on the porch. That should be fine!"

"A few days!" Mr. Williams repeated. His face seemed to be stuck. His mouth had dropped open; his eyes were bulging.

Mrs. Williams took Mandy and James aside. She shook her head. "It’s no use. He can’t stand them."

Mandy was slow to catch on. "Can’t stand what?" Only now was she beginning to sense that there was a problem.

"Cats. He can’t stand them. They set his nerves on edge."

Mandy breathed in deeply. How could people hate cats?

"He says they dig up his garden. He can’t abide them." Mrs. Williams sounded sorry, but she sounded as if they’d just have to understand. Her husband was stubborn as a mule over cats. She turned and started clearing away the tea things.

"Just a few days!" Mandy said, dashing from one to the other. "We can’t move them for a few days, in case the mother decides to abandon the kittens. She might, if they get moved. Please let her stay where she is!" She felt breathless with fright, but she tried not to show it.

"Stay? In my laundry basket?" Mr. Williams snorted. "On my best shirts?" He tossed his head. "A load of smelly cats!"

"They’re not –" Mandy interrupted, but James stopped her. He had a better idea of when to answer back than Mandy.

"Not likely!" Mr. Williams headed straight at Mandy and James to shoo them out of his kitchen. "Go on, you two. Get moving! I won’t warn you again!"

Mandy and James backed off toward the door. Mr. Williams towered over them. "Please!" Mandy pleaded. She felt sick at heart.

"No!" Mr. Williams thundered. "They’ve got to go!" He glanced at his wife. "And there’s no use you looking like that, Amy. I’m saying no, and I mean no!" He looked down at Mandy’s terrified face.

"I’m telling you once and for all, I’m not having them kittens in my kitchen!"