Free Solomon's Kitten by Sheila Jeffries

over stones. The river was very close.
    TammyLee came running across the lawn. I meowed as she reached the car, breathless, and full to the brim of love for me. I kissed her bangled arm through the wire mesh. ‘Don’t let
her out yet,’ warned Penny as she took my cage out of the car. The air smelled of sweet apples, and sheep and the briny river. After my time in the pen, I so needed to be on the grass and in
the trees.
    ‘I’ll bring her in.’ Penny seemed reluctant to let go of me. ‘I want to see her reaction to Amber. And there’s some papers to sign.’
    She carried me into this awesome house, which smelled of roast chicken and oranges, and, yes, it smelled of damp dog as well. The barking started again, a man’s voice yelled,
‘QUIET,’ and it stopped.
    ‘Here she is,’ said TammyLee. ‘This is Tallulah. Isn’t she a darling?’
    A man and a woman were looking into the cage at me, and I immediately observed that the woman was ill. Her aura was bright but fragile, and she sat in a wheelchair.
    ‘This is Mum,’ said TammyLee, and I did my best to smile there in the cage, giving a little purr-meow and dancing my eyes at the poor sick woman with the sweet face. ‘Her name
is Diana.’
    Penny unfastened the cage door. I paused, fluffed my fur, and swanned out, looking round at everyone with my golden eyes full of joy. My family!
    ‘And this is Dad.’ TammyLee showed me the man, and he looked at me kindly under bushy eyebrows. He was obviously important, and powerful, his aura had an orange glow. I rubbed myself
around his legs and felt him touch the tip of my fluffy tail.
    ‘Hello, Tallulah,’ he said, ‘I’m Max,’ and immediately I sensed he was holding something back, some secret he was bursting to tell me.
    ‘Shall we do it?’ he asked eagerly. ‘Shall we introduce them?’
    ‘No time like the present,’ said Diana in a thin squeak of a voice.
    ‘Best get it over with,’ said Penny.
    Max got up and opened a glass door into the conservatory. ‘Now you be a good girl, Amber. Don’t you dare even THINK about barking.’
    I stared in utter joy. A dog! My own dog! And what a beauty. Amber was golden, silky and magnificent. She stood in the doorway with the light shining through the silver plume of her wagging
tail. Her eyes were anxious and she went stiff when she saw me there with my tail up. I ran straight to her and kissed her on the nose.
    ‘Oh, my goodness!’ cried Penny.
    Amber looked down at me like a goddess. Then she lay on her belly and sniffed at me, and whimpered.
    ‘It’s all right, Amber,’ said TammyLee. ‘Tallulah wants to be friends with you.’
    Amber turned her head away from my kisses. She shivered all over and started creeping along the floor towards TammyLee.
    ‘You great big coward.’ Max laughed at Amber, loudly, and the dog looked hurt.
    ‘Don’t laugh at her. Poor Amber,’ said TammyLee, ‘she’s frightened of doing something wrong.’
    I was impressed with her intuition. Amber seemed terribly uncomfortable with me rubbing against her throat and kissing her. She lifted a paw and put it on my back, and when I twisted out from
under it, she jumped back as if she expected me to scratch her.
    ‘They’ll be fine,’ said Penny. ‘Tallulah’s so laid-back.’
    But I was disappointed. I’d fallen instantly in love with Amber and I felt rebuffed. I jumped up into TammyLee’s arms for a cuddle, and she carried me slowly round the room,
whispering to me, telling me what everything was. She carried me into the conservatory and showed me the garden, and Amber’s bed. Amber followed us, her tail down, her eyes worried. She got
on to her beanbag bed and stamped it round and around with a loud crunching noise, then slumped down on it and lay staring at the floor.
    I needed time alone with Amber, and it didn’t happen until early the next morning. I’d slept in three places: first, in the cat bed, ten minutes, then I tried all the chairs and
found a