Free Catcall by Linda Newbery

see what he thinks about
me,
and about other humans. But I’d never thought I actually
was
a cat or a lion.
    All the children were standing behind their desks now, ready to be dismissed. Jamie stood, too, still wearing the lion face.
    ‘You can’t go home wearing that, Jamie–you’ll scare the infants!’ Mr Rose joked. ‘Take it off and put it in your tray. Well done–you and Arran worked really well together.’

    But Jamie wouldn’t be parted from his mask. He insisted on wearing it all the way home.

13
    L EO

    A ll evening, we had to pretend he was Leo.
    ‘D’you want the TV on, Leo?’
    ‘Milk-shake or orange juice, Leo?’
    ‘Shall I read you a story, Leo?’
    Some of the questions Jamie answered in his Leo voice. To others, he only gave a nod or a shake of his head. As Leo he was stern and kingly.
    Mum went into the kitchen to get the tea, leaving me and Jamie to keep an eye on Jennie in the lounge. Course, Mum was delighted that Jamie had started talking, but she didn’t know the half of it. I followed her to the kitchen.
    ‘Mum? You know this Leo thing?’ I said. ‘At school? It was weird. Jamie and Arran were making up a play together–Jamie was Leo, and Arran was Jamie.’
    Mum unplugged the kettle and took it to the sink. ‘A play? That sounds like fun. And that’s when Jamie started to talk?’
    I nodded. ‘But, Mum, you know we went to that wildlife park, with Dad? And saw lions?’
    ‘Mm?’
    ‘Well, in the play, Jamie said the lion told him something. He said that before, too.’
    Mum stared at me, then jumped back as tap-water sprayed all over the lid of the kettle and soaked the sleeve of her jumper. ‘Oh,
now
look.’ She turned off the tap. ‘He said
what
?’
    ‘The lion told him something. I was waiting for him to say
what,
but that was as far as they’d got, with the play.’
    ‘Oh, but he was just pretending, surely!’ Mum dabbed at her sleeve with a towel.
    ‘Well, course he was!’ I humphed. ‘I mean, the lion didn’t
really
talk! But––’ I stood by the draining-board, remembering the lion’s steady gaze, and the shudder that had gone through me. No, not really a shudder. I hadn’t been frightened, I’d been–hypnotised. I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to. I was held by that fiercely calm gaze like a hedgehog in car headlights. Perhaps the lion had told me something, too, sent me a message…if I could only
understand
…
    ‘But what ?’ Mum prompted.
    ‘Well, look at this.’ As soon as we’d got in from school, I’d typed a copy of the play-script Jamie and Arran had written, and printed it out. I took the page out of my jeans pocket and gave it to her. ‘Here’s what they did. See, Jamie was Leo, and Arran was Jamie–his mask was meant to be Jamie. But it’s not finished, Arran said.’
    ‘Arran was Jamie? Whatever made him think of that?’
    I shook my head–how would I know? Mum read the script, slowly, her lips shaping the words. Then she went back to the beginning and started again. I didn’t like what I’d just done–taking Jamie’s script without asking, using it as evidence. Too late, now. Mum had it in her hand.
    ‘Are they going to finish it?’ she said at last. ‘If only we knew what the lion said! I mean, what he
thought
it said.’
    ‘Tomorrow,’ I told her. ‘They’re doing more on it tomorrow.’
    ‘Can I keep this?’
    ‘If you want.’ I’d been going to put it in my Book of Cats, but I could print out another copy.
    ‘I’d like to show it to the–to the doctor,’ Mum said.
    What she meant was the
psychologist.
    She tucked the paper into the rack where she keeps letters and vouchers and free offers. ‘Thanks, Josh. I’m glad you showed me. I wonder if I ought to speak to Mr Rose about this. Jamie needs time to finish this in his own way.’
    Suddenly a look of panic came over her face, and she rushed into the lounge. Maybe she’d heard Jennie crying, or starting to cry–she seemed to have developed