Free The Kitten Hunt by Anna Wilson

wasn’t a bad fight you had with Jazz?’
    ‘Noooo,’ I said, putting on a ‘what nonsense’ expression and shaking my head vigorously.
    ‘Is it – oh no – it’s not . . .
boyfriend trouble
?’ he whispered, a mixture of horror and disgust crossing his face.
    ‘NOOOO!’I yelled. Boyfriends? Me? URGH! Had Dad even
looked
at me lately? I wondered. I was ELEVEN for heaven’s sake, not a
hundred
and eleven (which is how old I
will have to be before I even THINK about having a boyfriend).
    Dad’s forehead creased and he held up both hands as if he thought I was going to hit him. ‘OK! OK! Keep your hair on!’ he said, trying to laugh in a jokey way.
    I glared at him.
    Dad sighed and let his hands drop to his sides. ‘I’m sorry, Bertie. I’m just not very good at this.’ He opened his arms and beckoned to me with one hand. ‘Come
here,’ he said.
    I walked tentatively into Dad’s embrace, steeling myself for a Ta lk.
    He hugged me and talked over the top of my head at the window. ‘I mean, it’s obvious you’re upset about something.’ I cringed so majorly I thought my stomach would turn
itself inside out. ‘You’re getting older, Bertie, and I know there are things that girls your age normally talk to their mums about. And believe me, there’s not a day goes by when
I don’t wish with all my heart that your mum was here to talk to you. But she’s not, so you’re stuck with your old dad. Tell me – what’s up?’ he asked, pushing
me gently away from him so that he could look me in the eye. ‘I don’t know why you’re being like this, and if you don’t give me any clues, how am I supposed to know how to
help you?’
    You could try not working so much and letting me have my own pet for starters, I thought bitterly, shrugging Dad’s hands off my shoulders. But one look at Dad’s face was enough for
me to know I’d never be able to say how I really felt. It was my turn to sigh. Heavily.
    ‘You can’t help me,’ I said finally.
    ‘Suit yourself.’ Dad tried to smile, but his mouth was too thin and his eyes weren’t really in it.
    Then the doorbell rang and, relieved by the distraction, I hared down the stairs to answer it.
    It was Jazz. And she was holding a wriggly,hissy and
very
unhappy cat.
    ‘Kaboodle!’ I cried.
    ‘Tell her to put me down!’ Kaboodle spat.
    ‘Look!’ cried Jazz. ‘I found him! He’s not dead!’
    ‘No, I know – I mean, oh great – yes, definitely not dead, is he?’ I babbled.
    ‘Good to see you two are on speaking terms again,’ said Dad, appearing in the hall behind me. ‘I didn’t know you had a kitten, Jazz.’
    ‘There’s a lot you don’t know, sunshine,’ Kaboodle hissed. ‘For example, this vile girl is squashing the life out of me and if she doesn’t let go this
instant, she’ll be wearing my mouse-and-vole breakfast all down her disgusting skintight jeans.’
    ‘Oh, Kaboodle! You wouldn’t!’ I said.
    ‘Eh?’ said Jazz, as I gasped and clamped my hands over my mouth.
    Kaboodle at last succeeded in wriggling free of Jazz’s tight and sweaty grasp and leaped to the ground. He then started to wind around my legs. ‘Thank goodness you’re
here,’ he purred. ‘Someone sensible to talk to at last.’
    ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I whispered. ‘But can you stop talking to me in front of everyone?’
    ‘I thought you girls weren’t talking,’ said Dad, scratching his head.
    ‘We
weren’t
,’ Jazz answered, eyeing me suspiciously.
    ‘But we are now.’ I chipped in quickly, grinning like a raving lunatic. ‘We just had a bit of an argument about this cat because I said he was lost and Jazz said he was dead
and—’
    ‘Hang on a minute,’ Dad interrupted, holding up one hand like a traffic policeman. ‘I thought you said you’d been teasing Jazz about her singing?’
    Jazz glared at me. ‘You didn’t
actually
tell him about that?’
    I blushed. I was getting deeper and deeper into extremely scalding water. If I was not