Kitty's Magic 6, page 1
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Kitty's Magic: Misty and the Scared Kitten
Kitty Kimura grinned as a car horn beeped outside her bedroom window. ‘He’s here!’ she cried, running downstairs and to the front door.
Kitty had been waiting all day for a very special visitor to arrive – her cousin Max. As Kitty flung the door open, she saw Max getting out of her mum and dad’s car. Mr and Mrs Kimura had gone to pick Max up that afternoon. He lived on a farm in the countryside with Kitty’s auntie and uncle, and this was his first visit to Kitty’s home.
‘Hi, Max!’ Kitty waved excitedly.
‘Hi, Kitty!’ Max replied with a grin. ‘I can’t believe I’m here!’
‘And you’re staying for the whole weekend,’ Kitty said. ‘Quick, come inside and see our house.’
Kitty’s mum laughed as she lifted Max’s suitcase out of the boot of the car. ‘Kitty, Max has had a long journey. Why don’t we all have a drink and a snack before you start giving him the grand tour?’
‘Don’t worry, Grandma and I have got some snacks ready in the kitchen,’ Kitty said, leading Max into the front garden. ‘We’ve baked some strawberry tarts to help you feel more at home.’
‘Because I live on Strawberry Lane Farm,’ said Max. ‘Thanks, Kitty. Wow, your garden’s so neat and tidy.’ He looked at the row of flowerpots lining the wall by the front door. ‘It’s not a bit like our crazy farmyard, with all the muddy puddles and chickens everywhere!’
Kitty grinned as she remembered her visit to Strawberry Lane Farm, three months ago. It was so funny to think that, at first, she and Max hadn’t got on at all. But they soon found out they had loads in common – especially when it came to animals.
‘How are Daisy and Star?’ asked Kitty, thinking of Max’s boisterous puppy and wise old farm cat. They hadn’t got on very well with each other either, until Kitty had stepped in to help!
‘They’re best friends,’ said Max, grinning. ‘They spend every day together, chasing mice out of the barn. Mum and Dad say they’ve never seen a cat and dog be so friendly.’
‘You’re so lucky, having a dog and a cat,’ Kitty said wistfully. ‘As well as all the chickens, ducks, pigs, cows and horses!’
Kitty led Max inside and they sat down at the kitchen table with Mr and Mrs Kimura and Kitty’s grandma, who also lived with them. As Grandma put warm strawberry tarts on everyone’s plates, Max glanced around the kitchen.
‘It feels strange being in a house with no animals at all,’ he said. ‘I’m so used to being surrounded by them on the farm. Why don’t you have any pets, Kitty? I thought you might have a cat, seeing as they’re your favourite.’
‘Kitty’s allergic to cats,’ Kitty’s mum explained, as she poured them each a glass of juice.
‘Yes,’ Kitty said. ‘If I spend too much time around them they make me sneeze.’ She looked at Grandma and the two of them shared a secret smile. The truth was, Kitty wasn’t really allergic to cats. In fact, there were actually two cats living in Kitty’s house. Because both Kitty and Grandma had a special gift – they could turn into cats! Kitty loved her amazing power, especially when it meant she could explore the town late at night with all her cat friends. But she and Grandma had to make sure that no one found out, not even Kitty’s mum and dad, or their amazing power would be lost forever.
Once they’d all finished their strawberry tarts and juice, Kitty showed Max her bedroom, and the cosy camp bed and sleeping bag her dad had set up for him in the corner.
‘Would you like to go to the park?’ she asked, once Max had unpacked his things. ‘Some of my friends from school will be there, and my best friend, Jenny. She really wants to meet you.’
‘Yes please!’ Max replied.
Grandma agreed to walk Kitty and Max to the park, which was a few streets away. Kitty skipped along beside them. She was so excited that Max was there – and even more excited to introduce him to her friends. I only wish he could meet my cat friends as well as my human friends! she thought, smiling to herself.
As they turned the corner towards the park, Kitty glimpsed three small, neat scratches at the bottom of a tree trunk. The Cat Council symbol! She quickly looked at Grandma, who nodded. One of the cats in town has called a meeting for tonight, Kitty thought. I wonder who?
The Cat Council was a meeting of all the local cats. Any cat could call a meeting whenever they wanted to talk about a problem, share some important cat news, or ask a question. The meetings were always held at night, once all the humans in town were fast asleep. Kitty and Grandma would need to sneak out of their house really quietly, making sure not to wake up Mum and Dad – or Max!
‘Kitty, I forgot to tell you!’ said Max, as they walked into the park. ‘Mum and Dad gave me some extra pocket money last week for helping out on the farm, so I went to the sweet shop and bought the biggest bag of pick and mix I could. I thought we could have a midnight feast tonight. What do you think?’
‘Er …’ Kitty hesitated. Usually, the thought of a midnight feast with Max would have been great, but she had to be at the Cat Council meeting tonight. How on earth would she manage to get away without being spotted, if Max was going to stay awake until midnight?
All evening, Kitty worried about how she was going to sneak away for the Cat Council meeting. She’d hoped Max might forget about the midnight feast but he just kept getting more and more excited. Even Kitty’s mum and dad had joined in the fun, making Kitty and Max some special chocolate milkshakes to have as an extra midnight treat. Kitty didn’t know how she was going to get out of it!
She hoped that Max might get sleepy once they’d changed into their pyjamas, but as they got into bed, her cousin seemed more wide awake than ever.
‘This is brilliant! I’ve never stayed up till midnight before,’ said Max, wriggling inside his sleeping bag. ‘Hey, maybe we could tell each other scary stories to keep ourselves awake.’
‘Good idea!’ said Kitty. Maybe if I tell Max the most boring story I can think of, he might fall asleep! she thought. ‘I’ll go first. Once upon a time there was a really normal man, who lived in a really normal town and he was – er – a bus driver.’
Max frowned. ‘This isn’t very scary, Kitty. I know! What if he was a ghost bus driver? And all the passengers on his bus were ghosts too.’
Before Kitty knew it, Max was turning her boring story into a far more exciting one and he was more wide awake than ever! When the story had finished, Max told a spooky tale of his own, about a haunted farm full of ghostly pigs and sheep. Then, just when Kitty was hoping he might lie down and fall asleep, he rummaged round in his suitcase and pulled out a board game.
‘Let’s play this,’ he said. ‘It’s a game where you play a witch or magician, and you’ve got to collect all the ingredients to cast your spell. It’s brilliant!’
Kitty’s heart sank. She knew Max would never fall asleep if they played an exciting game. Out of the corner of her eye, Kitty watched the hands of her clock ticking by. It was ten to midnight, almost time for the Cat Council meeting. She was never going to get there in time. But then there was a knock on the door and Grandma poked her head into the room.
‘Time for you to get some sleep,’ she said, giving Kitty a secret wink.
Kitty gave a huge sigh of relief. She should have known that Grandma would come to the rescue.
‘But we haven’t had our midnight feast yet,’ Max moaned.
‘You can eat your treats tomorrow,’ Grandma said. ‘We have a busy day planned. You need to get a good night’s sleep so you’ll enjoy it.’
‘OK.’ Max sighed as he snuggled down into his camp bed.
Kitty gave Grandma a relieved smile.
‘Goodnight,’ Grandma said, with another wink to Kitty.
‘Goodnight,’ Max and Kitty replied.
Max gave a loud yawn and closed his eyes.
Kitty held her breath for a few moments, then tiptoed over to check that he was really asleep. At last! she thought. Time to go to the meeting.
Very quietly, she pushed open her bedroom door and crept downstairs. It was dark and quiet in the house, but the kitchen curtains hadn’t been drawn, so the room was brightly lit by the full moon. One of the kitchen windows was open just a crack. Kitty knew that Grandma must have left it like that on purpose, so that Kitty could sneak out!
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and softly said the special words that would turn her into a cat.
‘Human hands to kitten paws,
Human fingers, kitten claws.’
As she whispered the last word, Kitty felt a fizzing, tingling sensation sweeping through her nose. It swept down her body, into her arms and fingers, and then right down into her toes and feet. Kitty always thought it felt like she was full of the bubbliest lemonade! She waited for the feeling to fade away, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw two familiar small, white paws just beneath her nose. Kitty was a cat!
With a flick of her tail, Kitty crouched low, then sprang up on to the kitchen table. From there she could leap to the window sill, and slip outside through the open window. Once she was in the garden, her ears and nose twitched with all the sounds and smells that her amazing cat senses could pick up.
Kitty ran over to her Wendy house and jumped on to the roof, then leapt on to the garden fence. She used her tail to balance as she trotted along it,
‘Ah, good!’ miaowed a small black cat with a white patch on her head as Kitty joined the circle. ‘You managed to get away without Max noticing.’
The rest of the cats in the circle knew this cat as Suki, one of the oldest and wisest cats on the Council. But Kitty knew her in her human form too. To her, Suki was Grandma!
‘Yes,’ Kitty panted. ‘Thank you for helping me!’ Then she turned to the others. ‘Sorry I’m late, everyone.’ She took her place between Suki and a large tabby tom cat named Tiger. ‘My human cousin is staying at our house at the moment, and he’s sleeping in my bedroom. I couldn’t sneak out until he was asleep, in case he noticed – but it took a bit longer than I expected!’
‘Don’t worry, Kitty!’ miaowed a small grey cat named Misty, who was Kitty’s closest cat friend.
‘Yes!’ added a fluffy blue-grey cat with a sparkly collar, who was called Coco. ‘We know you’ve got to keep your special gift a secret from your humans. It must be very tricky for you and Suki sometimes.’
‘Thank you, everyone,’ said Kitty, purring gratefully to her friends.
‘Well, now that we’re all here, let’s begin!’ announced Tiger. He was the leader of the Cat Council meetings – which was a job that suited him perfectly, because he was kind and fair. ‘We’ll start by saying the Miaow Vow together.’
The Miaow Vow was a special rhyme that they all chanted at the start of every Cat Council meeting. It was a promise to help out any cat who came to the Council with a question or a problem. Kitty had practised saying the words to herself again and again after her very first meeting, and now she knew them by heart.
A hushed silence fell over the circle of cats, and then, all together, they began to say the special words.
‘We promise now,
This solemn vow,
To help somehow,
When you miaow.’
When the vow had finished, Tiger looked around the circle. ‘Now, which cat called this meeting? Please come forward and tell us how we can help.’
A young cat with glossy white fur with black smudges stepped nervously into the middle of the circle. ‘I’m Sooty,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘And I called the meeting because something really terrible happened at my house yesterday – and I’m really worried it might happen again!’
A shocked murmur rippled around the circle. All the cats wanted to know about the terrible thing that Sooty had seen.
‘Do you think you could tell us what happened, Sooty?’ Kitty asked gently.
Sooty nodded and took a deep breath. ‘Well, first of all, my human, Sophie, went out shopping for my favourite sardines.’
‘That doesn’t sound terrible,’ purred Tiger. ‘That sounds delicious.’
‘It’s what happened next that was the terrible bit,’ Sooty miaowed. ‘While Sophie was out of the house, lots of other humans arrived. They were all so noisy, laughing and chattering away. Then they pinned lots of big, colourful things to the ceiling, and they filled the whole kitchen with human food. Then the terrible bit happened.’
A kitten named Ruby squeaked anxiously. ‘I don’t know if I can listen. This sounds like it’s going to be scary!’
‘All the humans got into hiding places around my house,’ said Sooty. ‘Some of them hid behind the sofa, some hid behind the curtains, and some even crouched under the table. They stayed very still and very quiet – until Sophie came home. And then, when she walked through the door, they all leapt out and started shouting. I was so scared I nearly jumped out of my fur!’
Kitty thought she was beginning to understand what had happened at Sooty’s house. ‘Can you remember what they were shouting, Sooty?’ she asked.
‘It was very strange!’ miaowed Sooty. ‘First of all they yelled, “SURPRISE!” And then they shouted, “HAPPY BIRD-DAY!” over and over again. Some of them even started singing it too. But there weren’t even any birds there – and there were none in our garden either, because I’d chased them all away that morning.’
Kitty began to laugh. Sooty and the other cats stared at her.
‘What’s so funny, Kitty?’ asked Misty, looking puzzled.
‘It’s OK, Sooty,’ said Kitty. ‘The humans who came to your house when Sophie was out weren’t doing anything scary or terrible. They were doing something nice. They were throwing Sophie a surprise birthday party!’
‘What’s a birthday party?’ Sooty miaowed.
‘It’s something humans do for their friends or families sometimes, to celebrate the day they were born,’ Kitty explained. ‘They usually have lots of nice food and drinks, and balloons and decorations. That must be what they were putting on the ceiling – balloons!’
‘But why did they shout HAPPY BIRD-DAY?’ asked Sooty.
‘They were saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY, not HAPPY BIRD-DAY!’ explained Kitty, giggling. ‘And there’s a special Happy Birthday song too – that must be what you heard them singing to Sophie.’
Some of the cats round the circle began nodding their heads eagerly. ‘Now that I come to think of it, Kitty, my human had a birthday party once too!’ miaowed a slim, hairless cat called Pinky. ‘There were balloons up in our house – I didn’t like them much, because I touched one with my claw by accident and it made a really loud bang. And there was lots of music and singing, and a great big cake!’
‘Oh, birthday parties sound fun,’ miaowed Ruby excitedly. ‘I hope my human has one soon!’
To Kitty’s surprise, Sooty looked very cross. ‘Well, I don’t think they’re fun at all,’ she hissed. ‘They’re noisy and busy and too hot. And I especially don’t like surprises. I like everything to stay the same, all the time!’
Just then, an owl swooped over the circle and gave a loud hoot.
Sooty gasped, her black fur standing on end. ‘See!’ she cried. ‘Surprises are scary! They make me jump.’
‘Sooty, that was just an owl,’ Tiger said kindly, but Sooty wouldn’t listen.
‘I’m going home to bed now,’ she announced, marching out of the circle. ‘I don’t want any more nasty surprises!’
The other cats watched as Sooty ran out of the clearing. ‘Oh dear!’ said Kitty anxiously. ‘That didn’t go very well. I thought that if I explained about surprise birthday parties to Sooty, she’d realise there was nothing to feel scared about.’
‘Don’t worry, Kitty. That’s just how Sooty is – she’s never liked surprises,’ said Misty.
Kitty noticed that Suki was sitting very quietly, looking thoughtful. ‘Grandma, what is it?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I was just thinking about Sooty’s mum. We were good friends when we were a bit younger, you see. And I seem to remember it being around this time of year that Sooty was born.’ Suki nodded firmly. ‘Yes, I’m sure of it. In fact, I think it must be Sooty’s birthday in a couple of days.’
Kitty’s eyes widened. ‘That’s just given me a great idea,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we throw Sooty a birthday party of her very own? If we make sure that it’s loads of fun we can show her that surprises can be a good thing after all.’
‘That’s a brilliant idea!’ mewed a fluffy grey cat named Smoky.
‘Can we all help, Kitty? I’ve never thrown a party before!’ said a cat called Emerald.
‘Of course! In fact, I’ll need everyone’s help to keep it a secret from Sooty – and from my human family too,’ said Kitty. ‘My cousin Max is staying with me for a few more days, so I’ll need to be extra careful that he doesn’t see me changing between my cat and human forms. If he does, I’ll lose my powers forever!’
‘We’ll do everything we can, Kitty,’ promised Misty. The rest of the circle miaowed in agreement.
‘Thanks, everyone,’ purred Kitty.
The cats said goodnight to one another, and began to slip back home. Kitty, Suki and Misty left together, trotting quickly through the clearing and heading for their street. But as they reached the edge of the woods, Kitty saw two dark shadows lurking beneath a tall tree.
‘Wait a minute!’ hissed Misty, spotting them too. ‘I think I know those cats …’
