Lara the Runaway Cat by Dion Leonard

Author:Dion Leonard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2018-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

I was waiting by the school gates when the bell rang once more to signal the end of the school day. In truth, I’d wandered off after Petra left to explore a bit, and keep an eye out for some food, but then spent most of the afternoon hiding from the caretaker and Brutus as I hung around, waiting for the bell. (Humans seem to have this time thing all figured out, with clocks and watches and phones and stuff. Us animals just have to rely on our stomachs, and having skipped lunch, I might have predicted an afternoon snack a little early. It’s hard to rely on an empty belly when it comes to telling the time!)

I saw Petra and Harry’s mum first, walking from a different direction to where she’d appeared from that morning. I hoped that meant they’d walked to the school, and it really wasn’t too far from Anya’s house. Now, I was just hoping that Anya and Harry would appear at the gates around the same time. Otherwise things could be tricky.

Anya appeared first, bursting into a smile when she saw me waiting for her. I let her make a fuss of me for a few moments, keeping an eye out for Harry the whole time.

Petra spotted him first and barked to alert me, as we’d arranged. I jumped up at the sound, surprising Anya, who almost lost her balance. I felt bad about that, but it couldn’t be helped – I needed to be ready to action the plan the moment the circumstances were exactly right.

I had a feeling that Anya and Harry might be just a little bit cross at my plan. But that was only because we couldn’t explain to them how we were helping them, really. In the absence of a shared language, we had to rely on actions.

And my superb planning skills, of course.

We waited until Harry had greeted his mum and taken Petra’s lead from her. He looked relieved to be out of school again, and bent down to make a fuss of Petra until his mum started getting impatient. As soon as he stood up again, Petra gave me the nod, and I started to run.

‘Puss!’ Anya called after me. ‘Where are you going?’

Ignoring her (I mean, it wasn’t like I could actually answer her anyway), I raced off in the direction of Anya’s house, glancing back over my shoulder to make sure the plan was working as I went.

Barking wildly, Petra wrenched her lead from Harry’s hand and chased after me. Shouts went up from Harry and Anya, and I could see from her face that Harry’s mum was grumbling, even if I couldn’t hear the words. She didn’t matter, anyway. Both kids were racing after Petra and me now – and that was the important thing. It was all going perfectly!

I was glad now I’d taken the time to memorize our usual route between home and school. There was no time to think about which way I needed to go, or which turning was the right one.

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