Prologue - Kitten All Alone
A tiny, nervous kitten flits silently from shadow to shadow in the early evening darkness. She has spent the day in town, looking for scraps of food she can cadge or steal. But now those streets are full of brash, noisy, scary people - people with money - and who knows what they would do with her if they caught her.
So she has scurried back out to the suburbs. Here she has the pavements [sidewalks] almost to herself and so she feels a little safer.
But still her eyes flash everywhere, wary of any threat. And, for a tiny kitten, all on her own, almost anything can be a threat.
The cars passing by on the streets pay her no heed; they might as well be on another planet. And, beyond the hedges and fences, there are huge houses and the lights from their drawn curtains seem to mock her lack of a home, her lack of security, and her lack of anyone to take care of her.
She eases herself further back into the shadows as a large Alsatian dog approaches on the other side of the street, towing a middle aged man in its wake. The dog notices her, of course, and glares menacingly, growling low in its throat, but the man doesn’t seem to care.
As soon as they are out of sight, she hurries on.
It’s been a long walk and our kitten is exhausted by the time she reaches her destination: a block of flats that is particularly grand and ostentatious even for this exclusive neighbourhood. It is set well back from the road, surrounded by a garden which is so large that it could almost be described as a park. Security is good with automatic gates and a high fence made of metal railings topped by spikes.
But, deep in the shadows of some trees, two of the railings have been slightly bent out of shape by a branch leaving a gap that is just wide enough for our skinny kitten to squeeze through. Once inside, she darts, cautiously and silently, from tree to tree, because it would be a disaster if she was caught now. She heads towards a small shed, tastefully concealed behind some low bushes, where the people who live here keep their dustbins.
And when, at last, our kitten reaches it, she sneaks inside and, bedding herself down behind the bins, she lets out a long, heartfelt sigh of relief. For the first time since she left the place that morning, she can relax. She feels safe.
