Page 50 of New Beginnings at the Cosy Cat Cafe
‘Lara, come here. Give Tori a chance to get out the car first,’ said Leo, taking the girl by the hand.
‘I am indeed,’ said Tori, smiling. ‘And I’m guessing you’re Lara?’
‘Yes, and this is my Uncle Leo,’ replied Lara, tugging at the sleeve of Leo’s T-shirt. ‘But I think you already know him,’ she said, giggling.
‘I hope you don’t mind; Lara was desperate to come along. Her mum’s finally said she can have a kitten and Izzy’s got a litter we can take a look at apparently,’ he said, taking Lara, who looked fit to burst, by the hand.
‘Wow, a kitten! How exciting!’ said Tori. ‘Of course I don’t mind.’ She bent down to speak to Lara directly. ‘I need some help choosing cats to come and live at my café. Do you think you could help me?’ Lara nodded enthusiastically.
‘Can we go and see the kittens first, though?’ she asked.
‘We need to help Tori first,thenwe can go and see the kittens,’ said Leo.
‘Pleeeeease Uncle Leo,’ said Lara, ‘pleeeeease can we see the kittens first?’ She looked up at him with a pleading expression.
‘We talked about this, Lara. I said if you came along, we’d see the kittens after we’d helped Tori,’ said Leo.
‘I bet Tori doesn’t mind, do you?’ asked Lara, looking up at Tori and flashing her best smile. ‘Pleeeeeease can we see the kittens first?’
‘Don’t look into her eyes,’ said Leo, scooping Lara up in hisarms and swinging her around as she squealed with delight. ‘She’ll get you to agree to anything that way. How do you think I ended up with cats named Tallulah and Tinkerbell?’ Leo put Lara back down and she turned to engulf him in the biggest of hugs.
‘Let’s go and see the kittens first,’ Tori agreed, nodding her head.
‘Yes!’ screamed Lara, punching the air. She ran over and hugged Tori firmly. ‘Tori, you’re the best!’
‘That must be some kind of record,’ said Leo, shaking his head.
‘What is?’ asked Tori.
‘How quickly she managed to twist you round her little finger,’ he chuckled. ‘She’s pretty hard to say no to.’
‘Seeing a bunch of adorable kittens is no hardship. I’d say it’s a win-win,’ Tori laughed.
‘What’s this I hear about kittens?’ said Izzy, opening the door to reception.
‘Izzy!’ cried Lara, ‘Tori said we can go and see the kittens first.’
‘Oh, did she?’ said Izzy, raising her left eyebrow. Tori held her hands up and laughed. ‘Well, I guess we’d better go and find them, then. Do you know how to handle kittens, Lara?’
‘Yes,’ said Lara, nodding her head eagerly. ‘Uncle Leo told me. Because they’re so little, I need to be gentle with them. And I mustn’t be too noisy, even though I’m excited, because that might scare them, and I need to wait and let them cometo me.’ Lara looked up at Leo expectantly, he gave her an approving smile and mouthedwell done.
‘That’s right, Lara. Do you think you can remember to do all of that?’ asked Izzy.
‘Yes. I don’t want to frighten them, I’ll be really gentle,’ replied Lara seriously.
‘Let’s head to the nursery, then,’ said Izzy, leading the way into the rescue centre. As she opened one of the side gates and led them along a narrow path, Tori felt a tiny warm hand slide into hers and grip it tightly. She looked down to see that Lara was holding her hand. Leo noticed too and gave a wink of approval.
‘We keep the kittens and their mums in this separate nursery block to lower the infection risk. They’re too young to be vaccinated, so we keep them away from the rest of the adult cats,’ explained Izzy, stopping in front of the door of a large, timber-framed cabin.
‘Makes sense,’ replied Leo.
‘The kittens you’re going to meet are eleven weeks old. There’s six of them: four girls and two boys. They’ll be ready to go to their forever homes in around a week, so that gives us plenty of time to organize your home check.’
‘What colour are they?’ asked Lara quickly, hopping up and down.
‘They’re all tabbies and a few of them have white patches too,’ said Izzy.
‘Oh, tabbies are my favourites,’ said Lara, gripping Tori’s hand and looking up at her.
