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go outside until they fully realized that this was their home and the place they needed to return to when they did escape. I closed off the cat flap and placed litter trays around, but Casper was dead set on getting out – another way in which he showed his determined nature. Eventually, I had to let them out, as Casper in particular was making such a fuss. He never had a proper miaow, just a pathetic little squeak, and I started to melt a bit too easily when he sat at the front door making that sound to get out.
    One of our older cats, Clyde, had a bad back, so I’d constructed a ladder for him to manoeuvre his way around. The garden was on different levels, almost sunken in places, and I’d put a plank from the ground to the top of the fence, with lots of smaller pieces of wood going across it. Everyone else would copy, Clyde in order to climb up and walk around the walls.
    It wasn’t long before Casper started to disappear. He’d hop up on the wooden planks and skip over into other gardens. I generally tried to get him home after a couple of hours, but he would only come in his own sweet time. I tried not to worry about him, but he was the wanderer of the gang. My anxiety lessened, as I assumed that he was investigating gardens nearby. Then one day, about six months after we first brought Casper home, I got a phone call that enlightened me about the sort of cat we’d brought into our lives.

CHAPTER 6
     
Casper Finds His Paws
     
    Casper started to go out quite a lot. He changed from being the scared little cat hiding under the bed into a very confident fellow who knew his own mind. I often wondered what was going through that mind, as he frequently seemed to have his own agenda. When we first brought him home, I would never have guessed that he would become so determined to go out on his own terms whenever he felt like it. I always worried about my cats, so I tried to keep them inside whenever possible, but Casper was having none of it.
    Once he’d settled with us, he broke a number of windows and even attacked nailed down cat flaps in his desire not to be an indoors puss. I made sure he had a disc attached to his collar with his name and my number on it for when he did wander, in case he got lost or something happened to him I was beginning to think that my initial assessment of him had been spot on: he wasn’t shy or scared when he first came to us; he was stubborn. More of his stubborn streak was being revealed practically every day.
    One afternoon, the phone rang as I got back from a shift at work. As soon as a woman asked, ‘Have you got a cat called Casper?’ my heart sank.
    I hadn’t seen him that morning before I left and my immediate response came from the heart. ‘Oh my God – he’s dead, isn’t he?’
    She laughed kindly, ‘No, he’s fine – actually, he’s in my work car park.’
    I asked where that was and was shocked when she said the offices were over a mile and a half away. How on earth had he got there? The possibilities were endless and I had to assume that most likely he’d walked, or maybe he got into someone’s car and popped out when they arrived at work.
    As I didn’t drive, I caught the bus to the car park with a basket in my hand. When I picked Casper up, I felt the same mix of emotions that he would inspire in me throughout his many adventurous years: relief that he was safe and anger that he could have been in danger ‘You are a naughty boy, Cassie. Why do you have to get me so worried? Why can’t you just stay at home rather than wander around?’
    I couldn’t be cross at him for long as I was so pleased he was coming home again. Although when I realized that the bus had long gone and I would have to walk the full distance after a tiring day at work, carrying a wriggling cat in an uncomfortable wicker basket, I probably did have a few more comments!
    Casper’s escapade decided my next course of action: he would have to get chipped. If he had an accident or got lost,